EAL Lecture -- Chinese North American Literature: Writings & Analysis

Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, Department of East Asian Studies, & Chinese Language & Global Asia Studies at UTSC Jointly present:

Chinese North American Literature: Writings & Analysis


Speakers: Dr. Lien Chao ( 趙廉 ) & Prof. June Liu ( 劉俊 )

Chair: Dr. Helen Xiaoyan Wu

Date & time: Tuesday, June 8, 2010 starting at 2:30pm. Light refreshments will be provided.

Location: Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library
( On the 8th floor of the Robarts Library at 130 St. George Street, Toronto )

Registration: Seats are limited and registration is required. To register, contact Lucy Gan by email (lucy.gan@utoronto.ca) or by phone 416-978-1025

Flyer: Downloadable

Language: All talks are in English


Topics & Biographies of the Speakers

1. Writings about the in-between Cultures: The Chinese Knot and Other Stories, by Dr. Lien Chao

Award-winning author Lien Chao will talk about her new book that weaves together eight emotionally charged short stories of personal histories, politics, social relationships and cultural challenges into one tapestry of Toronto’s heterogeneous cultural landscape. Life in such an in-between cultural space means at once rooting and uprooting, belonging and non-belonging, dispossessing and acquiring. The protagonists of these stories find love, face loneliness, confront generational crises, and overcome racial stereotypes as they evolve and grow in this exciting, ever-changing multicultural society.

Dr. Lien Chao is an award-winning Canadian writer. She came to Canada in 1984 to pursue her graduate studies at York University. She completed her M.A. in 1986 and her Ph.D. in English in1995. Lien is a bilingual writer in English and Chinese. Her first book, Beyond Silence: Chinese Canadian Literature in English (1997) won the 1997 Gabrielle Roy Award for Canadian Criticism. Lien is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada. Her volunteer work includes serving as the Vice President for the Canadian Foundation for Asian Culture (Central Ont.) Inc. and the Vice President for the Chinese Pen Society of Canada.

2. Comparative Studies on Two Groups of Chinese Writers in North American Literature, by Prof. Jun Liu (劉俊)

There are two groups of Chinese writers in North American literature. One consists of those writers who come from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and the other from Mainland China. Those two groups of Chinese writers play an important role in different historical periods of Chinese North American Literature, and show different themes, styles, and feelings of their creations respectively.
Prof. Jun Liu, Ph.D. in modern and contemporary Chinese literature from Nanjing University (1991), is a Professor in the Chinese Department at Nanjing University. He is currently the Director from China of the Confucius Institute at the University of Waterloo. His academic fields focus on Taiwan literature, Hong Kong literature, and overseas Chinese literature. His major published books are as follows: A Compassionate Mind: Biography of Kenneth H. Pai; From Taiwan & Hong Kong to Overseas: Multi-perspectives on Cross Regional Chinese Literature; An Overall View of World Chinese Literature, etc.

EAL Lecture -- Becoming American: Asian School Shooters, 1991 - 2007

Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, Department of East Asian Studies,
& Chinese Language & Global Asia Studies at UTSC

Jointly present:

Becoming American:

Asian School Shooters, 1991 - 2007

A lecture by Prof. Tony Chan and Dr. Phillip C. Shon

Friday, May 21, 2010, at 2:30pm

Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library

Speakers: Professor Anthony B. Chan and Dr. Phillip C. Shon

Chair: Dr. Helen Xiaoyan Wu

Date: Friday, May 21, 2010 starting at 2:30pm. Light refreshments will be provided.

Location: Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library (On the 8^th floor of the Robarts Library at 130 St. George Street, Toronto )

Registration: Seats are limited and registration is required. To register, contact Lucy Gan by email ( lucy.gan@utoronto.ca ) or by phone 416-978-1025.

Flyer: Downloadable

Language: All talks are in English

Topic & Biographies of the Speakers

Between 1966 and 2007, there were forty-four mass murder incidents across schools and universities in the United States. Three of those incidents involved Asian American school shooters. By using newspapers and government reports about the incidents, this paper examines the patterns of weapon acquisition, weapon deployment, and tactical deployment strategies of the three Asian American school shooters. The role of the mass media as sources of identification fantasies, legitimacy, and ideational structures for the planned attacks are considered. The meaning of being an Asian American and an Asian American school shooter in the United States are discussed.

Professor Anthony B. Chan, PhD in Chinese history from York University is noted for the following books: Arming the Chinese (1982), Gold Mountain (1982), and the biographies of Hong Kong Billionaire, Li Ka-shing (1996) and Chinese American movie icon, Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong (2007). He has directed, produced, and/or anchored more than 100 films in Canada (CBC), Hong Kong (TVB) and the United States (Sun Riders Production); many are now available on the YouTube channel Comm2230U. Tony also worked for CBC television news as a street reporter. He is now a Professor of Communication at the University Of Ontario Institute Of Technology.

Dr. Phillip C. Shon is an Associate Professor of Criminology at the University Of Ontario Institute Of Technology. He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, a master’s degree in linguistics, and a Ph.D. in criminal justice. His research examines the sociolinguistic organization of police-citizen encounters and nineteenth-century American parricides. His works have appeared in journals such as International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Critical Criminology, Discourse & Society, and Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society.

Lectures: In an Alien Land & Voices Rising

Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, Department of East Asian Studies,
& Chinese Language & Global Asia Studies at UTSC jointly present:

1. In an Alien Land: Fictional Works by Three Chinese-Canadian Women Writers of Different Generations

A lecture by Dr. Xueqing Xu (徐學清)

2. Voices Rising: Asian Canadian Cultural Activism

A lecture by Dr. Xiaoping Li (李小平)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010, at 2:30pm

Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library

Date & time: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 starting at 2:30pm, light refreshments will be provided.

Location: Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library (On the 8^th floor of the Robarts Library at 130 St. George Street, Toronto)

Registration: Seats are limited and registration is required. To register, contact Lucy Gan by email (lucy.gan@utoronto.ca) or by phone 416-978-1025

Flyer: Downloadable

Language: All talks are in English

Biographies & Topics of the Speakers

1. In an Alien Land: Fictional Works by Three Chinese-Canadian Women Writers of Different Generations, by Dr. Xueqing Xu

Dr. Xueqing Xu will present on a comparative study of three fictional works by three Chinese-Canadian women, Edith Maud Eaton’s (1865-1914) The Wisdom of the New, which was written at the beginning of the last century, Sky Lee’s Disappearing Moon Café, published in 1990 and nominated for the Governor General's Award, and Zhang Ling’s Aftershock in 2007 that was ranked among the top ten novellas of the year.

Dr. Xueqing Xu (徐學清) holds a B.A. and M.A. in Chinese literature from Fudan University in Shanghai, and a Ph.D in Chinese literature from the University of Toronto (2000). She now is an associate professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics at York University with her research interest in Chinese-Canadian literature and Chinese women fiction. Among her publications are a Life of Confucius (1990) and 10 articles on Chinese-Canadian literature during the past few years.

2. Voices Rising: Asian Canadian Cultural Activism, by Dr. Xiaoping Li

Since the early 1970s a unique landscape and mindscape that can be named as Asian Canadian cultural activism has been created by Asian Canadians who have attempted to affect the world through their cultural practices. The living embodiment of Asian Canadian cultural activism is a community consisting of scholars, university students, self-made or professionally trained artists, and community activists. Many of them consciously undertake a role similar to what Gramsci ascribed to “organic intellectuals”: they are grounded in the grassroots communities where they originally come from, they organize activities to undermine existing unjust social relations and power structures, and they are engaged in the production of new consciousness. Over the decades, they have addressed a broad range of issues concerning not simply racialized communities but also Canadian society at large, contributing to both their own community’s well-being and the democratic changes in Canadian society.

Dr. Xiaoping Li (李小平) received her Ph.D. in Sociology from York University. She currently teaches in the Department of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Okanagan College, British Columbia. Her main research interests include culture and globalization, cultural and community activism, immigration and multiculturalism, “race” and ethnicity, media and society. Her book, Voices Rising: Asian Canadian Cultural Activism, published by UBC Press in 2007, presents in-depth analysis of Asian Canadian artistic and cultural life.