Alfred University faculty, students join ASIANetwork Conference
Three Alfred University faculty members presented papers at the recent ASIANetwork Conference at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY, held April 8-10.
Three Alfred University faculty members presented papers at the recent ASIANetwork Conference at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY, held April 8-10.
The faculty members: Zhongbei (Daisy) Wu, Visiting Professor of Music and Director of the Confucius Institute at Alfred University; Meghen Jones, Associate Professor of Art History, and Andrew Kless, Assistant Professor of History and Global Studies and Director of the Global Studies Program.
Together they formed an interdisciplinary panel titled, “Transcultural China in the Classroom and Community,” in keeping with the conference theme of “Transcultural Asia.” Wu presented her paper “East Meets West Virtual Concert & Forum Series”; Jones presented “The Transcultural Teabowl”; and Kless, who chaired the panel, presented “China and Botswana: When Teaching turns into Research.”
Four Alfred University students also participated in the conference: Ryan Schwanz, History and Political Science dual major and a Middle Childhood, Adolescence Education minor, presented a poster titled, “Taiwan: Sarajevo of the 21st Century.” Art and Design majors Mengya Li, Rongfengyan Mo, and Wanjia Zheng also participated.
The conference came on the heels of a virtual visit to Alfred University on April 7 by Karil Kucera, St. Olaf College Professor of Art and Art History and Asian Studies, who delivered the lecture "Preserving Pain, Promoting Peace: Learning from the Memorials at Hiroshima, Nanjing and My Lai." Kucera’s lecture was made possible by an ASIANetwork Speaker’s Bureau Grant, and co-sponsored by the Global Studies program and the Confucius Institute at AU. Kless in collaboration with Wu organized the lecture.
ASIANetwork, a consortium of over 170 North American colleges, strives to strengthen the role of Asian Studies within the framework of liberal arts education to help prepare succeeding generations of undergraduates for a world in which Asian societies play prominent roles in an ever more interdependent world.