EAL Film Lecture Series: Diana Dai, Monday, Feb. 14, 2011

Come to EAL for Diana Dai's movie-screening lecture at 2:30 p.m., Monday, Feb. 14, 2001. Register your attendance with Lucy Gan (lucy.gan@utoronto.ca; 416-978-1025).


Time: 2:30 - 5:00 P.M., MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2011

Place: Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library

Speaker: Xiaoping Diana Dai

Session Chaired by: Lucy Gan


Diana Dai was born in China and obtained her B.A. degree in literature in a Chinese university. In 1991, she went to the United Kingdom where she obtained an M.A. in Communication Studies at the University of Leeds. She immigrated to Canada in 1996 as an independent professional and was one of the founders for the Mandarin program for OMNI TV and its host/producer from 1996 to 2007.

An experienced and multi-awards winning filmmaker, Diana Dai’s rich international working experience in the media field has made her work outstanding. She produced and directed documentaries with CBC and Vision TV. Her works were all critically acclaimed by The Globe and Mail and other media. Her documentary, China Earthquake: The People in the Pictures (2009), produced with the CBC won the 2009 Gemini Award and the 2010 Golden Sheaf Award in the “Best History Documentary” category.

In the EAL lecture, Diana will screen and talk about China Earthquake: The People in the Pictures (2009). The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session and a small reception.

EAL Film Lecture Series: Richard Fung on December 1, 2010

2:30-5:00 P.M., Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Richard Fung on Two of His Films

Speaker: Richard Fung
Chair: Dr. Helen Xiaoyan Wu
Place: Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library
Room 8049, Robarts Library, 130 St. George Street, Toronto

Richard Fung is a Trinidad-born, Toronto-based video artist and writer. His single channel and installation works have been widely presented internationally and his essays have been published in numerous journals and anthologies. He is the co-author, with Monika Kin Gagnon, of a book of interviews, 13: Conversations on Art and Cultural Race Politics, published in English and French by Artexte. Richard teaches in the Faculty of Art at the Ontario College of Art & Design. The films he will screen in the lecture are Rex vs. Singh (2008) and Sea in the Blood (2000).  

Rex vs. Singh (2008, 30 minutes)
A collaboration with John Greyson and Ali Kazimi, Rex vs. Singh re-examines a 1915 sodomy case involving two Sikh men entrapped by Vancouver police. Techniques from documentary, narrative and experimental cinema are brought together to mine the intersection of racism and homophobia a year after the notorious Komogata Maru incident.

Sea in the Blood (2000, 24 minutes)
Sea in the Blood is an autobiographical video about love and loss, intertwining two relationships (sister and lover) and two diseases of the blood (thallasemia and HIV/AIDS

EAL Lecture: Flexible Diplomacy of Taiwan and Its Relation to Cross-Strait Reconciliation

Poster URL: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0QyP8yesA5-NWYwZDNhNzktNjI0Ni00MWJkLTg5MDAtM2FmNTBhNGNmYjYx&hl=en&pli=1

Speaker: Dr. Francis Tsu-ching Hu (胡祖慶), Department of Political Science, Tung Hai University, Taiwan

Discussants: Dr. Victor Falkenheim and Dr. Helen Wu

1:00-3:00pm, Monday, November 15, 2010
Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, University of Toronto
Rm. 8049, Robarts Library, 130 St. George Street, Toronto

Free admission. Limited seats available, therefore please RSVP to Lucy Gan by email (lucy.gan@utoronto.ca) or by phone at 416-978-1025.

Dr. Francis Tsu-ching Hu is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan. In June 2005, he was elected a deputy of the National Assembly (國民大會代表) and has since 2006 served as one of the twenty-one members of the Referendum Committee of the Executive Yuan (行政院公民投票審議委員). He has paid many trips to mainland China as a member of the People First Party (親民黨) delegation. His major fields of research include comparative politics, cross-Strait relations, and party coalition. His representative books published in Taiwan include Bijiao Zhengfu yu Zhengzhi《比較政府與政治》(Comparative Government and Politics) and Zhengdang Hezuo yu Jiemeng《政黨合作與結盟》(Cooperation and Coalition between Political Parties). James Soong (宋楚瑜) and Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) both wrote prefaces for Zhengdang Hezuo yu Jiemeng.

2010-2011 EAL Film Lecture Series

Starting from the 2010 fall semester, the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library will launch a six-part Film Lecture Series, inviting acclaimed Asian Canadian directors/producers to share their filmmaking experience, especially from the perspective of being Asian Canadians in the multicultural landscape of Canada.

In each of the lectures, films will be screened starting from 2:30pm on the selected Wednesday afternoons. All lectures are free and open to all.

Lecture Schedule:

1. 2:30-5:00pm, Nov. 3, 2010
   Speaker: Dr. Tony Chan, on two of his documentary films, Chinese Cafes in Rural Saskatchewan and American Nurse.
   
   
2. 2:30-5:00pm, Nov. 24, 2010
   Speaker: Brenda Joy Lem, on her films, The Compact and Open Letter.
   
   
3. 2:30-5:00pm, Dec. 1, 2010
   Speaker: Richard Fung, TBD
   
   
4. 2:30-5:00pm, Jan. 19, 2011
   Speaker: Keith Lock, on his 2009 new film, The Ache.
   
   
5. 2:30-5:00pm, Feb. 14, 2011
   Speaker: Diana Dai, on China's Earthquake: The People in the Pictures, an award-winning documentary film she produced and directed in 2009.
   
   
6. 2:30-5:00pm, Mar. 2, 2011
   Speaker: Irene Chu, on one episode from the 20-part drama series, Once Upon a Time in Toronto.

The lectures are free and open to all. But registration is required due to a limited number of seats available. EAL is now accepting registrations for Dr. Chan's lecture. Please RSVP to Lucy Gan by email (lucy.gan@utoronto.ca ) or by phone (416978-1025).

EAL is now accepting registration for the first lecture in the series: Dr. Tony Chan is going to talk about his two films on November 3. For information about this lecture, check the the link at https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0QyP8yesA5-NzBmZDQ0MjQtNDY2Yy00YjRiLWI2Y2UtOTA5YzkxNWVmZGQw&hl=en

EAL Lecture: Hakka Castle Dwellings -- UNESCO World Heritage Site

Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, & Global Asia Studies
@ UTSC jointly present

Hakka Castle Dwellings:

UNESCO World Heritage Site

Presented by Dr. Keith D. Lowe

Friday, July 9, 2010, at 2:30pm

Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library

Speakers: Dr. Keith D. Lowe (羅金生)

Chair: Dr. Helen Xiaoyan Wu

Date & time: Friday, July 9, 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

Abstract

Utilizing many photographs and diagrams, Dr. Keith Lowe presents a survey of Hakka castle dwellings. He focuses on the tulou (土樓), or round earth castles common to the mountainous Hakka heartland where eastern Fujian adjoins northwestern Guangdong and southern Jiangxi province. He shows how the architecture reflects various stages of Chinese and Hakka history and culture. In 2008, UNESCO declared a group of tolous in Fujian a world heritage site.

Bio of Dr. Keith D. Lowe

A graduate of Harvard College (magna cum laude), Lowe gained the Ph.D. in modern English and American literature at Stanford University. He was a professor at Howard University, Washington DC, and at the University of California at San Diego. He is also an educator specializing in curriculum development and a consultant in multiculturalism.

Dr. Lowe is a descendant of the Lowe clan which devoted three generations to building Crane Lake New Residence near Longgang city in the Shenzhen region. This magnificent walled villa was completed in 1817. The villa is reputed to be the largest five-phoenix villa in GuangdongProvince and possibly in all of China. In 1996, the Shenzhen municipality converted the villa into the Museum of Hakka Customs.

A former president of the Ontario Multicultural Association, Dr. Lowe served two terms as a director of the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto. He headed the first and second Toronto Hakka Conference held at York University in December 2000 and December 2004.

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.

Panel Talk: Road to Gold Mountain and Chinese Canada

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

Road to Gold Mountain and Chinese Canada

A panel talk with Ms. Ling Zhang and Professor Tony Chan

Monday, April 26, 2010 starting from 2:30pm

Current Periodical Area, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library

Panelists: Ms. Ling Zhang (張翎) and Professor Anthony B. Chan

Discussant: Dr. Helen Xiaoyan Wu

Date & time: Monday, April 26, 2010 starting from 2:30pm, with a brief ceremony honoring the donations from Professor Tony Chan and Ms. Ling Zhang to the East Asian Library. 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 Panelists

1. Road to Gold Mountain, by Ms. Ling Zhang

Author Ling Zhang has an MA in English from the University of Calgary and lives in Toronto. She came to Canada in 1986 and started writing in the mid-1990s. Her works have won her numerous literary prizes, including the Chinese Literature Media Award as Novelist of the Year (2009) and China’s first Zhongshan (Dr. Sun Yat-sen) Cup Overseas Chinese Literary Award (2009) for her most recent book Gold Mountain Blues. Gold Mountain Blues (Jin Shan 金山), is the story of the great Chinese migration to Canada that traces the history of five generations of the Fang family from the 1860s to the present. The novel relates the struggles and sacrifices of the Chinese laborers who built the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the evolution of the modern Chinese-Canadian identity. It incorporates stories of people who came to Canada to pursue dreams of wealth and prosperity that quickly eluded them. The English version of the novel is expected to be published in Canada in 2011.

2. Chinese Canada: An Imagined Nation, by Prof. Anthony B. Chan

Complementing the notion of an English Canada and a French Canada, what has transpired during the first decade of the 21st century is the evolution of a dynamic cultural, financial, political, and social entity called Chinese Canada. With a critical mass of more than 1.3 million people, this is an ethnic community and “imagined” nation with links to the Chinese Diaspora globally and especially, to the economic growth of the People’s Republic of China. Chinese Canada as an “imagined” nation within the larger Canadian nation has all the characteristics that an English Canada or a French Canada possesses: dynamic cultural organizations, financial impact, political acumen, expanded populace, a global reach, and social stability. This talk explores how this came about.

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.