CAS Newsletter
August 2021
Director's Statement
As I write this message, we are less than a week away from one of my favorite celebratory days: the First Day of Classes for the Fall semester. Optimism and the lure of the Possible always accompany the dawning of a new academic year. Not even the persisting uncertainty caused by the mutating pandemic can dull the anticipatory excitement of acquiring new knowledge, responding to unexpected challenges, and re-imagining what we thought we understood. The mission of the Center, now entering its third year of existence, is to enhance the UT Dallas academic programs and resources that foster knowledge and nuanced understanding of Asia and Asian America. We support academic courses for UTD students and provide non-credit language courses for the community. The Center also sponsors research projects and a wide range of educational outreach events such as the monthly Asian Studies Forum and Anlin science and medicine to the troubled career of the first Asian American movie star. This is a good year and UTD a place with increasing resources to increase your knowledge of Asia and Asian America.
- Dr. Dennis Kratz
Anime at the Modern | August 20 - 22
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth will be hosting their eighth annual "Anime at the Modern" film festival on August 20-22 this year. Dr. Marc Hairston, Professor of Science at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), has been curating this series since its start. This year the opening film will be Masaaki Yuasa’s Mind Game (2004). Dr. Christine Veras, Assistant Professor at UTD, will be hosting this film. She will be doing a short introduction before the film and conducting a Q&A about it afterwards. If you would like to attend this event on Friday August 20 at 7:30 pm, please purchase tickets using the link below:
https://www.themodern.org/film/mind-game
"Anime at the Modern" will also be showing three other more mainstream anime films over the weekend, Patema Inverted (2014) and the new Studio Ghibli movie Earwig and the Witch (2020) on Saturday morning and afternoon, and Yuasa’s more recent Ride Your Wave (2019) on Sunday afternoon. Dr. Hairston will be presenting and discussing these films for the festival. If you are also interested in attending these events, please purchase tickets with the links below:
https://www.themodern.org/film/patema-inverted
https://www.themodern.org/film/earwig-and-witch
https://www.themodern.org/film/ride-your-wave
**Update 8/16, 1:41 PM - The Modern Art Museum is currently having issues with their online ticketing, but tickets will be available “at the door” at the Museum for folks who just go to see the films
Nobel Laureate to Lecture | September 2
Sir Roger Penrose, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, will deliver a virtual lecture in honor and memory of UT Dallas physics professor Wolfgang Rindler at noon on Thursday, September 2. While this lecture is not directly related to Asian Studies, its subject reminds us of our common humanity on this fragile planet in the midst of an inconceivably vast universe.
The link https://utd.link/SirRogerPenrose will point to the Zoom talk on Sept. 2 at noon CST.
Tentative Events
**This event has been postponed to October 16th** September 11 at 4:00 pm: A panel of three distinguished professors on “Asian and Western Philosophy” will feature Arts & Humanities faculty members Dr. Ming Dong Gu, Dr. Lawrence Amato and Dr. Songyao Ren. The meeting provides an opportunity to welcome Dr. Ren to the UTD faculty as Assistant Professor of Philosophy.
September 29 at 11:00 am: This “hybrid” event will include a lecture and panel discussion on the challenge of translating scientific and other deep concepts across cultures. The distinguished philosopher of science Dr. Sundar Sarukkai will be speaking from Anant University in India. I hope to have some participants gather in person for this event.
Anlin Ku Lecture Series | October 13
The 9th Annual Anlin Ku Lecture will be by Dr. Yunte Huang on the first Chinese American movie star, Anna May Wong, and the light that her troubled career shines on the history of Chinese in America. Co-sponsored by the Center and the School of Arts & Humanities
Assistant Director, Sharon Yang, Retires
On July 31, the staff of the Center underwent one major change. Sharon (Xiaohong) Yang decided to retire after serving for the last 14 years as Assistant Director of the Confucius Institute and more recently as Assistant Director of the Center. The success of the former and the promising start of the latter were made possible by the combination of her brilliance as an educator, gracious charm as a representative of the university, commitment to international harmony, and above all her unfailing goodness as a person. Words are inadequate to express the depth of our affection for Sharon and our gratitude for her impact on our lives.