CSA to Host Asian Women Leaders Forum
The Center for the Study of Asia (BUCSA), an affiliated regional studies center of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, is hosting a forum featuring four Asian women leaders who have been pioneers in fields including publishing, social activism, art and feminism.
The forum will be held on April 8 and April 9 and will feature Indian writer and publisher Urvashi Butalia, South Korean cultural anthropologist Haejoang Cho, Japanese artist and educator Hiroko Kikuchi and Taiwanese writer and literary critic Lung Yingtai.
You can RSVP for the forum here.
The weekend will kick off with a public forum on April 8 moderated by Pardee School Dean Adil Najam and continue April 9 with workshops on social activism and policy making.
College of Arts and Sciences Dean Ann Cudd will open up the forum, with Manjari Chatterjee Miller, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pardee School, and Elizabeth Perry, Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government at Harvard University, moderating the April 9 workshops.
Catherine Yeh, Director of BUCSA and Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature, said the idea for the forum came from a desire to highlight the rise of Asian women leaders outside of the political realm.
“Instead of inviting the top political leaders, we thought there are leaders making a lot of difference in terms of culture and society in addition to the political realm that get less headlines,” Yeh said. “We decided our particular perspective on this would focus on social work, political institutional building, community building and spreading feminist ideas. These are the areas these four women are known for.”
Yeh said the event was organized primarily to not only provide students a chance to interact with prominent Asian women leaders, but also to hopefully provide students with an example of cultural and societal leadership.
“When we first decided to organize this event we had the students in mind. We thought we can provide a model for our students, in particular our female students, of how to become powerful and self-confident in making choices and policy,” Yeh said. “This is the combination of CAS and the Pardee School–first is the leadership, policy making and community making on one side and the other side is humanities studies–being an artist, writer or publisher.”
Instead of inviting each of the speakers individually, Yeh said holding a forum will provide them the unique opportunity to both in addition and interact with the audience.
Wen-hao Tien, Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Asia, emphasized the collaboration by faculty from many different field at Boston University throughout the planning process for the forum.
“Through this project we experienced a lot of collaborations from faculty from many different fields, and in terms of disciplines there is a broad involvement of faculty members at BU,” Tien said.
The forum was organized in partnership with the BU Center for the Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature.