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ALC Newsletter
October 8, 2021

I'd like to open this issue of the newsletter with a request. Seeing the photos from you all is a reminder of the people, places, and cultures central to all of our work: a reminder I feel especially acutely during this time when global travel is so difficult. So I would like to encourage anyone who wishes to send a photo from "the field" that we can include in one of our upcoming issues. If you have one to share, please email it to me at elbright@umich.edu along with whatever contextualizing information you'd like to provide. Thank you! -Erin
NEWS AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Please join me in congratulating our colleagues on the following achievements:
Miranda Brown, Bryan Miller, and Sangseraima Ujeed have been awarded a two-year humanities collaboratory grant for a project titled Centering the Northern Realms: Integrating Histories and Archaeologies of the Mongol Empire (1200 to 1500 CE) as part of an interdisciplinary team of scholars from across the university in the departments of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History. The project will center on the under-investigated northern reaches of the Mongol Empire located in the Khövsgöl region of modern day Mongolia. It will draw from a range of source materials, including textual, ethnographic, and archaeological, to explore the historical implications of the Khövsgöl region and its people (the people of the forest) on the broader pan-Asian dynamics of the frontiers of exchange, central places, religion and cosmologies, and economic patterns. Some of the projected outcomes include an on-campus exhibition, a comic book, and scholarly publications and seminars.
NEW (AND NEW-TO-IN-PERSON) FACULTY
Yanshuo Zhang is a Research Fellow in the Center for Chinese Studies and a Lecturer in Asian Languages and Cultures. After receiving her PhD in Chinese Literature and Culture from Stanford University, she taught in Stanford University’s Program in Writing and Rhetoric before joining Michigan in 2020. Yanshuo’s research focuses on ethnic minority cultures in China and the cross-cultural representations of “Chinese-ness” in visual art; and this fall, she is offering a course of her own design titled “Imagining China from the Borders: The Literary, Artistic, and Ethnic/Racial Borderlines of ‘China’” in ALC rooted in this work. Yanshuo grew up in China's multicultural Sichuan province known for its cute pandas and spicy food, both of which she enjoys. 

Photo Caption: Yanshuo Zhang (left) conducting research at a Qiang embroidery shop in Sichuan run by a Qiang female entrepreneur determined to revive Qiang traditional embroidery art for a new era of tourism and multiethnic cultural movements. 
Linda Galvane is the 2021-22 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center of Japanese Studies. She received her PhD in Japanese literature from Stanford University (2021) and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Osaka University (2015). Her research at Stanford examined modern and contemporary Japanese literature through the lens of excrement as a literary and rhetorical device. She also studies portrayals of Japan and Japanese sexuality in Russian literature. This fall, Dr. Galvane is teaching a course “Literary and Cultural Sewage Systems of Japan and Beyond”; in the winter, she will be teaching two courses: “Japanese Performance Traditions” and “Biopolitics and Bioethics in Modern Japanese Literature and Society.”
ANNOUNCEMENTS
ALC is co-sponsoring “Halaloween 2021: A Muslim Horror Film Fest.” The series runs all October and features five films “from Muslim majority countries that were made by, for, or about Muslims, with the hopes of understanding ‘What scares Muslim audiences? Are horror movies halal?’” Each film is available remotely for one week at no cost. For horror fans among us looking for transregional connections, two of the films hail from Asia: “KL24: Zombies” (Malaysia, available from Oct. 8) and “Impetigore” (Indonesia, available from Oct. 29). More information can be found here: https://watch.eventive.org/halaloween.
A reminder that Pinderjeet Gill will be presenting a lecture tonight--"Diversity Makes us Stronger: Language as a Bridge”--as part of the celebration of her Golden Apple Award. For those who wish to attend in person, it's Friday, October 8, 7:00 PM in Rackham Auditorium. The livestream will be available at https://ummedia01.umnet.umich.edu/umich/ga100721.html.
A reminder about the event shared by our Faculty Diversity Ally, Sangseraima Ujeed: the “Community Recognition Festival: Acknowledging 5 Years of DEI Progress” will be held on Monday, October 11, 3:30-7:00 PM at Trotter Multicultural Center. For more information, see https://deisummit.umich.edu/events/. For a detailed schedule of events, please refer to Sangseraima’s earlier email.
Our November departmental colloquium has been rescheduled. The next speaker will be Sangseraima Ujeed on December 9. More details will follow closer to the date. Swarnim Khare will now kick off our Winter Semester series in January (exact date/time TBD).
FROM THE FIELD (FLASHBACKS)
Arashiyama, 2018
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University of Michigan Department of Asian Languages and Cultures · 202 S Thayer St Ste 6111 · Ann Arbor, MI 48104-5413 · USA

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