CFP: Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Student Conference in Modern Chinese Humanities

Call for Papers
Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Student Conference in Modern Chinese Humanities

The joint organizing committee of the Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Conference Modern Chinese Humanities invites currently enrolled graduate students to submit paper proposals for its inaugural meeting on April 16-17, 2010 at the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

The conference will bring together a keynote speaker and approximately twelve graduate students to present innovative research on any aspect of modern Chinese cultural production in any humanistic discipline. We encourage interdisciplinary scholarship within and between literary and cultural studies, cultural history, art history, film and media studies, musicology and sound studies, as well as the interpretative social sciences.

Conference registration is free; lodging in Berkeley will be provided by the Berkeley-Stanford organizing committee for all conference presenters. Please submit a 300-word paper proposal and a short bio by email attachment to ccs@berkeley.edu by October 31, 2009.

Elinor Levine
Program Director
Center for Chinese Studies
2223 Fulton Street, room 505
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-2328
Email: ccs@berkeley.edu

Asian American Christianity Reader – now available!!

The Asian American Christianity Reader is now available – follow these links for more information and to purchase on-line:

Reader website: http://aacreader.com

ISAAC Blog: http://isaacblog.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/asian-american-christianity-reader-now-available/

APARRI Conference – Aug 6-8 (Claremont McKenna College)

The Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative presents:

APARRI 2009

Lost in Transnationalism: Pacific and Asian North American Religions in a Globalized World

Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA

Thursday.2009.Aug.6 – Saturday.2009.Aug.8

Registration Now Open! www.pana.psr.edu/aparri-2009

Please forward this e-mail to others who may be interested.

Inquiries: Questions about APARRI 2009 may be directed to APARRI Program Executive Christopher Chua (cchua@psr.edu) or APARRI Program Assistant Eunice Park (epark@psr.edu) at 510/849-8210.

About the APARRI Conferences: Since 1999, the annual APARRI gatherings have been opportunities for scholars and community leaders involved in work on issues of Asian American and Pacific Islander religion to share research, exchange ideas, and build relationships in a relaxed, supportive conference setting. Emphasis is placed on the development of APA religious studies as a field, the encouragement of emerging scholarship, and the mentoring of scholars and leaders. About APARRI 2009: At the end of the first decade of the 21st century global connections of all sorts are receiving more heightened attention than ever before. The incoming Obama administration is the subject of worldwide scrutiny, not simply because it assumes the White House at a time when U.S. influence on the international stage is met with more ambivalence than it has in a century, but also because the election of an African American signals a sea change in the evolution of American democracy and, consequently, new prospects for democracies all around the globe; the American economy’s precipitous decline over the past year has had the effects not only of American jobs lost, American consumer power diminished, and American companies put at risk, but has negatively impacted the valuations of real property, labor, and investment and expansion opportunities worldwide; and escalating tensions in Southwest Asia, southern Africa, and elsewhere suggest that international interventions and population migrations will be no less an aspect of the early 21st century than it was in the last decades of the 20th. In this context of global connectedness, APARRI 2009 asks what role religion plays in the unfolding of new transnational regimes. Of what significance is the religious to those crossing national and cultural borders? How does the networked nature of the world at the end of the first decade of the 21st century impact the expression of religion in America? Of what significance is the global to the spiritual and vice-versa?

Entitled “Lost in Transnationalism: Pacific Asian North American Religions in a Globalized World,” the 2009 conference will be held August 6-8 on the campus of Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, CA. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region, the conference site emphasizes LA’s roles as a “global city” and a “gateway city” and highlights California’s place in trans-Pacific networks. For Plenary I on Thursday evening Aug/6, filmmaker Valerie Soe and Prof. Russell Jeung will screen their new video documentary Oak Park Story, about three families negotiating class, culture, and race at a low-income apartment complex in East Oakland, CA. Plenary II on Friday afternoon Aug/7 will feature a panel with various institutional perspectives on the connection between transnationalism and religion in the immediate Los Angeles area. And Plenary III on Saturday afternoon (Aug/8) will offer insights on faith in a globalized world from within the APARRI academic network. Concurrent sessions will showcase research-in-progress, and structured mentoring sessions will be available for students and junior faculty members. For more details on the conference, please go to www.pana.psr.edu/aparri-2009.

Dr. Sam Tsang to deliver lecture on Galatians on June 6 (Campbell, CA)

Free Summer Lecture on Galatians (Cantonese Only). Paul’s Gospel for the North American Chinese Evangelical Church by Dr. Sam Tsang. June 6, 2009. West Valley Alliance Church, Campbell, CA

Sam writes:

I am pleased to announce another FREE lecture on 6/6/2009.  Not so coincidentally, the publication of my revised and updated dissertation “From Slaves to Sons” in Chinese by Tien Dao will happen soon after this event.  Please join me in celebration of my publication.  This lecture will show some of the parallels between the Galatian problem and the some of the issues facing North American Chinese churches.  Galatians was my PhD dissertation.  I hope to show relevance between scholarly study and application in this lecture.  I believe Paul’s gospel still speaks to us today.  There is plenty of seating.  Feel free to grab your Cantonese Christian friends.

For more information, to register, and get directions, go to:

http://www.sacredsaga.org/sam-tsangs-blog/2009/3/27/free-bay-area-summer-lecture-on-galatians.html#comments

Filipino American Faith in Action – book launch May 9 (San Francisco)

New book celebration at SF Public Library

Asian American Christianity Reader soon to be released!

ISAAC and the Pacific Asian American & Canadian Christian Education project is delighted to announce the scheduled release of the Asian American Christianity Reader. It will be available in May, just in time for Asian American Heritage month. See www.aacreader.com for more information.

UCLA AASC: 2009 Statistical Portrait of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Other Pacific Islanders

The UCLA Asian American Studies Center, as an official U.S. Census Information Center (as a co-partner with National Coalition for Asian Pacific Community Development), is pleased to provide this 2009 statistical portrait of the Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations produced by the US Census Bureau for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, which will take place in May, 2009. The portrait provides current census data, population projections, and internet links that should be useful for research, planning, writing and general educational purposes.

Go to the following links to view the data:

UCLA Asian American Studies Center
http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/archives/stats2009.htm

ISAAC Blog
http://isaacblog.wordpress.com/2009-apa-stats/

Upcoming Lectures in the Bay Area (Apr. 22 and 27, 2009)

SANACS presents the following ISAAC lectures/panels in the Bay Area for April 2009:

April 22 | 4 p.m. | UC Berkeley, Moses Hall, 223, IIS Conference Room

“Christianity and Political Culture in North Korea: Challenges for Reunification”
Prof. Jong Sun Noh, Professor of Christian Social Ethics and Peace Studies
at Yonsei University, South Korea

Professor Noh is frequently quoted in the media as an expert on Korean reunification. In this lecture, he will detail the ideology of “Juche” that lies behind North Korea’s “collective solidarity” and will go on to argue that Korean reunification could lead to economic prosperity. From a theological perspective, he will explore how Christianity could play a role in establishing peace on the Korean peninsula.

Trained as a theologian, he received his MDiv from Harvard, his PhD from Union Theological Seminary, and has taught at Yale. His most recent book was titled, “A Paradigm Shift for Peace in North East Asia.”

Event Contact: 510-642-2474

Co-sponsors with: Religion, Politics and Globalization Program (RPGP) and Center for Korean Studies (CKS) at UC Berkeley

* * * *

Apr. 27 | 5-7 PM | University of San Francisco, Fromm Hall

Panel: “Christian Faith and Asian American Activism”
This panel will invite local religious leaders in the Asian American Christian community to discuss the role of their religious organizations in the early beginnings of the Asian American Movement.  Additionally, these leaders will discuss the current role of Asian American Christian faith and religion in shaping current discourse in the Asian American Movement and in Asian American Studies.

Panelists:
Rev. Lloyd Wake, retired United Methodist minister and Asian American community activist.
Russell Jeung, Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, SFSU
Fr. Dennis Recio, S.J., Asian American Studies faculty member, University of San Francisco
Nhuanh Ly, Health Educator & Youth Activist, Banteay Srei

Moderator:
Timothy Tseng, Executive Director of Institute for the Study of Asian American Christianity and Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies and Asian Studies

For more information about this event series or USF Asian American Studies, please contact Prof. Kevin Chun, Program Director (415.422.2418, email Kevin), or Andrea Wise, Program Assistant (415.422.5983, email Andrea). For more information about this particular panel, go to the ISAAC blog.

Co-sponsors with: USF Asian American Studies, USF Theology and Religious Studies Department, USF Center for the Pacific Rim

American Crossroads Conference (Apr. 16, 2009): Migration, Communities, and Race (UT Austin)

UT Austin Conference
American Crossroads: Migration, Communities, and Race

April 16, 2009
9:00 – 5:30pm
Texas Union Eastwoods Room, UNB 2.102

This conference convenes scholars of race, activism, and migration to explore comparative trajectories of racialization and community building among Asian, African, and Latino Americans. We encourage the sharing of questions and research problems across ethnic divides to advance our understanding of the coalitions, conflicts, and intersections that distinguish and yet entwine these groups. Our three panels focus on urban communities, activism, and racial discourses.

9-9:15 Opening Remarks Eiichiro Azuma (UPenn, UT Harrington Fellow)

9:30-11:30 Activism
Chair: Joao Vargas (UT/ANT)
Panelists:
* Irene Garza (UT/AMS): New Shades of Cooperation: Korean and Latino Organizing in Los Angeles and the future of Immigrant Rights
* Daryl Maeda (UCo): Homelands, Nations, and Third World Solidarities:   The Little Tokyo Peoples Rights Organization and Spatial Claims in the 1970s
* Judy Wu (OSU): Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Peace Activism and Womens Orientalism

12:45-2:45 Urban Communities
Chair/comment: Nestor Rodriguez (UT/SOC)
Panelists:
* Scott Kurashige (Michigan): “Bowling Together: Black and Japanese Americans in Crenshaw”
* Eric Tang (UIC): On Alternative Citizenships: The Vietnamese Americans of Black New Orleans East
* Katherine McKittrick (Queens University): Geo-Poetics: What Urbicide and Inventories Can Tell Us About Urban Life

3:30-5:30 Discourses of Race
Chair: Julia Lee (UT/ENG)
Panelists:
* Caroline Yang (Wesleyan): “Reading the Asian Worker in Asian American and African American Literature.”
* Lisa Yun (SUNY Binghamton): Nineteenth Century Afro-Asian Intersections in the Americas: Implications for Contemporary Discourses on Race and Migration
* Fred Ho (jazz musician, activist, independent scholar): Nobody Knows the Trouble Ive Seen: A Comparative Socio-Historical Analysis between African Americans and Asian Americans

Conference is free of charge and open to all audiences.

For more information please contact The Center for Asian American Studies (512) 232-9468 or email Kenyatta Dawson or visit http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/aas/events/conferences/

Exploring the Post-Secular Conference (Yale University, Apr. 3-4, 2009)

Dear colleagues,

Please circulate widely.
Many thanks,
David

DAVID KYUMAN KIM [email David]
Senior Advisor & Acting Program Director
Social Science Research Council
Editor-at-Large, The Immanent Frame
One Pierrepont Plaza, 15th Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA
http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/
and
Visiting Associate Professor in the Humanities
Cogut Center for the Humanities
Brown University
Box 1983
Providence, RI 02912
401-863-6118

* * * *
Exploring the Post-Secular
April 3-4, 2009
Yale University

There has been a great deal of talk in recent years suggesting that we have entered a “post-secular” age. Much of this is a response to the resurgence of politicized religion on the world scene. But what, if anything, does the term “post-secular” even mean? Have we really entered into a post-secular age? And if so, what implications, if any, does this have for the social sciences? Do these developments imply a new approach to the study of religion? A wholesale reconstruction of social science? A shift towards social philosophy?  Is there such a thing as “post-secular social science”?

This conference brings together a number of analysts of religion and its entanglements with the world in an attempt to assess these questions. We will address the possible meanings of religion and of the various terms with roots in the term “secular”: secularism, secularity, secularization. Without some grappling with the question of what religion is, it is very difficult to say what secularity or secularization might entail. We will explore the extent to which the “return of religion” is a product of an actual upsurge of religiosity around the world as opposed to greater scholarly attention to religion. We will also examine the ways in which the global religious situation may compel us to reconsider how we think about both religion and social science.

Friday, April 3 – Henry R. Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Avenue, rooms 202 & 203

8:50 A.M.    Introductory remarks
Philip Gorski, David Kyuman Kim, John Torpey

9:00 A.M.    Richard Madsen, University of California at San Diego
“What is Religion? Categorical Re-configurations in a Global Horizon”
discussant: Deborah Davis, Yale University

10:00 A.M.   Aditya Nigam, Center for the Study of Developing Societies
“What Comes After the Secular?”
discussant: Arvind Rajagopal, New York University

11:15 A.M.  Courtney Bender, Columbia University
“Things in their Entanglements”
discussant: Paul Lichterman, University of Southern California

1:00 P.M.     Philip Gorski, Yale University
“Recovered Goods: The Moral Underpinnings of Durkheimian Sociology”
discussant: Steven Lukes, New York University

2:00 P.M.    Hent de Vries, Johns Hopkins University
“Obama’s Deep Pragmatism”

3:15 P.M.     Bryan S. Turner, Wellesley College
“On Doing Religion: Critical Reflections on Rorty, Derrida and Vattimo with Special Reference to ‘Asian Religions’”
discussant: Fred Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame

4:15 P.M.    James K.A. Smith, Calvin College
“Secular Liturgies and the Prospects for a ‘Post-Secular’ Age”
discussant: Pericles Lewis, Yale University

5:30 P.M.    John Schmalzbauer, Missouri State University
“Religion and Knowledge in the Post-Secular Academy”
discussant: Peter Steinfels, Fordham University

6:30 P.M.    End of panels for the day

Saturday, April 4 – Henry R. Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Avenue

8:30 A.M.    Penny Edgell, University of Minnesota
“Religion as Cultural Repertoire, or, the Post-Secular as Scholarly Turning Point”
discussant: Tomoko Masuzawa, University of Michigan

9:30 A.M.    Michele Dillon, University of New Hampshire
“Probing the Post-Secular Turn: Bridging Grandiose Claims and Lived Realities”
discussant: David Little, Harvard University

10:45 A.M.  John Torpey, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
“A (Post-)Secular Age? Religion and the Two Exceptionalisms”
discussant: David Morgan, Duke University

11:45 A.M.  Eduardo Mendieta, SUNY at Stony Brook
“Spiritual Politics and Post-secular Authenticity: Foucault and Habermas on Post-Metaphysical Religion”
discussant: Ludger Viefhues-Bailey, Yale University

1:30 P.M.    Roundtable
Craig Calhoun, SSRC & New York University
José Casanova, Georgetown University
David Kyuman Kim, SSRC & Connecticut College

3:00 P.M.    End of conference

Conveners: Philip Gorski, John Torpey, David Kyuman Kim.

Conference sponsors: The MacMillan Center Initiative on Religion, Politics, and Society; The Center for Comparative Research at Yale University; Social Science Research Council; co-sponsored by The Graduate Center, City University ofNew York.

The conference is free and open to the public. No registration is required. For further information, please contact the conference coordinator, Ateş Altınordu [Email Ates].