Spring 2011 Seminar Series: Asia/Gender

SPRING 2011 SEMINAR SERIES


ASIA/GENDER

This semester, instead of two separate talk series - the South Asia Seminar and the East Asia Seminar - we will host a joint series, broadly focusing on questions of gender. Our plan is to generate an interdisciplinary and inter-regional discussion and we hope you will join us in our new endeavor. Talks will be about 30 minutes long, followed by a 10 minute response from a designated respondent. After that, we will have time for an open discussion. All are invited. [download schedule]

Time & Place:

Wednesdays at 3:30 P.M. in 710 Social Science, unless otherwise indicated.




Wednesday, January 26th:

"Acting Real: From Semiosis to Mimesis in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Performance"

Jason McGrath (UMN - Asian Languages & Literatures)
Respondent: Juliette Cherbuliez (UMN - French & Italian)

In the early 1930s the Chinese silent film actor Ruan Lingyu was praised for her naturalistic, almost Stanislovskian performance style. She thus seemed to answer the call of Chinese filmmakers and critics for a distinctively cinematic performance style, based on mimesis, that would be distinct from stage acting, particularly the semiosis of traditional Chinese drama. However, the seeming "naturalism" of such acting belies the gendered performances of modernity entailed in this early Chinese cinematic realism. Moreover, the claims for medium specificity obscure the fact that discourses of realism and mimesis were far from confined to cinema but were in fact indicative of a broader scientism sweeping the intellectual and artistic classes in semicolonial China in the 1910s-30s.


Wednesday, February 9th:
Brett de Bary (Cornell University)
Respondent: Simona Sawhney (UMN - Asian Languages & Literatures)

Wednesday, February 23rd:
Diyah Larasati (UMN - Theatre & Dance)
Respondent: Hiromi Mizuno (UMN - History)

Wednesday, March 30th:
TBA

Wednesday, April 13th:
Raka Ray (University of California, Berkeley)
Respondent: Lisa Sun-Hee Park (UMN - Sociology)

Wednesday, April 20th:
Satish Poduval (English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad)
Respondent: Christine Marran (UMN - Asian Languages & Literatures)