This workshop seeks to bring together scholars from across the United States, Japan and
Europe to think across conventional disciplinary boundaries toward an integrated approach
to Japan’s early modern period. By taking historical, religious, literary, art historical, and a
variety of other perspectives into account, we hope to create a productive forum for a new,
transdisciplinary conversation on political formation, social interaction, and cultural
proliferation under the Great Peace of the Tokugawa regime.

SEE THE COMPLETE SCHEDULE: edojapan.arizona.edu

Sponsored by the generous support from:
Japan Foundation, The University of Arizona College of Humanities and
the Department of East Asian Studies

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

WIND ENSEMBLE

CONCERT CELEBRATING

JAPANESE MUSIC & CULTURE

Featuring Film Music from

Studio Ghibli

*See flyer for more information

Graduate Student Collaboration

Please join us in celebrating the accomplishments of EAS graduate students.

There will also be time provided for department updates and feed back.

Light refreshments (pizza and drinks) provided.

When: April 1, 2022

Where: LSB Courtyard

Time: 11:30AM-1:30PM

*This is a student retention and recruitment event.

2021 CONFERENCE
Thursday, December 9, 2021 to Saturday, December 11, 2021
Zoom (please register https://conferences.cbs.arizona.edu/jiangnan-symposium/ to receive zoom link to the symposium)

Hosted by Center for Buddhist Studies and Department of East Asian Studies, College of Humanities, The University of Arizona
Organized by Jiang Wu and Jennifer Eichman
Sponsored and Funded by Lingyin and Pu Yin Buddhist Studies Lecture Series, Center for Buddhist Studies, The University of Arizona

The Jiangnan region in China was an important driver of cultural, economic, and social change during the early modern period. At the same time, it served as an incubator of early modern Buddhist innovations that spread both locally, nationally, and transnationally. This symposium brings together scholars of Ming-Qing Jiangnan Buddhist, Daoist, and other related religious traditions to explore the significance of Buddhist innovations in the Jiangnan region from elite Buddhist doctrine, popular playscripts and precious scrolls to art, ritual, and institutional culture. Such scholarly explorations will improve our understanding of how Buddhist traditions were woven into the social and economic fabric of the Jiangnan region and further allow for a greater synthesis of the various threads that tied the region together.

Through a critical examination of how the Chinese diaspora came to shape biomedicine in China and
Taiwan from 1937 to 1970, my talk makes the case for a new concept of "global medicine" in
understanding the multivalent flows of medical practices and ideas circulating the world that shaped
Chinese East Asia in the 20th century. I will explore two case studies in my book for this presentation.
The first examines how Chinese American women medical personnel established the first Chinese
blood bank in New York City and China. The second reveals how Singapore-born and Edinburgheducated
Dr. Robert Lim and his collaborators relocated the National Defense Medical Center from
China to Taiwan in 1948 despite the tumultuous Chinese Civil War. This presentation highlights the
critical intersections of scientific expertise, political freedoms, and transnational connections in
shaping global medicine through the critical examination of these two medical encounters between the
Chinese diaspora and local Chinese and Taiwanese.
 

The first East Asian Studies Speaker Colloquium event of the year will be taking place Wed., Oct. 6, at 5:00pm via Zoom. Dr. Michael Hunter of Yale University will be discussing his new book, The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought (Columbia, 2021). This is a public talk. Please see the attached flyer for further details.

Talk Title: The Classic of Poetry at the Foundations of Classical Chinese Philosophy

Abstract: The standard narrative of ancient Chinese thought for the last hundred years or so has one very big blindspot: poetry, and especially the Classic of Poetry (Shijing 詩經), which was by far the most widely known and influential corpus of the Warring States period. Drawing on material from his recently published book (The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought: How the Shijing Shaped the Chinese Philosophical Tradition; Columbia UP), Prof. Hunter will present his reading of the ideology of the Classic of Poetry and show how that ideology reverberates throughout the early textual record.

Bio: Prof. Hunter is an associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University. His first book, entitled Confucius Beyond the Analects, argues that extant Confucius material from the early period is much bigger, more dynamic, and more interesting than what the early imperial Analects suggests.

Stories of transformation abound in our world—in mythology, folklore, literature and real life. Shapeshifters alter form, disguises alter appearance and journeys alter character. But over time, through telling and re-telling, stories themselves transform as well. And perspectives can shift understanding, so a hero in one land becomes a monster in another. In this presentation, explore stories of transformation and stories that transform, across the globe, from ancient to modern times, and consider what our ever-changing stories reveal about human nature.

College of Humanities Faculty Panelists:

Jennifer Donahue, Associate Professor of Practice, Africana Studies

Faith Harden, Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese

Kaoru Hayashi, Assistant Professor, East Asian Studies

Arum Park, Assistant Professor, Religious Studies & Classics

* Live Stream will be available.