DLC Funded Research

This project is a series of talks by two experts on Uyghur society from the UK – Laura Murphy, Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University (UK) and Rian Thum, University of Manchester. Their visit will provide an opportunity for 3 days of full-time discussion between the five of us to draft a major SSHRC grant for a long-term collaboration. Murphy and Thum have already started some initial collaborations with Kadir Aynur of UBC and Darren Byler of SFU’s School for International Studies.

The Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference (JK) focuses on the linguistic study of two major East Asian languages, Korean and Japanese. The emphasis will be on the commonalities and differences between Japanese and Korean and their implications for the theory of linguistics in general. The conference will encompass all major areas of linguistics-namely, syntax ( a study of sentence structure), semantics ( a study of meaning), morphology ( a study of word structure), phonology and phonetics ( a study of sound patterns), first and second language acquisition ( a study of how languages are acquired by children and adults), neurolinguistics ( a study of the brain mechanisms underlying the acquisition and use of language), psycholinguistics ( a study of how language is represented in the mind) and language change. 

The conference will consist of three key-note speakers, eight sessions of thirty-minute talks, and two poster sessions. The conference will total 27 talks and 40 posters. The talks and posters are selected on the basis of abstracts (two-pages with selected data and references) submitted electronically. Usually around 200 abstracts are submitted and the organizers enlist prominent linguists in the field to score and rank the abstracts. We anticipate that notification of acceptance will be made by Nov. 15, 2022 and that the program will be announced by Dec. 1, 2022.

The Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference (JK) is the only long-running annual international conference on Japanese and Korean linguistics. It attracts the highest caliber of academic research on one or both languages, and comparison of the two languages with other languages. The papers presented at the conference will be published in proceedings after the conference. The proceedings will be edited by the local committee comprised of graduate and undergraduate students and published by CLSI Publications, Stanford.

The JK conference that SFU will be hosting will be the first meeting hosted by a Canadian university. Hosting a JK conference not only provides a service to the field but also brings recognition to our department and university. 

It is very appropriate and timely for SFU to hold this conference, as it represents the research strength of SFU linguistics in which significant research on East Asian languages that combines experimental methodology and linguistic theories is being produced by both faculty and graduate students.

For the past two years, I have been completing a research project entitled Chinese New Women as Artists in the Early 20th Century, supported by a SSHRC small grant (2020-2022). This project looks at the impact of Chinese women artists who studied in France during that period. It locates the emergence of these artists and art educators in the context of (1) the modernization movement in Chinese art; (2) the global phenomenon of New Women at the turn of the 20th century; and (3) the trend of international travel/study (especially in Paris) in the early 20th century. The research identifies and assesses the artistic achievements and social impact of the first groups of women artists who studied in Lyon and Paris from the 1910s to 1940s, and who later returned to China to become an influential force of change in Chinese artistic and educational fields alongside their male counterparts. Through this project, I have developed productive links with many scholars in China, North America and France who are working on women’s history and art history of this period.   

One of the main outputs of this research project will be to document the research, especially the archival materials that I have collected in Chinese, French and English, and communicate the results in an accessible and vivid way to a broader academic and public audience through a documentary film. This research has not only unearthed a missing link in Chinese art history regarding the role of women in the modernization of art and art education, but has also filled a gap in cultural history on the international influence of Paris as a cultural center in the first half of the 20th century, when both modernism and the New Women movements were at their most dynamic stages. It is therefore extremely important to share the results widely in a documentary aimed at a broad international audience via public television channels, social media such as YouTube, and through university and public libraries. 

I am working on this documentary with Francesca Dal Lago an independent scholar and specialist in Modern Chinese art based in Paris. We are currently developing the script and working hard to find partners to make this feature documentary possible. We have found two well-qualified film students in Paris who are willing to do the first stages of shooting under our direction (including creating animations, obtaining/editing archival footage, and filming interviews). This will provide the groundwork for further partnership with relevant art media institutions (such as the French/German Arte Channel), who will facilitate the later production and delivery/distribution of the documentary.  

In partnership with MOSAIC, this project aims to bring immigrant seniors, scholars and community practitioners together in rich dialogues about arts-based knowledge cocreation and dissemination for capturing seniors' complex views and experiences during the pandemic and producing research-action synergy to support community service networks for seniors. Extending from a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant-COVID-19 Special Initiative, this project aims mobilize our research findings and celebrate our collaboration endeavour with community members through a public event supported by David Lam Centre. This public event encompasses a multimedia exhibition, film screening, and a public discussion forum to share ideas and knowledge on issues related to COVID-19 support networks for seniors. This SSHRCfunded study has completed its data analysis and finding development stages and the funds have been exhausted. I seek for David Lam Centre’s funding to mobilize and amplify the research findings through an art-based event. 

This proposed project aligns with David Lam Centre’s commitment to “fostering intercultural dialogue through activities that extend across a broad spectrum of social, cultural and economic issues from both contemporary and historical perspectives.” In addition, responding to the need to tell the stories of seniors’ lived experiences during the pandemic, this project aims to tap the potential of interactive storytelling with augmented reality to take social action and critically reflect on the role of seniors in our society.

The inspiration for this speaker series comes from my work this past year. It is also what justifies the choice of topic. Firstly, in the past 6 months, I have been working as part of the core group of the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance in BC and helped organize one of their events titled Asian Labour: Local and Global Solidarity. The community and labour activists that came to this online event discussed their experiences with anti-racist organizing alongside pointing out how this work had a long history in BC, with Union and community groups working together to support the struggles of people of colour across the lower mainland. One of the main things that came out of this event and the discussions that came before and after is that there is a need, especially in a climate that is seeing a rise in racism against Asian communities, for a conversation about what mobilization for radical inclusion should look like. 

Secondly, last year I established connections with groups of South Asian workers in BC through a project I did for the BC Labour Heritage Centre and the University of the Fraser Valley that traced the history of South Asian labour in the province. The specific output from this project was a chapter in a public history book that is being published by the University of the Fraser Valley. Working on this chapter allowed me to be part of conversations about what community engaged research outputs should be. What came out of this project was a diverse understanding of what the role of academia can be within community engaged research. Leaning on these experiences, this lecture series will also invite speakers who can contribute to a conversation about how academic research in the past has managed to build bridges with Asian communities in BC.

The specific outcomes of this series are to increase public engagement and support for the work that Asian community leaders are doing in building inclusion in BC, to think about the role that the university and academics can play in supporting these community initiatives, and to build solidarity amongst those who regularly attend these lectures in order to help foster greater mobilization and activism around these issues in the future.