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