Annual board meeting for the Association of Regional Centers for Asian Studies (ARCAS) in October.

The UCA chapter of the Association of Regional Centers for Asian Studies is proud to have hosted the annual ARCAS board meeting on campus and in Little Rock in October, 2014.

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“Reality and Divinity in Chinese Philosophy”

a public lecture by Professor Chung-ying Cheng

Date: April 1, 2013
Time: 7:00 pm
Place: UCA College of Business Auditorium

A senior member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hawai‘i since 1963, Professor Cheng has become an internationally well-known scholar-philosopher in Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy. With a broad and deep background in the traditions of classical Chinese philosophy and Neo-Confucianism, he received his doctorate from Harvard University in the field of analytical philosophy and logic. He has lectured worldwide, and has received numerous honorary titles as honorary professor and university fellow. He is the founding president of the International Society of Chinese Philosophy, and executive editor of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy. Professor Cheng has authored and edited 21 books and over 250 articles in Western, Chinese, and comparative philosophy.

Sponsored by:
Humanities and World Cultures Institute, UCA College of Liberal Arts
Confucius Institute for Arkansas
UCA Department of Philosophy and Religion

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East-West Center

Asian Studies Development Program

Infusion Institute

Infusing Chinese and Japanese Religion, Art and Literature into the Undergraduate Curriculum

Dates: July 22-August 9, 2013
Location: East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii

This multidisciplinary, three-week Institute fosters faculty and program development aimed at enhancing undergraduate teaching and learning about Asian cultures and societies. Hosted annually through a generous grant from the Freeman Foundation, the institute on Infusing Asian Studies into the Undergraduate Curriculum offers undergraduate educators the opportunity to interact with leading Asian studies experts in an intensive program of lectures, discussions, film screenings, site visits and cultural events. The first two weeks of the 2013 program will include thematic overviews of Chinese and Japanese history; sessions on the religious traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, Shinto and Islam; and both China- and Japan-focused talks on premodern art traditions in modern and contemporary China and Japan. The 2013 Infusing Institute will be directed by Stanley Murashige (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and Peter Hershock (East-West Center).

Designed to meet the needs of educators involved in both curriculum and program development, the Infusing Institute is open both to individual applicants and to two- to three-person teams from colleges and universities committed to furthering undergraduate Asian studies.

Participants will receive lodging in the East-West Center guesthouse and a modest stipend. The home institutions of selected participants are asked to cover airfares and a program fee of $350. The application deadline will be March 11, 2013.

For inquiries, please contact the ASDP Secretariat: Sandy Osaki, osakis@eastwestcenter.org.

Application Form

Schedule

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ARCAS Faculty Enhancement Program

“The Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia”

Supported by
The Luce Foundation

Program Directors
George Brown, Slippery Rock University of PA
Joseph L. Overton, Kapi’olani Community College

UCA Faculty Participants
Jeffrey D Allender, UCA Geography (2012)
Lynne Rich, UCA Sociology (2013)

The Association of Regional Centers for Asian Studies, with the generous support of the Luce Foundation, sponsored two 5-week faculty development field studies, culminating in a publication on the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. The Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia project consisted of two groups of six (6) faculty and two (2) Co-Directors each, selected to create a balance of disciplinary interests and types of colleges served. The first group (summer 2012) focused on the Chinese diaspora in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia (MSI region). The second group (summer 2013) concentrated on Vietnam, Laos and Thailand (VLT region).

The Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia project aims to provide a highly focused research experience around which faculty from disciplines such as Political Science, History, Sociology, Economics, Anthropology, Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and Education may group themselves. Although the project will surely include the development of an historical grounding in the Chinese experience in the various countries under study, it will bring forward ongoing and contemporary issues related to the dynamics of life in the Chinese diaspora. Questions such as the following will be asked across the six cultures of the project: Where did these disparate communities come from in China, and what explains their geographic dispersion throughout Southeast Asia? What led the Chinese to migrate from locations in China to different locations in Southeast Asia? What values and beliefs, social and cultural practices were brought by the Chinese into their new locations? How were these groups assimilated, changed, or made influential in the culture under study? In what ways did the Chinese engage with locally existing powers in their new locations (political, social, cultural, educational)? What roles do the Chinese play now in the politics, culture, and economics/ business/ trade of these Southeast Asian societies? How were (are) Chinese treated within these societies and how did (do) they treat others (prejudice, discrimination, equity, racism)? How are Chinese portrayed in the literature and arts of the culture? What role is given to the place of the Chinese in the transmission of the culture and education in these countries?

The objectives of this project are:

Enhance Asian Studies programs at the widely-diverse ARCAS institutions.
Identify and examine variations of human interaction playing out in these societies, ranging from tension and conflict to the creation of viable, cohesive, and community-building strategies, by focusing on one diasporic community in several different societies.
Sharing the findings of the research in objective #2 with faculty, scholars, and those interested in global interactions at ARCAS member institutions, and other communities of concerned scholars and teachers of Asia.

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Faculty Development Workshop

University of Central Arkansas

October 18 — 20, 2012

Colonial Legacies in Asia:

Perspectives from Literature, History, Philosophy, Religion and Politics

Featured Speakers

James Hevia, University of Chicago
http://history.uchicago.edu/faculty/hevia.shtml

Patricia Henry, Northern Illinois University
http://www.niu.edu/forlangs/people/henry.shtml

Donald Clark, Trinity University
http://www.trinity.edu/departments/int_studies/faculty/dclark.htm

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