Inter-Asian Cultural Flows with discussants Stanley Rosen and Sang Yeon Sung. This panel was moderated by Keiko Yamanaka.
This conference will explore a number of broad threads under the rubric of "soft power." The overarching goal is to examine some of the important ways in which culture, product branding, export projection of national cultures, athletic events, and global NGOs serve to create a more unified (or divided) Asia.
To what extent are cultural and athletic activities used by national governments to project positive images? Do transnational groups such as NGOs operate independently of governments as cross national cultural unifiers? Are cultural products such as films, soap operas, and toys moving more easily across national borders in ways that foster some comprehensive sense of "Asian-ness" or "Asian identity?"- Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley
Bio
Stanley Rosen
Stanley Rosen (Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles) is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Southern California and Director of the East Asian Studies Center. He teaches courses on Chinese politics, East Asian Societies, Chinese Film and Film and Politics. Among his recent and forthcoming books are State and Society in 21st-Century China (co-edited with Peter Hays Gries) and Chinese Cinema at a Hundred: Art, Politics and Commerce (co-edited with Ying Zhu). His most recent work examines the Chinese film industry and its overseas prospects, the prospects for Hollywood film in the Chinese market, and value change among Chinese youth.
Seon Yeon Sung
Sang Yeon Sung (Ph.D. Candidate, Indiana University, May 2002–Present) is studying ethnomusicology at Indiana University. She was a private music teacher in Seoul from 1993 to 1998 including subjects of Western Music Theory, Korean Music Theory, Sight Singing and Ear Training. Sang Yeon Sung has served as a part-time lecturer at Hanyang University since 2003. She worked as a translator and editor of the Asian Pacific Society for Ethnomusicology, as an editor for the annual Hanyang University publication Korean Music, and as a Graduate Assistant in the Indiana University archives of traditional music.
Keiko Yamanaka
Keiko Yamanaka (Ph.D., Cornell University, 1987), a sociologist, is a Lecturer in the Department of Ethnic Studies and the International and Area Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1993, she has studied transnational migration and social transformation in Japan, focusing on two contrasting immigrant populations in central Japan: authorized resident Brazilians of Japanese ancestry and unauthorized Nepalese. In recent years she has investigated feminized migration in Asia, and civil actions by, and on behalf of, migrant workers in East Asian countries: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.
Her recent publication includes: Feminized Migration in East and Southeast Asia: Policies, Actions and Empowerment (Occasional Paper 11, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2005), Immigrant incorporation and women's community activities in Japan: local NGOs and public education for immigrant children, (Local Citizenship in Recent Countries of Immigration, Lexington, 2006), and 'Bowling Together': social networks and social capital of a Nepali migrant community in Japan, (Manohar, 2007), and Transnational community activities of undocumented Nepalese in Japan: agency, resistance and governance (Multiculturalism in the New Japan, Berghahn, in press).