CHIASMOS: The University of Chicago International and Area Studies Multimedia Outreach Source [video]

A talk by Noriaki Imai, student environmental and peace activist. At 18 years of age, Noriaki Imai traveled to Iraq to study the effects of depleted uranium on Iraqi children. While in Iraq, he was taken hostage and threatened to be killed unless Japan withdrew its troops from Iraq. Fortunately, he was released alive, but when he returned home to Japan, he faced enormous public criticism. Part of the Japan at Chicago Lecture Series: Celebrating Protest; sponsored by the Japan Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies, the Human Rights Program, the Center for International Studies, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, the Environmental Studies Program and Middle Eastern Studies Students Association.

Professor Takahashi's writings, including his 2005 bestseller, The Yasukuni Issue, make unmistakably clear that the role of the Shrine is antithetical to democratic values in Japan and to reconciliation with Asia, which requires acknowledgment of the harms inflicted through colonialism and war. The subject of his lecture is Japan at a crossroads today, its hard-won postwar democratic values at stake as never before. Professor Takahashi teaches philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. He specializes in contemporary European philosophy and has been particularly interested in the ethical aspects of the work of Jacques Derrida. Sponsored by the Japan Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies and the Center for International Studies.

There is little doubt that climate change, deforestation, erosion, and the unequal distribution of natural resources around the globe are of pressing importance everywhere, but these problems are perhaps most acute in Asia, home to 64 percent of the world’s population. Much of this population (1 and 1.3 billion, respectively) is concentrated in India and China, two countries with rapidly growing economies, increasing levels of personal consumption, and serious ecological problems. Southeast Asia, though less populated overall, is home to some of the world’s major rainforests and to significant biodiversity. Southeast Asian forests are disappearing at a rapid rate, in part as a consequence of resource demands from the first world. Understanding these human and environmental challenges requires detailed understandings of local histories and ecologies; in this symposium we introduce some of the major environmental challenges facing Asia today, focusing on some specific historical and cultural contexts in this diverse region.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and The Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago

Kathleen Morrison is Professor, Department of Anthropology; Director, Center for International Studies, The University of Chicago.

There is little doubt that climate change, deforestation, erosion, and the unequal distribution of natural resources around the globe are of pressing importance everywhere, but these problems are perhaps most acute in Asia, home to 64 percent of the world’s population. Much of this population (1 and 1.3 billion, respectively) is concentrated in India and China, two countries with rapidly growing economies, increasing levels of personal consumption, and serious ecological problems. Southeast Asia, though less populated overall, is home to some of the world’s major rainforests and to significant biodiversity. Southeast Asian forests are disappearing at a rapid rate, in part as a consequence of resource demands from the first world. Understanding these human and environmental challenges requires detailed understandings of local histories and ecologies; in this symposium we introduce some of the major environmental challenges facing Asia today, focusing on some specific historical and cultural contexts in this diverse region.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and The Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago

Alan Kolata is Neukom Family Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, The University of Chicago.

There is little doubt that climate change, deforestation, erosion, and the unequal distribution of natural resources around the globe are of pressing importance everywhere, but these problems are perhaps most acute in Asia, home to 64 percent of the world’s population. Much of this population (1 and 1.3 billion, respectively) is concentrated in India and China, two countries with rapidly growing economies, increasing levels of personal consumption, and serious ecological problems. Southeast Asia, though less populated overall, is home to some of the world’s major rainforests and to significant biodiversity. Southeast Asian forests are disappearing at a rapid rate, in part as a consequence of resource demands from the first world. Understanding these human and environmental challenges requires detailed understandings of local histories and ecologies; in this symposium we introduce some of the major environmental challenges facing Asia today, focusing on some specific historical and cultural contexts in this diverse region.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and The Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago

Josh Ellis has an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies/Public Policy, University of Chicago.

There is little doubt that climate change, deforestation, erosion, and the unequal distribution of natural resources around the globe are of pressing importance everywhere, but these problems are perhaps most acute in Asia, home to 64 percent of the world’s population. Much of this population (1 and 1.3 billion, respectively) is concentrated in India and China, two countries with rapidly growing economies, increasing levels of personal consumption, and serious ecological problems. Southeast Asia, though less populated overall, is home to some of the world’s major rainforests and to significant biodiversity. Southeast Asian forests are disappearing at a rapid rate, in part as a consequence of resource demands from the first world. Understanding these human and environmental challenges requires detailed understandings of local histories and ecologies; in this symposium we introduce some of the major environmental challenges facing Asia today, focusing on some specific historical and cultural contexts in this diverse region.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and The Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago

Peter Boomgaard is Professor of Environmental & Economic History of Southeast Asia University of Amsterdam and Senior Researcher, KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Carribean Studies.

There is little doubt that climate change, deforestation, erosion, and the unequal distribution of natural resources around the globe are of pressing importance everywhere, but these problems are perhaps most acute in Asia, home to 64 percent of the world’s population. Much of this population (1 and 1.3 billion, respectively) is concentrated in India and China, two countries with rapidly growing economies, increasing levels of personal consumption, and serious ecological problems. Southeast Asia, though less populated overall, is home to some of the world’s major rainforests and to significant biodiversity. Southeast Asian forests are disappearing at a rapid rate, in part as a consequence of resource demands from the first world. Understanding these human and environmental challenges requires detailed understandings of local histories and ecologies; in this symposium we introduce some of the major environmental challenges facing Asia today, focusing on some specific historical and cultural contexts in this diverse region.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and The Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago

Lecture by Samantha Power, Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Samantha Power's book, A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, was awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. She was the founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and covered the wars in the former Yugoslavia as a reporter for U.S. News and World Report, The Boston Globe and The Economist. From the Human Rights Distinguished Lecturer Series; co-sponsored by the Center for International Studies and Students for Global Public Health.

A three-part workshop with Professor Juan Pablo Nicolini, Winter Tinker Visiting Professor, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies

The Orchestra is comprised of Russian domras and balalaikas, accordions, bayans, woodwinds, and percussion. This program ranges from traditional folk songs and dances to well-known works of Tchaikovsky and Glinka. Victor Gorodinsky, director; also featuring soprano soloist Jackie King. Sponsored by the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies, the Department of Music, Student Government, and the Union of Russian Students.