The East Asian Studies Program at Smith College offers students the opportunity to develop a coherent and comprehensive understanding of the great civilizations of the Asia Pacific region through its interdisciplinary major and minor. It also endeavors to make Asia an integral part of the liberal arts education at Smith.

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FACEBOOK:

New FACEBOOK page for EAS Majors and Minors. Check it out: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=197777771222&ref=mf

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NEW SPRING 2010 EAS COURSE OFFERING:

EAS 375 Seminar: Dimensions in United States-Japan Relations

The 2008 election in the U.S. and the 2009 poll in Japan serve, potentially, as catalysts for a major "change" within and between these two countries.  The seminar will analyze the broader contemporary context and implications of the emerging relationship between the historic administrations of Barack Obama and Yukio Hatoyama.  The interdisciplinary inquiry will incorporate political-diplomatic, socio-cultural, historical, and economic-financial perspectives.

{S} 4 credits

Permission of the Instructor Required (dyasutom@smith.edu)

Thursday, 1:00-2:50

Dennis Yasutomo

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OTHER EAS-RELATED EVENTS:

Touch Fire: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics by Women Artists, October 9-February 28, 2010 at the Smith College Museum of Art. Opening Festivities: October 15, 4-8 PM. 5:30 PM Conversation: Todate Kazuko, Essayist and Shigematsu Ayumi, Ceramicist, Weinstein Auditorium, Smith College. 7 PM Reception, Museum Atrium. Saturday, October 17, 2 PM Public Gallery Talk, Todate Kazuko. www.smith.edu/artmuseum.

Friday, November 20, 4:30p, Seelye 106, What's Mud Got to Do with It: Botany, Cultural History, and the Ideology of a Flower. Lecture by Xiaofei Tian, Professor of Chinese Literature, Harvard University. Followed by a reception at the Lyman Conservatory. Fall Chrysanthemum show open 5:30-8:00p, free admission. Cultivated in Asia for thousands of years, the plant Nelumbo nucifera, commonly known as the lotus, has a much shorter, albeit rich and complicated, cultural and textual history in China. It is not only celebrated in native Chinese writings from antiquity, but also turns out to be an important symbol in Buddhism, which was imported into China in the first century AD. Gradually, the lotus becomes a contested site where diverse and often conflicting meanings converge: spirituality and purity, high-mindedness and detachment, sensuality and erotic love-and food and medicine. The multiple facets of the lotus provide a perspective on Chinese culture even as they effectively call into question the existence of a monolithic "Chinese tradition."

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Internships, Scholarships & Graduate Study