South Asia Studies Program – 91 News /news Thu, 25 Mar 2021 18:08:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 ArtSci Roundup: Fighting Visibility: Unpaid Gendered & Racialized Labor for the UFC, Beverly Guy-Sheftall – Say Her Name: The Urgency of Black Feminism Now, and More /news/2021/03/25/artsci-roundup-fighting-visibility-unpaid-gendered-racialized-labor-for-the-ufc-beverly-guy-sheftall-say-her-name-the-urgency-of-black-feminism-now-and-more/ Thu, 25 Mar 2021 18:08:27 +0000 /news/?p=73493 During this time of uncertainty and isolation, find solace in digital opportunitiesto connect, share, and engage. Each week, we will share upcoming events that bring the 91, and the greater community, together online.

Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All 91 faculty, staff, and students have access to.


Fighting Visibility: Unpaid Gendered & Racialized Labor for the UFC

March 31, 3:30 – 5:00 PM |

In the first COM Spring Colloquium, hosted by the Department of Communication, Dr. Jennifer McClearen specifically considers how UFC athletes navigate the labor of visibility on social media.She examines interviews with female UFC fighters and discourse analysis of UFC content. Building followers online, engaging with fans, and promoting sponsors as micro-influencers is an unpaid and often invisible form of aspirational labor that the UFC strongly encourages its fighters to undertake. Dr. McClearen considers how white women and women of color navigate the athletic labor of femininity to promote themselves online. She argues that theUFC’s unpaid labor practices leverage a disproportionate gendered and racialized tax on the very women it claims to make visible at unprecedented levels.

Free |


Live Webinar: Mellon Sawyer Seminars “Humanitarianisms” Series: Sinan Antoon

April 1, 3:30 – 4:45 PM |

This webinar is the first of three on “Rethinking the Human,” part of the Simpson Center for the Humanities’ Humanitarianism Sawyer Seminar series.

Material and discursive resources and energies are dedicated (insufficiently and unequally) to rescue the living from harm, and to tend to their wounds. But what of the dead? What can we, the living, learn from the rituals and traditions of tending to the dead and to their wounds? Beyond the corporeal, encounters with the ghosts and memories of the dead raise crucial political questions about the ways in which humans inhabit this world. Al-Ma’arri cautioned us a millennium ago to “tread gently, for the soil of this earth is made of these corpses.” This talk, delivered by poetSinan Antoon andAssociate Professor and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and CivilizationSelim S. Kuru will summon al-Ma’arri’s ghost, among others, to address these questions.

Free |


BOOK TALK | Anand Yang, “Empire of Convicts: Indian Penal Labor in Colonial Southeast Asia”

April 1, 3:30 – 5:00 PM |

Join theSouth Asia Center as Walker Family Endowed Professor in History and Professor of International Studies Anand Yang speaks about his new book, followed by a Q&A session. Hosted by Sunila S. Kale, Director of the South Asia Center and Associate Professor of International Studies.

A major contribution to histories of crime and punishment, prisons, law, labor, transportation, migration, colonialism, and the Indian Ocean World,Empire of Convictsnarrates the experiences of Indianbandwars(convicts) and shows how they exercised agency in difficult situations, fashioning their own worlds and even becoming “their own warders.” Anand Yang brings long journeys acrosskala pani(black waters) to life in a deeply researched and engrossing account that moves fluidly between local and global contexts.

Free |


Beverly Guy-Sheftall – Say Her Name: The Urgency of Black Feminism Now

April 5, 6:30 PM |Online

Black feminist discourse and activism have been significant interventions in a variety of social justice movements in the U.S. since the 19th century, though this has not always been acknowledged. In the aftermath of reforms catalyzed by the Black Lives Matter Movement, a queer black feminist project, Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s talk will reflect upon the transformations in civil society, academe, electoral politics, the criminal justice system, and other spaces that have occurred over the past year as a result of recent protests around systemic racism and other issues. Sponsored by theDepartment of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, the Department of English, and the Department of American Ethnic Studies.

Free | Register and More Info


Jewish Questions Podcast

Jewish Questionsis the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies’ podcast on issues that matter now in Jewish life, politics, history and culture — from a scholarly perspective.

This season, hostsAssociate Professor of HistoryLaurie MarhoeferandDirector of the Stroum Center for Jewish StudiesNoam Piankotalk with faculty experts from the 91 about anti-Semitism: what it is, its long history, and how to push back against it today.

Jewish Questions comes out weekly on Wednesdays. This season’s five episodes will look at the causes and consequences of anti-Semitism across history, from medieval Spain to Nazi Germany to the United States in the 20th century.

Free |


Looking for more?

Check out 91AA’s Stronger Together web page formore digital engagement opportunities.

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ArtSci Roundup: Beyond Guilt Trips, Washin Kai: Rakugo by Katsura Sunshine, Protests for the Soul of a Nation, and More /news/2020/10/13/artsci-roundup-beyond-guilt-trips-washin-kai-rakugo-by-katsura-sunshine-protests-for-the-soul-of-a-nation-and-more/ Tue, 13 Oct 2020 19:12:35 +0000 /news/?p=71039 During this time of uncertainty and isolation, find solace in digital opportunitiesto connect, share, and engage. Each week, we will share upcoming events that bring the 91, and the greater community, together online.

Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All 91 faculty, staff, and students have access to.


Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World

October 20, 4:00 PM | Online via Zoom

Join author and Professor of English and Comparative History of IdeasDr. Anu Taranathas we define the concept of mindful travel and how its mindset can shape the way we respectfully and ethically embrace and learn from different people and cultures. Together, we’ll learn how to unpack complex or unsettling travel experiences and begin meaningful conversations with each other.

Free | Register and More Info


Tasveer South Asian LitFest Opening Night Keynote

October 20, 6:00 PM |

Sunila S. Kale, Associate Professor in the School of International Studies and Chair and Director of South Asia Studies delivers the Opening Night Keynote of the Tasveer South Asian LitFest withChitra Banerjee Divakaruni.

TSAL brings together an eclectic group of poets, novelists, screenwriters, nonfiction and experimental writers expressing a wide range of South Asian diasporic voices on race, immigration, gender, identity, and publishing.

Free |


Washin Kai: Rakugo by Katsura Sunshine

October 20, 7:00 PM |

Washin Kai and Town Hall Seattle are pleased to welcome renowned entertainer Katsura Sunshine for a special performance of unique storytelling called rakugo. This special English-language performance will be broadcast to us live from Tokyo.Donations made during this event will go to the 91’s Washin Kai — Friends of Classical Japanese Fund to support the classical Japanese literature studies at the 91.

Free |


Meany On Screen: Creative Process Conversation | Circa: Yaron Lifschitz and The Shape of Being

October 20 – 27, 7:30 PM |

Meany Center Artistic Director Michelle Witt interviews Circa’s Artistic Director, Yaron Lifschitz. The two will discuss the creative process, interdependence and art in a time of uncertainty.

Free |


Protests for the Soul of a Nation: COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and Election 2020

October 21, 6:30 PM | Online

2020 is a year like we have never witnessed. A pandemic that exposed structural health inequalities was followed by the largest civil rights uprisings in American history against police violence and systemic racism. The sustained demonstrations and radical imagination of protesters have challenged and remade the relationship between government and citizens. Megan Ming Francis,Associate Professor of Political Science, will discuss how we got to this urgent moment, the role organized protest can play in the upcoming election and the future of a fair and robust democracy.

Free | Register and More Info


Video Games and Asian Identity

October 21, 3:30 PM |

Moderated by Communication ProfessorLeiLani Nishime,Tara Fickleof the University of Oregon shows how games and game theory shaped fictions of race andChristopher Patterson of the University of British Columbia explains video game as an “Asiatic” space.

Free |


Alexes Harris | A Multi-State Study Using Multi-methods: Making Sense of Justice Sentencing

October 21, 12:30 PM |

Alexes Harris, Professor of Sociology,will outline a five-year study examining court sentencing of monetary sanctions, or fines of fees. Along with seven collaborators and a number of research assistants, she has collected over 900 interviews and surveys, 1,600 hours of court observations in the form of observation sheets and field notes, and individual court automated data. She will discuss how her team approached structuring research protocols, coding schemas, and analyses and how they are collaboratively developing academic papers from this project.

Free |


Presidential Debate Preview: Presented by KUOW & 91 Alumni Association

October 22, 4:00 PM |

Join KUOW and 91AA live on KUOW’s YouTube channel and Facebook for a live debate preview moderated by KUOW’s Ross Reynolds.

As we all gear up for the 2020 Presidential election, join KUOW and the 91 Alumni Association for a virtual conversation with KUOW Journalists and local experts ahead of each presidential debate. We’ll guide you through what to expect, discuss how issues might impact Washington voters, offer local and national political analysis, and invite you – the audience – to share your perspective.

Free |


Women Workers Organizing for Labor Standards: From Protest to Policy

October 22, 6:00 PM|

Sponsored by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies,Eileen Borisof the University of California reflects on her recent bookMaking the Woman Worker: Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards 1919-2019(Oxford University Press, 2019), followed by remarks from policymakers and labor leaders who focus on women’s economic security, labor standards, and workplace equity in Washington State.

Free |


Why Race Matters: The 2020 Election

October 22, 4:00 PM|

This interdisciplinary conversation hosted by theDepartment of History brings together distinguished scholars Arbella Bet-Shlimon,
Associate Professor of History,La TaSha Levy,
Assistant Professor of American Ethnic Studies
, Laurie Marhoefer, Associate Professor of History,and Sophia Jordán Wallace, Associate Professor of Political Science,to break down this year’s presidential election through the lens ofhistorical and present-day dynamics of race in American politics. We are in the midst of one of this country’s most significant civil rights movements demanding an end to the violence inflicted on Black communities; how does this impact the presidential election and what are the stakes for the next four years?

Free |


Looking for more?

Check out 91AA’s Stronger Together web page formore digital engagement opportunities.

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91 books in brief: Postwar Japan, American Indian businesses, dictatorship to democracy — and more /news/2018/10/29/uw-books-in-brief-postwar-japan-american-indian-businesses-dictatorship-to-democracy-and-more/ Mon, 29 Oct 2018 20:55:49 +0000 /news/?p=59611 Collage illustration for 91 Books in Brief, Oct. 29, 2018

 

Recent notable books by 91 faculty members study politics and culture in post-World War II Japan, explore regime change, nonprofit management, documents from the ancient world and more.

‘Japan in the American Century” explores postwar relations, current geopolitical changes

After the United States ended World War II by dropping atomic weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it then conducted “the most intrusive international reconstruction of another nation in modern history,” according to a new book by , professor emeritus at the 91’s . Only now, amid geopolitical changes of the 21st century, is Japan pulling free from American dominance and constraints placed on it after the war.

“,” published this month by Harvard University Press, examines how Japan, with its conservative heritage, responded to the imposition of a new liberal order. The book offers a thoughtful history of the now-changing relationship between the two nations.

“The price Japan paid to end the occupation was a Cold War alliance with the United States that ensured America’s dominance in the region,” Pyle writes. “Still traumatized by its wartime experience, Japan developed a grand strategy of dependence on U.S. security guarantees so that the nation could concentrate on economic growth.” Meanwhile, he adds, Japan “reworked the American reforms” to fit its own cultural and economic circumstances and social institutions.

Today that postwar world is in retreat, Pyle argues, and Japan is changing its foreign policy, “returning to an activist, independent role in global politics not seen since 1945” — and that has repercussion for its continuing relations with the U.S. and its role in Asian geopolitics.

The book distills a lifetime of work on Japan and the U.S. by Pyle, a former director of the Jackson School, who joined the 91 in 1964. “The American Century,” referring to global political, economic and cultural dominance by the United States, is a term famously coined by , publisher of , Time and Fortune magazines, in a Life editorial in 1941.

To learn more, contact kbp@uw.edu.

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When authoritarianism becomes democracy: New boss, same as the old boss?

When authoritarian governments transition to democracy, sometimes those running the old system are the ones creating the new system — and design it to their own advantage. So argues 91 political scientist , co-author of the book “,” published this summer by Cambridge University Press. He wrote the book with of the University of Chicago.

“We examine … how does this process occur and what are the consequences?” Menaldo, associate professor of political science, said in an posted on the Political Science Department website. “Since World War 2, the outgoing authoritarian regime has drafted the new democratic constitution in over two-thirds of the countries that have made this transition.” Menaldo and Albertus studied such transitions globally across two centuries.

“There are many ways [for outgoing regimes] to do this,” Menaldo said. “One is to require a supermajority for future amendments to the constitution they have written. Others include barriers to voting, malapportionment, and giving veto power to unelected political bodies in which elites from the old guard are over-represented.”

Some of this may have a familiar ring to those interested in American history. Though the book is not about the United States, Menaldo said, the findings are consistent with a longstanding argument about the U.S. Constitution and its authors — that they were a small elite group who in writing the document partly protected their own interests.

“The United States continues to hold indirect elections for the presidency, and its federal system long protected subnational enclaves in which a majority of citizens in some states were deprived of basic rights,” Menaldo said.

To learn more, contact Menaldo at vmenaldo@uw.edu.

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Principles, practices of American Indian business

American Indian business is booming overall in recent years, but not thriving as much on reservations, notes a new book co-edited by , associate professor in the 91 Bothell School of Business titled “.”

Despite healthy growth in American Indian and Alaska Native-owned businesses, they are largely absent from reservations “and Native Americans own private businesses at the lowest rate per capita for any ethnic or racial group in the United States,” say notes from the publisher, 91 Press.

“Many Indigenous entrepreneurs face unique cultural and practical challenges in starting, locating, and operating a business, from a perceived lack of a culture of entrepreneurship and a suspicion of capitalism to the difficulty of borrowing startup funds when real estate is held in trust and cannot be used as collateral.”

The book discusses the history and state of such businesses as well as business practices and education. It ranges “from early trading posts to today’s casino boom.”

A review in praised the book as “so well done that it can be used by higher education institutions to acquaint students on how to better understand doing business in Indian Country.”

Kennedy, a member of the Cherokee Nation, edited the book with Charles F. Harrington of the University of South Carolina-Upstate, Amy Klemm Verbos of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Daniel Stewart of Gonzaga University, Joseph Scott-Gladstone of the University of New Haven and Gavin Clarkson of New Mexico State University.

To learn more, contact Kennedy at 425-352-5321 or deannak@uw.edu.

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Evans School’s Mary Kay Gugerty honored for book on nonprofits management, ‘The Goldilocks Challenge’

, professor in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, has been announced the recipient of the from the for her book, “ The book, which Gugerty wrote with of Northwestern University, was published this year by Oxford University Press.

The award “highlights the very best thinking in management, governance and capacity-building, and helps expose practitioners to new knowledge and approaches in the field,” according to the group’s website. Gugerty is the Nancy Bell Evans Professor of Nonprofit Management in the Evans School, and faculty director of the .

The book is about “measuring impact,” a statement from the reviewing committee says. “We all want to do it, know we have to do it … and are all too often frustrated by one-size-fits-all expectations of how to do it. ‘The Goldilocks Challenge’ offers a solution: an impact measurement framework that helps organizations decide what elements they should monitor and measure.” That framework is based on having data that is at once credible, actionable, responsible and transportable.

To learn more, contact Gugerty at 206-221-4599 or gugerty@uw.edu.

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Rethinking post-World War II art, politics in Japan

In a new cultural history of post-World War II Japan, , 91 associate professor of Asian languages and literature, explores art and politics — and consolidations of political and cultural life — in the years leading to the Cold War. His new book “,” was published in September by Cornell University Press.

Jesty focuses on social realists on the radical left who, “hoped to wed their art with anti-capitalist and anti-war activism, a liberal art education movement whose focus on the child inspired innovation in documentary film, and a regional avant-garde group split between ambition and local loyalty.”

The book, Jesty writes, has the two main goals, the first being to reframe that history and its relevance to the present. The second is to show a way of studying the relationship between art and politics that views art as a mode of intervention “but insists artistic intervention move beyond the idea that the artwork of artist unilaterally authors political significance, to trace how creations and expressive acts may (or may not) actually engage the terms of shared meaning and value.”

To learn more, contact Jesty at jestyj@uw.edu or visit his .

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Exploring India’s ‘political economy of electricity’

Electricity is critical to India’s continued growth and economic health, but despite decades of reform the country remains unable to provide high-quality and affordable energy for all. A new book co-edited by , an associate professor in the Jackson School, explores these issues. “” was published earlier this year by Oxford University Press.

The book tracks power sectors in 15 states in India, giving an analysis of their political economy of electricity. A historically grounded study of the country’s political economy, the book suggests, helps better understand the past and inform new reforms to “improve sectoral outcomes and generate political rewards.”

Kale’s co-editors were Navroz K. Dubash of India’s Centre for Policy Research and Ranjit Bharvirkar of the Regulatory Assistance Project, a multinational nonprofit organization. Kale is also director of the Jackson School’s South Asia Center and chair of its South Asia Studies Program.

To learn more, contact Kale at 206-221-4852 or kale@uw.edu

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Book chapter by Rajesh Rao offers new view of ancient Indus script

, 91 professor in the , has written an article about the that will appear in the book “.” The Indus script, also known as the Harappan script, is one of the last major undeciphered scripts of the ancient world. The article can be downloaded .

The book celebrates the contributions to South Asian archaeology of , professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. Rao’s article, focusing on a set of miniature tablets discovered by Kenoyer in 1997, sets forth the “potentially provocative” conclusion that such stamps may have been used as a sort of currency in a barter-based economy.

“Walking with the Unicorn” will be published Oct. 30 by . Rao’s earlier work on the Indus script was described in 91 News articles in and of 2009. Rao is the of computer science and engineering and electrical engineering.

To learn more, contact Rao at rao@cs.washington.edu.

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