Program in International Studies

Garrett Washington, Associate Professor of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst Amidst changes redefining and subjugating womanhood in the Meiji period (1868-1912), industrialist Hirooka Asako (1849-1919) rescued her marital family’s failing coal mine in Uruno. This story highlights her determination, knowledge but also her collaboration with male relatives and associates, and direct management, illuminating the underexamined […]

Suyoung Son, Associate Professor in Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University How can the written recipes convey the embodied practice of cooking? While cooking traditionally relies on direct transformation and oral explication, what circumstances lead to the translation of this mute skill into written form? This talk examines two 17-century cooking recipes from Chosŏn Korea (1392–1897), […]

Crystal Baik, Associate Professor, Gender & Sexuality Studies, University of California, Riverside In this talk, Professor Crystal Mun-hye Baik offers a glimpse into her second book project, Before the Fire Dogs Steal the Sun: An Elegy. An intimate cultural history of war, illness, and estrangement framed through her family history, Before the Fire Dogs Steal […]

Thomas Pepinsky, Walter F. LaFeber Professor, Department of Government and Brooks School of Public Policy, Cornell University Ethnicity is central to politics throughout the Malay world, but the meaning and significance of ethnicity—and of social categories like “Malay”—is contested, dynamic, and multifaceted. This talk is an overview of an ongoing book project, tentatively entitled Ethnic Orders, which […]