Asian Transformations

In celebration of York University's 50th anniversary, the York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR) is presenting an event series – Asian Transformations – which reflect upon key transformations and continuities in Asian societies and Asian diasporas, in Asian studies, and in Canadian engagements with Asia.

* Inaugural Asia Lecture

The Lecture was given by Dr. Veena Das, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University on Thursday, 24 September 2009 at York University. She spoke on "Poverty and the Imagination of a Future: The Story of Urban Slums in Delhi, India".

To view the lecture given by Professor Das, click here.

Das is one of the most well known social theorists specializing on South Asia today. She is particularly known for her research on the anthropology of violence, social suffering and the state in South Asia. Amongst her many works are Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary (California UP, 2006), Critical Events: An Anthropological Approach to Contemporary India (Oxford UP, 1995); Structure and Cognition: Aspects of Hindu Caste and Ritual (Oxford University Press, 1977), and the edited and co-edited volumes Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia (Oxford UP, 1990), Social Suffering (California UP, 1998); Violence and Subjectivity (California UP, 2000). Professor Das received the Anders Retzius Gold Medal from the Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography in 1995 and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Chicago in 2000. She is an Honorary Foreign Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Thursday, 24 September 2009, York University

* The Global Modern: Transnationalism and the Media in Asia symposium

The symposium explores the transnational origins and dimensions of the modern mass media in Asia. Demonstrating that various forms of South and East Asian media were global from their inception, the workshop both reinforces themes explored in the accompanying exhibition on diasporic Asian art and belies the commonly held conception that globalization is a post-modern, post-capitalist, late 20th century development

The paper givers: Joan Judge (Humanities, Women’s Studies), Shobna Nijhawan (Languages, Literatures and Linguistics), Xueqing Xu (Languages, Literatures and Linguistics), Wendy Wong (Design), Sailaja Krishnamurti (South Asian Studies) and Doris Sung (Social and Political Thought) will explore these themes looking at various forms of media including women’s journals and comics from China to India to Canada.

Judy Andrews, a specialist in Chinese painting and modern Chinese art from Ohio State University, will present the keynote lecture at 4pm on 'Publishing and the Birth of China's Modern Art World: Shanghai huabao (Pictorial Shanghai) in the 1920s'.

Friday, 15 May 2009 at York University.

The schedule is available here.


* transpulsation – new asian canadian imaginings exhibition

The Exhibition opening was held on 15 May 2009

Cultural traversing and globalization are two overriding features of the present state that (re)shape our understanding of the “connected world.”  In Canadian context, these features hold a significant importance in terms of their effects on Asian Diaspora, whose interaction with their homelands has been transforming their living experience in social, economic, political, and cultural domains.  Asian-Canadians, as one of the largest groups of immigrants, have testified to the possibilities of building meaningful links between their native places and their newly-adopted home, enriching their life experience by traversing from “here” and “there.” 

While desire of belonging, identity politics and memory of culture among others were commonly detected themes in the works of Asian Canadian artists in the 1970s to the early 1990s, in recent years, “transnationality” has been a newly emerging trend reflected in works produced by artists of Asian heritage. As opportunities for traveling to and from Asia become more readily available, the geographical distance—both physical and emotional—between one’s place of cultural origin and Canada is narrower than ever before. While “identity” remains a crucial issue to understand who they are, these artists have reconstructed the paradigm of identity politics through broadening the scopes of cultural interactions.

The four artists, Shelly Bahl, Will Kwan, Meera Sethi and Amy Wong, who participate in this exhibition, demonstrate new possibilities to comprehend the constantly transforming and far-reaching effects of cultural interactions.  Traversing between the macrocosm of political economy and migration studies to the microcosm of personal narratives, the artists display their inspirations, visions and contentions of the notion of globalization in their works in an attempt to create meaningful dialogues between Asia and Canada.  They are travelers who explore stories of being “here and there,” connecting pulses of multiple locales and individuals.  transpulsation opens on Friday, 15 May 2009.

The Exhibition ran from 15 May to 12 June 2009, Gales Gallery, Accolade West Building, York University.

Photos from the installation are available here.

For more information on the 'Asian Transformations' series, contact us at ycar@yorku.ca. For a complete listing of events celebrating York's anniversary, visit www.yorku50.ca.