Japanese Conversation Club

Wed, Feb 8 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Feb 15 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Feb 22 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Mar 1 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Mar 8 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Mar 15 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Mar 22 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Mar 29 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Apr 5 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Apr 12 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Apr 19 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, Apr 26 2017, 6:30pm
Wed, May 3 2017, 6:30pm
Joe Brown Main Foyer

All are welcome. For more information, contact Club President Rio Watson at  riowatsn@uga.edu or Vice President Megan Spriggs at megan.spriggs25@uga.edu.

 

Dr. O'Neill Publishes New Book

Dr. O'Neiil's new book 'Famine Irish and the American Racial State' is now available. This interdisciplinary, transnational work uses an array of cultural artifacts, including novels, plays, songs, cartoons, government reports, laws, sermons, memoirs, and how-to manuals, to make its case. It challenges the claim that the Irish "became white" in the United States, showing that the claim fails to take into full account the legal position of the Irish in the nineteenth-century US state – a state that deemed the Irish "white" upon arrival.

Betty Jean Craige Lecture, featuring Viet Thanh Nguyen

Mon, Feb 13 2017, 4pm
UGA Chapel

Viet Thanh Nguyen's February 13 visit is supported by the Department of Comparative Literature and is part of the Global Georgia Initiative from the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. The prestigious lecture honors Dr. Betty Jean Craige, Professor Emerita and former director of the Willson Center.

Viet Thanh Nguyen is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his 2015 novel The Sympathizer. His follow-up, 2016’s Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, was shortlisted for a National Book Award in nonfiction. A collection of short stories, The Refugees, will be published in February 2017.

Born in Ban Me Thuot, Viet Nam in 1971, Nguyen and his family came to the United States as refugees in 1975. He earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Berkeley before accepting a teaching position at the University of Southern California, where he is now the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity.

Other honors for The Sympathizer include the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction from the American Library Association, and the Asian/Pacific American Literature Award from the Asian/Pacific American Librarian Association. His first book, Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America, was published in 2002.

Additionally, Vietnam/War/Memory/Justice: A Conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen will be held at 4 p.m. February 14 in the Larry Walker Room on the 4th floor of Dean Rusk Hall. Joining him will be Tiana S. Mykkeltvedt, a Georgia Law alumna and partner at the Atlanta law firm Bondurant Mixson & Elmore who was flown out of  Vietnam as an orphan in April 1975, and Rusk Center Director Diane Marie Amann, Associate Dean for International Programs and Initiatives and Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law at Georgia Law, who also serves as the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s Special Advisor on Children in & Affected by Armed Conflict.

Willson Center Distinguished Lecture by Professor Haun Saussy

Dr. Haun Saussy, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago, and former president of the American Comparative Literature Association, presented new research at the University of Georgia on September 15. The event was organized by Dr. Yuanfei Wang from Comparative Literature and was supported through the Willson Center's Distinguished Lecture Series support.

Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School Students Visit UGA Chinese Courses

Rabun Gap–Nacoochee School Students studying Mandarin III Honors and AP Mandarin class traveled to the University of Georgia on Monday, October 3, to visit Chinese classes in the Comparative Literature Department. With help from Dr. Yi, the director of Chinese Language and Literature, each student had a chance to visit 2 classes, one intermediate class and one advanced class, before meeting with the head of the department, Dr. Moshi, and gaining experience about the univeristy.

 

2nd Annual Spring Jamboree a Success

The inaugural Spring Jamboree in 2015, which showcased a wide variety of academics, culture, dance and music from across Asia and Africa. Presented by students from across campus, it represented both individuals studying in the Comparative Literature Department (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Yoruba, Swahil, among others) and affiliated student groups. Building on the success of the event, which packed Joe Brown Plaza for several hours, the second celebration of culture took place on March 30 and expanded upon the framework of the first edition.