Fan Yang to present on Chimerican media, its impact on politics on October 22

The Institute for Chinese Studies will present a a lecture by Fan Yang, University of Maryland, on Friday, October 22 from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. This lecture will be offered online and in person on the OSU campus (registration required). Professor Yang will present "Rethinking Sino-U.S. Politics through Chimerican Media: Rising China and the Transpacific Turns." Professor Jennifer Hubbert, Lewis & Clark College, will serve as commentator.

Abstract: This talk draws on my book manuscript, Disorienting Politics: Rising China and Chimerican Media, to rethink a media/cultural studies approach to Sino-U.S. politics. Chimerican media refer to a set of transpacific media artifacts and processes that make visible the economic, cultural, political, and ecological entanglements of China and America - the two twenty-first-century “superpowers” sometimes dubbed “Chimerica.” Most Chimerican media are produced in the United States, whether it is The Martian or House of Cards. But they also capture the myriad processes that characterize the Pacific as a space of Chimerican - among other Asian and American – encounters, which have expanded tremendously since China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001.

From election campaign ads and popular films to TV/Netflix shows and journalistic accounts, Chimerican media often feature an elusive yet racialized presence of the Chinese state. This figure, what I call Rising China, is not merely a pre-formed object to be (mis)represented but an agent co-constituted with Chimerican media. Shaping and shaped by transpacific interactions, Rising China produces a disorienting effect on politics. That is, it extends a political imagination beyond the place of the nation and into the space of transpacific media.

Chimerican media as a kind of transpacific media offer competing visions of state and citizenship. Yet the widespread tendency among US cultural producers to racialize the Chinese state has made it difficult to recognize Chimerican entanglements as a basis for imagining politics anew. Engaging with the epistemic remapping known as the transpacific turns, this talk calls for a relational politics - beyond the conventional framing of Sino-U.S. relations - that acknowledges the multifarious and uneven interconnectivities between people, places, media, and environment

Michiko Ueda to present on suicide, mental health in Japan during COVID-19 pandemic on October 25

The Institute for Japanese Studies will present a a lecture by Michiko Ueda, Waseda University, on Monday, October 25 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. online (registration required). Professor Ueda will present "Suicide and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan."

Abstract: Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the OECD countries. Its suicide rate (the number of suicide deaths per 100,000 population) as of 2018 was 16.5; more than 20,000 people ended their life by suicide in that year alone. This webinar presents monthly trajectories of suicide deaths in Japan during the COVID‐19 pandemic using the latest suicide death records up to August 2021. The number of suicide deaths temporarily declined during the initial phase of the pandemic, but it subsequently increased starting in July 2020. A particularly large increase was observed among relatively young women and students. Our original monthly survey data indicated that the status of young individuals' mental health has significantly deteriorated during the pandemic and also that young female workers were more likely to have experienced a job or income loss than any other group. Potential causes of the increase in suicide deaths will be discussed.

2021 CESS Annual Conference to be held virtually October 14-17

The 2021 Central Eurasian Studies Society’s Annual Conference, co-sponsored by the East Asian Studies Center, will be held virtually Thursday, October 14 through Sunday, October 17. It will include 24 panels covering Central Eurasia (roughly from Turkey through Mongolia, including parts of Russia, China, and the Middle East) from multiple disciplinary perspectives by academics from around the world, full details available in the program. The keynote address will be on October 16 and delivered by Rian Thum, “China and Central Eurasia: Empires and Middle Grounds”. Registration is free but required to attend any panels or the keynote.

OIA to hold International Student Experience Workshop Series beginning on October 4

The International Student team is hosting its International Student Experience Workshop Series beginning on Monday, October 4.

This three-part series is for faculty and staff interested in learning more about the international student experience and will include presentations by staff from the Office of International Affairs and other offices on campus. There will also be a panel of international students who will answer questions and share their experiences on the selected topics.

Each workshop is offered in-person at 160 Enarson and through Zoom. Those who complete the three-part series will receive a training certificate from the Office of International Affairs.