Education About Asia: Online Archives

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Teaching Resources Essay

Searching for Sacred Mountain

by Blake Hestir, Dave Aftandilian, Mark Dennis

[caption id="attachment_15764" align="aligncenter" width="515"] Photo montage from scenes in Searching for Sacred Mountain. Source: Screen captures from Searching for Sacred Mountain on the GEJ website at https://tinyurl.com/cuzfbchv.[/caption] This review was written by three colleagues and close friends at Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth, Texas. Although slightly unusual in this sort of review, we believe that describing our academic training and contemplative prac...

Online Supplement

Supplements for “Teaching Students about Mindfulness and Modern Life”

by Andrew O. Fort, Mark Dennis

What does it mean to live a mindful life today? What kind(s) of thinking and practice does such a life entail? How would it fit into a busy college student’s life? We will address these questions through both theory and practice in this course. We will range from traditional Buddhist ideas to modern science, from classic liberal arts reflection to contemporary mindfulness practices. We will consider how practice and reflection influence one another, and how we engage in personal relationsh...

Feature Article

Teaching Students about Mindfulness and Modern Life

by Andrew O. Fort, Mark Dennis

Are your students often distracted, seemingly addicted to their phones? Have you noticed, as suggested in the quotation above, that anxiety, depression, and other forms of mental and emotional suffering have been rising steadily among the young people you teach, especially in the time of the coronavirus pandemic, which began during final editing of this article? While perhaps a slight exaggeration, we remain convinced that some of our students would more likely give up food, sleep, and even actu...

Online Supplement

Modeling Asia: An East China Sea Simulation

by Lauren McKee

Editor’s Note: After the essay, readers can examine the simulation prep sheet Professor McKee uses in her course, two country studies Berea College student groups wrote as part of the simulation assignment, and three student reflection papers class members wrote after the simulation’s conclusion. Tensions in the East China Sea have risen dramatically in the last decade between China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and a number of Southeast Asian countries. This conflict has been driven prim...

Online Supplement

Online Resources for “USG Asia Council: Teaching Southeast Asia Workshop” and “Teaching Southeast Asia Interactively: The ASEAN ‘Plus Three’ Simulation”

by

Online Resources: “USG Asia Council Teaching Southeast Asia Workshop” “Teaching Southeast Asia Interactively The ASEAN ‘Plus Three’ Simulation" “USG Asia Council Teaching Southeast Asia Workshop” From Paul Rodell’s Southeast Asian History Presentation “Southeast Asia in World History,” World History Bulletin, Spring 2009. Available at http://tinyurl.com/mmut7v9 PDF and PowerPoint Presentations “Southeast Asia History: Themes & Resources,” http://tinyurl.com/...

Online Supplement, Resources

Key Issues in Asian Studies: East Asian Societies

by W. Lawrence Neuman

Editor’s note: Authors of the two most recent Key Issues in Asian Studies have each contributed an essay about their volume. For more information about this pedagogical resource, visit www.asian-studies.org/publications/KIAS.htm Few students approach their study of Asia with a blank slate; rather, most start with a mixture of stereotypes, misconceptions, and fragments of accurate information. East Asian Societies attempts to convey the excitement and significance of East Asia to American te...

Feature Article

New York City as Classroom: Exploring Buddhism Through Experiential Learning

by Chaya Chandrasekhar, Ihor Pidhainy

Experiential learning can be particularly useful when teaching about Asia, as few students in an introductory course come with much knowledge about the region’s vast history, distinct cultures, and complicated political and social structures. Nevertheless, how does an instructor provide students direct experience of Asia without planning expensive study abroad opportunities or site visits? How does an educator encourage engagement with Asia without relying entirely on guest speakers or informa...

Feature Article

A Global Crossroads Reemerges in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction to Central Asia

by Reuel R. Hanks

The Where and Why of Central Asia As a scholar of Central Asia, I have frequently been asked two questions by students and colleagues over the course of my career: Where is Central Asia, and why is it important? Strangely, the first question is often more difficult to answer precisely than the second. The terms “Central Asia,” “Inner Asia,” and more recently “Central Eurasia” all refer to a region that is marked by a frustrating imprecision of location. Here I will consider Central ...

Book Review, Resources

Bhutan: Hidden Lands of Happiness

by Susan Walcott

This large, heavily illustrated book is suitable for a school library collection, supplementing others on Bhutan. Through his photographs and narrative, John Wehrheim presents his personal interpretation of the country based on numerous trips taken over several decades. His presentation pitches Bhutan as the “Exotic Other,” illustrated by photos taken on his trips that carry out the theme that this would be a cool place (in more ways than one) for a special holiday. The Association of Bhutan...

Book Review Essay, Resources

Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China

by Edward Friedman

This most important political biography of Deng Xiaoping argues that only Deng’s unique leadership strengths made China’s extraordinary economic rise possible. Senior scholar Ezra Vogel focuses on the period from 1969 to 1992. During Mao’s vigilante violence against and purges of people perceived as disloyal to Mao and his dogmas, a period known as the Cultural Revolution, Deng was sent to a rural factory, supposedly to review his political errors. Instead, Deng, Vogel finds, tried to figu...

Book Review Essay, Resources

A History of East Asia: From the Origins of Civilization to the Twenty-first Century

by Keith N. Knapp

BY CHARLES HOLCOMBE NEW YORK: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2011 456 PAGES, ISBN 978-0-521-51595-5, HARDBACK; ISBN 978-0-52173164-5 PAPER Charles Holcombe has given instructors of East Asian history courses and world history teachers a welcome gift: his book, A History of East Asia. This volume is packed with both information and insights. The author provides interesting facts that will spice up lectures and illuminating statistics that will give students a vivid sense of East Asia’s size and...

Feature Article

Major Asian Rivers of the Plateau of Tibet: The Basics

by Stewart Gordon

In relatively recent geologic times, less than forty million years ago, the Indian subcontinent crashed into the Eurasian tectonic plate. As the South Asian plate began to subduct under the Eurasian plate, it pushed up the Himalayas, the Plateau of Tibet, and folded the ranges of mountains to the east of the Plateau of Tibet. The Indian plate is still converging on the Eurasian plate at a little over three-quarters of an inch per year, deforming the boundary and raising the Himalaya Range. This ...

EAA Interview, Feature Article

Tibetan-Chinese Relations: An EAA Interview with A. Tom Grunfeld

by Lucien Ellington

A. Tom Grunfeld is SUNY Distinguished Professor at Empire State College of the State University of New York. Grunfeld is widely sought as a speaker and commentator on China-Tibet issues and on US policy regarding the Tibetan independence movement. Grunfeld is the author of several books including The Making of Modern Tibet and over 150 articles and book reviews, many of which address Tibet and China related-issues. In late spring 2009, he graciously consented to the following interview with Luci...

Film Review Essay

Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet

by Andrew Quintman

Luc Schaedler’s rich and timely film Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet opens with a series of contrasting and provocative images: Tibetan boys toss firecrackers in an alleyway of the old Tibetan capital as a pair of monks walk by. A devout pilgrim prostrates himself across Lhasa’s trash-ridden streets, narrowly avoiding the late-night taxi traffic. Caretakers of the country’s holiest shrine segue into Tibetan line-dancers performing to electronic music in a local nightclub. a woman stares b...

Film Review Essay

Teaching Narrative Analysis with A&E’s “Biography”

by John H. Sagers

A&E’s Biography series provides a valuable source for analyzing narrative and representation of Asian subjects on American commercial television. Focusing on programs about the Tibetan Dalai Lama, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, and Vietnamese revolutionary Hồ Chí Minh, this essay will outline a method for classroom analysis of historical stories and what these stories mean for their target audiences.

Columns, Resources

Three Tibetan Films by Puhua Dongzhi

by Gerald Roche

As educators, and specifically as educators with a special interest in Asia, one of our major tasks is to represent the world to our students. In lieu of taking them around the globe, we explore with them the facts, figures, images, texts, sounds, and so on that stand in place of the real world. Given this fact, it is not insignificant that one of the most important recent debates amongst critical thinkers has focused on a so-called ‘crisis of representation.’ This debate focuses on the prod...

Web Gleanings

Web Gleanings: Asian Literature

by Judith S. Ames

Title: The World of Asian Books URL: http://www.loc.gov/rr/asian/guide/guide-world.html This is a Library of Congress Interactive Guide to their Asian book collection. By going through this guide, one can see the variety and breadth not only of the Library’s collection, but of Asian literature itself. Title: Asia Source: Literature: Authors URL: http://www.asiasource.org/links/al_mp_03.cfm?TID=21,29,41 Annotated links to a variety of works by Asian authors can be found on this page, which...

Film Review, Resources

Tibetan Medicine: The Knowledge of Healing

by C. X. George Wei

The Knowledge of Healing is the first cinematic effort to record and introduce time-tested, mysterious Tibetan medicine to a Western audience. The film, through interviews with Tibetan doctors, patients, scientists, and the current Dalai Lama, explains the philosophic aspects of Tibetan medicine and the methods, of Tibetan treatments, as well as the extraordinary effectiveness of Tibetan med­icinal herbs.

Web Gleanings

Web Gleanings: Asia in the Twentieth Century

by Judith S. Ames

Title: Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Asia Since 1900 URL: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook52.html This is part of a valuable series of original source documents. In particular, this site has documents pertaining to Asia in the twentieth-century. Also accessible through this page are links to the Internet East Asian History Sourcebook, which has many' pre-twentieth­century items. There are also a large number of documents from the twentieth century, such as those about Eas...

Film Review Essay, Resources

Tibetan Medicine: The Knowledge of Healing

by C. X. George Wei

A FILM BY FRANZ REICHIE DISTRIBUTED BY FIRST RUN/lCARUS FILMS 32 COURT STREET. 21 ST FLOOR BROOK.LYN. NY 1120 I E-MAIL: MAILROOM@FRIF.COM WEB SITE: HTTP://WWW.FRIF.COM 1997, 89 MINUTES COLOR CLOSED-CAPTIONED VHS OR DVD The Knowledge of Healing is the first cinematic effort to record and introduce time-tested, mysterious Tibetan medicine to a Western audience. The film, through interviews with Tibetan doctors, patients, scientists, and the current Dalai Lama, explains the philosoph...

New to EAA?

Before viewing the full archives, view Editor’s Choice Articles, handpicked by EAA Editor, Lucien Ellington, which provide a good overview of EAA and introduction for new readers.