On Friday, October 2, the “Food Around Asia” event was successful in enriching students' cultural understanding and filling up their stomachs. Featuring music from across the Asian continent alongside delicious ramen and sweets to enjoy, the event was well received by the Colgate student body. Special thanks to OASIS, the Tea Club, and the Chinese Student Association for coordinating the event, as well as the Asian Studies program for sponsoring it. 

-Danya Zaidi, Asian Studies Intern

Join us for a Division of Social Sciences Luncheon Seminar on "Inside Chinese College Admissions: Stakes, Rules, and Student Choices" with Professor Yang Song

Each summer, more than 10 million Chinese students sit for the Gaokao, the centralized college entrance exam that determines university and major placement. Using administrative student records and policy variation, my research examines how institutional rules and student decisions shape admission outcomes and what is at stake.

I study the complexity and implications of the centralized matching system, the early-career implications of admission to elite colleges and majors in China, and, as the centerpiece of this talk, how men and women respond differently to failure. We show that men are much more likely to retake the exam after narrowly missing the Tier II university cutoff, contributing to the gender gap in elite college enrollment, and we examine the mechanisms behind this difference.

Lunch is provided while supplies last.

October 15 (Thursday) | 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m. 27 Persson Auditorium

Colgate Muslim Students Association (MSA), fall event, A Message and the Messenger: Love, Art, & Rumi  

Friday, October 23 | in the Hall of Presidents | 5:30p.m. 

This event is an opportunity for members of the Colgate community to come together and celebrate the life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) through faith, art, poetry, and music.

The evening will feature performances by Imams Ammar Charaf and Dzemal Crnkie, as well as an Ebru art demonstration by artist Ilker Selimler. Dinner will also be provided, and we hope to create a warm and welcoming environment for everyone to connect and enjoy the evening together.

Film Screening:  When describing the title, filmmaker Nao Yoshigai says: "Masayume is a Japanese word meaning that what we see in a dream happens in real life. In Zen, there is no narrative promising salvation through belief; instead, true power arises from the tangible reality felt by the mind and body through practice. One vital lesson I learned was to value direct experience rather than depending on stories."

Co-sponsored by Asian Studies and East Asian Languages and Literatures

November 3 (Tuesday) | 6:30 p.m. | Little Hall, 105 (Golden Auditorium)

Followed by Q&A with filmmaker Nao Yoshigai via Zoom at 8:30 p.m.

Film screening: Fresh Kill by Shu Lea Cheang.  A disturbingly prescient ecofeminist parable and a brain-wave-scrambling cyberpunk fantasia, the debut feature from new-media pioneer Shu Lea Cheang merges a bold vision of resistance with an exuberant early-internet aesthetic. In a dystopian-chic New York where sushi joints and toxic-waste sites exist side by side, a lesbian couple (Sarita Choudhury and Erin McMurtry) turn to the hacker underground to solve their daughter’s disappearance, in the process exposing a conspiracy involving corporate greenwashing and tainted fish. Swinging between outré satire and agitprop, Fresh Kill sounds the alarm about a capitalist system that pollutes everything from our waterways to our bodies to our minds.

Co-sponsored by Film and Media Studies, Environmental Studies, and Asian Studies

November 11 (Wednesday) | 6:30 p.m. | Little Hall, 105 (Golden Auditorium)

Film screening: Shoplifters by Hirokazu Kore-eda (Ryan Family Film Series)

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film Shoplifters (2018) chronicles the life of a makeshift household trying to get by on petty theft on the margins of Tokyo. When the family takes in an abused young girl, they are scrutinized by members of the community and pursued by police who deem the family to be unfit to care for the girl.  The film addresses existential questions of natural and found families and the impoverishment of marginalized people in Japan who resort to crime in order to survive

Followed by a conversation and Q&A with Professors Xiaoyu Wang (East Asian Languages and Literatures) and Noah Shenker (Film and Media Studies).

Co-Sponsored with East Asian Languages and Literatures

Thursday, November 12 | 6:30 p.m. | Little Hall, 105 (Golden Auditorium)

Asian Studies, East Hall | 315-228-6868 | colgate.edu/asianstudies