Speaker: David Firestein.

Exactly one year since his last review, David Firestein assesses the current state of the U.S.-China relationship. Last year he examined issues on the agenda, major disagreements, areas of possible collaboration, and near-term and longer-term prospects for the relationship. This talk will re-examine those matters in the light of experiences during the past year.

David Firestein is the inaugural president and CEO of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, a former U.S. diplomat, think tank executive and university professor.
Sponsored by the MSU Faculty Emeriti, co-sponsored by the Asian Studies Center and the Office of China Programs.

Part of Southeast Asian in Transition Series: Plastic Runs Through It 2021 Webinar

This series is made possible through funding from the Henry Luce Foundation and is co-organized by Michigan State University-James Madison College and Asian Studies Center, the East-West Center, University of Hawai'i-Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa-Center for Chinese Studies, and Chiang Mai University-Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development.

Virtual Speaker:  Colleen A. Laird (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of Japanese Cinema and Popular Culture at the University of British Columbia where she teaches  Japanese film, new media, and video games.

What does it mean when we identify a video game as a "Japanese video game?" Do we base this designation on where the game was made, produced, funded, or co-developed? Do we consider who made the game and how they identify? Are we perhaps more inclined to think of Japanese video games as titles that feature Japanese characters who speak Japanese? Are we swayed by the influence of vocal and physical actors? Is the setting or depiction of identifiable cultural and aesthetic tropes more important? Or is there something in the underlying ideological subtexts woven into narratives or integrated into gameplay that inform our impressions? In this presentation, Dr. Laird considers the role and representation of Japan in video games as transnational media, sometimes smooth and sometimes abrasive, to both embrace these questions and question our assumptions as we interact with seemingly fluid and accessible imaginations of place and peoples. This presentation invites attendees to both consider the examples offered and to draw on their own experiences with games to participate in a conversation about a dynamic and emerging field of critical inquiry.

This event is part of the MSU Asian Studies Center's Global Virtual Speaker Program with support funding from the Japan Council Endowment. The talk is organized by Dr. Ethan Segal from the History Department.

Arabic language practice and culture presentations.

 
Virtual speaker: Jeremy Wallach is Professor in the Department of Popular Culture in the School of Cultural and Critical Studies at Bowling Green State University.

Asia is home to tens of millions of heavy metal fans: Massive, long-established scenes in Japan, Indonesia/Malaysia/Singapore, and Nepal exert influence on rapidly expanding scenes in India, China, mainland Southeast Asia, and other regions. An examination of this phenomenon of musical expansion illuminates not only global metal culture, but also the contours of an emergent Asian modernity, including its built-in instabilities and discontents. At the same time, as Asian bands attract the enthusiastic attention of international audiences, they have compelled a shift in dominant representations of Asian musics, which in the West have been dismissed either as boringly derivative popular songs or traditional styles incomprehensible to the Western ear.  Asian metal is decidedly neither, and its hold upon the imagination of the global music scene has only just begun.

This event is part of the MSU Asian Studies Center's Global Virtual Speaker Program with support funding from the Japan Council Endowment. The talk is organized by Dr. Ethan Segal from the History Department.

 

Virtual Speaker:  Dr. Raj Balkaran, Instructor, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Long have the boundaries been blurred between 'adopters' and 'inheritors' of Indian tradition. On the one hand, there are white practitioners, for example, who are born into modern Hindu movements such as ISKCON. Conversely, there exist Western-trained, secularly-minded religious skeptics from Hindu homes who only come to embrace/re-embrace Indic thought and practice in adulthood. Probing this tension of insiders, outsiders, and everything in between, this talk examines the ways in which Indian traditions nourish spiritual seekers in the West, whether they are of Indic origin or otherwise.  Drawing from his work teaching adult lifelong learners and life-coaching, Dr. Raj Balkaran shares insight into the lives of spiritual seekers in the West (from Hindu homes or otherwise) who come to engage traditional "Hindu" teachings and practices in adulthood as part of their personal, spiritual journeys.

Co-Sponsored by the Asian Studies Center Global Virtual Speaker Program, Foglio Chair in Spirituality, and the Department of Religious Studies.The talk is organized by Dr. Jon Keune from the Department of Religious Studies.

Arabic language practice and culture presentations.

Indian and South Asian language & cultures brings you Chai & Chat. Join them for evenings of festivities, fun, food, and all things Indian and South Asian.
• Chai & Chat | October 19, 2021
• Diwali Celebration | November 4, 2021
• Chai & Chat | November 16, 2021
• Film Screening | November 30, 2021
Sponsored by the Hindi-Urdu Language Program and Asian Studies Center

Arabic language practice and culture presentations.