The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is currently in the midst of a three-year research project, “Divided Memories and Reconciliation.” Divided Memories is a comparative study of the formation of elite and popular historical consciousness of the Sino-Japanese War and Pacific War periods in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States with the aim of promoting understanding and reconciliation. The first phase, which has been completed, is a comparative study of high school history textbooks from all five nations, focusing on the way the textbooks treat the wars and their aftermath. The second phase focuses on the impact of popular culture, especially films, on the formation of public memory.
 
The main goal of this international conference is to examine the role of dramatic cinema in shaping popular and elite perceptions of the historical period from 1931-1951, ranging from the treatment of Japanese colonialism to the post-war settlement and the beginnings of the Korean War. Panelists will survey the cinemas of Japan, China, Korea and the United States, identifying important films made during the post-war period and their impact on war memory. The conference will then focus on key issues of the wartime period as they are represented in film, including the Nanjing Massacre, nationalism in Japan, the colonial experience in Korea and the Korean war. Finally, we will examine other forms of popular culture, including manga and anime.
 
This conference is aimed at promoting public discussion crossing national borders and disciplinary boundaries – and producing an edited volume for publication. It will be preceded by a film series, featuring significant films on this wartime period from China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. The series will conclude on the evening of December 4, preceding the opening of the conference, with a showing and discussion of Letters from Iwo Jima with director Clint Eastwood.

Soon we will be able to say about old Beijing that what emperors, warlords, Japanese invaders, and Communist planners couldn't eradicate, the market economy has.  Nobody has been more aware of this than Michael Meyer. A long-time resident, Meyer has, for the past two years, lived as no other Westerner in a shared courtyard home in Beijing's oldest neighborhood, Dazhalan, on one of its famed hutong (lanes). There he volunteers to teach English at the local grade school and immerses himself in the community, recording with affection the life stories of the Widow, who shares his courtyard; coteacher Miss Zhu and student Little Liu; and the migrants Recycler Wang and Soldier Liu; among the many others who, despite great differences in age and profession, make up the fabric of this unique neighborhood.

Their bond is rapidly being torn, however, by forced evictions as century-old houses and ways of life are increasingly destroyed to make way for shopping malls, the capital's first Wal-Mart, high-rise buildings, and widened streets for cars replacing bicycles. Beijing has gone through this cycle many times, as Meyer reveals, but never with the kind of dislocation and overturning of its storied culture now occurring as the city prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.         

Weaving historical vignettes of Beijing and China over a thousand years through his narrative, Meyer captures the city's deep past as he illuminates its present. With the kind of insight only someone on the inside can provide, The Last Days of Old Beijing brings this moment and the ebb and flow of daily lives on the other side of the planet into shining focus.

Michael Meyer first went to China in 1995 with the Peace Corps. A longtime teacher, and a Lowell Thomas Award winner for travel writing, Meyer has published stories in Time, Smithsonian, the New York Times Book Review, the Financial Times, Reader's Digest, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. In China, he has represented the National Geographic Society's Center for Sustainable Destinations, training China's UNESCO World Heritage site managers in preservation practices.

Dr. Shea will talk with us about her research on menopause and aging among Chinese women and issues surrounding romance, sex, and marriage in later life in mainland China, as part three of the colloquium series on "The Implications of Demographic Change in China," co-sponsored by the Stanford China Program and the Asia Health Policy Program. 

A sociocultural anthropologist who specializes in medical and psychological anthropology and Chinese culture, Dr. Shea's research interests include gender issues, health and healing, aging and the lifecycle, and intergenerational issues. She has spent three cumulative years living, studying, and doing research in the People's Republic of China.

Dr. Shea earned a B.A. in Asian Studies from Dartmouth College in 1989, followed by an M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1994 and 1998.

This series of talks explore a number of issues which have arisen from a study of ethnogenesis, identity formation, state building, religious reform, and socio-economic "modernization" in selected regions of insular and peninsular Southeast Asia in the (late) modern period (late 19th century to the present).Clearly, none of these broad thematic areas can be adequately studied on its own.

The final talk examines the relationship between religion and secularisation, and specifically the implications of the so-called religious revival that is said to have taken place in different parts of Southeast Asia in recent years.  The main aim here is not, however, to engage in the normative debate over what constitutes a ‘proper’ relationship between religion and the modern (secular) state in modern societies – that is to contribute directly to current debates about the modern ‘public sphere’. Rather by focussing on the formation of alternative publics, he proposes to investigate relations between religion and secularity from a broadly phenomenological or experiential – rather than from a naturalist or socio-historical – perspective.

Among Joel S. Kahn’s many books are Other Malays (2006), Modernity and Exclusion (2001), Southeast Asian Identities (ed., 1998), Culture, Multiculture, Postculture (1995), and Constituting the Minangkabau (1993). His other writings include State, Region, and the Politics of Recognition (forthcoming in National Integration and Regionalism in Indonesia and Malaysia). He is an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and has held appointments at Monash University and University College London, among other institutions. He serves or has served as an editorial board member of Critique of Anthropology, Current Anthropology, and Ethnicities. His doctorate is from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

A technical problem prevented the recording of Professor Kahn's third lecture.

This series of talks explore a number of issues which have arisen from a study of ethnogenesis, identity formation, state building, religious reform, and socio-economic "modernization" in selected regions of insular and peninsular Southeast Asia in the (late) modern period (late 19th century to the present).Clearly, none of these broad thematic areas can be adequately studied on its own.

The second is this series addresses the formation of group identities in Southeast Asia and their implication in modern processes of state formation, with a particular focus on the category ‘Malay’. In looking at the making of modern Malay-ness he will also address three areas of recent debate: firstly, over the nature and distinctiveness of so-called cultural identities in the modern period; secondly, over the (continuing) role of empire in the shaping of modern identities; and, thirdly, over the impact of cultural and religious pluralism on Southeast Asian polities.

Among Joel S. Kahn’s many books are Other Malays (2006), Modernity and Exclusion (2001), Southeast Asian Identities (ed., 1998), Culture, Multiculture, Postculture (1995), and Constituting the Minangkabau (1993). His other writings include State, Region, and the Politics of Recognition (forthcoming in National Integration and Regionalism in Indonesia and Malaysia). He is an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and has held appointments at Monash University and University College London, among other institutions. He serves or has served as an editorial board member of Critique of Anthropology, Current Anthropology, and Ethnicities. His doctorate is from the London School of Economics and Political Science.