Asian-American Identity

Asian-American identity in the Midwest, at college campuses and in the media are some of the topics that will be discussed at a symposium tomorrow (13 April) at Purdue University, West Lafayette, reports the Purdue news bureau.

"New Communities: A Symposium on Exploring, Challenging and Negotiating Contemporary Asian-American Identity" will be held from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in Room 118 of the Purdue Memorial Union. The event, which is free and open to the public, is to celebrate the upcoming Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May.

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, will speak from 9:15-9:50 a.m. on "Becoming Asian Pacific American...in the Midwest?!!! Identities, Cultures and Communities." Wang writes the syndicated column "Adventures in Multicultural Living" available at AnnArbor.com and is the outreach coordinator of the Ann Arbor Chinese Center of Michigan.

Times, topics and panelists for the other sessions are available online

Panelists include Asian-American activists "Angry Asian Man" blogger Phil Yu, Blacklava founder Ryan Suda, songwriter Dawen and spoken word artist Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai. Professors from Northwestern University, Purdue University, the University of Illinois Chicago, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Indiana University also are participating.

The New Communities Symposium is the result of a Bisland Strategic Initiatives Fellowship awarded to student Kate Agathon by the Purdue Graduate School. Agathon, who is from Lafayette, is working on her doctorate degree in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Other symposium sponsors are American Studies, Asian Studies, Committee on Institutional Cooperation Asian American Studies, College of Education Office of Diversity Initiatives, Council on Asian American Studies, Department of English, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Diversity Resource Office and DiversiKey, Purdue Graduate Student Government, Student English Association and the Vietnamese Student Association.

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Purdue, Lilly Partner For Russian Pharmaceutical Training

Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Company and a Purdue Research Park firm were part of a partnership that provided training to the Russian agency that is equivalent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, reports Inside INdiana Business. Lilly and the Chao Center for Industrial Pharmacy & Contract Manufacturing conducted sessions with health policy-makers from Rozdravnadzor, which is the inspection agency for medicines and medical supplies within Russia's Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development. Russian officials are also expected to participate in training at manufacturing simulation facilities in Indiana.

Global Supply Chains

"New Challenges in Managing the Global Supply Chain" is the topic for the Spring 2009 Global Supply Chain Management Conference, to be held 6 February in the North Ballroom of the Purdue Memorial Union in West Lafayette.

It's hosted by the Dauch Center for the Management of Manufacturing Enterprises and the Global Supply Chain Management Initiative of the Krannert School of Management at Purdue, and co-hosted by Purdue's Center for International Business Education and Research.

More information and registration are available online or by calling Va'Linda McBride. 765:494-4322.

BASi Receives European Patent

West Lafayette-based BASi has received a patent in Europe for a new data collection system designed at its laboratory and office in the United Kingdom, reports Inside INdiana Business.

The patent for the Culex Automated In Vivo Sampling System is valid until 2019 and is effective in Germany, Denmark, France, UK and Sweden. BASi has its corporate headquarters at the Purdue Research Park and also has operations in Evansville.

Forum to Feature Foreign Films

Purdue University's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures is offering movie lovers a trio of international cinema through the 2007 World Film Forum. All three events will take place at 5 p.m. at the West Lafayette Public Library, 208 West Columbia Street, West Lafayette. Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

The forums will take place tomorrow (5 September), 17 October and 7 November, featuring films from Japan, Italy and China, said Silvia Oliveira, an assistant professor of Portuguese and Spanish. All the films, which are free and open to the public, have English subtitles, and Purdue professors will introduce the films and lead a discussion after them.

The movies and speakers are:

* Tomorrow - Kazumi Hatasa, a professor of Japanese, will present "Face of Jizo" (Chichi to Kuraseba, 2004). The film, directed by Kazuo Kuroki, is about a young librarian who struggles with survivor's guilt three years after the atomic blast destroyed Hiroshima.

* 17 October - Elena Coda, an assistant professor of Italian, will present "Excellent Cadavers" (In Un Altro Paese, 2005). This documentary, directed by Marco Turco, tells the story of the big mafia trial that resulted in the 1992 assassinations of the first Sicilian prosecutors to take on the mafia and win. The film explores the current relationship between the mafia and Italian politics.

* 7 November - Weijie Song, an assistant professor of Chinese, will present "To Live" (Huozhe, 1994). This film, by award-winning director Zhang Yimou, covers the experiences of a small family that loses its wealth in the 1940s to the 1970s.

Former corporate exec explores anti-Americanism in talk at Purdue

Former AT&T executive Dick Martin (left) will discuss anti-Americanism overseas and will challenge business leaders to accept their share of responsibility during a lecture on Thursday (12 April) at Purdue University in West Lafayette.

The lecture, sponsored by the Purdue Center for International Business and Research (CIBER), the Krannert School of Management and the Department of Communication, will be from 2:30-3:45 p.m. in Rawls Hall, Room 3082.

Martin will discuss his book Rebuilding Brand America: What We Must Do To Restore Our Reputation and Safeguard the Future of American Business Abroad, which explores anti-Americanism from its causes and earliest manifestations to current efforts at its mitigation.

MORE: here.

Indian street theater group comes to West Lafayette

The Indian street theater performance group Jana Natya Manch will present an interactive storytelling session, movie screening and several street plays on global politics today (7 April) and tomorrow (8 April) in West Lafayette.

The group's visit is sponsored by Purdue University's College of Liberal Arts and the Discovery Learning Center, which is housed in Discovery Park. All of the events are free and open to the public.

Jana Natya Manch, also known as the People's Theatre Group and Janam, is made up of self-trained actors and has participated in more than 7,500 performances of 100 street and proscenium plays in India. The performances and plays will be in Hindi and translated into English.

"Street theater has historically served as a performative space for raising critical political and sociocultural issues," said Mohan Jyoti Dutta, associate professor of communication and the event's organizer. "In its performance, Jana Natya Manch, one of the pioneering theater activist groups in India, raises questions of political relevance through art. Historically, street theater has played an important role in Indian politics in serving as a platform for those who have otherwise been silenced. As a genre, it demonstrates the ways in which art can be mobilized for social change."

The interactive storytelling session, "Whose Side Are You On?" will introduce the audience to the mechanics of street theater. The session begins at 1:30 p.m. today (7 April) in Beering Hall of Liberal Arts and Education, Room 2280, and will be followed by the workshop, "Street as Stage."

The street performance, "Yeh Dil Mange More Guruji," will take place on the Memorial Mall at 4:30 p.m. The first day's events will close with a film screening of "The Play Goes On" at 6:30 p.m. in Matthew Hall, Room 210. A question-and-answer session will follow.

Two more street plays - "Who Bol Uthi (And She Spoke Up)" and "Nahi Qabool (Unacceptable)" - will be performed beginning at 11 a.m. tomorrow (8 April) on Memorial Mall.

During the workshop, Moloyashree Hashmi and Sudhanva Deshpande, two of India's best-known street theater activists, will talk about street theater in India, its history and its role in cultural and political change.

Hashmi conducts the Theatre Practicum at Delhi University, and Deshpande is an actor, director, playwright and teacher who writes regularly on theater, cinema and politics. He has been published in a number of journals, including The Drama Review, XCP: Cross-Cultural Poetics, Seagull Theatre Quarterly, Theatre India and Economic and Political Weekly. He is a managing editor with LeftWord Books in New Delhi.

Information from Purdue News Service.