Center for Global Management

In this affecting and innovative global history—starting with the European children who fled the perils of World War II and ending with the Central American children who arrive every day at the U.S. southern border—Anita Casavantes Bradford traces the evolution of American policy toward unaccompanied children. At first a series of ad hoc Cold War–era initiatives, such policy grew into a more broadly conceived set of programs that claim universal humanitarian goals. But the cold reality is that decisions about which endangered minors are allowed entry to the United States have always been and continue to be driven primarily by a “geopolitics of compassion” that imagines these children essentially as tools of political statecraft. Speakers: Anita Casavantes Bradford, Chicano/Latino Studies & History Professor, and Associate Dean, UCI School of Social Sciences; and Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. Sponsored by the Center for Study of International Migration.

As part of a joint project of the Coleman African Studies Center and Global Public Affairs at Luskin, this colloquium will provide an opportunity to meet (virtually) with a number of the African researchers who have carried out city-based studies of the past two years. This presentation will be made by Abdulai Abdul-Gafaru, Department of Public Administration, University of Ghana Business School. The African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) is a major six-year investment by the  Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (UK government) to fund new, operationally-relevant research to address intractable development challenges in African cities. Despite some efforts to  adopt multi-sectoral approaches in African cities, too many programs remain siloed – failing to  deal with the complexity of urban development problems, or the possible unintended consequences of such interventions.

The Center for European and Russian Studies (CERS)  invite you to a book talk with Mikhail Zygar, the author of War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky. As soon as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, prominent independent Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar circulated a Facebook petition signed first by hundreds of his cultural and journalistic contacts and then by thousands of others. That act led to a new law in Russia criminalizing criticism of the war, and Zygar fled Russia. In his time as a journalist, Zygar has interviewed President Zelensky and had access to many of the major players—from politicians to oligarchs. As an expert on Putin’s moods and behavior, he has spent years studying the Kremlin’s plan regarding Ukraine, and here, in clear, chronological order he explains how we got here. Respondent: Daniel Treisman, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Sponsored by the Burkle Center for International Relations, Department of Political Science, Department of Slavic, and East European & Eurasian Languages & Cultures.

To strengthen the excellent relationship between the U.S. and Thailand, and in celebration of the 190th anniversary of Thailand-U.S. diplomatic relations in 2023, a group of 18 musicians from the Thai Music Division of the Fine Arts Department, Bangkok, Thailand, is going to visit the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) to present a Thai music workshop for students and faculty and a concert performance at Schoenberg Hall. The primary aspiration of this trip is to promote and share Thai national performing arts. The students, faculty, and community members will have an opportunity to participate in a special workshop conducted by a group of royal musicians from Thailand and participate in a performance of khon (masked dance drama) and musical repertoire from the four regions of Thailand performed by leading professionals at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Students from the Music of Thailand Ensemble classes will be part of the performance. The staged performance will be live-streamed and recorded for educational purposes and will be made accessible online in the future. Sponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Department of Ethnomusicology, The Royal Thai Consulate General, The Tourism Authority of Thailand, and Wat Thai Los Angeles.

The symposium will explore how global Chinese philanthropy, charity, and volunteerism contribute to making the world a better place to live, especially as the world is confronted by challenges and impacts wrought by the global pandemic and its aftermath. This event is made possible through the generous support of the Cyrus Tang Foundation and Long Family Foundation.

The symposium themes include:

• Emergent issues pertaining to areas of philanthropic giving, charity, and volunteerism, e.g., COVID-19 global pandemic and other disaster relief, poverty alleviation, education, health, youth development, elderly care, environment sustainability, etc., especially how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the ways of giving and philanthropic practices
• Comparative studies of philanthropy in China and Chinese diasporic communities around the world
• Comparative studies of Chinese philanthropy and Western philanthropy
• The transformation of Chinese diasporic organizations and changing relations with ancestral hometowns in China pertaining to philanthropy
• Family wealth transfer and philanthropic practices across generations
• Civil society development, NGOs and foundations
• Diasporic Chinese entrepreneurship and philanthropy
• Corporate social responsibility
• Methodological innovations in GCP research, e.g., novel research design, data collection methods, and use of information and communications technology (ICT) and digital archives

Sponsored by the Asia Pacific Center.

Supplemental education, such as test-preparation coaching and after-school tutoring, has become increasingly influential in shaping educational outcome and social inequality in China, U.S. and around the world. This study examines the last forty years’ making of the world’s largest for-profit education industry—China’s supplemental education industry (the Industry)—on the margin of China’s socialist education system. How and why has the Industry privatized, marketized and become globally financialized, despite the Chinese state’s restrictive policies? Drawing on in-depth interviews, internal archives, and participant observations on 28 leading supplemental education organization, the study finds that the ambiguity of the Industry empowered socially marginalized entrepreneurs to enter this previously state-dominated market and found opportunistic organizations. Sponsored by the Center for Chinese Studies and the Asia Pacific Center.

Matthieu Felt teaches courses on Japanese literature and culture at the University of Florida. After receiving his Ph.D. in Japanese literature from Columbia University in 2017, he spent one year as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies. He is the author of Meanings of Antiquity: Myth Interpretation in Premodern Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2023), which examines the varying interpretations of mythical texts in pre-modern and early modern Japan. His two-volume translation of The Chronicles of Japan, produced with the support of a National Endowment for the Humanities individual fellowship, is under contract with the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature, Oxford University Press. Sponsored by the Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies.

Within three weeks of the invasion in 1592, the Japanese troops occupied Hansŏng, the capital of Chosŏn, and King Sŏnjo fled to the north for life. The Chosŏn Dynasty encountered a crisis of survival – one that lingered on to 1598. Chosŏn’s ground military forces struggled to fend off the Japanese invaders. Ming China’s rescue troops who joined the war from 1593 in a serious manner also struggled to fend off the Japanese despite their initial victory at Pyongyang. Nevertheless, in the end the Japanese forces failed to achieve their goals and all withdrew from the Korean peninsula. In this talk, Hur asks what caused Japan’s failure in the war despite its overwhelming military capacity. More specifically, what helped Chosŏn’s fragile defense be initially able to keep the Japanese troops in check in 1592, and how were the joint-forces of Chosŏn and Ming able to blunt the Japanese aggression amid their rather miserable performances in 1597 and 1598. Sponsored by the Center for Korean Studies.