East Asian Studies Center

Friday, February 13 – Saturday. February 14 | All Day | TCC 227 | RSVP

Presented by the Korean Studies Institute and co-sponsored by the  Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies, USC Libraries, USC’s Center for Feminist Research, the Center for International Studies, the East Asian Studies Center, and the Office of the Divisional Dean of Social Sciences, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences..

Wednesday, February 18 | 3:30PM-5:00PM | AHN| RSVP

EASC Guest Speaker Series: Talk by David Yi with Faculty Moderator Prof. Sunyoung Park (EALC 430: Gender and Sexuality in Korean Literature and Culture)

Friday, February 20 | 2:00PM-3:00PM | DMC 101 | Invitation Only

This EASC Global East Asia Orientation session will cover the Tokyo Maymester program, flights, insurance, health and safety, and other general travel-related requirements by the university. Additionally, this will be a chance to meet the course faculty and graduate student assistant, the EASC staff administering the program, and your fellow classmates.

This is a MANDATORY orientation for the course and Global East Asia scholars must attend or make other arrangements with EASC.

This orientation is only for registered students of EASC-360.

Friday, February 27 | 3:00PM-5:00PM | TBD | RSVP

The Grateful Crane Ensemble (GCE), under the leadership of Executive Director and Playwright Soji Kashiwagi, presents Grateful Crane Shows Over the Years—a special performance highlighting the Ensemble’s artistry from 2001–2025.

Through music and storytelling, GCE shares timeless songs and stories that illuminate universal human experiences while honoring Japanese and Japanese American history and culture. This program showcases highlights from the Ensemble’s repertoire, including traditional Japanese children’s songs, wartime stories of resilience, tributes to Japantowns, comedic takes on Japanese pop culture, and a celebration of legendary singer Misora Hibari.

Presented by the Shinso Ito Center and co-sponsored by the USC East Asian Studies Center.

Friday, March 6 | 9:30AM-4:15PM | Doheny Memorial Library| RSVP

Woodblock was the dominant and preferred method of printing in East Asia up until the nineteenth century. By contrast, East Asia’s home-grown typographic traditions often seem like an afterthought, an eccentricity, or an abandoned experiment that failed to match the Gutenberg revolution. Yet, typography was never entirely discontinued and diverse actors utilized movable type at specific times, in certain places, or for certain objectives in face of xylographic competition. This conference, to be held on March 6, 2026 at the University of Southern California, investigates the autochthonous traditions of movable type in East Asia before the arrival of Western letterpress and lithography in the late nineteenth century.

This conference is supported by: Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, and the Korean Studies Institute, Korean Heritage Library, and East Asian Studies Center at the University of Southern California.

Please go to the Conference Website for the Conference Schedule, Participant Bios, and to Register!

Thursday, March 26 | 4:00PM – 5:30PM | CAS 100 | RSVP

Wednesday, April 8, 2026 | 3:00PM-4:50PM | AHN House

Professors Jennifer Chun (UCLA, Asian American Studies) and Judy Han (UCLA, Gender Studies) present a joint book talk on South Korean social activism, discussing their latest works, Against Abandonment: Repertoires of Solidarity in South Korean Protest and Queer Throughlines: Spaces of Queer Activism in South Korea and the Korean Diaspora.

Drawing on ethnographic and transnational research, the talks examine the culture of protest in South Korea, its achievements and precarity, and the development of Korean LGBTQ+ activism since the 1990s. Together, they explore how social movements form solidarities across gender, sexuality, labor, and diaspora, and how these movements intersect locally and globally.

Co-sponsored by the Consortium for Gender, Sexuality, Race and Public Culture, the Gender and Sexuality Studies Department, the East Asian Studies Center, and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.

Thursday, April 9 | 11:30AM-1:30PM | KSH | Invitation Only

EASC is excited to host our annual Faculty Luncheon this spring! We look forward to having the opportunity to share recent developments and reconnect with each other. We will be hosting this year’s lunch meeting at the University Club Scriptorium. We look forward to celebrating the end of the semester with you!

Monday, April 13 | 4:10PM-5:50PM | Zoom | RSVP

EASC Guest Speaker Series: Talk by Prof. Yuming He (UC Davis) with Faculty Moderator Prof. Mengxiao Wang (EALC 506: Selections from Classical Chinese Literature)

The late Ming was an age of print, and drama was one of its most dynamic forms. This talk discusses the characteristic strategies used by late-Ming bookmakers to organize dramatic texts in print, and explores how these editorial acts allowed such imprints to enter broader intellectual and cultural life where a critical position within the popular became possible.

Monday, April 20 | 2:00PM-3:20PM | Zoom | RSVP

EASC Guest Speaker Series: Talk by Prof. Susanne Kerekes (Trinity College) with Faculty Moderator Prof. Jessica Zu (REL 342: Buddhist Modernism)

The Buddhist clergy depends on the lay community for material provisions and monetary donations. In return, the laity are said to gain merit (puññā), or other spiritual benefits, such as a Dhamma talk, meditation guidance, chant or a ritual. The author observes that the Thai laity also seek from the clergy material memorabilia, such as yantra, for this-worldly benefits. Through a case study of two talismanic yantra created by a Thai monk at the request of lay business owners, this talk argues that the symbiotic relationship between clergy and laity often manifests in material ways.