Keynotes, Performances, and Roundtables

Join us for the following invited speakers and sessions:

Keynote Presentations

Namiko Kunimoto, Associate Professor of Art History and Director of the Center for Ethnic Studies, Ohio State University

"Moving Forward, Looking Back: the Boundaries of Art History and AAPI Diaspora Studies"
Recently, academic institutions have recognized a lack of diversity in their faculty. As a result, an increasing number of faculty positions in Global Studies and Diaspora Studies have emerged. This talk is a reflection on my path through the academy, and the ways that it intersects with issues of race and visual studies in my field. Has the field of Asian art history become more open to AAPI-focused work? Are we in a moment of change? What can we do to make our field more inclusive and open to diversity?

Namiko Kunimoto is a specialist in modern and contemporary Japanese art, with research interests in gender, race, urbanization, photography, visual culture, performance art, transnationalism, and nation formation. Her keynote address is supported by the East Asian Studies Center of The Ohio State University.

Reginald Jackson, Associate Professor of Pre-modern Japanese Literature, University of Michigan

"Investments in Ignorance: Legacies of Enslavement and the Theatrics of Antiblack Education in Premodern Japan"
How do supremacist investments influence knowledge production in East Asia and beyond? Following Sylvia Wynter’s critique of the category of “Man,” I investigate the role performance plays in racializing bodies and making them legible as human—or not. I examine premodern systems of enslavement operating in a premodern Japanese context to explore how personhood is defined and policed between Asia, Europe, and the New World during early modern Christian expansion. Specifically, I consider Jesuit evangelization in Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries alongside earlier histories of conquest and racial formation within Asia and beyond. This presentation will invite us to rethink these intertwined processes and how they have shaped educational conventions and opportunities across cultures.

Reginald Jackson's scholarship focuses on questions of performance and performativity within Japanese culture. His keynote address is sponsored by the ASIANetwork Blackness in Asian Studies Advisory Group and the East Asian Studies Center of The Ohio State University.

Musical Performances

Chan Park, Professor Emeritus of Korean Language, Literature, and Performance Study, Ohio State University

Chan Park's specialization is research and performance of p'ansori, Korean story-singing, its performance in transnational context in particular, related oral narrative/lyrical/dramatic traditions, and their places in the shaping of modern Korean drama. She has published extensively on the theory and practice of oral narratology and its interdisciplinary connection with arts and humanities as a whole. Her performance is supported by the East Asian Studies Center of The Ohio State University.

Yii Kah Hoe, Composer and Music Educator, Senior Lecturer, SEGi College, Subang Jaya, Malaysia

"A Dialogue Between Music and Nature"
This performance and discussion will feature the results of a project led by me with the idea of preserving the vanishing sound of nature and music, inspiring musicians to connect with the sound of nature, and, most importantly, educating the audience about the value of traditional music and nature.

Yii Kah Hoe is a Malaysian composer and Chinese dizi and xiao improviser. Yii has been recognized as one of the major voices among Southeast Asian composers of his generation. His music has been widely performed in Asia, America, and Europe. His music is perceived as bold and avant-garde. His works use sounds and rhythms of many traditional instruments from various ethnic cultures. The sensitivity of space that Yii mastered as an artist in his younger years is also evident in his music.