The SOCCIS Southern California Seminar on South Asia is administered by Loyola-Marymount University, Professor Christopher Chapple (cchapple@lmu.edu), Asian and Pacific Studies. The 2001-2002 conference, "Celebrating Mahavira's Teachings - The Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life," was held California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, from January 19-20, 2002. The conference was also sponsored by the CSPU Pomona, College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences.
The conference included an international group of scholars and practitioners who shared their research and insights on the teachings of Mahavira and Jainism, and approaches to education about Jainism. Apart from CSPU Pomona, representatives from the following institutions participated: Schumacher College, UK; Dennison University; UC Berkeley; University of Guam; College of Jesus and Mary, Delhi University; University of Edinburgh; UC Irvine; McGill University; Loyola Marymount University; Southern California Jain Center; Anekanta Education Foundation.
During 2001, The Southern California Seminar on South Asia sponsored the annual meeting of South Asian scholars and the presentation of recent research. On January 27, 2001, the research topics and panelists included:
"Sita in the Kitchen: Pativrata and Ramarajya"
Phyllis K. Herman, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at California
State University, Northridge. She completed her Ph.D. in the History Department
of U.C.L.A. and has focused her research on Sita in the various Ramayanas.
She recently traveled to the city of Ayodhya and published an article
on her experience there in the Journal of Hindu Studies.
"The Poison in the Gift Revisited"
Maria Hibbets is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at California
State University, Long Beach. She completed her Ph.D. at Harvard University
in Sanskrit and Indian Studies in 1999.
"Divine Madness in Kashmir Saiva Texts and Traditions"
Marcy Braverman is completing her Ph.D. in Religious Studies at University
of California, Santa Barbara.
Three additional events were sponsored for the 2000-2001 academic year. The first was a panel on teaching South Asian Religions, held at the West Coast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Long Beach, October 6-8, 2000. Participants will include Cynthia Humes of Pomona College and Phyllis Hermann, of California State University, Northridge.
The second was a conference on the Yoga tradition held on Friday, October
27 at Loyola Marymount University and Saturday, October 28 at UCLA. Four
scholars presented papers: Dr. Olle Quarnstrom of Lund University, Sweden,
on Jaina aspects of the Yoga tradition; Dr. John Casey of Loyola Marymount
University on Buddhist aspects of the Yoga tradition; Dr. Ian Whicher
of the University of Manitoba on philosophical aspects of the Yoga tradition;
and Dr. Chris Chapple of Loyola Marymount University on images of luminosity
in the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. The four met on Friday to discuss their
contributions to and the general ordering of a book on the Yoga tradition
being edited by Dr. Whicher for Curzon Press. On Saturday they presented
their papers in a public session at UCLA.
The third event was a co-sponsored dialogue on Social Service and Spirituality
in India. Four presenters represented India: Swami Agnivesh, an activist
long involved with social welfare issues in India, including the liberation
of bonded laborers; Swami Asaktananda of the Ramakrishna Mission Ashram
in Narendrapur, who has helped with the building and administration of
several schools and hospitals; Kiran Bedi, who has introduced meditation
practices into the jails of New Delhi; and Ashok Malhotra, a philosopher
from the State University of New York at Oneonta who has founded schools
in Rajasthan, India.
During the 1999-2000 academic year, the Southern California Seminar on South Asia co-sponsored two events and promoted a third event to the mailing list of the Seminar.
The first event was titled Women and Spirituality: A Hindu-Roman Catholic Dialogue. This was held at Loyola Marymount University on October 23rd. Four speakers focused on South Asia: Dr. Carol Lee Flinders, Comparative Literature, the University of California, Berkeley; Dr. Jashiree Kak Odin, Humanities, the University of Hawaii; Dr. Vrinda Dalmiya, Philosophy, the University of Hawaii; and Pravrajika Sardeshaprana of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. Over 150 people attended this event. Audiotapes have been made available for each of the sessions.
The second event was an international conference co-sponsored with Chapman University in Orange County: Ethics and Religion for a Global Twenty-First Century. Presentations by the following scholars focused on South Asia: Dr. Arvind Sharma, McGill University; Dr. Vrinda Dalmiya, University of Hawaii; Dr. Christopher Key Chapple, Loyola Marymount University; Dr. Ninian Smart, University of California, Santa Barbara; Dr. Zayn Kassam, Pomona College; Dr. Chakrabarti Ram-Prasad, University of Lancaster; and Dr. Arindam Chakrabarti, University of Hawaii. More than 200 people attended.
The third event, the Third International South Asian Women's Conference, was held on May 6th and 7th. The South Asian Seminar helped in the promotion of this event.
The colloquium is administered on behalf of SOCCIS by the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies, Assistant Director Richard Gunde (gunde@isop.ucla.edu). The SOCCIS Southern California China Colloquium, April 20, 2002 conference, was held at the University of Southern California. The conference, "Contested Claims: The Party, the People and the Fate of the PRC," was an all-day Saturday program and was co-sponsored by UCLA's Center for Chinese Studies, the USC East Asian Studies Center, and SOCCIS.
The conference included an international group of scholars who shared their research and insights on Chinese politics. Apart from USC, representatives from the following institutions participated: University of Colorado, California State University, Long Beach, University of Oregon, Georgetown University.
Conference program
"Contested Claims: The Party, the People and the Fate of the PRC"
PRESENTATION:
Dai Qing (Journalist and author, Beijing, and Provost's Distinguished
Visitor, USC):
Opening Remarks
PAPERS:
Peter Gries (Political Science, University of Colorado): "Popular
Nationalism and the Fate of the Nation"
Teresa Wright (Political Science, California State University, Long Beach): "The China Democracy Party and the Politics of Protest in the 1980s-1990s"
Richard Kraus (Political Science, University of Oregon): "When Legitimacy Resides in Beautiful Objects: Repatriating Beijing's Looted Zodiac Animal Heads"
Stanley Rosen (Political Science, USC): "Youth and Regime Legitimacy: Balancing Nationalism, Internationalism and Pragmatism"
DISCUSSANTS: Daniel Lynch (International Relations, USC), Harley Balzer (Political Science, Georgetown University)
For 1999-2000, the Southern California China Colloquium presented seven
daylong conferences (including one held at USC), two roundtable discussions,
and twenty-two lectures. The conferences included an international conference
on U.S.-China relations (with representatives from the U.S. and Chinese
governments, the media, the professions, and others).
I. DAY-LONG CONFERENCES & SEMINARS
Oct. 23: WOMEN AND MODERNITY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA (Organizer: Hu Ying, UCI)
Joan Judge (History, UCSB), "Meng Mu Meets the Modern: The Refiguring
of Early Female Instruction Books in Late-Qing Textbooks for Girls and
Women"
Hu Ying (EALC, UC Irvine), "Life and Death of a Modern Icon: Sophia
and Her Others"
Cheng Weikun (Calif. State Univ., Chico), "Women, Theater, &
Modernity: The Public Lives of Actresses in Early 20th-Century Beijing"
Rachel Hui-chi Hsu (Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers Univ.), "'Nora'
in China: Modernity and Traveling Gender Identities"
Gail Hershatter (History, UC Santa Cruz), "Gender and "the State
Effect" in Rural 1950s China"
Shu-mei Shih (EALC & Comparative Lit., UCLA), "Transnational
Feminism Reconsidered: Hung Liu & the Art of Multiple Antagonisms"
Discussants: Prasenjit Duara (History, Univ. of Chicago); Michael Tsin (History, Columbia Univ.)
Nov. 6: FILMIC TEXT AND MEDIA PRODUCTION IN TRANSNATIONAL CHINA (Organizers:
Stanley Rosen, USC; and Mayfair Yang, UCSB)
Poshek Fu (History, Univ. of Illinois), Paul Pickowicz (History, UCSD),
and Zhiwei Xiao (History, Cal. State Univ., San Marcos), "The Opium
War: Take One, Take Two, Take Three"
Zhang Yingjin (Chinese and Comp. Lit., Indiana Univ.), "Death, Decapitation,
Desublimation: Wu Ziniu and the Shifting Paradigms of War Films in China"
Esther Yau (Art History and the Visual Arts, Occidental College), "A
Place To Do Things with Someone Else's Words: Reiteration, Space and Zhang
Yimou's Realism"
Discussant: Nick Browne (Film & TV, UCLA)
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
(with audience participation) on film and TV in China today, including
American studios & China, the audience for domestic and foreign films
& TV, co-productions, and Chinese diaspora TV & its connections
with China.
Panelists:
Lora Chen (Senior Internat'l Administrative Coordinator, Sony Pictures),
"Personal Notes on Changes in the Chinese Film Industry: Globalization
and the Market Economy"
Victor Li (Producer, "Bu jian bu san" ["Be There or Be
Square"]), "Chinese Film Production in the United States"
Mu Xiaocheng (Dubbing and Subtitling Division, Warner Bros.), "Diaspora
Chinese TV in Los Angeles and its Connections with Chinese TV: Personal
Observations"
Dec 11: THE HISTORY OF CHINESE FOREIGN RELATIONS: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY
REVIVAL? (Organizer: John E. Wills, USC)
John E. Wills, Jr. (History, USC), "On the Indispensability of the
History of Foreign Relations: Notes On the Historiography of China Beyond
the China-Centered Turn"
Paul A. Cohen (History, Wellesley College and the Fairbank Center), "The
Asymmetry in Intellectual Relations Between China and the West in the
Twentieth Century"
Michael Swaine (RAND), "China's Security Policy: A Historical Perspective"
Lyman Miller (Naval Postgraduate School and Hoover Institution), "War,
the Evolution of the Chinese State, and China's Strategic Culture"
Discussants: Richard Baum (Poli Sci, UCLA) Roger Dingman (History, USC),
Daniel Lynch (Int'l Relations, USC), and Kenneth Pomeranz (History, UC
Irvine)
Jan. 22, 2000: NEW THINKING: THE CHINESE ACADEMY IN THE 1990S (Organizer:
Theodore Huters, UCLA)
Wang Hui (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), "Reflections on 'National
Forms'"
Wang Xiaoming (East Chinese Normal University), "Major Developments
in Recent Chinese Intellectual Discourse"
Zhang Xudong (New York University), "'End of History' and the Future
of Humanities in China: The Problematics of Postmodernism"
Commentator: Yeh Wen-hsin, U.C. Berkeley
Feb. 27: US-CHINA RELATIONS AT THE CROSSROADS (Organizer: Richard Baum,
UCLA)
Welcoming address: Albert Carnesale (Chancellor, UCLA), Xu Zhihong (Pres.,
Peking Univ.)
U.S.-China Relations: The Search for Accommodation
An American View: Ambassador Chas. W. Freeman
A Chinese View: Ambassador An Wenbin
The WTO and China: The Devil is in the Details
Dr. Robert Kapp (President, U.S.-China Business Council)
Constructing Peace: Security Concerns
Prof. Jia Qingguo (International Politics, Peking University)
Dr. Richard Solomon (President, U.S. Institute of Peace)
Dr. Michael Swaine (Research Director, Asian-Pacific Policy, RAND)
Leveling the Economic Playing Field: Fair Trade vs. Free Trade
Prof. Randall Peerenboom (UCLA Law School)
Dr. William Mow (Chairman and CEO, Bugle Boy Industries)
Prof. Stanley Lubman (Stanford Law School)
Demonizing the "Other": The Role of the Mass Media
Prof. Orville Schell (Dean, U.C. Berkeley School of Journalism)
Prof. Timothy Weston (Dept. of History, University of Colorado)
Seth Faison (Shanghai Bureau Chief, New York Times)
Ambassador John H. Holdridge
PRC Ambassador Ji Chaozu
Dr. Kenneth Lieberthal (Special Ass't to the President, & Senior Director
for Asia, Nat'l Security Council), "U.S.-China Relations at the Crossroads"
April 10: AFTER THE ASIAN CRISIS
Ronald Bevacqua (Chief Economist, Kommerzbank, Tokyo)
Nicholas Lardy (Brookings Institution, Washington, DC)
Stephen Haggard (Political Science, UC San Diego)
Robert Wade (Sociology, Brown University)
May 13: REGIONS, SPACE, & LANDSCAPES: GEOGRAPHIC APPROACHES IN CHINA
STUDIES (Organizer: C. Cindy Fan, UCLA)
Laurence J.C. Ma (University of Akron), "Ten Major Characteristics
of Urban Development in China, 1949-1999"
Carolyn Cartier (University of Southern California), "Origins and
Evolution of a Geographical Idea: The Macroregion in China"
Ronald Knapp (SUNY New Paltz), "Scripting Space: The Use of Words
in Chinese Landscapes"
Tim Oakes (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder), "Trading in Places: Globalization
and New Spaces of Identity in China"
Discussants: Francesca Bray (Univ. of Calif., Santa Barbara), and James
Tong (UCLA)
II. Lectures, Talks, & Roundtable Discussions
Oct 14, 1999: Mark D. Elvin (Australian National University)
"The Chinese Style of Premodern Economic Development Seen in Environmental
Perspective: The Case of Jiaxing"
Oct. 15: David Keightley (UC Berkeley)
"Death and the Birth of Civilizations: Ancient China and Ancient
Greece"
Oct. 15: Zhang Xingrong (Yunnan Art Institute), and Li Wei (Yunnan Art
Institute)
"Twenty Years of Musical Ethnography in Yunnan Province: Music, Society,
& Research Among Han & Minorities Since 1980"
Oct. 18: David Keightley (UC Berkeley)
"The Science of the Ancestors: Divination, Curing, & Bronze-Casting
in Late Shang China
Oct. 21: Nicholas Standaert, S.J. (Catholic University of Leuven)
"The Jesuits Did NOT Manufacture Confucianism: Jesuit and Chinese
Textual Strategies in 17th-Century China"
Oct. 25: Chen Guangzhong (Director of the Center for Criminal Law and
Justice, Chinese University of Political Science & Law; Vice President
of the China Law Society)
"Reform of the Criminal Law Trial Method in China"
Oct. 28: Donald Clarke (University of Washington Law School)
"Misunderstanding Chinese Law: The Lure of the 'Rule of Law' Paradigm"
Nov. 9: Kenneth W. Allen (Senior Associate, The Henry L. Stimson Center)
"China's Foreign Military Relations & Cross-Strait Military Confidence-Building
Measures"
Nov. 9: Martin Kern (Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures,
Columbia University)
"The Professionals at Work: Official Scholars and Their Texts at
the Qin Imperial Court"
Nov. 17: Frankie Leung (Adjunct Professor of Law at USC and Loyola Law
Schools)
"Law in China and Hong Kong: Connections and Conflicts"
Dec. 8: Jason C. Yuan (Director General, Taipei Economic & Cultural
Office in Los Angeles)
"Taiwan's 'State-to-State Relations' Policy Toward Mainland China:
Old Wine in New Bottles?"
Feb. 11: Lo Ch'ing (National Taiwan Normal University)
"Landscape of Iron & Steel: From Pastoralism to Postmodernism"
Feb. 24: Jean-Luc Domenach (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques)
"On Communist Repression in China, 1949-1989"
Mar. 8: David Zweig (Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
"Hungry for Linkages: Domestic Demand for Internationalization in
China"
Mar. 13: A Roundtable Discussion with Mo Yan
Mar. 17: Yuan Ming (Director, Institute of Internatl Relations, Peking
University)
"Taiwan's Elections: Ramifications for US-China Relations"
April 11: Daniel Fung (Former Solicitor General of Hong Kong)
"Legitimacy, Democracy, and Rule of Law: Greater China's Structural
Transformation in the 21st Century"
April 17: Ryosei Kokuban (Professor of Politics, Keio University)
"An Eternal Triangle? The Japan-China- Taiwan Nexus"
May 4: Tony Saich (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University)
"Globalization and Governance in China"
May 8: Edward Steinfeld (International Management, MIT)
"The Latest Round of Chinese State-Owned Enterprise Reform: Last
Supper or Just Another Free Lunch?"
May 9: Roundtable Discussion with Tony Saich
"The Blind Man & the Elephant: Analyzing the Local State in China"
May 22: Chen Sihe (Professor of Modern Chinese Literature, Fudan University)
"1949-1976: 'Writing With Potential' within Contemporary Chinese
Literature"
May 31: Seth Faison (New York Times)
"Covering China: Does the Media Always Get It Wrong?"
June 2: Ma Rong (Peking University)
"System Reform, Migration, & Cultural Integration: Changes in
a Nomad Village in Inner Mongolia"