Videos

May 13, 2021 | Congratulations EAAS Graduates - Class of 2021! The USC East Asian Studies Center wants to congratulate the graduating class of 2021!

April 16, 2021 | The USC East Asian Studies Center has launched an EASC New Book Series for the wider community. This series focusing on modern China is organized by Li-Ping Chen, Postdoctoral Scholar & Teaching Fellow in the USC East Asian Studies Center. This monthly series on Zoom will introduce some of the latest publications in modern Chinese studies to the USC community and the wider public. Diaspora’s Homeland: Modern China in the Age of Global Migration (Duke University Press, 2018) AUTHOR: Shelly Chan (Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz) DISCUSSANT: Huei-Ying Kuo (Associate Research Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University)

April 8, 2021 | As part of the 2020-21 EASC Guest Speaker Series, USC Assistant Professor of Religion, Jessica Zu has invited Dr. Larry Ward, co-founder of The Lotus Institute and author of America’s Racial Karma: An Invitation to Heal. This lecture will tie in Prof. Zu's REL 342: Buddhist Modernism. This course seeks to cover not only the common perception of Buddhism as psychological therapy, McMindfulness style of self-help, and part of the New Age Spirituality but also the less studied engaged Buddhism that sought to make Buddhism a civil religion. Engaged Buddhism is an important branch of new Buddhist movements that emerged around the world in the mid-twentieth century. However, in America today, engaged Buddhists seem to have poised to become the leaders in using Buddhist spirituality to fight for social justice, to cure collective racial trauma, and to dismantle lasting structural oppressions.

March 24, 2021 | The Asian and Black Question Up Close in Drama: Plays that Organically Reckon Across the Divide - Velina Hasu Houston, Rena Heinrich and Professional Ensemble* The Race/Solidarity: Transpacific Conversations series invites faculty and guest speakers to discuss the current racial reckoning at USC and beyond and start this conversation within a global context. This series will provide a platform for faculty and students to engage with a host of social and cultural issues related to race and racism on both sides of the Pacific. Our aim is to help broaden and deepen the current discussion on race with global and historical perspectives, drawing in particular on the expertise and connections of our affiliated faculty and graduate students who have worked on these topics within diverse East Asian contexts and among Asian diasporic communities. The East Asian Studies Center presented a reading of excerpts from the work of Velina Hasu Houston whose globally produced plays have been exploring racial perspectives of Asian identity and Blackness for decades. Directed by actress, director, and scholar Rena Heinrich, the event featured excerpts from Houston's new play Setting the Table, performed by professional actors.

March 18, 2021 | As part of the 2020-21 EASC Guest Speaker Series, USC Postdoctoral Scholar and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Political Science & International Relations, Hao Chen has invited Yuhua Wang, Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor in the Department of Government (Harvard University). This lecture, The Rise, Fall, and Rise of China, will tie in with Dr. Chen's IR 340; The Political Economy of China course. The course surveys the political and economic development of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to very recently, the Xi Administration and highlights the interaction between the state and business in the reform era (1978 - present). Professor Wang is a leading scholar in the field of China studies and has published extensively on state-business relations in contemporary China. His research has focused on the emergence and constraints of state institutions, with a regional focus on China and is the author of Tying the Autocrat’s Hands: The Rise of the Rule of Law in China (Cambridge University Press, 2015). In the article published in The China Quarterly, “Beyond Local Protectionism: China’s State-Business Relations in the Last Two Decades,” he conducted a large-scale, systematic study on all Chinese public listed firms from 1993 to 2012 and challenged the popular argument that businesses in China have primarily relied on ties with local governments. He is currently working on a new book "The Rise and Fall of the Chinese State, 618-1911" (under contract at Princeton University Press) to examine the long-term state development in China.

March 11, 2021 | The USC East Asian Studies Center has launched an EASC New Book Series for the wider community. This series focusing on modern China is organized by Li-Ping Chen, Postdoctoral Scholar & Teaching Fellow in the USC East Asian Studies Center. This monthly series on Zoom will introduce some of the latest publications in modern Chinese studies to the USC community and the wider public. In this session: Why Fiction Matters in Contemporary China (Brandeis University Press, 2020) AUTHOR: David Der-wei Wang (Edward C. Henderson Professor in Chinese and Comparative Literature, Harvard University) DISCUSSANT: Carlos Rojas (Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University)

February 24, 2021 | Intersections of Asian and Black Cultures in Theatre - Velina Hasu Houston with Elizabeth Wong and Philip Kan Gotanda, moderated by Snehal Desai and Eugene Lee The USC East Asian Studies Center presents, in association with East West Players and the Black and Latino Playwrights’ Celebration, Intersections of Asian and Black Cultures in Theatre as part of the Race/Solidarity: Transpacific Conversations series. This series invites faculty and guest speakers to discuss the current racial reckoning at USC and beyond and start this conversation within a global context. This series will provide a platform for faculty and students to engage with a host of social and cultural issues related to race and racism on both sides of the Pacific. Our aim is to help broaden and deepen the current discussion on race with global and historical perspectives, drawing in particular on the expertise and connections of our affiliated faculty and graduate students who have worked on these topics within diverse East Asian contexts and among Asian diasporic communities. A panel of noteworthy professional playwrights will explore intersections of Asian and Black cultures reflecting upon their plays, theatre’s capacity to illuminate trans-cultural experience, and the impact of theatre on society. The playwrights will include Elizabeth Wong ("Kimchee and Chitlins: A Serious Comedy About Getting Along"), Philip Kan Gotanda ("Yohen"), and Velina Hasu Houston ("Tea"). The panel will be moderated by Snehal Desai, Producing Artistic Director of East West Players, the nation’s oldest Asian American theatre company; and Eugene Lee, Artistic Director of the Black and Latino Playwrights Celebration, a workshop and showcase featuring professional Black and Latino playwrights and professional guest directors and artists with a focus on craft, cultivation of the artist, and celebration of the work.

February 11, 2021 | Eastern Medicines, Western Regulation - USC Professors Eunjoo Pacifici and Terry Church The EASC Regulatory Science: East Asian Perspectives series represents an exciting collaboration with colleagues at the Health Sciences Campus to cover a wide range of topics on health and wellness that are of vital interest to us today. Regulatory Science studies the regulatory requirements for biomedical products in the United States and elsewhere around the world and East Asia plays a prominent role in all facets of this area -- as developers, manufacturers, and consumers of regulated products. This series will focus on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Do you use TCM? Have you tried acupuncture? Both are commonly practiced in China and other Asian countries, based on traditions that go back thousands of years. In most Western countries, TCM gets labeled as Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) and viewed as supplemental to conventional medical practices. Some products are regulated as dietary supplements while others are developed as drugs.

January 29, 2021 | The USC East Asian Studies Center has launched an EASC New Book Series for the wider community. This series focusing on modern China is organized by Li-Ping Chen, Postdoctoral Scholar & Teaching Fellow in the USC East Asian Studies Center. This monthly series on Zoom will introduce some of the latest publications in modern Chinese studies to the USC community and the wider public. Circuit Listening: Chinese Popular Music in the Global 1960s (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) AUTHOR: Andrew F. Jones (Professor and Louis B. Agassiz Chair in Chinese, University of California, Berkeley) DISCUSSANT: Ying Qian (Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages & Cultures, Columbia University)