Drawing on her own research into a contemporary South Indian practice in which girls are married to a goddess, as well as other ethnographies and histories, this talk takes up the question of sex in the house of religion. It traces a genealogy of the term sacred marriage as a category of comparative religion and considers the ways sex and religion have been produced as discrete from each other.

“From Madness to Medicine in Japanese Culture”
The academic conference is interested in contextualizing ideas about madness and mental health in the fields of literature and art as well as anthropology and medicine, particularly the history of medicine. Our goal is to more clearly articulate what the boundaries of “health” and “illness” are and how those definitions have fluctuated through Japan’s experience of modernity and post-modernity.

What resources for comparative understanding and critique may be gleaned from our scholarly work in particular regions? Answers to this question turn in part on how we take “area” to matter in area studies: as a geographic domain of expertise, or instead as an acknowledgement that our knowledge is necessarily shaped by the contexts in which it arises. This exploratory talk will seek to draw out potential sources of insight into this problem and its implications by reflecting on three anthropological projects pursued between the United States and south India over the last fifteen years.

When a drunk passenger causes cab driver Lao Shi to swerve and hit a motorcyclist, Lao Shi finds himself responsible for the man’s medical bills. On the verge of losing everything he has, the cabby must find some way to survive. Old Stone exposes many social injustices and a general indifference to one another in modern China.

A family hires a stranger to work in their business, but he begins to meddle in their family life. A drama, thriller, and crime film all in one, Harmonium explores how families interact with each other and how those relationships change when under extreme stress. Themes of karma and redemption are present with an engaging emotional buildup and release.

An eccentric hunter and taxidermist accidentally traps himself in his basement. With little food and no water, Dr. Ahmad Kupal must survive using creative and desperate means. With the tag line, “You can’t be alone in this world!”, Kupal is a film that looks at the measures people will take in a crisis and the importance of companionship.

Pittsburgh is excited to be part of the launch of the latest volume of Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan. Now in its seventh year, Monkey Business specializes in high-quality translations from Japanese into English and always includes a few contributions from American writers. The journal’s founder is Motoyuki Shibata, a Tokyo University professor and prolific author and translator in his own right; he is arguably the best-known translator in Japan of American literature (Paul Auster, Kelly Link, Thomas Pynchon and others).

This film is not for the squeamish but definitely for those who love fast-paced and edge-of-your-seat thrillers. Initially starting as a funny story about two odd men trying to woo the same waitress, a darker tone presents itself. Funny, dark, disturbing, and creepy this Japanese crime thriller is full of twists and turns.

Directed by Harune Massey, Whirlpool is a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Set against a city ravaged and torn apart by ethnic brutality, Shahbaz and Parveen struggle to break away from the unending violence. This gritty, fast-paced thriller is a modern reimagination of the Shakespearean classic.

Edward Yang’s second feature is a classic film about the city of Taipei caught between the past and the present. A young woman and her boyfriend struggle to adjust to the modernity Taiwan is propelling toward. The women embraces the future and tries to move on from her past, but her boyfriend sticks to traditionalism.