East Asian Studies Center

Thursday, September 3, 2026 | 5:00PM-6:00PM | CAS 100 or via Zoom | RSVP

In celebration of the fourth issue of the Student Journal of Asian Studies @ USC, EASC will host a symposium bringing together the editors, contributors, and readers of the journal! This symposium will showcase the Summer 2026 issue and feature presentations by the authors.

This is a hybrid event. A Zoom meeting link will be emailed to those who RSVP. 

Students who are interested in submitting as a contributor for the journal or participating as an editor for the next issue are highly encouraged to attend!

Tuesday, October 6, 2026 | 11:00AM-12:20PM | Zoom | RSVP

Talk by Prof. Gerald Sim (Professor of Communication & Multimedia Studies, Florida Atlantic University) with Faculty Moderator Prof. Brian Bernards (EALC 548: Readings in Southeast Asian Studies)

Monday, October 12, 2026 | 2:00PM-3:20PM | DML 240 | RSVP

EASC Guest Speaker Series: Talk by Prof. Peng Xu (Associate Professor, ShanghaiTech University) with Faculty Moderator Prof. Mengxiao Wang (EALC 145: Introduction to Chinese Culture Art and Literature)

Peng Xu’s The Courtesan’s Memory, Voice, and Late Ming Drama (University of Michigan Press, 2025) reinterprets late Ming drama by foregrounding courtesan performance culture as a generative force in theatrical production. Drawing on a wide range of sources—including scripts, city guides, biographies, diaries, letters, and visual materials—the book argues that courtesans were not merely subjects of representation but active agents who reshaped theatrical form, performance conditions, and literary style. In doing so, it challenges male-centered historiography and offers a new framework for understanding gender, media, and creativity in early modern Chinese theater.

This event is co-sponsored by the USC East Asian Library.

Tuesday, October 13, 2026 | 12:30PM-1:50PM | DML 240 | RSVP

Professor Peng Xu of Shanghai Tech University will give a talk on how poetry anthology by Chosŏn woman poet Hŏ Nansŏrhŏn (1563–1589), published by Shen Yaohua in Ming China, became mediating object produced at the intersection of postwar diplomacy, Jiangnan private print culture, maritime circulation, and factional politics at the Wanli court. In this context, a Korean woman’s poems did more than cross the sea: they supplied literary evidence for Sino-Korean cultural affinity and exposed the literary problem of gendered authorship in the sinographic world.

The event is co-sponsored by the USC Korean Studies Institute.

Monday, October 12, 2026 | 2:00PM-3:20PM | LVL 16 | RSVP

EASC Guest Speaker Series: Talk by Prof. Meimei Zhang (Associate Professor of Asian Studies, Occidental College) with Faculty Moderator Wanmeng Li (EALC 110: East Asian Humanities: The Great Tradition)

Over the past decade, the emerging field of critical plant studies has challenged anthropocentric approaches to the humanities by asking how plants participate in shaping human perception, culture, and environments. Rather than treating plants merely as symbols or passive objects of representation, scholars have increasingly explored their materiality, agency, and ecological relationships with humans. This talk offers a brief overview of major theoretical approaches in plant humanities before turning to a case study of bajiao (Chinese banana) in premodern Chinese literature and visual culture, and how bajiao became an active participant in the formation of religious thought, sensory perception, regional imagination, literary expression, and garden aesthetics in premodern China.

This event is co-sponsored by the USC East Asian Library.

Tuesday, November 10, 2026 | 11:00AM-12:00PM | DML 240 | RSVP

A discussion of Mengxiao Wang’s new book, Performing Enlightenment: Buddhism and Theater in Early Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2026). The author will be joined in conversation by Shih-shan Susan Huang (Rice University) and Wilt L. Idema (Harvard University), moderated by Lori Meeks (USC). Organized in partnership with the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and the East Asian Studies Center.

About the Book: In early modern China, a major revival of Buddhism coincided with a surging fascination with theater. Buddhist monastics and laypeople increasingly participated in viewing, discussing, and writing plays. Far from merely serving as a medium for conveying religious teachings and practices, drama became a source of deep concern for Buddhists due to the perceived tension between spiritual discipline and worldly entertainment.

In Performing Enlightenment, Mengxiao Wang examines how Buddhist clerics and laity engaged with and drove innovations in theater during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Drawing on an extensive range of sources—including clerical sermons, scriptural commentaries, temple gazetteers, morality books, literati prose, and dramatic texts and paratexts—Wang argues that Ming-Qing Buddhists resolved the conflict between religion and entertainment by transforming theater into a creative mode of devotional practice. Consequently, playwriting, stage performance, and theatergoing all emerged as legitimate pathways to spiritual enlightenment. This interdisciplinary work provides fresh insights into Chinese studies, Buddhist studies, and theater studies while offering a comparative perspective on the complex interplay between religion, literature, and performance across cultures.

About the Author: Mengxiao Wang is Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of Southern California.

Open to attendants outside of USC. An excerpt of the book will be made available to registered attendants. Registration before the event is required.

This event is part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities’ “Book Chats” series, conversations about new books published by USC scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. To see more events in this series, including recordings of past events, visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/levan-institute/book-chats/.

Friday, November 13, 2026 | 2:00PM-5:00PM | SOS 250 | RSVP

The EASC Manuscript Review is a professional development seminar for faculty and graduate students, from USC and the wider community.

Leading scholars in the fields of cultural, intellectual and literary history of Korea will discuss a new book manuscript by Graeme R. Reynolds, Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, entitled Material Historiography: The Official Histories of Koryŏ from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Century. Discussants include Donald L. Baker, Professor Emeritus of Asian Studies at The University of British Columbia and Hwisang Cho, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Emory College of Arts and Sciences. Faculty and graduate students from USC and the community are welcome to attend.

Attendees must read the entire manuscript and actively participate in the professional development review seminar. A copy of the manuscript will be provided after we receive your RSVP.

Please RSVP by October 13, 2026 to allow for adequate time to read through the manuscript.