East Asian-Related Graduate Student Workshops

The Art and Politics of East Asia workshop provides a common intellectual forum for students and scholars of diverse fields investigating the interaction of aesthetics with political economy as reflected in textual and visual media in East Asia. Taking as its focus the cultural products emerging out of East Asian societies as they experience modernity, the workshop confronts existing theoretical frameworks and methodological issues relevant to the study of artistic production and consumption. The workshop is a space for students to share their work, discuss major cross-regional themes, and engage the work of noted scholars in the field. 

This workshop meets alternate Fridays, 3:00-5:00 PM. For further information, please visit the workshop website. 

Faculty Sponsors: Paola Iovene, Melissa Van Wyk
2023-2024 Student Coordinator(s): Danlin Zhang, Hang Wu and James Kennerly

The workshop has a long tradition of promoting inter-disciplinary conversation among students and faculty members whose interests lie in East Asia. Topics discussed in the workshop cover politics, economy, society and culture. Students and faculty from different academic fields are encouraged to present their original work. Presenters come from disciplines like sociology, political science, economics, anthropology, history, etc. This workshop provides a valuable venue for them to present their on-going projects and receive critiques and encouragement. 

Weekly activities for this workshop have temporarily been suspended, with ad hoc sessions to take place. Please visit the workshop website for updates.

Faculty Sponsors: Zhaotian Luo, Dali Yang

This workshop invites students, faculty and scholars from other academic communities to present creative and original work that speaks across the national lines of East Asia as well as the disciplinary lines of the academic community. Presentations that incorporate multidisciplinary and/or transregional historical perspectives are especially encouraged. While recognizing the continuing importance of the nation-state in historical understanding, we believe that it is just as important to give exposure to themes of a transnational and regional or global nature that have been obscured by the national paradigm. Such approaches can prove particularly fruitful when undertaken at a level of understanding beyond traditional departmental and specialty boundaries. The workshop invites advanced students, faculty, and outside speakers and visitors from the humanities and social sciences to present papers on the topic of East Asia and its multiple and contending historical definitions.

This workshop meets every Thursdays, 4:00-5:30 PM. For further information, please visit the workshop website. 

Faculty Sponsors: Jacob Eyferth, Yuting Dong
2023-2024 Student Coordinator(s): Xue Ruiling and Aimee Pizarchik

This workshop is focused on the study of material and visual objects from East Asia (defined to include China, Central Asia, Korea and Japan, and other regions). It explores the possible uses of recent theories of art, history, and material and visual culture in the study of East Asia. Presentations of studies of objects, sites, visual materials, and built environments cover a variety of historical periods and geographical concerns within East Asia. Flexible in how the methodologies are defined, this workshop does not limit itself to art history, but also includes archeology, anthropology, and a wide range of fields of visual studies, such as film, museum studies, and visual culture etc. The workshop is about half student presentations and about half outside speakers.  

This workshop meets alternate Wednesdays 4:45-6:45 PM. For further information, please visit the workshop website. 

Faculty Sponsors: Hung Wu, Chelsea Foxwell
2023-2024 Student Coordinator(s): Yan Jin and Alan Longino