CAS Newsletter

As the academic year draws to a close, it can be tempting look back on our accomplishments; however, the two words that we academics most associate with May - “Graduation” and “Commencement” – urge us to peer forward instead. Two major events are in the immediate future:

• CAS is the programming partner for the May 18 appearance of R.F. Kuang as part of the Dallas Museum of Art’s series Arts & Letters Live:

• From June 2nd through the 30th Gong Fu Panda Camp returns:

We are looking forward to the Fall semester and the introduction (one might say “commencement”) of an annual educational series that is part of our Asian American Narrative Project. Each academic year, CAS will bring to campus distinguished Asian American authors/creative. The inaugural year will feature Indian American authors:

Chitra Divakaruni is an award-winning writer, activist and teacher, and the author of 21 books such as Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, Before We Visit the Goddess, Palace of Illusions, The Forest of Enchantments, and The Last Queen. Her newest novel, Independence, depicts the experiences of three sisters in strife-torn Calcutta as India frees itself from the British yoke. She writes for adults and children.

Her work has been published in over 100 magazines and anthologies and translated into 30 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Bengali, Hungarian, Turkish, Hindi and Japanese. Her work been made into films, plays and dance dramas, and performed as operas.

Her awards include an American Book Award, a PEN Josephine Miles award, a Premio Scanno, and a Light of India award. In 2015 The Economic Times included her in their List of 20 Most Influential Global Indian Women. She is the McDavid professor of Creative Writing in the internationally acclaimed Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston and lives in Houston with her husband Murthy.

Divakaruni has been an activist in the fields of education and domestic violence and has been closely associated with the following nonprofits: Pratham, which educates underprivileged children in India, Akshaya Patra, which provides meals to Indian schoolchildren, and Daya and Maitri, which assist survivors of domestic violence in the US in starting life anew.

In partnership with the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies

Jai Chakrabarti is the author of the novel A Play for the End of the World (Knopf ‘21), which won the National Jewish Book Award, was the Association of Jewish Libraries Honor Book, was short-listed for the Tagore Prize, and was long-listed for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He is also the author of the story collection A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness (Knopf ‘23).

His short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, One Story, Electric Literature, A Public Space, Conjunctions, and elsewhere and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Short Stories, and awarded a Pushcart Prize.

Sindya Bhanoo is the author of the story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere (Catapult). The collection was the winner of the Oregon Book Award for Fiction and the New American Voices Award. It was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and the Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction and longlisted for the Story Prize and the American Library Association’s Carnegie Medal.

A longtime newspaper reporter, Sindya has worked as a reporter for The New York Times and The Washington Post, where she is still a contributor. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon and is an Assistant Professor at Oregon State University.

Nina McConigley was born in Singapore and raised in Wyoming. She earned her MA from the University of Wyoming, and her MFA at the University of Houston. Her short-story collection Cowboys and East Indians was the winner of the 2014 PEN Open Book Award and a High Plains Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Orion, High Country News, O, Oprah Magazine, Parents, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short Fiction, and The Asian American Literary Review among others.

In 2019-2020, she was the Walter Jackson Bate fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and is a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Creative Writing Fellowship. Her play, based on Cowboys and East Indians has been commissioned by the Denver Center for Performing Arts, and will be premiering in 2024. She teaches at Colorado State University.

The Fall schedule will also include the 11th annual AnLin Ku Lecture:

Bernard Faure, Kao Professor in Japanese Religion, received his Ph.D. (Doctorat d’Etat) from Paris University (1984). He is interested in various aspects of East Asian Buddhism, with an emphasis on Chan/Zen and Tantric or esoteric Buddhism. His work, influenced by anthropological history and cultural theory, has focused on topics such as the construction of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, the Buddhist cult of relics, iconography, sexuality and gender. His current research deals with the mythico-ritual system of esoteric Buddhism and its relationships with medieval Japanese religion.

He has published a number of books in French and English. His English publications include: "The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism" (Princeton 1991), "Chan Insights and Oversights: An Epistemological Critique of the Chan Tradition" (Princeton 1993), "Visions of Power: Imagining Medieval Japanese Buddhism" (Princeton 1996), "The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality" (Princeton 1998), "The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity, and Gender" (Princeton 2003), and "Double Exposure" (Stanford 2004). He is presently working on a book on Japanese Gods and Demons.The Fluid Pantheon: Medieval Japanese Gods I (University of Hawai'i Press, 2016) and Protectors and Predators: Medieval Japanese Gods II (University of Hawai'i Press, 2016).

Information taken from Columbia University's Department of Religion website

Watch for more information about these and other events sponsored and co-sponsored by CAS. We look forward to seeing you at these and other events – and helping us achieve our grander vision of becoming a major educational and research resource for Asian Studies – adding still another dimension to UT Dallas’ value to the community, Texas and the world.

- Dennis Kratz

NOTE: All programming sponsored by CAS reflects our alliance with the Crow Museum of Asian Art. We urge recipients of this Newsletter also to take advantage of the educational programs and opportunities offered by the Crow Museum.

The Center for Asian Studies congratulates Dr. Ming Dong Gu on his appointment as the Katherine R. Cecil Professor of Foreign Languages in the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology. An internationally renowned scholar, Dr. Gu is the author of four books in English and more than 100 articles in English and Chinese. He also serves as Associate Director of the Center for Asian Studies.

Dr. Gu is featured sixth from the left (in red)

On May 16, members of the CAS leadership team discussed future collaborative projects with the National Chung Hsing University (NCHU) in Taiwan. CAS and NCHU are committed to fostering a mutually beneficial partnership focused immediately on expanding our Chinese language offerings as part of both the formal curriculum and “community/extended” education.

On May 17, CAS Associate Director, Dr. Sharon Gou, was a Grand Awards Judge for the Mathematics category in the 2023 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (Regeneron ISEF). The fair took place at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center.

The Regeneron ISEF is the world’s largest international pre-college science competition. Each year, ISEF brings over 1,800 high school students from 75 countries to exhibit and demonstrate ingenuity and innovation through science projects of their own design.

Congratulations, Dr. Gou!

Get ready! CAS will be offering non-credit Asian language courses for the Fall 2023 semester! Classes begin on August 19. Visit our website using the button below for course more details and the course schedule:

For any questions, please contact CAS Associate Director, Dr. Sharon Gou, at asianstudies@utdallas.edu or (972) 883-2798.

Email: asianstudies@utdallas.edu
Website: https://asianstudies.utdallas.edu/
Location: 800 West Campbell Road, JO 5.504, Richardson, TX, USA
Phone: (972) 883-2798
Facebook: facebook.com/AsianStudiesUTDallas
Twitter: @cas_utd