East Asian Studies Gateway

Happy to report that we had a successful China trip co-organized by IUN and IUSB, between May 20 and 31. We visited four Chinese cities,

Beijing, Luoyang, Suzhou, and Shanghai, a great experience! Check out some of our photos below!

2024 IUN Asia Day photos

The 2024 IUN Asia Day was held at the Moraine Student Center. We had the Tuvergen Band, a Mongolian music band from Chicago, Paragon, a KPop group from Indianapolis, dancers from our very Asian American Student Union, and IUN student fashion show! Jo Ann Taylor, vice president from KPop Indiana hosted an information table. 

Check out our pictures from the 2024 Asia Day: https://www.flickr.com/photos/iu_northwest/albums/72177720316422951/with/53674612315. 

Professor Yasue Kuwahara spoke on J-Pop on Oct. 21

The IUN East Asian Studies Gateway and the IU Bloomington East Asian Studies Center jointly sponsor four public lectures on East Asian pop culture via Zoom in fall 2023. 

On Saturday, Oct. 21, Professor Yasue Kuwahara from Northern Kentucky University spoke on Japanese pop culture between 10-11:30 am central time.

Dr. Yasue Kuwahara is a Professor of Communication and an expert in the field of popular culture studies. She is founder and Director of the Popular Culture Studies Program at Northern Kentucky University. Dr. Kuwahara’s on-going research focuses on the U.S. influence on postwar Japanese society and culture. In recent years her research interest has expanded to East Asian popular culture. She is the author/editor of The Korean Wave: Korean Popular Culture in Global Context and “Japanese Culture and Popular Consciousness: Disney’s The Lion King vs. Tezuka’s Jungle Emperor” among others. Dr. Kuwahara is also the editor of the Palgrave East Asian Popular Culture Series.

The following is the recorded lecture.

Professor Gyu Tag Lee spoke on K-Pop and globalization on Nov. 8

On Wednesday, Nov. 8, Professor Gyu Tag Lee from George Mason University Korea spoke on K-Pop and globalization between 6-7:30 pm central time.

Professor Lee has been teaching at George Mason University Korea since 2014. He is an expert in popular music, media studies, globalization of culture, and especially, K-Pop. He has been writing books and articles about K-Pop, popular music, and Hallyu for a number of on- and off-line media, and is a committee member of Korean Music Awards. He has been interviewed by CNN, New York Times, NPR Radio, Wall Street Journal, South China Morning Post, Netflix's documentary Explained, EBS's public lecture Class e, Joong-Ang Ilbo, Chosun Ilbo, KBS, MBC, SBS, YTN, among others.

The following is the recorded lecture.

Brendan Dowling spoke on the Korean and American influences on Chinese Hip Hop on Dec. 2

On Saturday, Dec. 2, 9-10: 30 am central time, Brendan Dowling, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with interests in Chinese and linguistics, spoke on the Korean and American influences on Chinese Hip Hop.

Brendan is an advocate of the implementation of hip-hop pedagogical methods in K-16 Chinese language and culture classrooms. He was 1 of 3 teaching assistants at UW-Madison last year who won a campus-wide 'Classroom Innovation' award, and this past summer he led a 3-day pedagogy workshop on Chinese Hip Hop. Brendan also promotes Chinese language literacy through community outreach efforts at Madison Public Libraries and local schools. He has lectured not only Chinese language classes at the University of Wisconsin but also created and taught a brand-new humanities course that explored Chinese Hip Hop culture and music. 

Jamel Mims spoke on Hip Hop in China and the U.S.

On Monday, Dec. 4, between 6-7:30 pm Central Time (7-8:30 pm Eastern Time), Hip Hop scholar and singer Jamel Mims spoke about Hip Hop in China and the US, and his personal experience doing Hip Hop in China. 

Jamel Mims is a rapper, multimedia artist, and educator based in New York City.  A Fulbright Scholar who studied hip-hop in Beijing, he is also known as the African-American Mandarin language hip-hop artist, MC Tingbudong.  His work concerns the historical and contemporary cultural connections between Black America and China, social movements, memory, and augmented/virtual/hyperreality.

As MC Tingbudong, he has performed extensively across the U.S. and China: including the South by Southwest Music Festival, China Week LA, Yue Space, NOX Chengdu, and MTA Music Music Festival. In 2018, he was part of the Found Sound China artist-in-residence program, and in 2019, headlined an independent tour in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In 2021, he co-headlined the Chinatown Tour - which brought hip-hop performances from Black and Asian artists to Chinatowns around the country. He is a Senior Fellow at USC Annenberg’s Innovation Lab, and an advisory artist in residence with the Bandung Residency - a collaborative program between the Asian Arts Alliance and the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora. His work has been featured in PBS and the South China Morning Post.

Morten Oxenboell, Director of the East Asian Studies Center at IU Bloomington, was a guest speaker at the IUN College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference on Apr. 20. The topic of his talk was “Violence and Local Governance in Weak State Societies: Lessons from Medieval Japan, c. 1200—1400”.

Professor Oxenboell got his Ph.D. from the University of Copenhagen in Japanese history. He is an expert in Japanese medieval violence, exploring multiple social and cultural meanings of violence and conflict from the belief that they can raise new questions about the role and status of violence today. He has studied non-governmental violent actors and their significance for state formations and the development of conflict mediation strategies between centers and peripheries. Aside from conflict studies, Dr. Oxenboell examines the premodern political and social history, the culture of violence, martial suicide, and early modern Japanese visions of the medieval past. He has also introduced considerable comparative elements, where he examines similar phenomena in European medieval contexts, as well as in other societies with a relatively low degree of central control. His book Akutō: Rural Conflicts in Medieval Japan, published in 2018, offers the first in-depth analysis in English of an understudied phenomenon in medieval Japanese history: the so-called akutō (literally, “evil bands”). Professor Oxenboell has also published multiple book chapters and journal articles in venues that include the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, History and Theory, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Historisk Tidsskrift, and Monomenta Nipponica.

Professor Oxenboell is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Paul V. McNutt and Kathleen McNutt Watson Professorship in Japanese Studies, Indiana University from 2017-2022, the Mellon Innovating International Research, Teaching, and Collaboration Award, New Frontiers of Creativity and Scholarship Award at IU, and the Mosaic senior faculty fellowship at IU, among others.

The following is the recorded lecture.

Asia Day was celebrated at IUN on Apr. 4, 2023, with much fanfare. The IUN Asian American Student Association and local Crown Point High School students showcased Bollywood dance and Indian Classical Dance. MUSOU BLACK, a new KPOP group from Indianapolis led by Adrian Chris Alora, its artistic director and choreographer performed 3 song mashup of “Zoom” by Jessi into “ANTIFRAGILE” by LE SSERAFIM into “I CAN’T STOP ME” by TWICE, and “How You Like That” by BLACKPINK. MUSOU BLACK performance was sponsored with a grant from the East Asian Studies Center at IU Bloomington.

There was also a student/faculty mixed Naatu Naatu Group Dance based on the theme song of the 2023 Oscar-Winning movie RRR, which was also performed at the Oscar ceremony, followed by Indian traditional costume fashion show.
People were also getting henna tattoos at a side table, and there were lunch boxes catered by Tandoor Restaurant in Schererville.

Asia Day 2023 was sponsored by the Student Government Association, Office of Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs, School of Business and Economics, IUN East Asian Studies Gateway, CIS, and College of Arts and Sciences.

See more pictures of Asia Day 2023 HERE

IUN Roundtable China Seminar-Nov. 3, 2022

IUN East Asian Studies Gateway and the College of Arts and Sciences co-hosted a roundtable seminar on China's internal policies and foreign relations at the Bergland Auditorium between 10 am-12 pm. 

Seminar itinerary:

Introduction: Xiaoqing Diana Chen Lin, Professor of History and East Asian Studies Gateway Coordinator, IUN

Welcome speech: Mark Hoyert, IUN COAS Dean

Welcome speech: Anja Matwijkiw, Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor, Women and Gender Studies, IUN; Fulbright Distinguished Chair, Lund University, 2019‒2020

On “lamenting the miserable”: How Peasant Women’s Nüshu En/Countered Chinese Patriarchy

Mashrur Hossain, Professor, Department of English, Jahangirnagar University; Fulbright scholar, Purdue University Northwest and IU Northwest

The Himalayan Drama: Why the China-India Border Dispute Is Not Only about Geopolitics

Antonina Luszczykiewicz, Assistant Professor, Jagiellonian University, Fulbright Scholar, Indiana University in Bloomington

Regional Distinctions Among China’s Ethnic Minority Groups and Their Versions of Islam

Michael Brose, Professor, Central Eurasian Studies, IU Bloomington

U.S.-China Relations Through the Chinese Lens: What Does China See in This Relationship?

Yu Shen, Professor of History, IU Southeast

US Foreign Policy Toward China: From Nixon to the Present

Nicole Anslover, Associate Professor of History and Adjunct Associate Professor, Women and Gender Studies, IUN

Refreshments and a light luncheon will be served before and after the seminar.

This event was sponsored by: IUN College of Arts and Sciences; the Office of Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs (ODEMA), IUN; Indiana University Bloomington East Asian Studies Center; IUN Women’s and Gender Studies Program.

News coverage of the seminar by NWI.Life

IUN Asia Day - November 2021

IUN East Asian Studies Gateway co-organized the Nov. 2021 IUN Asia Day activities with Dr. Surekha Rao of IUN School of Business and Economics, and Asian American Students Association, with sponsorship from ODEMA, SoBE, CIS, SGA, COAS, and IU Bloomington East Asian Studies Center.