Events

Performances will be in Japanese with English translation and projected subtitles provided.

April 1, 2025 | 5:00 pm CT

International House, Assembly Hall 1414 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637

A rare chance to see a live performance of traditional verbal arts featuring master performers from Japan. The evening will feature comic rakugo storytelling from San’yūtei Hakuchō, as well as Ryūtei Komichi; a dramatic kōdan recital by Kanda Yōko; and monomane mimicry by Edoya Nekohachi. Join us for a unique experience of the dynamism and diversity of the contemporary vaudeville stages of Japan (yose).  This tour was produced by Momoe Melon and organized by the Yale MacMillan Center Council on East Asian Studies under the guidance of Professor Aaron Gerow of Yale University.

Click HERE to register and for the full program schedule.

This program is part of a U.S. university tour planned in coordination with colleagues at the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University, and is co-sponsored with the International House Global Voices Program, and the Center for East Asian Studies with support in part by grant funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI National Resource Centers program. This event’s content does not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and one should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

“Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, Marx in the Anthropocene”

Lunch will be provided to those who register.

April 2, 2025 | 12:00 pm

University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies, Room 319, 1155 East 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637

Please click HERE to register and for more information!

This event is sponsored by the Committee on Japanese Studies at the Center for East Asian Studies.

Chen Danqing and Wu Hung in Conversation*

Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 4:45-6:45 pm | CWAC Room 156

Internationally acclaimed artist Chen Danqing will be in conversation with Wu Hung, Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History.

*Please note that this conversation will take place in Mandarin Chinese.

Chen Danqing Bio:

Chen Danqing is a Chinese-American artist, writer, and art critic. He is known for his realist depictions of nudes and rugged landscapes. Influenced by the paintings of Jean-François Millet, Chen empathetically portrayed Tibetan farmers and herdsman in the 1970s. He graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1980. In 1982, the artist emigrated to the United States, where he spent the next 18 years writing and painting in New York. Chen returned to China in 2000 as a professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He was awarded the prizes “50 Most Influential Chinese Intellectuals” (2004), “Top 10 Male Elites in China” (2005), “Elites of the Era” (2011), “Most Popular Author” (2011), Honorary Professorship of School of Humanities at Zhejiang University (2011), Lucie Foundation Award (2013) and others.

​He participated in numerous exhibitions worldwide, including Museum Europe D’Art Modern (Barcelona, Spain), Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy), Guggenheim Museum (New York, USA), Aros Museum (Aarhus, Denmark), Louis Blouin Foundation (London, UK), Asia Society Art Museum (New York, USA), Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (Shanghai, China), Minsheng Art Museum (Shanghai, China) etc. His work has been acquired by various museums and institutions, such as Harvard University, Chinese Academy of Fine Arts, National Art Museum of China, Jiangsu Provincial Museum, Military Museum of Chinese People’s Revolution, and private collections.

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His recent solo exhibitions include “Chen Danqing: Disguise and Paintings from Life,” Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong, 2019, and his biggest solo exhibition “Step Back 1968 - 2019” in Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2019.

Wu Hung Bio:

Wu Hung has published widely on both traditional and contemporary Chinese art. His interest in both traditional and modern/contemporary Chinese art has led him to experiment with different ways to integrate these conventionally separate phases into new kinds of art historical narratives, as exemplified by his Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture (1995), The Double Screen: Medium and Representation of Chinese Pictorial Art (1996), Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square: the Creation of a Political Space (2005), A Story of Ruins: Presence and Absence in Chinese Art and Visual Culture (2012), and Zooming In: Histories of Photography in China (2016). Several of his ongoing projects follow this direction to explore the interrelationship between art medium, pictorial image, and architectural space, the dialectical relationship between absence and presence in Chinese art and visual culture, and the relationship between art discourse and practice.

Wu Hung has received many awards for his publications and academic services, among which he is most proud of the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching at the University of Chicago (2007) and the Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Art Association (2008).

Wu Hung is Director of the Center for the Art of East Asia at the University of Chicago. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society and sits on the boards and advisory committees of many research institutes and museums in the United States and China.

Wu Hung delivered the Andrew W. Mellon Lectures at the National Art Gallery in 2019.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) thanks to generous funding from a Title VI National Resource Center Grant, U.S. Department of Education.

A film screening followed by a discussion and Q&A session featuring Director Yujiro Seki

A light dinner will be provided to registered attendees.

April 3, 2025 | 5:00 pm

Franke Institute for the Humanities, 1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637

Please click HERE to register and for more information!

This event is sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies and is supported in part by grant funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI National Resource Centers program. This event’s content does not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and one should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

“The Revival of Japanese Marxism in the 21st Century”

April 4, 2025 | 5:00 pm

International House, 1414 E. 59th St.

Please click HERE to register and for more information!

This event is co-sponsored by International House as part of the Global Voices Lecture Series program, and the Center for East Asian Studies.

“Nourishing Life: Cultures of Food and Health in Early Modern Japan”

April 8, 2025 | 12:30 pm

University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies, Room 319, 1155 East 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637

Please click HERE to register and for more information!

This event is sponsored by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies.

“Re-membering the Rickshaw: Transport Nostalgia and Transportation Wars in Postwar Japan”

April 21, 2025 | 5:00 pm

Franke Institute for the Humanities, 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, IL 60637

Please click HERE to register and for more information!

This event is sponsored by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies.

“The Stuff of Literary Labor: Thinking about Text (wenzi) in China, 1000-1800 CE”

May 13, 2025 | 5:00 pm

Joseph Regenstein Library, Room 122 1100 E. 57th St. Chicago, IL 60637

Please click HERE to register and for more information!

This event is co-sponsored with the University of Chicago Library and the Center for East Asian Studies.

“Coercive Commerce: Global Capital and Imperial Governance at the End of the Qing Empire”

May 15, 2025 | 4:00 pm

Seminary Co-op Bookstores, 5751 South Woodlawn Avenue Chicago, IL 60637

Please click HERE to register and for more information!

This event is co-sponsored with the University of Chicago Library and the Center for East Asian Studies.