AMES: Welcome

Welcome...

The Asian & Middle Eastern Studies department brings together the instruction of the languages and literature of more than two thirds of the world's population. The curriculum is based on linguistic and cultural competence. Students are trained to communicate with others in a wide region extending from the Atlantic east toward the Pacific, and to examine contemporary national and ethnic cultures of Asia and Africa within a global context. Our mission is to foster a view of language, literature and culture at once indigenous and global, informed by local histories of internal development as well as by theories of cross-cultural influence.

Frequently perceived to be positioned in a privileged relationship to the real, documentaries are said to see the unseen--challenging our understanding of the world we inhabit and, perhaps even helping to transform that social reality. Underlying this presumptive identity between documentary signifier and social signified, however, lies a complex politics of representation. Documentary film not only adapts its subject matter to fit genre conventions, but the very act of representation inevitably embodies a political gesture in its own right.

The Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies Presents organizes a film series and workshop to examine the politics of representation from around the world. Films, filmmakers, scholars, and activists come together in an ongoing dialogue about the ways documentaries have been used to bring new perspectives to marginalized social groups and to complex political conflicts, in conversation with the power differentials that condition the very act of perception. We consider documentaries not as a transparent window onto reality, but as a critical intervention into the intricate dynamics of representational processes that necessarily mediate our perception of that same reality.

Meishi Street(Ou Ning, 2006, a.k.a. "The Story of Zhang Jinli"), which focuses on a Beijing restaurant owner's efforts to prevent the process of demolition that threatens to destroy not only his business but also his entire neighborhood.

Every Lantern Festival in Taidong, a group of men strips bare above the waist, and wearing nothing but red shorts, stands on a sacred palanquin, allowing people to pound their bodies with bottlerockets, singeing their skin. They are believed to be human incarnations of the god Handan. The “Scorching of Handan” has in recent years become a major event in eastern Taiwan. Those who take part in the ritual have always been shrouded in mystery, and rumored to be members of the gangster underworld. The documentary “The Gangster’s God” enters the heart of these men’s universe, recording their dramatic lives...

Many dramatic films don't have a character as good as Rajai Khatib, who drives one of "The Fords" that take Palestinians from checkpoint to checkpoint as they cross from the West Bank to Israel and back again.

A humorous/heartbreaking story of a Zainichi (Koreans in Japan) filmmaker's own family, scattered b/w Japan and N. Korea, from the perspective of a young, female filmmaker and the connections/disconnections with her parents.

Within the Red Light District of Calcutta this documentary explores the hopeless lives of the sons and daughters of prostitutes through photography and film. The director (Zana Briski) is determined to use the photography to provide the children with the opportunity for higher education, hope and a better life. Of the children, only one of which, Avijit, is able to separate himself from the rest through actual talent with the rest being young and imaginative kids, the same that one would find anywhere else in the world. By the end of the film most of the children are enrolled and attending classes, however not all take the opportunity and choose to return to the brothels.

A BBC documentary producer is given unprecedented access in North Korea to chronicle the story of the famed 1966 World Cup team from the North that advanced to the quarterfinals. The feature includes interviews with surviving members of the team, English fans and soccer pundits who saw the North Koreans upset Italy, 1-0, and go up 3-0 against Portgual before Eusebio eventually rallied the Portugeuse. Written by peter07

The film Morning Sun attempts in the space of a two-hour documentary film to create an inner history of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (c.1964-1976). It provides a multi-perspective view of a tumultuous period as seen through the eyes—and reflected in the hearts and minds—of members of the high-school generation that was born around the time of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and that came of age in the 1960s. Others join them in creating in the film’s conversation about the period and the psycho-emotional topography of high-Maoist China, as well as the enduring legacy of that period.

Guest Speakers: Michael Renov (USC, keynote); Bruce Cumings (Chicago); Zhen Zhang (NYU); Hyangjin Lee (Sheffield)