Spring into Literature Reading Series Present BRANDON SHIMODA

12PM Thursday 4 February

IB 2025 / Zoom: 614 954 2152

Brandon Shimoda is an award-winning poet and non-fiction writer. His most recent books are The Grave on the Wall (City Lights, 2019), a lyric portrait of his grandfather which received the PEN Open Book Award, and The Desert (The Song Cave, 2018). His next book, on the afterlife of Japanese American incarceration, received a Creative Nonfiction Grant from the Whiting Foundation, and is forthcoming from City Lights. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

At Thursday’s event, he will read sections from The Grave on the Wall and discuss the book’s unique overlay of memoir, history, photography, and lyricism. He will also talk about his research process and the book’s “remarkable exploration of how citizenship is forged by the brutal U.S. imperial forces,” as poet Don Mee Choi writes, as well as answer student questions.

Media and Arts Speaker Series | Unfamiliar Convenience: Dissecting Haunted Everyday Technologies as Attitude

The Media & Arts Speaker series at Duke Kunshan University is a bi-weekly event that invites leading practitioners in media and arts to speak about their work and practice and engage with our DKU community.

The third miniseries of talks looks at the concept of the lab, both as a philosophy and a methodology to see how these innovative approaches have impacted and transformed the production of culture, art and society.

The lecture scheduled on Friday November 13th, 2020 at 6pm China Central time features the artist and Head of Research at Chronus Art Center Lab Vytautas. This series is organized and hosted by Prof. Vivian Xu and Prof. Benjamin Bacon, and supported by Arts and Humanities and the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. This event is open to the public.

6pm China time, Friday January 29th, 2021 / 5am EST

Location: Duke Kunshan Innovation Building 1046

Zoom: 262-835-7204

Continue reading “Media and Arts Speaker Series | Unfamiliar Convenience: Dissecting Haunted Everyday Technologies as Attitude”

The Thursday Night Tea Research Group Event Report | Dating Apps and Intimacy with Dalia Othman

By Anisha Joshi

Class of 2022

What does intimacy look like in a society where romantic interactions are so mediated by AI and dating apps? For the first workshop on intimacy, in a four-part series organized by the Thursday Night Tea Research Group, Dalia Othman discussed how some of these dating apps work, and what determines the connections they facilitate. Othman is the founder of Jeem.me, an Arabic language website that produces knowledge on gender, sex and sexuality beyond the mainstream, and her research interests encompass gender and technology, and online activism.

While we may be prone to thinking of online dating as a relatively new development, Othman highlighted how the first attempts to match humans through computers was in the 1960s. However, it was starting from the 2000s that these dating apps and sites took off along with the internet.

Over the past few decades, the number of people who have been meeting online has greatly risen in comparison to through their social circles. ‘Today there are millions of people who use these dating apps, and they’re in search for plenty of different things,’ Othman said, ‘But at the end of the day, it is really chiefly for emotional and physical connection.’ Continue reading “The Thursday Night Tea Research Group Event Report | Dating Apps and Intimacy with Dalia Othman”

Film Screening with Filmmaker | NOWHERE TO CALL HOME

Time and Date: 7:00pm, Wednesday January 20 (6:00am EST)
Venue: IB-1008 (IB-Auditorium)
Zoom ID: 530.394.0458

NOWHERE TO CALL HOME provides a rare glimpse into the world of a Tibetan woman without her hukou, torn between her traditional way of life and her desire for her son to have a better future in the city. Shot in the hutongs of Beijing and a remote village near the epicenter of Tibetan self-immolations, this gripping story of a woman determined to beat the odds puts a human face on the political strife that fractures China and Tibet. Along the way it challenges common Western stereotypes about Tibetans, and reveals a dark side of life in a traditional village, where, as the saying goes, ‘women aren’t worth a penny.’

The Thursday Night Tea Research Group | DATING APPS with Dalia Othman

Thursday January 21, 7-8:30pm CST / 6-7:30am EST
On Campus: IB 1010
Zoom: 298 656 1787

In this workshop—the first of a four-part series organized by the Thursday Night Tea Research Group on the topic of intimacy—we will be talking about what hides behind the dating apps: how do they determine who we date? Is it all a game of profit? Are they bringing us closer together or driving us further apart? All are welcome to join!

Dalia Othman is the founder of Jeem.me, an Arabic language website producing knowledge on topics related to gender, sex and sexuality. Her research on gender and tech, and online activism has benefited from Fellowships at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and MIT’s Center for Civic Media, among others. She holds an MA from NYU’s Media and Culture and Communication program.

Spring Writing Retreat

During the break between the two Spring sessions, the Humanities Research Center and the Center for the Study of Contemporary China will collaborate to offer an intensive writing retreat from Monday 15 to Friday 19 March. The aim is to offer time and space for DKU faculty to make serious progress on an important project and to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and discussion.

The retreat will take place in a quiet location (TBD) in Jiangsu not too far from Kunshan. Transport from and to DKU, meals, and accommodation will be provided by the two research centers. Faculty are expected to work on their writing projects during the day. An optional light exercise activity such as a walking tour will be offered in the afternoon. Faculty will be grouped into small thematic clusters and invited to discuss their research with their colleagues after dinner in the evening. Each center will fund eight to ten faculty, who will be expected to participate for the full five days.

Eligibility

All DKU faculty working on writing projects broadly related to arts and humanities, interpretive social sciences or contemporary China are eligible to apply. Faculty working on equivalent projects in creative arts, such as editing a film, are also eligible to apply. Priority will be given to tenure-track professors who will make substantial progress on an project relevant to their eventual tenure application. Other applications will be considered if space permits.

Application Process

Applications are due via Qualtrics form by January 31. Faculty will be asked to briefly describe their project, its state of completion, its significance for their research career, and the concrete goals that they hope to achieve by the end of the retreat. Decisions will be made by the center directors and announced within one week.

Further Information

For further information, please contact James Miller, co-director of the Humanities Research Center, or Keping Wu, co-director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China.