nes News and Events
  • Korean Language Film Festival was held in early April and deemed a great success. Student productions were shown to an audience of about 50 people, and the event was covered by local Korean TV, Arirang Korea TV. Prizes were given out for Best Film, Best Korean Speakers, and Best Actors.

  • EAS graduate Norichika Ikeda accompanied Prime Minister Stephen Harper in late March as he visited the city of Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, which was hit hard by the earthquake and tsunami last year. Photos from the visit are available on the the PM's website.

  • On Fri 30 Mar, the Ontario Chinese Bridge Speech Contest was held at Brock University and was attended by three UofT students who swept the competition, winning first, second and third prizes! Congratulations to the students, and to Hsiao-Wei Rupprecht and her Course Instructors and TAs for their dedication and hard work.

  • The Sixth Annual Toronto Korean Speech Contest was held on Sat 24 Mar and was attended by forty-six contestants from eight universities (every university in Canada with a Korean language program save for UBC). UofT students won eight out of the fourteen prizes, including two first place showings (in the beginner and open categories). Congratulations to the students involved, and to Kyoungrok Ko and Hye-Young Im for their dedication and hard work.

  • Congratulations to our students who won prizes at the Ontario Japanese Speech Contest on Saturday, March 17. Catherine Nahm won first place in the Advanced Category and Qin Yu won first place in the Intermediate Category. Special prizes were awared to: Tommy Haviland, David Wang and Yifei Zhang. Congratulations!

  • Congratulations to Michel Marion and Julianne Kelso who have been honoured by the Academy of Korean Studies for their research. Michel won first prize for his essay on "Min Yonghwan and the Enlightenment Party: The Crowd and Taehan Politics, 1894-1905." Julianne, who won a commendation awardfor her essay, "Loving the Future: Constructing a 'Return' to North Korea for Koreans in Japan." This was an international competition, and Michel and Julianne won against stiff competiton from around the world. Both worked with Prof. Janet Poole. It's extremely heartening to see our undergraudates receive such recognition. Congratulations to all concerned!

  • The East Asian Studies Students' Union (EASSU) has been recognized by the University of Toronto Students' Union (UTSU) and the Arts and Science Students' Union (ASSU) for its exemplary service to the University. EASSU is this year's recipient of the UTSU Academic and Students' Rights Award and the ASSU Urmila Sarkar Student Service Award, in recognition of EASSU's "hard work and dedication in bring[ing] together students to save East Asian Studies." Congratulations!

  • Baryon Posadas, who received his PhD from the department last November, has been selected as this year's nominee from the University of Toronto for the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies/University Microfilms International Distinguished Dissertation Award. Baryon is the sole representative in the arts and humanities for this award, which will name the most distinguished dissertations in Canada in July. This is a signal honour, indicating that Baryon's was the best dissertation defended last year in the humanities and social sciences. Congratulations to Baryon! (And to Prof. Sakaki, who supervised the dissertation.)

  • View Canada's first exhibition of North Korean art at the University of Toronto Art Centre, through March 19. Prof. Janet Poole helped arrange this exhibit of 24 wood block prints from the Nicholas Bonner Collection.

  • Thinking about applying to graduate school? Interested in an MA or PhD in East Asian Studies? Our workshop led by Prof. Janet Poole can help you sort out the application process, guide you to funding opportunities, and inform you about the various possibilities for continuing your study of East Asia. The Workshop is Monday, Nov. 1, 1-3 in Sid Smith 2115.

  • Congratulations to three members of the EAS community on their tremendous success in this year's Jackman Humanities Institute Fellowship competitions!

    • EAS specialist Andrew Campana has been named an Undergraduate Fellow for his innovative project, "Pilgr/image in Contemporary Japan: Virtual Journey and Sacred Visualizations in the Works of Yoshimoto Banana, Kawase Naomi and Tamiko Thiel." Andrew will be working on this project at the Institute.

    • Our department welcomes graduate student Banu Kaygusuz, who will begin her doctorate work and explore her interest in photography and Japan as one of 11 Jackman Junior Fellows selected from a highly competitive pool of incoming students.

    • Prof. Atsuko Sakaki will spend the academic year in residence at the Institute as one of three Faculty Research Fellows. Her current project, "The Photographic Narrative of Modern Japan," is informed by film studies, phenomenology, semiology, and theories of visual art, and has also received SSHRC funding in the past. It will explore the complex and crucial relationship between photography and fiction in the case of four critically acclaimed and internationally renowned modern Japanese novelists.

  • Prof. Juhn Ahn has been awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship. He will spend the year at Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Study, where he will begin a new project on forms of Buddhism that developed in 13th and 14th century Korea.

  • EAS major Efraim (Fry) Klamph took first place at the Ontario Chinese Bridge Speech Contest in May 2010. A master performer of Chinese kuaiban, a form of rhythmic verbal acrobatics, he went on to the final competition in China with contestants worldwide, and won third place. He is now studying at Beijing Normal University on a two-year Chinese government scholarship. Way to go, Fry!

  • Prof. Janet Poole has been awarded a $30,000 grant from the Korean Literature Translation Institute for 2010. As one of a handful nominated KLTI Translators selected for their past accomplishments, she will be working on a collection of short stories by the early twentieth century writer Yi T’aejun. This will be a companion volume to her previous translation Eastern Sentiments, a collection of anecdotal essays by Yi T’aejun published last year by Columbia University Press.

  • Prof. Andre Schmid has received a SSHRC Standard Research Grant for his project, "Family and Domesticity across the Cold War Divide: North and South Korea in the 1950s."

  • Prof. Keirstead has been appointed Interim Chair of the Department. Prof. Sanders is the new Graduate Coordinator and Prof. Kawashima the new Undergraduate Coordinator.

  • A symposium titled "China in the Long Twentieth Century: Overcoming the 1949 Divide" will be held between Nov 19-20. Please check out the preliminary program here.

  • Canadian poet Gary Geddes will be reading from his new book, Swimming Ginger, a suite of poems in conversation with the Qingming Shanghe Tu scroll, and from the 25th anniversary illustrated edition of his The Terracotta Army, sonnets inspired by life-size Chinese sculptures currently visiting the ROM.Please check out the details here.