�鶹��Ƶ Awarded Grant for Asian Studies and the Environment</h1> <article> <h1>�鶹��Ƶ Awarded Grant for Asian Studies and the Environment</h1> <p>Anonymous — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 18:01:20 +0000</p> <span>�鶹��Ƶ Awarded Grant for Asian Studies and the Environment</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2016-11-07T13:01:20-05:00" title="Monday, November 7, 2016 - 13:01">Mon, 11/07/2016 - 13:01</time> </span> <div class="text-content field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>�鶹��Ƶ College has been awarded a four-year, $400,000 implementation grant through the Luce Foundation’s Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE) program. The program encourages “innovative approaches to Asian studies at the undergraduate level through the lens of the environment and sustainable development,” as well as expansion of “Asia-related curriculum across the disciplines.”</p> <p>Launched in 2010, LIASE is designed to foster broader understanding of Asia to address environmental challenges that demand global cooperation. This will require engaging individuals with interdisciplinary training, comparative perspectives, knowledge of local conditions, and an understanding of historical and cultural contexts, all aims of �鶹��Ƶ’s LIASE project.</p> <p>The implementation grant builds upon a one-year (2014-2015) LIASE exploratory grant from the Luce Foundation, with both awards centered on the theme Sustainability and Resilience in the Face of Environmental Stress and Extreme Events. The current implementation grant will engage faculty, students, and staff across the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and Conservatory of Music. �鶹��Ƶ’s LIASE programming uses the lenses of natural/physical phenomena and the underlying geological, biological, chemical, or physical processes responsible for either extreme events or gradual environmental change; the context of the built environment and the ways in which human infrastructure, population distribution, and economic and other factors relate to a topic or question; and the cultural, ethical, behavioral, and social implications of the ways human societies create meaning in relation to the non-human environment. Activities will include faculty development seminars, guest speakers and visiting artists, curriculum development grants, study tours in Asia for student-faculty groups, and support of student research on Asia and the environment. </p> <p>The first event held under the auspices of LIASE implementation grant was a September 8, 2016 symposium on “Slow Violence and Resilience in Asia: Intergenerational Environmental Legacies” featuring Brett Walker, Regents Professor of History at Montana State University, Bozeman, and Tang Ya, professor of environmental science at Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. Tang opened the standing-room-only event with a lecture entitled “Ecological Engineering in the Treatment of Environmental Problems in China,” and Walker’s presentation was entitled “Natural and Unnatural Disasters: 3/11, Asbestos, and the Unmaking of Japan’s Modern World.” As part of their visit, Professor Tang met with students in Associate Professor of Geology Zeb Page’s first-year seminar The Anthropocene, and Professor Walker spoke with students in Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Chie Sakakibara’s 300-level Environmental Studies class Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change. Students from a range of majors discussed environmental topics and education with the guests during a lunch meeting. Walker and Tang also met with faculty from East Asian Studies, Environmental Studies, Geology, and Sociology. </p> <p>Looking ahead, Ann Sherif, professor of Japanese and co-director of the grant, described plans to “increase content about environmental issues in our intermediate- and upper-level Japanese and Chinese language classes, and design co-curricular activities so that students in elementary language classes can engage.” Steven Wojtal, professor of geology and LIASE co-director, is excited that the grant will encourage the study of Asian languages and culture among students with little or no prior training in those fields, in particular students majoring in the natural sciences. For students with no prior experience in studying Asia, the grant will support a tiered approach, beginning with on-campus programming such as lectures, exhibitions on Asian art and nature at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, and on-campus Winter Term projects, continuing with expanded curricular coverage of Asian environmental issues and study trips to Asia, and culminating with support for student and faculty research on Asian environmental issues or in Asia. </p> <p>Sherif notes, “We value experiential learning. We value being in that place, breathing in that air—whether it is clean or dirty—and talking with people, meeting with people, walking around and getting a sense of the place, but there will be a strong academic component too. Before all of the trips there will be some kind of class so students can learn about the issues they are going to explore, something about the history and the culture of the places, and also establish learning goals. The better prepared they are, the more they know going in, the more they will learn.” </p> <p>The next LIASE activity will be a November 14-15 event on “Activism and the Environment in Indonesia.” </p></div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-type field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item">News Releases</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-date field--type-datetime field--label-hidden field__item"><time datetime="2016-09-26T12:00:00Z">Mon, 09/26/2016 - 12:00</time> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-author field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Communications Staff</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2369">Environment & Sustainability</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-programs field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?program=25336">East Asian Studies</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-departments field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/east-asian-studies" hreflang="und">East Asian Studies</a></div> </div> </article> <article> <h1>Putting It All Together: Charlie Abbott '15 Blends Two Majors & More</h1> <p>eburnett — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 18:03:18 +0000</p> <span>Putting It All Together: Charlie Abbott '15 Blends Two Majors & More</span> <span><span>eburnett</span></span> <span><time datetime="2016-11-07T13:03:18-05:00" title="Monday, November 7, 2016 - 13:03">Mon, 11/07/2016 - 13:03</time> </span> <div class="text-content field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Charlie Abbott ’15 had played violin ever since he was three, but the first time he broke away from traditional music conventions was in his high school band, the Big Trucks.</p> <p>“There was a ridiculous law firm commercial we saw on TV once, so we called the phone number they showed and recorded their phone extension directory—30 minutes of people saying their name slowly and annoyed, followed by whatever their phone extension number was—and made a song out of our favorite bits.</p> <p>"I fell in love with that process and the idea of contextualizing sounds we hear all the time in a way that conveys emotions," says Abbott, a senior from Concord, Massachusetts.</p> <p>Abbott’s passion for atypical musical styles led him to enroll in �鶹��Ƶ’s <a href="http://new.oberlin.edu/conservatory/departments/TIMARA/">Technology in Music and Related Arts</a> program. “TIMARA was the only place I found where I could really pursue that in an academic setting," he says.</p> <p>Abbott is one of about 180 students in the double-degree program at �鶹��Ƶ: Along with his TIMARA major in the conservatory, he is pursuing a degree in cinema studies with a minor in East Asian studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. Though these disciplines may seem divergent, Abbott manages to blend them both inside and outside the classroom.</p> <p></p> <p>“The holistic approach that the double-degree program and the TIMARA, cinema studies, and East Asian studies departments offer is really unique,” he says. “For example, in my private reading, I’m doing all sorts of research on the cultural and historical aspects of different Japanese music and arts movements. My training in the conservatory gives me the tools and academic setting to analyze music and relate it to other music. My cinema studies major gives me the tools and academic setting to analyze and compare film and video art. And my East Asian studies minor lets me put all this into a specific cultural context.”</p> <p>Over spring break 2014, Abbott conducted an independent study in Japan, where he researched, filmed, and participated in the underground electronic music scene—a true synthesis of his academic interests. During his time there, he traded three-hour visual projection sets at a music festival with a Japanese visual artist, opened for the artist Goth-Trad, and filmed 48 hours of concerts, interviews, and B-roll footage.</p> <p>Outside the classroom, Abbott creates visual accompaniment for musical acts through Real Boy Digital, the company he co-founded with composition major Myles Emmons and fellow double-degree student <a href="/news/now-you-hear-him-devin-frenze-15-explores-limits-human-ears">Devin Frenze</a>.</p> <p>Abbott put his audiovisual training into practice for his own junior recital.</p> <p>“<a href="https://ryvryvryv.bandcamp.com/">This recital</a> was a combination of the music and visual art that I had worked on over the course of the semester,” he says. “My partner stood on either side of the big projection screen in Stull Hall and tried to make it a fun, accessible environment for some harsh noise and geometric visual accompaniment. In my preparation for my recital, I figured out some of the fun aspects of working with the speaker system and my music. For instance, I learned how to perform my music so it makes the subwoofer rattle the ceiling and use the speakers so it sounds like some of the music is super-close to you.”</p> <p>“I tried to use short, four-bar loops, with really off-kilter percussive material—taking influence from two Japanese hip-hop artists, Youtaro and Repeat Pattern—and develop the rest of the space by stitching together recordings of various familiar spaces, like recordings of my basement in a strong rainstorm on top of recordings from inside the dorm I was living in in Japan during a typhoon.</p> <p>“Next year," he adds, "I'm really looking for ways to get back to Japan, so I can keep on working with all of these artists and people that have influenced me so much."</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-type field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item">News Releases</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-date field--type-datetime field--label-hidden field__item"><time datetime="2014-12-03T12:00:00Z">Wed, 12/03/2014 - 12:00</time> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-author field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Michael Stenovec</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2357">Double Degree Program</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2356">Conservatory</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-programs field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?program=25256">Cinema and Media</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?program=25336">East Asian Studies</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?program=33031">TIMARA</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-departments field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/cinema-studies" hreflang="und">Cinema and Media</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/east-asian-studies" hreflang="und">East Asian Studies</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/conservatory/divisions/contemporary-music" hreflang="und">Contemporary Music</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-pin-school-page field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">Off</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-photo-gallery-top field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">false</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-image-credit field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Zachary Christy</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-media field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item"> </div> </article> </main></body></html>