University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: September 19, 2002

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing editor

A new major in Asian studies, which began at UB this fall, will sponsor three presentations by Asian specialists in Indian literature, Korean dance and Confucian philosophy.

All events will be free of charge and open to the public.

Manju Jaidka of Panjab University, India, will deliver a lecture titled "Indian Writing in English: Contemporary Indian Fiction" at 4 p.m. Oct. 17 in 640 Clemens Hall, North Campus. She will present a second talk, "Diasporic Writing from India," on Oct. 18 for the "Asia at Noon" brown-bag lunch series. That talk also will take place in 640 Clemens.

A fellow and affiliated scholar of the International Forum for U.S. Studies, Jaidka is the author of six books and more than 25 articles and papers in the field of Indian literature. She also has written three books on topics in American literature: "Confession and Beyond: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath" (1991), "Tiresias and Other Masks: English and American Poetry after the Waste Land" (1994) and "T.S. Eliot's Use of Popular Sources" (1997).

She is the founder and former president of MELUS-India, the Indian chapter of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, which she now serves as secretary.

Sohn In-young, a Seoul-based choreographer affiliated with the Korean National University of the Arts, will be in residence at UB Nov. 4-13, sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Korea Foundation.

She will conduct dance classes and a theater workshop during her residency, and will produce a choreographic work that she and her students will present in a public performance Nov. 13 in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.

Sohn is grounded in traditional Korean dance, but trained and experienced in western performance forms. She is the former artistic director of the Seoul Performing Arts Company and from 1994-98 taught dance at Columbia University and Queens College of CUNY.

Translator and editor Bryan W. Van Norden, associate professor of philosophy at Vassar College, will present a talk titled "Confucius' Dao" at 1 p.m. Nov. 19 in 141 Park Hall, North Campus. His presentation is co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy.

Van Norden, who is a member of Vassar's Asian Studies Program, specializes in ethics and Chinese philosophy. His translations from China's "second sage," Confucian philosopher Meng Tzu (Latinized as Mencius), were published in "Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy," which he co-edited. He also edited "Confucius and the Analects: New Essays," published this year by Oxford University Press.