2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Join the JASP for an evening of reflection on the Japanese-German alliance. Dr. Ricky Law, Assistant Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, will speak.

His lecture will provide an overview of the origins, formation, development, and fall of the Axis alliance between Japan and Germany before and during World War II. It will discuss major events such as the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936, the Tripartite Pact of 1940, and the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Observe more than half a century of change in Japan through photographs and stories. Dr. Keith Brown has been traveling to Mizusawa, a town in Iwate Prefecture, northeastern Japan, for 53 years.

Dr. Brown has captured the emergence of car culture and the evolution of agriculture from labor-intensive hand cultivated rice to capital-intensive highly mechanized agriculture. As in America, "Main Street" in the center of town has hollowed out as suburban big box stores have overtaken small shops.

The last few years have witnessed a transformation of the global energy market. The United States is now leading the world in the production of oil and natural gas. Western Pennsylvania has assumed an increas-ingly prominent role in the energy sector with the exploration and development of Marcellus Shale. Japan, in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, has had to reassess its strategic priority on nuclear energy.

North Korea is often portrayed in mainstream media as a backward place, a Stalinist relic without a history worth knowing. But during its founding years (1945-1950), North Korea experienced a radical social revolution when everyday life became the primary site of political struggle, including quite deliberately a feminist agenda. With historical comparisons to revolutions in the early 20th century, Suzy Kim introduces her book through rarely seen archival photos, situating the North Korean revolution within the broader history of modernity.

We have a special opportunity this week. As part of the Talking About Asia series, the Asian Studies Center Director and Professor of Anthropology Nicole Constable will be giving a lecture this Friday 1/23 entitled Born Out of Place: What We Learn from the Babies of Migrant Workers.

Light refreshments will be served.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Are you looking for travel opportunities and a chance to get “real world experience” before facing the job market? Join us at the Global Gap Year Panel, where representatives from the Peace Corps, Hekima Place, PULSE Pittsburgh, Fulbright Fellowship Program, and others will talk about what they gained from their “Gap Year”.

Panelists include:
Abraham Kim, Peace Corps (Zambia)
Jessa Darwin, Hekima Place (Kenya)
Jenna Baron, PULSE, United Way, Fulbright Scholar (Pittsburgh, PA & Kenya)
Holly Hickling, FORGE (Paris & Zambia)

Bill Adams, senior international economist for The PNC Financial Services Group, is responsible for forecasting international economic conditions and exchange rates for PNC, covering emerging Asia, the European Union, Canada and Latin America. Adams serves as PNC's principal spokesperson on global economic issues and frequently presents to its clients on the international economic outlook. He joined PNC in July 2011 after serving as resident economist for The Conference Board China Center from 2009 to 2011.

Tzung-Shiun Li, Ph.D. is Professor, Department of Administrative Management, Central Police University, Taiwan. Now as Visiting Scholar, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs & Certer of Disaster Management, University of Pittsburgh. He also serves as Chairman at Chinese Association of National Competitiveness and Standing Director(2011~2114) of Neihu Safety and Health Collaborative Association in Taiwan. His research interests are crisis management & risk governance, contracting out government services, leadership and public philosophy.

This lecture aims to investigate the direction of Korean art of the past half century, through observing the trends in modern Korean history. It will briefly cover the social and artistic background of Korea in the 1960s to 2010s. The core issue that is pursued by the art of today is ‘communication.’ The reason behind the popularity of artworks that carry the meaning of breaking barriers between artistic genres, overcoming prejudices among people, and destructing regional boundaries is all for the sake of smoothening out communication.