Society

FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.

The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.

Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.

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This event is co-sponsored by the Commitee for Black Performing Arts, the Institute for Diversity in Arts, and the Asian American Activities Center.

Rushay Booysen - hip hop activist from Port Elizabeth, South Africa and writer for www.africasgateway.com

Mr. Booysen works with young artists who express their opposition to ongoing oppression through hip hop culture. Much of his activism and writing focus on issues facing the "coloured" community in South Africa. His photo essay on youth culture in Port Elizabeth will appear in the next issue of Stanford's Black Arts Quarterly. Recently, Mr. Booysen has begun working with the local city council in Port Elizabeth to broaden opportunities for young performers. His interviews with local South African artists, such as J-Bux, and international artists, such as DJ Krush, have appeared in international internet journals.

Chizuco Naito - writer, cultural critic, and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tokyo, Japan

Her work addresses minority cultures, imperialism, and sexuality in modern and contemporary Japanese literature. Ms. Naito has published extensively on topics such as reader response activism, imperialism in modern Japanese literary studies, sexual politics, and romantic love as a topic of resistance. She has written on authors as diverse as Nakagami Kenji, Hoshino Tomoyuki, Matsuura Rieko, and Natume Soseki. While most of her courses focus on modern and contemporary Japanese fiction, she recently taught a course on Star Trek and US Imperialism.

Dylan Rodriguez - Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, UC Riverside

Dr. Rodriguez teaches Filipino American Studies and Ethnic Studies. He received his Ph.D. and his M.A. degrees in Comparative Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been involved in Critical Resistance and has written extensively on the prison industrial complex as it is expressed both in the United States and internationally. His essay "The Challenge of Prison Abolition: A Conversation with Angela Davis" appeared in the March, 2001 issue of Social Justice.

Setsu Shigematsu - Lecturer in Ethnic Studies, UC Riverside

Whether addressing representations of sexuality in Japan or the development of Asian American social movements, Dr. Shigematsu routinely engages questions of identity and liberation. She has written and presented research on women and violence in Japanese comics, as well as on war's impact on women (specifically "comfort women" and karayuki-san in the Pacific War). Originally from Quebec, Dr. Shigematsu earned her Ph.D. in Japanese literature from Cornell University. She has also studied the development of transnational activism in Asian women's movements.

Carla Williams - Photohistorian, writer, and artist

Ms. Williams, who resides in Oakland, is the co-author of The Black Female Body and other books. Her work as a photographer is featured in the Smithsonian's current "Reflections in Black" exhibit. She has been a frequent guest speaker at events at Stanford, as well as a Humanities Center Fellow, and is currently completing two major book projects, one of which focuses on an African American artist's model in the 1930's, Maudelle Bass. Ms. Williams, who is originally from Los Angeles, also maintains the website www.carlagirl.net.

With a musical performance by JenRO, the female rapper, and spoken word by Stanford student Kiyomi Burchill.

Oksenberg Conference Room

Conferences
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Many have argued that the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001 and the bombings in Indonesia in October 2002 (Bali) and August 2003 (Jakarta) have revamped the security situation for America?s partners in and near Southeast Asia. Is this true? What security challenges do America?s partners now face in the region? Are these challenges so thoroughly domestic and political in nature that that they cannot be addressed by military force, or through military cooperation? And to the extent that military approaches are viable, are America?s Southeast Asian and Australian partners equipped and trained to undertake them? For example: How interoperable are the relevant Southeast Asian, Australian, and American forces? How well does Australia in particular fit into this picture? Is Canberra disdained by Southeast Asian governments as a ?deputy sheriff? of Uncle Sam? Should Washington develop meetings of defense ministers into an alternative to the so far unimpressive ASEAN Regional Forum? Or is hub-and-spokes bilateralism the better way to go? Should Washington try to upgrade its warming security relations with Singapore into a fully fledged security treaty along U.S.-Japanese lines? How should nontraditional security threats?not only terrorism but piracy, drugs, and people-smuggling?be factored into these calculations? Sheldon Simon is a leading American specialist on Southeast Asian security. The author or editor of nine books--most recently The Many Faces of Asian Security (2001)--and more than a hundred scholarly articles and book chapters, Professor Simon has held faculty appointments at George Washington University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Hawaii, the University of British Columbia, Carleton University (Ottawa), the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and the American Graduate School of International Management. He visits Asia annually for research and is a consultant to the U.S. Departments of State and Defense. He earned his doctorate in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1964.

Okimoto Conference Room

Sheldon Simon Professor of Political Science and Southeast Asian Studies Arizona State University
Seminars
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This seminar is part of Shorenstein APARC's Korea Luncheon Seminar Series, sponsored by the Korean Studies Program. The luncheon is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are required. Please RSVP to Okky Choi by 12 noon on Wednesday, January 28 if you wish to attend and have lunch reserved for you.

Philippines Conference Room

Michael Robinson Professor, East Asian Languages and Culture Indiana University
Seminars
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This seminar is part of Shorenstein APARC's Korea Luncheon Seminar Series, sponsored by the Korean Studies Program. The luncheon is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are required.

Philippines Conference Room

Jae-on Kim Professor of Sociology Speaker University of Iowa
Seminars
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Admiral Thomas Boulton Fargo assumed duties as Commander U.S. Pacific Command, at Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, on May 2, 2002. He is the twentieth officer to hold the position. As the senior U.S. military commander in the Pacific and Indian Ocean areas, he leads the largest of the unified commands and directs Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force operations across more than 100 million square miles. He is responsible to the President and the Secretary of Defense through the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and is the U.S. military representative for collective defense arrangements in the Pacific.

Bechtel Conference Center

Admiral Thomas B. Fargo Commander U.S. Pacific Command
Seminars
Authors
News Type
Commentary
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Indonesia needs to build a modern society. The recent report on U.S.-Indonesia relations by the U.S.-Indonesia Society, NBR, and the Asia-Pacific Research Center urged a significant effort to fund education.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Even here in Indonesia, where there is a strong tradition of tolerance, there is a war going on between radicals and moderates for Muslim hearts and minds. You can see that war in the police armed with automatic rifles, manning anti-vehicle barriers in front of my hotel and every other large Western-linked building in Jakarta. In August, Islamist terrorists blew up a suicide bomb in front of the Marriott Hotel here and are threatening to hit a long list of targets that includes schools attended by Western children. These are the same bombers who killed more than 200 people in Bali last November. The war is being fought on Indonesia's campuses, particularly secular universities where students are intrigued by radical Islam. Activists from Indonesia's liberal Islamic movement disdainfully call them "born-again Muslims'' and hold provocative campus forums with titles like ``There is no such thing as an Islamic state.'' At a religious boarding school in Yogjakarta, one of tens of thousands of pesantran spread across this vast country, they teach that the Koran is to be understood, not just rotely chanted in Arabic. "We are not frozen in those Koranic verses,'' director Tabiq Ali said. ``Interpretation depends on our own thinking.'' You can even see the war in a steamy best-seller about a Muslim woman whose faith was shattered by the hypocrisy of Islamic radicals who preached righteousness while sleeping with her. The subject of the book, a Yogjakarta university student, now fears retribution. This is a war we cannot afford to see lost. Indonesia is not only the largest Muslim nation in the world, but it could also become a base for radical Islam to spread throughout Southeast Asia. Alternately, Indonesia's struggling democracy could set an example for others in the Muslim world. "You have all the ingredients that could make this place the first Muslim majority democracy that works,'' says Sidney Jones, a leading expert on Islamic terrorism in Southeast Asia. ``And you have all the dark forces eager to push Indonesia in the opposite direction. The question is where does it come out.'' What can the United States do in this war? So far our efforts have focused almost entirely on aiding the pursuit of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian terrorist group linked to al-Qaida. Initially, the government denied it had a home-grown problem and was wary of seeming to follow American dictates. But after the shock of the Bali and Marriott bombings, the authorities have captured many of the terrorists and successfully prosecuted them. Ultimately, however, Indonesia needs to build a modern society. While the rest of Asia, from India to Vietnam, vibrates with the energy brought by the information technology revolution, Indonesia feels like a stagnant backwater. Its economy limps along, plagued by poverty and corruption. The key is a woefully underfunded educational system. Unlike Pakistan's madrassah system, the religious schools are integrated into the state system, and many offer a secular curriculum along with religious teaching. But in the pesantran that I visited, one in a city center and the other in the countryside, I found classrooms that offered little more than whitewashed walls and wooden desks. Computers are few in number and science labs primitive, if even existing. State schools are better equipped but still backward. Why not wire every school to the Internet, build science labs and, most importantly, train teachers? A recent report on U.S.-Indonesia relations by the U.S.-Indonesia Society and Stanford University's Asia-Pacific Research Center urged a significant effort to fund education. President Bush picked up on that idea, announcing a U.S. educational aid program during his October stopover here. But he alarmed Indonesians by tying the initiative to the war on terror. The U.S. ambassador had to make the rounds assuring Indonesians that the U.S. was not out to dictate curriculum in its religious schools. More troubling is the pathetic amount of money he offered -- most of it funds shifted from existing programs -- only $157 million over 6 years. Says former Ambassador Paul Cleveland, who heads the U.S.-Indonesia Society: "You would get more democracy out of $1 billion spent in Indonesia than $20 billion spent in Iraq.''

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Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-8274 (650) 723-6530
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Huma Shaikh joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in April 2003. She has a long history at Stanford, having previously worked at the Hoover Institution and in Facilities. Her educational background is in banking, business administration, and programming.

Associate Director for Administration

Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-6530
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Research Fellow
Digital_Photo_(Sawada).jpg PhD

Chiho Sawada holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from Harvard University (specialty in East Asian history; secondary field in Western intellectual history) and a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego (major in economics; minor in visual arts). In addition, he has attended the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy (concentration in International Politics and Development), conducted research at numerous other institutions in Asia and the United States, and served stints in U.S. Embassies in Beijing and Seoul.

Dr. Sawada is currently working on several collaborative and individual research projects: (1) Historical Injustice, Redress, and Reconciliation: Global Perspectives, (2) Public Diplomacy and Counter-publics: Asia and Beyond, 1945 to the present, and (3) Student and Urban Cultures in Colonial Contexts. He recently contributed a chapter entitled "Pop Culture, Public Memory, and Korean-Japanese Relations" to the first volume of project one, Rethinking Historical Injustice in East Asia (Routledge, forthcoming). For project two, he is lead organizer of a Stanford workshop and conference, and editing the conference book. Project three is a book project that expands his dissertation to consider colonial context not just in Northeast Asia, but also India, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

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