Asia News Archive

Zen for Sale

Art historian Kendall Brown explains how the Ryoanji stone garden in Kyoto, Japan, became a commercialized symbol of Zen Buddhism.
Posted: 1/23/2008

Nearly every women's rights bill passed by the Iranian reformist parliament that the Guardian Council effectively cast out in 2004 met one doom or another. Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former legislator, illuminates the paths of Iranian-style gridlock.
Posted: 1/16/2008

Why US Spy Agencies Failed to Adapt

Former CIA agent Larry Johnson interviews Amy Zegart, an associate professor in the UCLA School of Public Affairs and a Burkle Center senior fellow, on her recent book "Spying Blind: The CIA, The FBI, and the Origins of 9/11." Watch the video, produced by UCLA Spotlight.
Posted: 1/14/2008

Former Students, Colleagues Honor Historian Silverberg at Symposium

Miriam R. Silverberg joined the UCLA faculty in 1990 and retired in 2005. Her scholarship on modern Japanese history is influencing the work of historians today.
Posted: 1/2/2008

The Book that Brought Tolerance to the Enlightenment

UCLAGetty Research Institute digital project revives Europe's first taste of religious tolerance.
Posted: 12/21/2007

Lyman's Life and Law

U of Arizona's Timothy Vance examines the life of the American mining engineer and accidental linguist Benjamin Smith Lyman.
Posted: 12/19/2007

Making Sense of Osama

A daylong conference recently attempted to clear some of the fog surrounding the real Osama bin Laden, who, if he's still alive, turns 50 this month. Titled "Jihadi Islam," the Nov. 13 event was sponsored by the Center for Near Eastern Studies and held at the UCLA Faculty Center.
Posted: 12/18/2007

White House Ceremony Honors Daniel Pearl, Son of UCLA Professor

Following their son's death in 2002, Judea Pearl, a professor of computer science at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA, and his wife formed the Daniel Pearl Foundation to advance the ideals that inspired Daniel's life and work by hosting lectures, programs and other events throughout the world to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music and innovative communications.
Posted: 12/18/2007

10 Questions for Lynn Hunt

Professor of History Lynn Hunt's 2007 book "Inventing Human Rights: A History" was published with CIA-sponsored "torture flights," "enhanced interrogation techniques" and genocide all in the news. She spoke with UCLA International Institute Senior Writer Kevin Matthews about whether the very idea of human rights is now in danger, and how novels aided the concept's evolution.
Posted: 12/11/2007

National Identity in Postmodern Japanese Dance

U of Tokyo's Tadashi Uchino discusses the birth of Butoh dance and the performance of "children's" bodies in postmodern Japanese dance.
Posted: 12/11/2007

Panels Assess Prospects on Korea Peace Day

One scholar says the United States needs to adopt an approach that allows North and South Korea to normalize relations quickly.
Posted: 12/10/2007

Last US Ambassador to USSR Makes Case for Cooperation

Ambassador Jack Matlock says that, on the most pressing global issues, the United States still needs Russia. Speaking ahead of parliamentary elections, he calls U.S. discussion of Putin's autocratic tendencies "overblown."
Posted: 12/4/2007

'Japan' Arrived Later than Some Think

Durham University's Gina Barnes challenges prevailing views on mounded-tomb culture and the development of the Japanese state in the earliest historical period.
Posted: 12/3/2007

Hope, Economic Transformation in Iraqi Marshlands

Peter Reiss, director of a USAID program to restore the world's second-largest wetlands, explains how Saddam Hussein's drainage of the area has altered an ancient culture.
Posted: 11/28/2007

Former Thai Foreign Minister Back at UCLA, with Stories to Tell

Kantathi Suphamongkhon, Thailand's UCLA-educated former 39th foreign minister, shares his experiences with students in a lecture delivered as part of International Education Week. Suphamongkhon is a senior fellow at UCLA's Burkle Center and a UC Regents' Professor.
Posted: 11/20/2007

Overrated Rebels

Eva Goldschmidt of the U of Heidelberg reviews UCLA Associate Professor George Edson Dutton's recent book on "The Tay Son Uprising: Society and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam." The review was written for the H-War military history network.
Posted: 11/20/2007