Faculty News
David Furumoto (Theater and Drama) will be heading to Honolulu in July for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Prince Akihito Scholarship. As part of the commemoration, the Emperor and Empress of Japan will be having a special audience with recipients of the scholarship which was founded in honor of the marriage of the then Crown Prince and Princess. He will also be presenting at a special symposium that is part of the event to discuss the use of kabuki theatre and Japanese folk tales to increase awareness of Japanese culture and traditions. He also just got back from a 10 day trip to Tokyo where he was gathering materials in preparation for the presentation of “Narukami The Thunder God” as part of the UW-Madison University Theatre season (this traditional kabuki play opens in February of 2010) and also for the production which he will be guest directing at Michigan State University, “The Trojan Women” (this production will open at MSU in October of 2009 and will be presented using traditional Japanese theatre techniques).
Edward Friedman (Political Science) presented a paper on “Power Transition Theory” at a conference on China’s Peaceful Development held in Macao. He also spoke at a Taiwan round-table at George Washington University and presented a paper on China and Africa at a conference at DC in May. In late May, he was on a panel of the Canadian Political Science Association in Ottawa as a discussant. On June 1st, he gave a paper, “The Darker Side of the Legacy,” at Northwestern for a conference on the histological significance of Tiananmen Square. In the rest of June, he presented a keynote speech to a conference in Beijing’s Renmin University to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, saw Taiwan President Ma Yingjiu, and presented a paper on “Appeasing a Rising Authoritarian China” at a Taiwan University workshop on power asymmetries.
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney (Anthropology) has been the Kluge Distinguished Chair of Modern Culture at the Kluge Center, the Library of Congress. She will then spend the fall semester in the newly established Institute for Advanced Study-Paris and return to UW-Madison at the end of the year.
Quitman Eugene Phillips (Art History) is currently winding up his sabbatical year in Japan, where he has been centered in Tokyo as a visiting scholar at Gakushuin. He also presented a paper titled, “Shuten Doji: Picture, Text, and Ritual,” at Gakushuin University on June 11th.
Julia Murray (Art History) is awarded Senior Fellowship at the Institute for Research in the Humanities for a term beginning in September 2009. In June 2009, she presented a keynote address at the international and interdisciplinary conference, "Rethinking Visual Narratives from Asia," at Hong Kong.
Byung-jin Lim (EALL) has been selected by the Academy of Korean Studies (http://www.aks.ac.kr/aks/) as a winner of the 2009-2010 Korean Studies Grant competition for his research project "Developing Intercultural Communicative Competence and Linguistic Competence: Telecollaboration in the Korean Language Program at UW-Madison." Telecollaboration involves interpersonal exchanges between foreign language students and native speakers of the target culture through the use of Internet communication tools. Through telecollaboration with native speakers of the target language and culture, language learners can have authentic intercultural experiences which promote intercultural communicative competence and linguistic competence.
Jung-Hye Shin (Design Studies) has been awarded 2009-2010 Korean Studies Grant from the Academy of Korean Studies for her research “Making Home for the Aged: Spatial Analysis of Class, Culture, and Modernity in Korea and in the U.S.” This is a cross-cultural and multi-sited ethnographic study on five interrelated retirement communities in Korea and in the Midwestern U.S., all of which are run by the same international organization. In her study, Professor Shin will explore the social meanings attached to these facilities, the way each regional culture affects spatial configuration of homes, and the daily life of various groups of social actors in each setting.
New Faculty
Ann Y. Choi (EALL) received her Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles and has taught at Claremont McKenna College and for a number of years at Rutgers University. Her specialty is modern Korean literature with an emphasis on poetry. Her new work is on the images of children in contemporary South Korean fiction. A published poet, she has been a Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. Having taught a variety of Korean literature and culture courses on both coasts, she is excited at the opportunity to live and teach in the Midwest and is particularly appreciative of the friendly people who have welcomed her to UW-Madison.
Charles Kim (History) studies twentieth-century Korean culture and society with a specialization in South Korea after 1945. His research and teaching interests include nationalist discourse, collective memory, popular culture, and social relations. He’s currently at work on a study that examines the cultural origins of South Korea’s April Revolution (1960).
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