NYCAS '99 Conference
Program
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NYCAS '99 Conference
Program
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CONFERENCE SUMMARY
6:00 PM-8:00 PM: Teacher-Training Workshop 1 - Japan: Cuisine and Culture (Faculty Dining Room, Scandling Center)
8:45 AM-4:00 PM: Conference Registration and Book Exhibit (Atrium, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
9:00 AM-12:00 PM: Teacher-Training Workshop 2 - The Puppet Traditions of India and Indonesia (Comstock Dining Room)
9:00 AM-10:15 AM: Plenary Session 1 - Art, Symbol, and Culture in Japan
and Bali (Blue Room, Scandling Center)
10:45 AM-12:00 PM: Plenary Session 2 - New Perspectives on
Feminism, Ethnicity, and Orientalism (Blue Room, Scandling Center)
12:30 PM-1:30 PM: Plenary Session 3 - Understanding Each Other's World
View: East and West (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
1:00 PM-2:30 PM: Teacher-Training Workshop 3 - The Puppet Tradition of Japan (Comstock Dining Room)
1:45 PM-2:45 PM: Plenary Session 4 - The Departed Spirits of the Viet Realm as a Teaching Tool for Early Vietnam (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
3:00 PM-4:00 PM: Teacher-Training Workshop 4: The Wayang Puppet Tradition of Java (Comstock Dining Room)
3:00 PM-4:00 PM: Plenary Session 5 - Price Revolutions in Japanese History (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
4:15 PM-5:45 PM: Panel Session 1
1A - Foreign Devils East and West: Theatrical "Realism" and the Implications of Public Performance (Bartlett Theater, Coxe Hall)
1B - Social and Political Change in the People's Republic of China, 1955-1998 (Geneva Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
1C - Papers on Modern South Asian History and Society (Coxe Hall 7)
1D - Ideas of "Other" in Southeast Asian Writings (Coxe Hall 8)
1E - Warlords, Militarists, and Laborers: China and the World, 1915-1945 (Gulick Hall 100)
1F - Love and Death: Portraits of Women in East Asian Literatures (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
6:15 PM-8:00 PM: Conference Dinner (Faculty Dining Room, Scandling Center)
8:15 PM-9:30 PM: Indian Dance Program (Geneva Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
7:30 AM: NYCAS Executive Board Meeting (Delancey House Conference Room)
8:45 AM-12:00 PM: Conference Registration and Book Exhibit (Atrium, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
9:00 AM-10:30 AM: Panel Session 2
2A - Roundtable: Contemporary Developments in India and China (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
2B - Prevention of Victimization: Analyses of Cases in Asia (Geneva Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
2C - Papers on Japanese Literature (Coxe Hall 7)
2D - Fifty Years of the People's Republic of China (Coxe Hall 8)
2E - Region and Polity in China during the Ming Period (Gulick Hall 100)
10:45 AM-12:15 PM: Panel Session 3
3A - Roundtable: Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Millennium (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
3B - Papers on Post-War Japanese History and Society (Geneva Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
3C - Images of Women in Chinese Drama (Coxe Hall 7)
3D - Spirited Politics: Public Life and Religion in Contemporary Southeast Asia (Coxe Hall 8)
3E - Papers on Contemporary Taiwanese Society and Culture (Gulick Hall 100)
12:30 PM-1:45 PM: Conference Luncheon and NYCAS Annual Meeting (Faculty Dining Room, Scandling Center)
2:00 PM-3:30 PM: Panel Session 4
4A - Nationalist China at War, 1937-1945 (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
4B - Re-imagining Religious Conversion in South Asian Islam: Diverse Muslim Points of View (Geneva Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
4C - Gender, Politics, and Public Policy in Contemporary Southeast Asia (Coxe Hall 7)
4D - Explorations in the Study of Chinese Poetry (Coxe Hall 8)
4E - Language, Culture, and Communication in Contemporary China (Gulick Hall 100)
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
TEACHER-TRAINING WORKSHOPS
WORKSHOP 1 - 6:00-8:00 PM (Faculty Dining Room, Scandling Center)
JAPAN: CUISINE AND CULTURE
This workshop, at which the participants will have the opportunity to eat a traditional Japanese meal, explores the way in which Japanese cuisine reflects and defines Japan's ethnic and cultural identity. Among the topics to be discussed are the utensils used in cooking, serving, and eating Japanese food, the customs and rituals surrounding the presentation and consumption of meals in Japan, and the ways in which food and eating in Japan relate to religion, gender, and family life. Curricular and background material will be provided to assist teachers in developing teaching strategies. Presenting this workshop will be Theodore Bestor and Victoria Lyon Bestor. Theodore Bestor is Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at Cornell University. An authority on Japanese food culture, Professor Bestor's current research explores transnational flows of commodities and taste, the global reach of Japan's fishing industry, and growing concerns about marine resources and environmental regulations of seafood products. Victoria Lyon Bestor is an Associate in Research in Cornell's East Asia Program. Ms. Bestor organized numerous outreach programs on Japan at Columbia University and spent 1997-98 in Japan as a Fulbright scholar. She currently is writing a book on the legacy of Rockefeller philanthropy in Japan. Together the Bestors are editing a book on Japanese food culture.
WORKSHOP 2 -- 9:00 AM-12:00 PM (Comstock Dining Room)
THE PUPPET TRADITIONS OF INDIA AND INDONESIA
Sponsored by the National Resource Center for South Asia at Syracuse and Cornell Universities, the Committee on Conferences of the Association for Asian Studies, and the Office of the Provost at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, this workshop is designed for teachers of primary, junior high, and high school students. The Resource Center for South Asia has been working with the Open Hand Theater and the Puppet Museum in Syracuse to create a workshop that will introduce teachers to the puppet traditions of both India and Indonesia. The workshop will begin with a brief performance of parts of the Hindu epic the Ramayana, one of the primary stories in India's and Indonesia's shadow puppet traditions. The workshop then will move on to hands-on experience that will included making puppets, learning how to manipulate them, and an explanation of the effects to be achieved through variation in lighting. Teachers will be provided with a set of materials to take back to their classrooms.
WORKSHOP 3 -- 1:00-2:30 PM (Comstock Dining Room)
THE PUPPET TRADITION OF JAPAN
Sponsored by the East Asia Program at Cornell University, the Committee on Conferences of the Association for Asian Studies, and the Office of the Provost at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, this workshop will use Japanese ritual puppetry's rich theatrical history as a cast to explore the uses of puppetry as a performance medium. Based on a presentation of the history of ritual uses of puppets in Japan, this workshop will include slides that will illustrate the range of Japanese ritual uses of puppets, texts from Japanese ritual performances, and discussion of the ways in which the puppets were used in a variety of ritual settings including contact with the dead, purification rites, rites of mourning, and invocation of forces of danger and destruction for appeasement. The workshop then will consider the ways in which the material can be used in theater and writing classes at the junior high and high school levels to allow students to express a wide range of emotion and existential predicaments that can be seen as universal to the human condition. This workshop will be conducted by Jane Marie Law, Professor of Religion and Director of the Religious Studies Program at Cornell University. Professor Law is a leading scholar on Japanese ritual puppetry whose book Puppets of Nostalgia recently was published by Princeton University Press.
WORKSHOP 4 -- 3:00-4:00 PM (Comstock Dining Room)
THE WAYANG PUPPET TRADITION OF JAVA
This workshop will focus on the current trends in the performance of wayang puppet theater and the relationship of the new developments in performance practice to traditional wayang in Java. The program will include video examples that are intended to highlight the skill of the puppeteer and the inter-relationship of the different elements of wayang performance: music; puppet movement; song; choreography; design; and narrative. This workshop will be conducted by Martin Hatch, Associate Professor of Music, Director of the Gamalan Ensemble, and member of the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University.
PLENARY SESSION 1 - 9:00-10:15 AM (Blue Room, Scandling Center)
ART, SYMBOL, AND CULTURE IN JAPAN AND BALI
Chair: Elena Ciletti, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
"Lions, Witches, and Happy Old Men: Some Parallels Between Balinese and Japanese Masks"
M. J. Coldiron, University of London/Hamilton College"Material Culture of the Japanese Tea Ceremony: Fetish and Allusion"
James-Henry Holland, Hobart and William Smith CollegesIn the first paper for this plenary session, M. J. Coldiron will discuss some startling parallels between certain masks used in Japanese and Balinese masked dance-drama. The masks that will be compared -- the "dog-lions" Shi-Shi and Barong, the witch-like Hannya and Rangda, and the sacred old men Okina and Sidha Karya -- suggest that certain archetypes have found similar iconographic form in these two quite separate cultures. James-Henry Holland's paper first will catalogue and illustrate the ways in which tea ceremony utensils in Japan are fetishized and then will show how they are used to make complex, multi-vocal allusions. The animistic, and perhaps religious, attitudes shown by tea practitioners about their utensils indicate important symbolic roles for these art pieces.
PLENARY SESSION 2 - 10:45-12:00 PM (Blue Room, Scandling Center)
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON FEMINISM, ETHNICITY, AND ORIENTALISM
Chair: Sherrie Tucker, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Donald Lopez, Jr's Tibet
Jennifer L. Manlowe, Long Island University"New Bodies of Diaspora: Reading Amy Tan and Hanif Kureshi"
Biman Basu, Hobart and William Smith CollegesIn the first paper for this plenary session, Jennifer L. Manlowe will investigate the intersection between postcolonial and feminist criticism, via the Western fascination with Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet in general. Linking representation of cultural and sexual difference, the paper will show how the Orientalist rhetoric of Tibet's "virginal landscape" and "simple religious people" in need of protection and salvation has functioned as the veiled interior of a masculinist Western identity. Manlowe will utilize the work of Donald Lopez's ouvre, especially Prisoners of Shangi-la and Curators of the Buddha, as well as the work of Meyda Yegenoglu entitled Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism. In the second paper, Biman Basu will use the work of Amy Tan, Hanif Kureshi, and others to show how issues of gender cannot be isolated from issues of ethnicity. For example, when women violate a nationalist/ethnic definition of womanhood, they are seen as "white" or Westernized, but also "masculinized." On the other hand, when a man violates a nationalist/ethnic definition of manhood, he is seen as "assimilating" to "whiteness," but also as "effeminate." In both cases, then, gendered parameters are transcribed as national/ethnic ones.
PLENARY SESSION 3 -- 12:30-1:30 PM (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
UNDERSTANDING EACH OTHER'S WORLD VIEW: EAST AND WEST
Chair: Richard G. Dillon, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Presenter: Masako Hamada, Villanova University
As transportation and communication technologies improve, the world seems smaller than ever. In fact, people are talking about living in a "global village". However, even in a village people sometimes have trouble communicating. Moreover, as people have more and more opportunities to travel, work abroad, and interact with people from other cultures, there are more opportunities for cultural misunderstanding. Therefore, it is very important to improve our awareness and understanding of each other's world view to help solve cultural misunderstanding and potential conflict. In this workshop, which will include simulation, role playing, discussion, and observation, participants will explore the interactions between different cultures, emphasizing both the clash of opposing sides and the possibilities for reconciliation.
PLENARY SESSION 4 -- 1:45-2:45 PM (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
THE DEPARTED SPIRITS OF THE VIET REALM AS A TEACHING TOOL FOR EARLY VIETNAM
Presenters: Brian Ostrowski, Cornell University
Brian Zottoli, University of Michigan
This workshop, sponsored by the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University, is part of the Program's post-secondary curriculum project. The workshop will make available to participants a recently-completed English translation of one of the earliest Vietnamese compilations of folk tales, the Viet Dien U Linh or Departed Spirits of the Viet Realm attributed to author Ly Te Xuyen in 1329, and explore ways in which instructors might use this text in the classroom. The translators of the text will describe their project and offer a reading of selections from the work, which consists of 27 short tales of historical, semi-historical, and mythical figures worshipped in early Vietnam. A short slide presentation will show some of the temples at which modern Vietnamese continue to worship figures in the text, and the translators will discuss possible teaching applications of the work. The workshop will be conducted by the translators of the text, Brian Ostrowski and Brian Zottoli.
PLENARY SESSION 5 -- 3:00-4:00 PM (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
PRICE REVOLUTIONS IN JAPANESE HISTORY
Chair: John Chaffee, SUNY-Binghamton
Presenter: Mark Metzler, Utica College
Price inflation has been a long-run process in human history, but the increase in prices over time has been far from consistent. Over the past five centuries, Japan's price history shows a pattern of long phases of inflationary price revolution alternating with long phases of price equilibrium. Price revolutions were phases of population growth and economic growth more generally, while phases of equilibrium were phases of slower growth or stagnation. Japan's experience resembles the pattern of price revolutions analyzed in regard to Western history by David Hackett Fischer in his book The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History (1998). Japan's experience offers striking support for Fischer's thesis about the linkage of price revolutions and population revolutions but also forces us to rethink Fischer's evaluation of the social and economic character of these processes. It is also possible to carry Fischer's theory further in analyzing the internal temporal structure of price revolutions. The implications of these ideas are great. This conception of price revolutions implies that the current economic crisis in Japan, coming together with a virtual halt in population growth and a simultaneous turn to price deflation, may signal a historical turning point on a very long time scale, comparable to the turn from the Genroku expansion to the Kyh deflation in the early eighteenth century. The long historical view may reveal aspects of the present crisis in economics, politics, and society that are invisible in a shorter-term perspective.
PANEL SESSION 1 - 4:15-5:45 PM
1A (Bartlett Theater, Coxe Hall)
FOREIGN DEVILS EAST AND WEST: THEATRICAL "REALISM" AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF PUBLIC PERFORMANCE
Organizer and Chair: Randy Barbara Kaplan, SUNY-Geneseo
"Overseas Oversights: The Exiled Student in Recent Chinese Plays"
Claire Conceison, Cornell University"Unsafe Sex in American Drama: When Desire and Revulsion Collide with Race and Gender"
Randy Barbara Kaplan, SUNY-Geneseo"The Chinese Shanghaied in the Service of the Past"
Dave Williams, Ohio State University at NewarkDiscussant: Robert F. Gross, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
1B (Geneva Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CHANGE IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, 1955-1998
Chair and Discussant: Jeremy Shiffman, Syracuse University
"De/Humanizing Production: Model Workers, Machines, and Modernization in Mao's China"
Tina Mai Chen, University of Manitoba"No Longer Restless? Student Attitudes in Post-1989 China"
Luo Xu, SUNY College at Cortland1C (Coxe Hall 7)
PAPERS ON MODERN SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY AND SOCIETY
Chair: Virginia Tilley, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
"Fifty Years of India's Independence: An Appraisal"
Mohammad I. Khan, Clarion University of Pennsylvania"Crafting Citizens: Children and Nationalism in Nepal"
Lazima Onta-Bhatta, Cornell University"Social Movements and New Citizenship in India"
Manisha Desai, Hobart and William Smith Colleges1D (Coxe Hall 8)
IDEAS OF "OTHER" IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITINGS
Organizer and Chair: Tracy C. Barrett, Cornell University
"King Vajiravudh's The Jews of the Orient: Certain Questions of Contextualization"
Tracy C. Barrett, Cornell University"Negotiating the Other: Siamese and Southern Vietnamese Royal Discourse in the Late Eighteenth Century"
Wynn Wilcox, Cornell University"The Story of the Goddess in Van Cat (Truyen Nu Than o Van Cat) as the First Biography of the Priestess Lieu Hanh"
Olga Dror, Cornell UniversityDiscussant: Tamara Loos, Cornell University
1E (Gulick Hall 100)
WARLORDS, MILITARISTS, AND LABORERS: CHINA AND THE WORLD, 1915-1945
Chair: Sherman Cochran, Cornell University
"Warlord Foreign Relations: Yunnan Militarists and the Burma-Yunnan Border Dispute
Thomas McGrath, Cornell University"'Laborers as Soldiers': China's Contribution to World War I"
Guoqi Xu, Kalamazoo College"A Preliminary Study of Forced Chinese Labor under Japanese Occupation"
Richard Chu, Rochester Institute of TechnologyDiscussant: Joyce Madancy, Union College
1F (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
LOVE AND DEATH: PORTRAITS OF WOMEN IN EAST ASIAN LITERATURES
Organizer and Chair: Meiling Wu, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
"The Geography of Identity in Diana Chang's Frontiers of Love"
Su-ching Huang, University of Rochester"Because I Loved You: Murderesses in Japanese Literature"
Eriko Hashimoto, SUNY-Binghamton"Love Beyond Death: An Alternative Reading of Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses"
Meiling Wu, Hobart and William Smith CollegesDiscussant: Karen Chow, University of Connecticut
PANEL SESSION 2 - 9:00-10:30 AM
2A (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
ROUNDTABLE: CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTS IN INDIA AND CHINA
Organizer and Chair: Steven A. Leibo, Sage/SUNY/H-ASIA
Panelists: Murray Rubinstein, Baruch College, CUNY
Tom Grunfield, Empire State College, SUNY
Shahid Refai, College of St. Rose
2B (Geneva Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
PREVENTION OF VICTIMIZATION: ANALYSES OF CASES IN ASIA
Organizer and Chair: Yoshihiko Ariizumi, Lafayette College
"Education to Prevent Victimization"
Yoshihiko Ariizumi, Lafayette College"The Power and Limits of Laws to Prevent Victimization"
Toshiyuki Namai, Lafayette College2C (Coxe Hall 7)
PAPERS ON JAPANESE LITERATURE
Chair and Discussant: Karen Brazell, Cornell University
"Poetic Devices - A Translator's Nightmare in The Diary of Izumi Shikibu"
Yasuko Sensui, Washington University in St Louis"Performing the Past: Evocations of Space and Time in Rakugo Performance Texts"
Patricia Welch, Hofstra University2D (Coxe Hall 8)
FIFTY YEARS OF THE PEOPLES' REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Organizer and Chair: Jie Zhang, SUNY College at Buffalo
"Changes in Mass Communication in China"
Junhao Hong, University of Buffalo"Political Reform in China"
Baohui Zhang, Daemen CollegeDiscussant: Xuehong Lu, SUNY-Buffalo
2E (Gulick Hall 100)
REGION AND POLITY IN CHINA DURING THE MING PERIOD
Organizer and Chair: Anne Csete, St. Lawrence University
"Voices from the Shore of Pearls: The Writings of Hai Rui and Qiu Jun about Hainan Island
Anne Csete, St. Lawrence University"Fengsu in Ming Jiangnan: Stereotyping and Self Identity"
Ming-te Pan, SUNY College at Oswego"Empire and Diversity" Violence in Northeast China during the Fifteenth Century"
David Robinson, Colgate UniversityDiscussant: Roger Des Forges, SUNY-Buffalo
PANEL SESSION 3 (10:45-12:15)
3A (Sanford Room, William Hunting Smith Library)
ROUNDTABLE: AFGHANISTAN, CENTRAL ASIA, AND THE MILLENNIUM
Organizer and Chair: Mohammad Khan, Clarion University of Pennsylvania
Panelists: Quadir Amiryar, George Washington University
Ernest Thomas Green, U.S. Department of State (retired)
George W. Collins, Wichita State University3B (Geneva Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
PAPERS ON POST-WAR JAPANESE HISTORY AND SOCIETY
Chair and Discussant: J. Victor Koschmann, Cornell University
"Science 'Without Compulsion': Redeeming Planning for a Postwar Japan"
Scott P. O'Bryan, Columbia University"Restructuring of the Local-Center Relationship in the Post-World War II Japanese State"
Sayuri Shimizu, Michigan State University3C (Coxe Hall 7)
IMAGES OF WOMEN IN CHINESE DRAMA
Organizer and Chair: Wenwei Du, Vassar College
"Representation of Women in Yuan Zaju: A Reading of the Play Yuan Yang Bei"
Hongchu Fu, Smith College"Pan Jinlian and Xi Shi: Lascivious Woman and Virtuous Beauty Re-portrayed on the Present-day Stage"
Wenwei Du, Vassar College"Women as a Tragic Force in Newly-written Historical Plays"
Boliang Xie, Shanghai Theatre AcademyDiscussant: Meiling Wu, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
3D (Coxe Hall 8)
SPIRITED POLITICS: PUBLIC LIFE AND RELIGION IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTHEAST ASIA
Organizer and Chair: Smita Lahiri, Cornell University
"Politics, Law, and the Disciplining of Contemporary Thai Spirit Mediums"
Erick D. White, Cornell University"From Home to Wat: Politics and Funerals in Provincial Thailand"
Thamora V. Fishel, Cornell University"Patronage or Prowess? The Politics of the Spiritual in a Philippine Election"
Smita Lahiri, Cornell UniversityDiscussant: Andrew Willford, Cornell University
3E (Gulick Hall 100)
PAPERS ON CONTEMPORARY TAIWANESE SOCIETY AND CULTURE
Chair: Ronald G. Knapp, SUNY-New Paltz
"National Identity and Ethnicity in Taiwan: Some Trends in the 1990s"
Robert M. Marsh, Brown University"Industrial Structure and Urban Development in a Dynamic Economy: Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan
Li-Wei Liu, Cornell University"The Blue Whirlwind Strikes Below the Belt: An Anthropological Investigation of the Viagra Craze in Taiwan"
Paul E. Festa, Jr., Cornell University
PANEL SESSION 4 (2:00-3:30)
4A (Sanford Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
NATIONALIST CHINA AT WAR, 1937-1945
Organizer and Chair: David P. Barrett, McMaster University
"From Regionalism to Nationalism: The Integration of Sichuan into the Nationalist State during the Anti-Japanese War"
Larry N. Shyu, University of New Brunswick"American Assistance and Nationalist Air Power: The Changing Image of Claire Chenneault in the People's Republic of China"
Patrick Fuliang Shan, McMaster University"Soviet Perceptions of the Nationalist War Effort: Diplomatic and Military Memoirs from Chongqing"
David P. Barrett, McMaster University4B (Geneva Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
RE-IMAGINING RELIGIOUS CONVERSION IN SOUTH ASIAN ISLAM: DIVERSE MUSLIM POINTS OF VIEW (Sponsored by the South Asian Muslim Studies Association -SAMSA)
Organizer and Chair: Shahid Refai, College of St. Rose
"Philosophical and Psychological Issues in Religious Conversion"
Russell Blackwood, Hamilton College"Conversion Dilemma: A Look Back to the Last 200 Years"
Omar Afzal, Cornell University"The Contextualization of the Durgah, the Zikr, and the Urs in the Missionary Work of the Refai Sufis in South Asia"
Shahid Refai, College of St RoseDiscussant: Lowell Bloss, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
4C (Coxe Hall 7)
GENDER, POLITICS, AND PUBLIC POLICY IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTHEAST ASIA
Chair and Discussant: Manisha Desai, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
"The Contemporary Feminist Movement in Indonesia"
Rudiah Primariantari, Escuela Popular Nortena"AIDS: A Gender, Sociocultural, and Economic Issue in Thailand"
Wichada Sukantarat, University of Vermont"Rural Women, Population Control, and the State in Indonesia"
Jeremy Shiffman, Syracuse University4D (Coxe Hall 8)
EXPLORATIONS IN THE STUDY OF CHINESE POETRY
Chair and Discussant: Chi-chiang Huang, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
"Restless on the Borderline - Military Poetry of Six Dynasties China"
Yimin Lu, University of Toronto"Ambiguous and Amiss: Li Shangyin's Poetry and Its Interpretations"
Li Zeng, York University4E (Gulick Hall 100)
LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND COMMUNICATION IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA
Chair and Discussant: Day-Lih Tung, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
"A Comparative Study of Metaphorical Thinking as Reflected in the Chinese and English Languages"
Ming Feng, SUNY Buffalo"Public Calligraphy in the People's Republic of China"
Sewell J. Oertling, SUNY-Oswego
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
6:15 PM CONFERENCE DINNER (Faculty Dining Room, Scandling Center)
Remarks by: Shahid Refai, President, NYCAS
Susan L.Mann, President, Association for Asian Studies8:15 PM INDIAN DANCE PROGRAM (Geneva Room, Warren Hunting Smith Library)
Performers: Durga Bor, Cornell University
Manisha Desai, Hobart and William Smith CollegesDurga Bor will present a performance of Odissi Dance. Originating in the central-eastern state of Orissa in India, Odissa classical dance was once done as a form of ritualistic temple worship by a particular sect of women known as mahari(s). The origin of this dance form is not certain, but it is believed to have evolved from ancient fertility cults and later Tantric rites. The pre-curser of modern-day Odissi can be traced back as far as 200 BCE based on archaeological evidence. In the middle of this century, a group of dance gurus and dance scholars formed an alliance known as the Jayantika and over a period of two years, met to re-systematize and codify this dance form based on ancient treatises, temple dance sculptures, and what, at that time, was being done by young male dancers known as gotipua(s) and by the mahari(s) in the one remaining temple where dance was still being performed. It thus has evolved from a form of worship to a performing art for the modern stage.
Durga Bor began her studies in Odissi classical dance at the Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado, in 1975. In 1976 she went to India to study in New Delhi under Guru Surendranath Jena at Triveni Kala Sangam and received a five-year diploma in 1981. In 1985 she was invited by the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Bombay, to participate in an intensive study program under the guidance of the renown Odissi master, Guru Kelu Charan Mohapatra. She returned to India in 1989 for fourteen months after being awarded a Professional Development Fellowship by the American Institute of Indian Studies. During that period she studied in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, at the Odissi Research Centre where she learned choreography from Manoranjan Pradhan and simultaneously received intensive training from Guru Gangahar Pradhan at the Orissa Dance Academy, doing both practical study and research. She returned to the United States in 1994, after being based in Amsterdam for thirteen years where she taught dance at the ISTAR School for Indian Music and Dance, De Nieuw Amsterdam Theatre School, and Muziekschool Amsterdam's Wereld Muziekschool. She has been teaching classical Indian dance and South Asian dance history and theory at Cornell University since 1995, and more recently at Syracuse University.
Manisha Desai will present a performance of Bharat Natyam, a classical Indian dance style. According to legend, Brahma, the creator, taught the dance to the Guru Bharata who performed it along with the celestial beings, the Apsaras and Gandharvas in front of Lord Shiva, also known as the King of Dance. Its earthly origins are in the temples of Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu. Originally performed by devdasis or temple dancers, it was formalized and institutionalized early in this century and through the work of some excellent teachers and the support of government sponsored agencies it has become a dynamic art form today. Bharat Natyam has three main elements, Natya or artistic expressions, Nrutya, body movements, and Nrutta, the combination of expressions and rhythm.
Manisha Desai is not a professional dancer but an enthusiastic amateur performer. She first began learning Bharat Natyam at the age of 8 with Guru Shetty and then continued working with several Gurus and at Vyjantimala's Dance Academy in Bombay. She worked with Asha Prem in St. Louis and performed her Arangeteram, graduation performance, in July 1990. She performs occasionally for area schools.
7:30 AM NYCAS EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING (Delancey House Conference Room)
12:30 PM CONFERENCE LUNCHEON AND NYCAS ANNUAL MEETING (Faculty Dining Room, Scandling Center)