• Cover Letter, outlining applicant’s interest in the topic of the seminar
• Two page CV
• Research Statement (i.e., a 200 word abstract of the research project)
• Research Proposal (i.e., a 1000 word description of the research project)
• Course Proposal for a one-semester course for undergraduate students
• Three letters of recommendation (please use the Professional References section on the application)

Happy Fall, Asian Studies students!

Before it gets too much further into the semester, I wanted to formally welcome you (or welcome you back) to campus and to the Asian Studies Program.  For those of you who I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, I am happy to introduce myself, Dr. Julie Oakes, as the Interim Director of the Asian Studies Program for the 2017-2018 year. 

I have been at UMBC since 2007, teaching for both the Asian Studies Program and the History Department.  While my specialty is modern Japanese history, I have taught a variety of classes here such as East Asian Civilizations, Women and Gender in East Asia, and Art and Power in Japan.  In addition to continuing my work in the classroom, I will also be brainstorming with Mrs. Rosenthal and the Asian Studies Council of Majors (ASCOM) to bring you some great events this year! 

As Interim Director, it is also my honor to thank our outgoing Founding Director, Dr. Constantine Vaporis, for his tireless efforts on behalf of the Asian Studies Program.  Just to give a sense as to how the program has thrived under Dr. Vaporis’ leadership, in 2011 (the first year of the Asian Studies Program) we had two majors and one minor; today we have fifty-nine majors, twenty minors, and two students pursuing certificates!  It is impossible in such a brief space to enumerate all that Dr. Vaporis has done in the past decade (or more!) to make this program a reality.   On behalf of the students and faculty associated with the Asian Studies Program, thank you Dr. Vaporis for giving us a home.  You will be missed!

• U.S. citizens, nationals, permanent residents (holders of a Permanent Resident Card), or individuals granted deferred action status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA) program, and political asylees and refugees regardless of race, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation
• Individuals planning a career in teaching and research at the college or university level in a research-based filed of science, social science or humanities

• Predoctoral--$24,000 per year for three years
• Dissertation--$25,000 for one year
• Postdoctoral--$45,000 for one year

• Predoctoral: December 14, 2017 (5:00 PM EST)
• Dissertation: December 7, 2017 (5:00 PM EST)
• Postdoctoral: December 7, 2017 (5:00 PM EST)

Gun Show: Handling, Questioning, Discussing
Thursday, October 5, 4 p.m
Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture &
Fine Arts Amphitheater

Dr. Kathy O’Dell opens her essay in the brochurethat accompanies Gun Show with this question: “How does it feel to hold a gun?” At an event on October 5, starting at 4:00 PM at the CADVC and then moving to the Fine Arts Amphitheater, attendees will have an opportunity to explore that question as they view and handle (if they so wish) a selection of David Hess’s sculptures/facsimile guns currently on display in his exhibition. As attendees participate in the viewing and handling, special guests will be present to facilitate small group discussions on many of the wide-ranging issues that arise around guns: who does or does not own them, who should or should not own them, whether or not to legislate them, safe ways to use them, ramifications of their use or misuse, and how issues of race, class, gender, and age are embedded in these questions.

Admission to the exhibition and all related programming is free and open to the public.

Humanities Forum / Music / MEMS (Medieval and Early Modern Studies) Colloquium Lecture

“Harmonious Monk: Martin Luther and His Reformation through Music”
Christopher Boyd Brown, Associate Professor of Church History, Boston University

Dr. Christopher Boyd Brown and UMBC’s Camerata and Collegium Musicum will present an interdisciplinary concert-lecture on Martin Luther’s use of music and the community practice of hymn-singing in the Protestant Reformation. Brown will discuss how Lutheran hymns, sung in the streets and homes as well as in community spaces, were central to the success of the Reformation. UMBC students will provide live musical examples of plainchant, Reformation hymns, and multi-part choral works by Walter and Bach.

The Department of Visual Arts presents a lecture with visiting artist Brandon Morse, a Washington, D.C. based artist who works with generative systems as a means to examine the ways in which physical phenomena such as entropy and emergence can function in ways that are both poetic and metaphorical. 

Join us for an evening with Roxane Gay on Thursday, October 5th, 7pm in the WVC Ballrooms. Roxane Gay is an author and cultural critic whose writing garners international acclaim for its reflective, no-holds-barred exploration of feminism and social criticism. With a deft eye on modern culture, she brilliantly critiques its ebb and flow with both wit and ferocity. The author of Bad Feminist and Difficult Women says the moment she realized that she would “never want to write about fatness” was the same moment she knew this was the book she needed to write. The talk will be followed by a book signing.

Gay is a contributing op-ed writer for The New York Times, was the co-editor of PANK, and formerly was the non-fiction editor at The Rumpus. Her writing has also appeared in McSweeney’s, The Nation and many other publications. She recently became the first black woman to ever write for Marvel, writing a comic series in the Black Panther universe called World of Wakanda.

Gay often speaks of living with contradictions: growing up a daughter of middle-class Haitian immigrants, and not fitting into the narrative of blackness. She talks about being a feminist. And explains why she identifies as a lesbian even though she is still attracted to men. During her talk, Gay will be reading from her most recent book, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. Gay will trace her complicated relationship with her weight back to being a victim of sexual assault as a child and the pervasiveness of fat phobia in our society.

This program is co-sponsored by the Center for Student Diversity and the Department of English. For questions, email diversityworks@towson.edu.