As part of the traveling exhibition, Quilts of Southwest China, I have been invited to give a public lecture and to screen my film at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is a very exciting opportunity for me to connect my research on ethnic tourism and social change in rural China with the material culture practices and forms of knowledge transmission embodied in the region's embroidery and textile crafts. The film was also screened at the exhibition's first venue, in Indiana, earlier this year, but this time I'm grateful for the chance to engage directly with museum visitors and audiences.
The public screening and lecture will take place on Sunday, October 8, 2017, and on the following Monday, I'll conduct a seminar on contemporary conditions in ethnic minority China for museum docents. It's really energizing to be able to connect my work with the museum community in Santa Fe, and conversely I look forward to learning a lot about the textiles and objects included in the show. UPDATE 9/28/2017: My film was awarded an honorable mention in the medium-long length film category at the festival. I was very pleasantly surprised by this recognition, especially in the context of a festival devoted to exploring the politics of cultural heritage in the contemporary world.
农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness (2013) was selected for screening at the 2017 Heritales: International Heritage Film Festival in Évora, Portugal, which takes place September 21-23. This looks like an exciting festival that is coordinated by scholars at the University of Évora alongside support from UNESCO, and I'm really looking forward to attending the films and discussion. It's been really motivating for me to have folks in the cultural heritage and museum studies worlds interested in my work this year, particularly because the question of "heritage" is one that is opening a lot of necessary, and challenging, conversations about power, domination, and control. I think it's important to tackle these issues from multiple angles, so I'm glad to have this chance to share my work and think about different perspectives at the festival next month. 2017 has started with...a lot of work to do. Luckily, I have a few talks coming up to give me some motivation and focus on thinking through some of my arguments and ideas. Thanks to the department of Anthropology at SOAS, University of London, and the Asia Centre, University of Sussex, I'll be in the UK for a week giving three talks and screening my film -- I am really looking forward to this opportunities to work on and work out some of my current thoughts, and get some much needed input and feedback.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017 University of Sussex Asia Centre Seminar "Media and the Rural Modern: Participatory Video and Documentary as Development in Rural Ethnic China" Tuesday, March 14, 2017 Anthropology of Tourism and Travel Colloquium SOAS, University of London "Archetypes of Ethnicity: Architecture and Expectations in China's Ethnic Tourism" Wednesday, March 15, 2017: Two events SOAS, University of London Department of Anthropology and Sociology Ethnographic Film Series Screening: 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness Anthropology Departmental Seminar "A Yao Self, a Miao Portrait: Two Moments of Filmmaking in 'Minority' China" Details on the exact location and time of the events can be viewed through the links, along with abstracts of my talks to be held at SOAS. More updates and images to come! The new year has started with a rush! At Emory, I'm excited to be teaching my China anthropology course again, which has been updated with some new materials and will feature a guest lecture by two Chinese scholar-filmmakers from Yunnan in April. I'm also running a new graduate seminar, "Heritage and Power" with a great, multi-disciplinary group of students from across the university.
Moreover, I've just settled the dates for a number of public talks, seminars, and film screenings over the course of the spring in Montreal, Los Angeles, and Seattle. The dates and titles are below, and further details will follow: February 15, 2016 Digital Ethnography and Community Media Graduate Seminar, Concordia University February 16, 2016 Buffalo, Wrangler, Videographer: Vernacular Media and the Afterlives of Bullfights in Southwest China Public Talk, Global Emergent Media Lab, Concordia University March 5, 2016 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness Film screening and discussion, USC-RAI Ethnographic Film Festival in Los Angeles, Center for Visual Anthropology, University of Southern California (USC) March 7, 2016 These Days, These Homes: The Process of a Film-in-Progress Graduate Seminar, Center for Visual Anthropology, USC March 11-25, 2016 Cultural Anthropology Screening Room (Online) Review and filmmaker Q&A with online access to my film, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness April 2, 2016 Collaboration and Power: The Politics of Community Media in China and Taiwan Roundtable discussion, Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Seattle April 4, 2016 Documenting Development in China: Community Media in Tibetan Qinghai Screenings and discussion of community media projects from Qinghai, China, Center for Chinese Studies, UCLA April 5, 2016 From Our Eyes: Community Media and Visual Ethnography in China Screenings and discussion, East Asian Studies Center and the Department of Anthropology, USC May 19, 2016 All Together Now: Ethnic Crowds and Vernacular Media in 'Minority' China Culture, Power, and Social Change Seminar, sponsored by Anthropology and the Center for Chinese Studies, UCLA June 19-22, 2016 Participatory Modernity: Vernacular Media in Ethnic China Paper presentation in a panel, "From Whose Eyes, In Whose Name? Interrogating Rural Media, Anthropological Knowledge, and Ethnographic Expertise in China and Taiwan," accepted for the 2016 Society for East Asian Anthropology Conference in Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong 2015 Chinese Environmental Film Festival
Furman University February 26-28, 2015 Full Screening Program For three days at the end of February, I'll be in Greenville, South Carolina, attending the Chinese Environmental Film Festival organized by Professor Tami Blumenfield and the entire Asian Studies department at Furman University. This is going to be a fantastic event and a unique chance to see, and discuss, a range of films by Chinese and US-based filmmaker-scholars that all address questions of environmental change and its impact on society. My film, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness, will screen on Friday, February 27, at 7 p.m., followed by commentary and discussion with me, Professor Emily Yeh (Geography, U Colorado Boulder) and Professor Kate Kaup (Political Science, Furman University). I'll also be discussing the Chinese independent documentary, Beijing Besieged by Waste, earlier that day alongside Ralph Litzinger (Anthropology, Duke University). This is a really exciting group of films and scholars that will gather in Greenville for the festival, and I'm so pleased to be a part of this important conversation about the relationships between Chinese society and environmental change. All events are free and open to the public. In conjunction with Stanford historian Thomas Mullaney's course on Race and Ethnicity in East Asia (Winter 2015) and co-sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies, I'll be screening my film on campus on Friday, February 20, 2015, from 10-12:30. This public screening will be followed by a conversation between Professor Mullaney and me, and then open discussion with students and scholars, all which I am really looking forward to. It's been great to receive feedback and insights on my research from scholars across the disciplines, because it helps me to better understand and conceptualize my findings. And, of course, these discussions are very important ways for all of us to deepen our understandings of tourism and its consequences in the contemporary world.
Here are some details on the event (click on the link for more information and to RSVP): 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness Stanford screening Friday, 2/20/2015, 10-12:30 Lane History Corner, Building 200, Room 034 This is an amazing way to start to my year, and I'm hoping 2015 will be filled with opportunities to share my film and develop new ideas and projects! The UC Berkeley Tourism Studies Working Group was a crucial part of my PhD experience while I was a student, and I'm really thrilled to be invited back to screen my film with the group later this month. The TSWG has been running seminars and conferences on a wide range of topics related to critical tourism studies since 2003, and it has been a huge influence in fostering new research ideas and scholarship in the Bay Area. It's going to be great to go back to Cal and to meet the new group members. And as usual, events are open to all Bay Area scholars and students.
农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness screening and discussion Friday October 24, 2014 5-7 p.m. 2251 College Ave aka Archaeological Research Facility (next to Boalt Law School) All welcome |
Archives
April 2024
|