THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
East Asia by the Book! CEAS Author Talks
Initiated in 2016, this annual series showcases CEAS faculty, alumni, and special guests who provide author talks and book launches as a way to engage the broader community in conversations regarding key scholarship on East Asia. In partnership with the Seminary Co-op Bookstores, the East Asia by the Book! CEAS Author Talks features a presentation by the author(s) that is often facilitated through conversation with a discussant, following by a question and answer session with the audience.
To view a listing of upcoming and past author talks, please click on the relevant links below.
Jennifer Dorothy Lee (School of the Art Institute of Chicago)
Associate Professor of East Asian Art in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism
Anxiety Aesthetics: Maoist Legacies in China, 1978–1985
Discussant: Paola Iovene (University of Chicago)
Wednesday, December 4, 2024, 5 pm CT
Click here to register.
Simon Avenell (Australian National University)
Professor in the School of Culture, History, and Language
Asia and Postwar Japan: Deimperialization, Civic Activism, and National Identity
Wednesday, January 22, 2025, 12 pm CT (PLEASE NOTE THE NEW TIME)
Click here to register.
Tarryn Li-Min Chun (University of Notre Dame)
Assistant Professor, Theatre
Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China
Discussant: Ariel Fox (University of Chicago)
Thursday, February 13, 2025, 4 pm CT (PLEASE NOTE THE UNUSUAL TIME)
Click here to register.
Jeffrey Tharsen (University of Chicago)
Associate Director of Technology, and Lecturer in the Humanities and in the College
Chinese Euphonics: Phonological Patterns, Phonorhetoric and Literary Artistry in Early Chinese Narrative Texts
Discussant: Haun Saussy (University of Chicago)
Wednesday, February 19, 2025, 12 pm CT
Click here to register.
Giorgio Biancorosso (University of Hong Kong)
Professor of Music
Remixing Wong Kar-wai: Music, Bricolage, and the Aesthetics of Oblivion
Discussant: Paola Iovene (University of Chicago)
Thursday, February 27, 2025, 5 pm CT
Venue: Franke Institute for the Humanities
Click here to register.
*All book talks will take place the Seminary Co-op Bookstores unless otherwise noted.
Scott W. Aalgaard (Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University)
Homesick Blues: Politics, Protest, and Musical Storytelling in Modern Japan"
Jessamyn R. Abel (Associate Professor in Asian Studies Department, and Affiliated Faculty of School of International Affairs, Pennsylvania State University)
Dream Super-Express A Cultural History of the World's First Bullet Train
Ariel Fox (Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago)
The Cornucopian Stage: Performing Commerce in Early Modern China
Thomas Kelly (Assistant Professor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)
The Inscription of Things: Writing and Materiality in Early Modern China
S.E. Kile (Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature, University of Michigan)
Towers in the Void: Li Yu and Early Modern Chinese Media
Viren Murthy (Associate Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Pan-Asianism and the Legacy of the Chinese Revolution
Ruth Rogaski (Associate Professor of History, Vanderbilt University)
Knowing Manchuria: Environments, the Senses, and Natural Knowledge on an Asian Borderland
Seiji Shirane (Associate Professor of History, City College of New York)
Imperial Gateway: Colonial Taiwan and Japan's Expansion in South China and Southeast Asia, 1895-1945
Olga V. Solovieva (Scholar of Comparative Literature, Nicolaus Copernicus University)
The Russian Kurosawa: Transnational Cinema, or the Art of Speaking Differently
Click here to view the talk on Youtube.
Dali L. Yang (William C. Reavis Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago)
Wuhan: How the COVID-19 Outbreak in Wuhan, China Spiraled Out of Control
Also co-sponsored with the International House Global Voices Program, the Department of Political Science and PhD in Political Economy, The Center for Global Health, and the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression at the University of Chicago.
Click here to read the write-up.
William Carroll (University of Alberta)
Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Studies
Suzuki Seijun and Postwar Japanese Cinema
Robert Hellyer (Wake Forest University)
Professor of History
Supplying the Midwestern Green Tea Habit: Chicago's Role in the Global Tea Trade, 1850 to 1950
Robert "Bo" Jacobs (Hiroshima City University)
Professor of History, Hiroshima Peace Institute and the Graduate School of Peace Studies
Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha
Click here to view the event on YouTube.
Aynne Kokas (University of Virginia)
C.K. Yen Professor, The Miller Center; Director, UVA East Asia Center, and Associate Professor of Media Studies
Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty
Yung-ti Li (University of Chicago)
Associate Professor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Kingly Crafts: The Archeology of Craft Production in Late Shang China
Adhira Mangalagiri (Queen Mary University of London)
Lecturer in Comparative Literature
States of Disconnect: The China-India Literary Relation in the Twentieth Century
Haun Saussy (University of Chicago)
University Professor, East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the Committee on Social Thought
The Making of Barbarians: Chinese Literature and Multilingual Asia
Click here to view the event on YouTube.
Hung Wu (University of Chicago)
Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History and the College; and Adjunct Curator, Smart Museum of Art, Chinese Art
Chinese Art and Dynastic Time
Spatial Dunhuang: Experiencing the Mogao Caves
The Full-Length Mirror: A Global Visual History
Read the event write-up here.
Suisheng Zhao (University of Denver)
Professor, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, and Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation
The Dragon Roars Back: Transformational Leaders and Dynamics of Chinese Foreign Policy
Akemi Johnson
Journalist/Author
Night in the American Village: Women in the Shadow of the U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa
Also co-sponsored with the The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.
Click here to view the event on YouTube.
Part of the "Rethinking 'Reversion': Okinawa, Japan, and the U.S. Fifty Years Later Anniversary Series"
David J. Mozina
Scholar/Author
Knotting the Banner: Ritual and Relationship in Daoist Practice
Click here to view the event on YouTube.
Joel Andreas (Johns Hopkins University)
Professor of Sociology
Disenfranchised: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Citizenship in China
Click here to view the talk on YouTube.
Judith Farquhar (University of Chicago)
Max Palevsky Emerita of Anthropology and of Social Sciences
A Way of Life: Things, Thought, and Action in Chinese Medicine
Kelly Hammond (University of Arkansas)
Assistant Professor of East Asian History
China's Muslims and Japan's Empire: Centering Islam in World War II
Click here to view the talk on YouTube.
Yanzhong Huang (Seton Hall University)
Professor; Director, Center for Global Health Studies, and Senior Fellow in Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations
Toxic Politics: China's Environmental Health Crisis and its Challenge to the Chinese State
Also co-sponsored with the Contemporary China Series
Click here to view the talk on YouTube.
Alexa Alice Joubin (George Washington University)
Professor of English, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, International Affairs, Theatre, and East Asian Languages and Cultures
Shakespeare and East Asia
Click here to view the talk on YouTube.
Pauline C. Lee (Associate Professor of Chinese Religions and Cultures, Saint Louis University), Haun Saussy (University Professor of Comparative Literature, Social Thought, and East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago), and Rivi Handler-Spitz (Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, Macalester College)
The Objectionable Li Zhi: Fiction, Criticism, and Dissent in Late Ming China
Click here to view the talk on YouTube.
Yuhang Li (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Associate Professor of Chinese Art in the Department of Art History
Becoming Guanyin: Artistic Devotion of Buddhist Women in Late Imperial China
Mia Yinxing Liu (California College of the Arts)
Assistant Professor in Visual Studies
Literati Lenses: Wenren Landscape in Chinese Cinema of the Mao Era
Covell Meyskens (Navel Postgraduate School)
Assistant Professor of Chinese History
Mao's Third Front: Militarization of Cold War China
Martin Powers (University of Michigan)
Professor Emeritus of the History of Art
China and England: the Preindustrial Struggle for Justice in Word and Image
Click here to view the talk on YouTube.
Xuefei Ren (Michigan State University)
Associate Professor of Sociology
Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and the War on Air Pollution
Also co-sponsored with the Committee on Southern Asian Studies
Click here to view the talk on YouTube.
Peggy Wang (Bowdoin College)
Associate Professor of Art History and Asian Studies
The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art
Click here to view the talk on YouTube.
Levi McLaughlin (NC State University)
Associate Professor in Philosophy and Religious Studies
Soka Gakkai's Human Revolution: The Rise of a Mimetic Nation in Modern Japan
Click here to read the event write-up.
Yoon Sun Yang (Boston University)
Associate Professor of Korean & Comparative Literature
From Domestic Women to Sensitive Young Me: Translating the Individual in Early Colonial Korea
Click here to read the event write-up.
Norma Field (Robert S. Ingersoll Distinguished Service Professor in Japanese Studies, University of Chicago) and Heather Bowen-Struyk (Instructor, DePaul University)
For Dignity, Justice, and Revolution: An Anthology of Japanese Proletarian Literature
Click here to read the event write-up.
Johanna Ransmeier (University of Chicago)
Associate Professor of History and the College
Sold People: Traffickers and Family Life in North China
Click here to read the event write-up.