Friday, March 14, 2025

1:30 PM - 3:00 PM, Room A121 (Level 1, Convention Center)
Information Order: Domestic and Overseas Chinese Networks in the Age of Imperialism
Presenter, Timothy Weston - History
"Newspapers as Products in 19th-Century China"

3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Union B (2nd Floor, Hyatt)
Revisiting Feminist Movements and Literature in Cold War South Korea amid the Era of Antifeminist Backlash
Chair and Discussant, Sungyun Lim - History

Saturday, March 15, 2025

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, Room A213 (Level 2, Convention Center)
Youth Messing with Gender: Marriage, Sexuality, and Sociability in Contemporary Asia
Discussant, Carla Jones - Anthropology

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, Champaign (2nd Floor, Hyatt)
Poetry in the Making: Textual Variants, Fluidity, and Reception in Premodern China
Chair, Antje Richter - Asian Languages and Civilizations

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, Knox (2nd Floor, Hyatt)
China in the Context of Comparative Colonialism
Presenter, Dawa Lokyitsang
"Violent Secularism and Colonial Dispossession: China’s Socialist Modernity in Tibet"

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, Fayette (2nd Floor, Hyatt)
Global China: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Future Directions
Organizer and Discussant, Jessica DiCarlo - Geography
Discussant, Tim Oakes - Geography

Sunday, March 16, 2025

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM, Room B240/B241 (Level 2, Convention Center)
Women’s Rights Movements and Politics in Indonesia
Presenter, Rachel Rinaldo - Sociology
"The Gendered Labor of Care and Women’s Rights Activism in Indonesia"

10:45 AM - 12:15 PM, Room A124 (Level 1, Convention Center)
Push and/or Pull: Textual Forces in Literary Sinitic Cultures
Discussant, Antje Richter - Asian Languages and Civilizations

10:45 AM - 12:15 PM, Room B235 (Level 2, Convention Center)
Indigeneity, Cosmological Thinking, and Ecological Knowledge in Asian Art
Presenter, Brianne Cohen - Art and Art History
"A Humanimal Dance as Animist Worldview in Khvay Samnang’s Preah Kunlong"

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Internationalize your fall semester!
Check out these Asia-related courses!

ASIA 1700 Introduction to Tibetan Civilization

ASIA 2000 Gateway to Modern Asia

ASIA 2500 Disaster and Resilience: Asian Experience of Climate Change

ASIA 4200 Memory Politics in Asia

ASIA 4500 Urban Asia

ASIA 4650 Art and Science of Meditation

INDO 1110 Beginning Indonesian l - DILS

MWF 1:25-2:15pm
Instructor TBA

Provide students with an integrated introductory Basic Indonesian Course using the Directed Independent Language Study (DILS) method. Classes will also employ "flipped" task-based learning approaches. Reading assignments will include reading, listening and grammar, which students will demonstrate during class sessions, in which they will offer reading summaries, answer questions and practice speaking. Grades will be based on mastery of the assignments and demonstrated proficiency of written and spoken Indonesian, through in-class performance and mid-term and final examinations.

INDO 2110 Intermediate Indonesian l - DILS

MWF 11:15am-12:05pm
Instructor TBA

Building on Beginning Indonesian, students are exposed to active communication in Bahasa Indonesia. Offered in person or remotely using the Directed Independent Language Study (DILS) method, employing "flipped" task-based learning approaches. Assignments develop the four language skills, with vocabulary, grammar and cultural instruction. Students demonstrate progress during class sessions through reading summaries, answering questions and practicing speaking. Grades are based on demonstrated proficiency of written and spoken Indonesian, through in-class performance and midterm and final examinations.

TBTN 1101 Beginning Tibetan l - DILS

T/Th 09:15 - 10:45am
Dan Hirshberg (dan.hirshberg@colorado.edu)

Provides a thorough introduction to the colloquial Tibetan language, emphasizing speaking and listening in the Lhasa dialect. Trains students in basic conversations and the idiomatic and syntactical features of Tibetan through drills and dialogues.

TBTN 2120 Intermediate Tibetan I - DILS

TBD, tentatively T/Th 10:15 - 11:45am
Dan Hirshberg (dan.hirshberg@colorado.edu)

This DILS (Directed Independent Language Study) course on Intermediate Tibetan will introduce students to intermediate grammar, sentence construction, conversation topics, and readings in modern Tibetan. This will include introduction to Tibetan grammatical markers and particles, morphology, syntax, and vocabularies using a range of authentic materials.

CHIN 3381 Chinese Travel Literature: Journeys Within and Without, Real and Imaginary

CHIN 4041 Introduction to Classical Chinese

GEOG 3822 Geography of China

HIND 1011 Introduction to South Asian Civilization

HIST 4800 History of the Taiwan-China Conflict

JPNS 1051 Portals to Japanese Literature

JPNS 4110 Advanced Reading in Modern Japanese 1

RLST 2202 Islam

WGST 3712 Trans and Queer Asias

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Friday March 7, 2025
10am – 4:30pm
The Hazel Gates Woodruff Cottage
ĚŇÉ«ĘÓƵ

Please register in advance if you would like to attend via Zoom

10am Welcome
10:15am Panel 1: Framing Global China Research and Researchers
12noon Lunch break
1pm Panel 2: Intimacies of Global China
2:30pm Coffee break
3pm Panel 3: Perspectives from South Asia, the Caribbean, and Beyond
4:30pm Closing Remarks

​​​​​​​Detailed schedule available here.

The Department of Women and Gender Studies at the ĚŇÉ«ĘÓƵ is proud to be hosting a one-day colloquium focused on feminist perspectives on Global China. The rise of China as a new global economic and political force has spurred the rapid growth of the field of Global China studies. Yet, research focused on gender and sexuality remains quite limited. This colloquium is a rare event that brings together an international group of scholars to help foster more robust feminist perspectives on Global China.

Panelists include:

Ching Kwan Lee, UCLA
Marie Berry, University of Denver
Yoon Jung Park, Georgetown
Mingwei Huang, Dartmouth
Sisasenkosi Mataruse, University of Zimbabwe
Prolific Mataruse, University of Zimbabwe
Vivian Lu, Rice
Ivy Gikonyo, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Charlotte Goodburn, King’s College London
Soumya Mishra, King’s College London
Matthew Chin, University of Virginia
Yiping Cai, UC Irvine
Eram Ashraf, Swansea University, UK
Xinlea Sha, Cornell
Justin Haruyama, University of British Colombia
Xianan Jin, University of Exeter, UK
Robert Wyrod, ĚŇÉ«ĘÓƵ

This event has been made possible by a grant to Women and Gender Studies from the Mellon Foundation, the Center for Asian Studies and the International Affairs Program at ĚŇÉ«ĘÓƵ.

​​​​​​​This event is funded in part by a grant by the Title VI National Resource Center grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

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Decades after its peak in the 1960s, “decolonization” has made a comeback as a historical struggle, a global discourse and a sociological subject. Inspired by racial justice movements, there have been lively debates on “decolonizing” sociological knowledge and its canons. Empire, colonialism, and racial capitalism have reemerged as core concerns across a number of subfields. Still, scholarly attention has mostly centered on Western colonialisms and anti-colonial thoughts of elite intellectuals. This talk turns instead to an ongoing decolonization struggle in Asia’s financial center -- Hong Kong -- and asks how ordinary citizens transformed themselves from complacent colonized subjects to rebellious agents of history against both British and Chinese colonizations. What can Hong Kong tell us about 21^st century colonialism, decolonization and decolonial sociology?

Ching Kwan Lee is a professor in the department of Sociology at UCLA. She is a sociologist working at the intersection of global and comparative issues, including labor, political sociology, global development, decolonization, comparative ethnography, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Africa.

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Susan Schmidt, a longtime Center for Asian Studies staff member, retired at the end of January 2025, after serving as the first Executive Director of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ), an outreach branch of CAS.

Susan was hired in 1997 by Professor Laurel Rasplica Rodd - then chairing the Department of East Asian Language Literatures (now the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations) and concurrently serving as President of the national Japanese language educators professional association - to direct the Bridging Clearinghouse, a national outreach and scholarship program with the mission of encouraging more college students of Japanese to study abroad in Japan. Since 1999, AATJ’s Bridging Scholarship program has awarded scholarships to almost 2,500 U.S. students, from almost every state including Colorado.

As time went by, she added general administration of the Association to her duties. AATJ’s 1,000+ members include researchers and teachers of Japanese at all levels from kindergarten to graduate school. In addition to the study abroad scholarship program, Susan managed the publication of a journal and newsletter, the convening of two annual national conferences for Japanese language educators, and many special projects that include online courses and webinars, professional development grants for teachers at all levels of instruction, and the administration of two proficiency tests for learners of Japanese across the country.

Under the sponsorship of CAS, CU-Boulder is one of 18 institutions in the United States that administer the annual in-person Japanese Language Proficiency Test to more than seven thousand test takers around the country. Susan lists working with colleagues at CAS – with its rich resources and wide-ranging programming - as one of the most rewarding parts of her job. Even after retirement, she looks forward to continuing to learn about Asia and its multi-faceted traditions and cultures by participating in the Center’s public activities and programs.

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Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum (CLAC)
Course Development Grants

CLAC Co-Seminar Course Development Grants will offer a $1500 stipend for the development of a supplemental one-credit undergraduate co-seminar drawing students and content from an existing disciplinary course in any department. Faculty will be responsible for teaching this co-seminar using primary Asian language sources to enhance the content of the main course. CLAC co-seminars will be listed as ASIA 4001 (Arts & Humanities) or ASIA 4002 (Social Sciences).

Recipients who receive the summer stipend should offer the new course in AY 2025-26. All recipients will receive training and support through the CAS CLAC program and CLAC Consortium members. CLAC courses should utilize primary language and culture sources, including historical or contemporary materials and mass media.

Applications are due to CAS on Monday, March 3, 2025.

Find application information here.

Asian Area Studies Curriculum Course Development Grants

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February 22-23, 10:00am-6:00pm
The Center for British & Irish Studies Room, 5th Floor
Norlin Library

Full Conference Schedule

The ĚŇÉ«ĘÓƵ Asian Studies Graduate Association’s (CUBASGA) annual conference provides a platform for emerging scholars to present their research in the field of Asian Studies, focusing specifically on Japanese and Chinese studies. The conference welcomes presenters from a wide variety of disciplines across the humanities, including, but not limited to, modern and premodern literature, religion, history, art history, and philosophy. Additionally, the conference welcomes two significant and established scholars to give keynote speeches on their own research. Thus, the conference provides opportunities for graduate students to meet established scholars in their fields and to nurture their own professional networks with other graduate students in the larger field of Asian Studies. For undergraduate attendees, the conference provides educational and professional development opportunities as well as a visible representation of the value of studying Asia.

This year, we are honored to have Professor Ronald Egan (Stanford W. Ascherman, M.D. Professor of Chinese Literature, Stanford University), whose research areas include traditional Chinese poetry, aesthetics, literary culture, social history, storytelling, and the relations between the literary and visual arts; and Professor David Atherton (Associate Professor, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University) who is a scholar of literature, focusing primarily on Japan’s early modern period (also known as the Edo or Tokugawa period, ca. 1600-1867). The speakers were selected in consultation between faculty and graduate students in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations based on student research and professional interests. In addition to our keynote speakers, we expect to host roughly 40 graduate speakers from ĚŇÉ«ĘÓƵ as well as from other institutions around the world.

Keynote Speech (Feb 22, 4:15-5:45pm) by Professor Ronald Egan
Toward a New Way of Reading Su Dongpo
This keynote speech introduces Professor Egan's recent research on Su Shi, one of the most significant ancient Chinese literati, poets, and politicians.

Ronald Egan is a professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Stanford University. His research areas include traditional Chinese poetry, aesthetics, literary culture, social history, storytelling, and the relations between the literary and visual arts.

Keynote Speech (Feb 23, 4:10-5:40pm) by Professor David Atherton
Monstrous Creativity: Poetry, Fiction, and the Figure of the Author in Early Modern Japan
Can someone teach you how to compose a good poem? What form should the training of a poet take? There are many ways to answer these questions, but perhaps none so unique—and confounding—as the story “The One-Eyed God” (Mehitotsu no kami), written in the last years of his life by the writer, scholar, and poet Ueda Akinari (1734-1809). The story tells of an aspiring young poet in search of a teacher, who unexpectedly finds himself given poetic advice by a conclave of monstrous beings in a midnight forest. These uncanny figures’ guidance is compelling in its own right: it sheds light on a transformative period for waka poetry, which in the late eighteenth century transitioned from being the cultural property of aristocrats to a genre studied and experimented in by people from all walks of life. But the tale is also as bewildering as it is illuminating. Why must the advice be delivered by monsters? Why do these beings appear to be involved in disorder in the realm? And why do aspects of their bodies resemble Akinari’s own body, blind in one eye and malformed by a childhood bout of smallpox that had nearly killed him? The story bids us to consider not only the composition of poetry but also the purpose of fiction, the transmission of creative teaching, and the figure of the author at a watershed moment in the early modern period—and in Akinari’s life.

David C. Atherton is associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. He is the author of Writing Violence: The Politics of Form in Early Modern Japanese Literature (Columbia, 2023). He taught at the University of Colorado from 2013-2017.

Co-Sponsored by the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, the Center for Asian Studies, the CU Student Government, and the Cultural Events Board.

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Asia Internship Program – Japan (in person) Summer 2025

Global Youth Bureau Co., Ltd in Toranomon, Tokyo’s central business district.

CarterJMRN in the heart of Tokyo's Roppongi Midtown area.

Application Procedures

• Applications are available on the Education Abroad website at .
• In addition to the application form, students will need to provide a cover letter, resume, transcript, and statement of purpose.
• Students may be interviewed by the supervisor prior to selection.
• Application deadline is February 23, 2025 at 11:59 p.m.
• See specific internship document (link) for details.

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FLAS (Foreign Language and Area Studies) Fellowships

Fellowships available for ĚŇÉ«ĘÓƵ Graduate and Undergraduate Students

Application Deadline: February 15, 2025

Program Description

FLAS fellowships administered by the Center for Asian Studies (CAS) are awarded competitively to students studying modern Asian languages. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) funds and oversees these awards, under the provisions of Title VI of the Higher Education Act. Funding is contingent upon annual ED program approval, Federal regulations, and continued Congressional funding, all of which may change from year to year. FLAS awards cannot be deferred.

CAS is offering summer and academic year fellowships to CU-Boulder graduate and professional school students for summer 2025 and academic year 2025-26.

CAS is also offering summer fellowships for CU-Boulder undergraduate students who can demonstrate financial need beginning in summer 2025.

Eligible Languages
All modern Asia languages offered on the CU-Boulder campus; additional Asian languages can be considered for summer awards pending additional approval.

• Arabic
• Chinese
• Hindi/Urdu
• Indonesian*
• Japanese
• Korean
• Tibetan*

* Additional approval required after selection; consult with CAS for information.

Award Benefits

2025 Summer FLAS Fellowship (Graduate and Undergraduate Awards)

• Tuition: FLAS will cover up to $5,000 of tuition and fees.
• Stipend: FLAS will provide a stipend of $3,500.

2025-26 Academic Year FLAS Fellowship (Graduate Awards Only)

• Tuition: FLAS will cover up to $18,000 of tuition and fees ($9,000/semester).
• Stipend: FLAS will provide a stipend of $20,000 ($10,000/semester).

FLAS Fellows may receive additional funding from other sources to support their study as long as they do not duplicate what is covered by FLAS. For example, a student who receives funding from other sources to cover 100% of tuition and fees costs will not receive the tuition portion of the FLAS award, but may still receive the full associated stipend. FLAS Fellows will be required to report all other awards to the FLAS Coordinator.

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The Center for Asian Studies is pleased to welcome Katie Murphy Ross as the incoming Executive Director for the American Association of Teachers of Japanese, housed here at CAS. Katie will be replacing long-time Executive Director Susan Schmidt.

Katie has written a self introduction so we can all get to know her:

I am honored and excited to be AATJ’s Executive Director. Our outgoing Executive Director, Susan Schmidt, has so much knowledge, wisdom, and experience, and has done so much wonderful work for this organization. I will do my best to continue Susan’s dedication and hard work at AATJ.

I live in Greenwood Village with my husband, Jake, and four kids. Actually, I should say I live with three kids, as my oldest is a freshman here at University of Colorado – Boulder. As a family, we are usually busy supporting the kids’ various school and extracurricular activities (rock climbing, soccer, running, piano, guitar, theatre, art, skiing, etc.) or finding something delicious to eat wherever we happen to find ourselves.

Many years ago, I participated in the JET Programme as a Coordinator for International Relations in Gifu City, Japan. After JET, I earned Master of Public Administration and Juris Doctor degrees. Until December, I was working as an attorney at a civil defense litigation firm in Denver. I also spent many years as a stay-at-home parent and caregiver.

I am truly thrilled to work to promote and further the mission and vision of AATJ, and equally thrilled that I get to do this at ĚŇÉ«ĘÓƵ!

Join us in welcoming Katie!

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