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Women on trial speak clearly through their clothing

Elizabeth Williams — Tue, 27 May 2025 14:55:03 +0000

Women on trial speak clearly through their clothing Elizabeth Williams Tue, 05/27/2025 - 08:55 Collette Mace

This article was originally posted in Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

ɫ��ֱ�� researcher Carla Jones finds that what Indonesian women wear in court can convey messages of piety and shame, or just the appearance of them

No matter who you are and what clothes you have on, you have probably, at some point, thought about how what you wear affects how you are seen.

Fashion is an important mode of self-expression, but it can also be a significant component of social communication. ɫ��ֱ�� anthropology Professor Carla Jones’ recently published research focusing on fashion within the Indonesian criminal justice system illustrates how appearance can be a public and personal feature of social and political communication.

Jones’ interest in Indonesia started when she visited the country in college, but her youth in Southeast Asia also played a part in her sustained interest in the culture there. As an anthropologist, she says, she is interested in diversity–in which Indonesian culture and social life is rich.

She also credits her interest in learning to speak Indonesian with her total immersion there. “Learning a new language can change your life,” she says. “Cultural anthropologists need to be able to ask questions and understand. You have to learn how to be an insider and an outsider at once.”

In the past two decades, public political culture in Indonesia has become increasingly focused on corruption. Although Indonesia is not unusually corrupt, many of the most visible corruption trials have captivated public attention through media focus on theft of public funds.

Jones noticed that when women were accused of corruption, they faced intense scrutiny about their appearances, both before and during their trials. Jones says she noticed that female defendants in corruption cases adjusted their clothing in ways that went far beyond the public norms for the majority-Muslim country.

Modesty was a particularly compelling visual strategy. Although modest styles are increasingly popular globally (think: trad-wife trends on TikTok), the styles that accused Indonesian women adopted for trials were especially visible when they appeared in court and were very different from their styles of dress prior to their trials, Jones says.

Many women, she says, would elect to wear facial coverings, called a niqab or cadar, when appearing before a judge. Wearing a niqab is not especially common in Indonesia. Jones argues in her paper that women choosing to express their religion so outwardly was also an effort to appear more pious and ashamed of their actions (or more innocent) to judges and to the public.

Niqab in court

So, does it work? According to Jones, yes, along with other factors. The women in these cases who wore a niqab to court tended to get shorter prison sentences than others did. “Their attorneys also did a really good job conveying that they are mothers, and their justification was to provide for their children,” she says.

However, that doesn’t mean these women on trial were received the same way all over the world. When Anniesa Hasibuan, an internationally famous modest-fashion designer who was charged with fraud, took the stand in West Java, the coverage expanded to all over the world, including the United States.

The international coverage of Hasibuan’s trial called additional attention to her choice to wear a niqab. Some Indonesians who were following her case closely viewed her choice to cover her face much as some Americans might: as an attempt to foreclose transparency about her appearance and therefore her finances. Many Indonesians viewed her appearance as a sign of dishonesty rather than piety.

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Asia Symposium 2025 — InterAsian Circulations April 11, 2025

Elizabeth Williams — Mon, 19 May 2025 15:45:14 +0000

Asia Symposium 2025 — InterAsian Circulations April 11, 2025 Elizabeth Williams Mon, 05/19/2025 - 09:45 Rachel Rinaldo

This year's Asia Symposium examined the historic and contemporary connections within and beyond Asia, with attention to phenomena such as migration, religious and cultural movements, and political/economic connections.

The first panel, on Religious and Social movements, investigated the contours of several contemporary social movements and their transnational connections. Yi-Ling Chen (University of Wyoming) compared the social housing movements in Taiwan and South Korea and explored how they have influenced each other. Dheepa Sundaram (University of Denver) discussed how the contemporary Hindutva movement has taken shape in digital spaces and involved both diasporic connections and linkages with US right wing and white supremacist movements. Neda Shaban (ɫ��ֱ��) discussed the anti-hijab movement in Iran and how it has been shaped by diasporic politics.

The second panel, on Migration and Refugee Circulations, explored migration from the perspective of Asian societies. David Cook-Martin (ɫ��ֱ��) discussed the migration of Indian indentured workers to Mauritius and the West Indies and how this created legal and institutional templates for temporary labor migration that continue to shape global mobility patterns today. Jerry Jacka (ɫ��ֱ��) talked about how resource extraction and climate change in Papua New Guinea have reshaped traditional forms of internal migration and circulation. Shae Frydenlund (ɫ��ֱ��) discussed her research on Rohingya refugee women in Malaysia and how they have used online platforms to make money and supplement their families' meager income.

In his keynote, Ismail Fajrie Alatas (NYU) discussed the history of alternative forms of circulation and mobility of Muslim Sufi scholars across the Indian ocean. He argued that their concept of wilāya, which encapsulates ideas about friendship across territoriality, offers a vision of a trans-regional geography shaped by protection, care, hospitality, and grace. Thinking with this concept opens up a fresh perspective on circulations across Asia, past and present.

The 2025 Asia Symposium was made possible by the National Resource Center/FLAS grant from the US Department of Education.

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Very Successful "A Feminist Lens on Global China" Colloquium

Elizabeth Williams — Mon, 12 May 2025 15:55:48 +0000

Very Successful "A Feminist Lens on Global China" Colloquium Elizabeth Williams Mon, 05/12/2025 - 09:55 Robert Wyrod

With generous support from the Center for Asian Studies, the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the ɫ��ֱ�� was able to host a one-day colloquium on feminist perspectives on Global China as part of the Department's 50th Anniversary celebration. The rise of China as a new global economic and political force has spurred the rapid growth of the field of Global China studies. Yet, research focused on gender and sexuality remains quite limited. This colloquium was a rare event that brought together an international group of scholars to help foster more robust feminist perspectives on Global China. Scholars from the United States, United Kingdom, China, Zimbabwe, and South Africa participated in the event. The three panels covered a wide range of issues related to Global China, including labor relations, intimate relationships, and cultural representations. The event was well attended by students, faculty, and staff and a virtual component allowed many more people to attend from around the world. The panelists are currently exploring ways to share the insights from the event more widely, including a special journal issue that could help spark more research on the gender and sexual dynamics of Global China.

Speaker(s):

Ching Kwan Lee, UCLA
Marie Berry, University of Denver
Yoon Jung Park, Georgetown
Mingwei Huang, Dartmouth
Sisasenkosi Mataruse, University of Zimbabwe
Prolific Mataruse, University of Zimbabwe
Vivian Lu, Rice
Ivy Gikonyo, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Charlotte Goodburn, King’s College London
Soumya Mishra, King’s College London
Matthew Chin, University of Virginia
Yiping Cai, UC Irvine
Eram Ashraf, Swansea University, UK
Xinlei Sha, Cornell
Justin Haruyama, University of British Colombia
Xianan Jin, University of Exeter, UK
Colloquium organizer: Robert Wyrod, Associate Professor, Women and Gender Studies Department and International Affairs Program, ɫ��ֱ��

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Center for Asian Studies Student and Faculty Achievements

Elizabeth Williams — Mon, 05 May 2025 15:02:24 +0000

Center for Asian Studies Student and Faculty Achievements Elizabeth Williams Mon, 05/05/2025 - 09:02

Asian Studies Graduates

B. A. in Asian Studies

Tae Chapmann Minors: History and Korean
Lily Elliott Second Major: B.S. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Chloe Nowak Additional Majors: Psychology, Chinese Language and Civilization, Leadership and Community Engagement
Light Scheppy Second Major: Japanese Language and Literature; Minor: Korean
Sanskriti Shrestha Minors: Chinese, Japanese, Leadership Studies
Elena Wilson Second Major: Political Science

Asian Studies Minor

Elizabeth Craig Majors: Political Science and History
Shelby Glenn Majors: History and International Affairs; Second Minor: Classics
Aidan Vance Major: History

Certificate in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies

Luke Stumpfl Major: Anthropology; Minor: Geography

CAS Student Awards

Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships

Graduate Student Fellows 2024-25 Academic Year

Aaron Bhatoya Hindi (History)
Jeanne Cho Japanese (History)
Nicholas Christoffersen Korean (Mathematics)
Jake Fischer Japanese (ALC)
Nicolas Jones Japanese (History)
Emily Swertfeger Arabic (History)

Graduate Student Fellows Summer 2025

Geneieve Hauer Chinese (Religious Studies)
Jessica Misiorek Japanese (Anthropology)
Casey Ringer Japanese (History)

Undergraduate Student Fellows Summer 2025

Malia Donoghue Chinese (Integrative Physiology)
Ian Comer Japanese (ALC)

Edward G. Seidensticker Japan Summer 2025 Research Grants

Ivan-Daniel Espinosa Theatre and Performance Studies
Ubochi Igbokwe Ethnomusicology

Japanese Studies Scholarship Fellows 2024-2025 Academic Year

Brandon Edwards Asian Languages and Civilizations
Evelyn Emery Asian Languages and Civilizations
Haruka Fujii Asian Languages and Civilizations
Sam Hensley Art and Art History
Lillith Jackson Asian Languages and Civilizations
Nicholas Jones History
Jessica Misiorek Anthropology
Casey Ringer History
Nyla Schaberg Asian Languages and Civilizations
Mikhail Skovoronskikh Asian Languages and Civilizations
Raisa Stebbins Asian Languages and Civilizations
Juliana Valverde Asian Languages and Civilizations
Taoxuan Xu Asian Languages and Civilizations

CAS Faculty Awards

Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant

Dwi Purwanto Indonesian Language Instruction

Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum Course Development Grant

Nidhi Arya Asian Languages and Civilizations

Asian Studies Course Development Grants

Brianne Cohen Art & Art History
Lauren Collins Asian Studies
Shae Frydenlund Asian Studies
Miriam Kadia Kingsburg History
Daryl Maude Asian Languages and Civilizations
Jianmin Shao Ethnic Studies
Molly Todd Sociology

Join us for the Center for Asian Studies commencement and celebration of student and faculty achievement on Friday, May 9 at 1:30 p.m. in the CASE Building, 4th floor.

Congratulations!

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Asian Studies Senior Research Showcase

Elizabeth Williams — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 15:38:50 +0000

Asian Studies Senior Research Showcase Elizabeth Williams Mon, 04/28/2025 - 09:38

Tuesday April 29, 12:30pm-1:30pm
CASE E351

Join us for lunch and a poster presentation session highlighting the exceptional work of undergraduate student research on Asia’s histories, cultures, and pressing contemporary issues. This event celebrates academic curiosity and provides a platform for the next generation of scholars making meaningful contributions to our understanding of Asia.

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CUBASGA 2025: The 26th Anniversary

Elizabeth Williams — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 21:14:05 +0000

CUBASGA 2025: The 26th Anniversary Elizabeth Williams Tue, 04/22/2025 - 15:14 Taoxuan Xu

The 26th ɫ��ֱ�� Asian Studies Graduate Association (CUBASGA) annual conference was held successfully over the weekend of 22 and 23 February 2025. CUBASGA is one of the largest graduate student conferences in the field of Asian Studies and is run entirely by graduate students from the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations. We provide a platform for MA and PhD students to present their papers, receive feedback from faculty and fellow students, as well as make interdisciplinary connections within the broad field of Asian Studies.

This year, we had nearly forty student speakers from prestigious institutions all around the world sharing their research across 11 panels over two days. On top of our visiting student speakers, we also had 20 speakers from ɫ��ֱ��, all hailing from various departments. Students from the CU Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, Anthropology, History, and Religious Studies presented their findings, which facilitated lively multidisciplinary discussions throughout the course of the conference. We also invited two distinguished scholars as our keynote speakers: Professor Ronald Egan from Stanford University and Professor David C. Atherton from Harvard University.

Professor Egan’s keynote address placed the extensive oeuvre of 11th-Century poet and essayist Su Shi in the spotlight. Specifically, how should we read a collection of hundreds of texts, spanning multiple genres, all authored by the same individual? While many existing compilations group these texts by genre, Professor Egan proposed selecting and reordering the individual texts chronologically, thus reading these texts alongside Su Shi’s life progression. His fascinating talk highlighted how new connections can be drawn from a careful and well-considered reorganization of the oeuvre. Prof. Atherton gave a talk on a story written by Japanese Edo period writer, scholar, and poet Ueda Akinari in the last years of his life, which sheds light on a transformative period for waka poetry in the late eighteenth century. He shed light on the transition of waka poetry, from being the cultural property of aristocrats to a genre studied and experimented upon by people from all walks of life. Professor Atherton’s presentation invited the audience to reflect upon the composition of poetry, as well as the transmission of creative teaching. Both talks were followed by spirited discussions with questions asked by both graduate students and faculty members.

Moreover, the attendees of this year’s CUBASGA were not limited to faculty, staff, and graduate students. Undergraduate students from our Chinese and Japanese language classes, as well as students in STEM majors were also present, listening to presentations and participating in lively discussions. After the conference, attendees were invited to our post-conference dinner at You & Mee Noodle House, where speakers and professors were able to interact in a less formal setting. Many of them continued their debates and established stronger connections with one another.

This year’s CUBASGA was a great success based on the feedback and messages we have heard and received from our speakers and other attendees. The continued prestige of the conference is in large part thanks to the generous financial support of the ɫ��ֱ�� Center for Asian Studies, Cultural Events Board, and the Department of Asian Languages and Civilization. We will strive to maintain this high level of reputation for the CUBASGA annual conference, and will continue to facilitate graduate student research, cooperation and network building in the future.

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Event Friday - Things That Come and Go: Ephemera and Atmospherics in Times of Crisis

Elizabeth Williams — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 16:24:49 +0000

Event Friday - Things That Come and Go: Ephemera and Atmospherics in Times of Crisis Elizabeth Williams Mon, 04/14/2025 - 10:24

Friday, April 18 at 4pm
Hale 230

Professor Patricia Spyer will offer the Distinguished Lecture in Cultural Anthropology for the 2024-25 academic year. Her lecture will address the intersection of aesthetics, appearances, and the rise of public visual culture in Eastern Indonesia. Her recent book Orphaned Landscapes: Violence, Visuality, and Appearance in Indonesia, on Christian public art in Ambon, has been well received. Her new research, funded by a Swiss National Sciences Fund grant, expands that visual cultural research to other areas of Indonesia—Banda, Bali, Ternate, and Tidore. By expanding regionally, the project also emphasizes interconnection and circulation: of images, ideas, and commodities, as well as historical spans.

Notwithstanding the anthropological commitment to understanding everyday life in all its diversity, from banal to extraordinary circumstances, the discipline has tended to shy away from difficult to grasp if palpable phenomena like ambiance, climate, and atmospherics. Drawing on examples from her book, Orphaned Landscapes: Violence, Visuality, and Appearance in Indonesia (Fordham 2022), She will explore how fugitive forces and forms suffused and oriented the actions and experiences of wartime, from Karl von Klausewitz’s “fog of war” to huge Christian billboards and murals that sprung up in the Muslim-Christian conflict in Ambon, Indonesia in the early 2000s. Such elusive, ephemeral aspects of social life—from street art to invisible if palpable atmospherics deserve our acute attention. For even as they come and go, such phenomena can have a lasting impact. Depositing their traces in an assortment of practices and forms they bring about novel formations of sociality and the sensible, altered landscapes of living and cohabitation, and subtly different ways of seeing, dwelling, and engaging the world.

Patricia Spyer is a faculty member in Anthropology at the Graduate Institute of Geneva.

This event is funded in part by a grant by the Title VI National Resource Center grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

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Friday - Asia Symposium 2025: InterAsian Circulations

Elizabeth Williams — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 15:29:40 +0000

Friday - Asia Symposium 2025: InterAsian Circulations Elizabeth Williams Mon, 04/07/2025 - 09:29

Friday, April 11th
Center for British and Irish Studies, 5th floor
Norlin Library

11:30am-12:15pm Meet and Greet/Reception

12:15pm Introductions and Welcome

12:30-2pm Panel 1: Religious and Social Movements in Asia
In recent years, religious and social movements have been dynamic forces in Asian societies. This panel examines the contours of such movements and their politics, with attention to how they circulate within and beyond national borders.

2:15-3:45pm Panel 2: Migration and Refugee Circulations in Asia
Scholars and policy analysts have traditionally thought of migration as occurring from Asia to Europe, Australia/New Zealand, or the United States. Yet in 2020, out of 111 million migrants from Asia, more than 50 percent migrated to other countries within Asia. Migration is also increasingly occurring within Asian countries. This panel examines migration from the perspective of Asian societies.

4-5pm Keynote presentation:
Sea of Friends: Wilāya as a Moral Framework of InterAsian Circulation
Ismail Alatas, NYU

Find paper abstracts and speaker bios here.

This event is funded in part by a grant by the Title VI National Resource Center grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

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Event Wednesday - FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER - Keynote with LOUNG UNG

Elizabeth Williams — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 16:44:56 +0000

Event Wednesday - FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER - Keynote with LOUNG UNG Elizabeth Williams Mon, 03/31/2025 - 10:44

Wednesday, April 2nd
11am
St. Cajetan's, MSU Denver

From a childhood survivor of the Cambodian genocide under the regime of Pol Pot, this is a riveting narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit.
One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung’s family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.

Harrowing yet hopeful, Loung’s powerful story is an unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality.

Loung Ung is a bestselling author, activist, and screenwriter. Loung began her activism work in 1993 as a Community Educator for a domestic shelter in Maine, and has since been involved in various campaigns, including those against violence towards women, the use of child soldiers, and landmine eradication worldwide. She has made over 40 trips back to Cambodia, dedicating herself to helping her native land recover from the traumas of war. Loung has given keynote addresses at numerous forums in the US and internationally, including at Stanford University, Dartmouth College, Philips Academy, and Women in the World Summit, among others. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets and documentaries, including The New York Times, CNN, and Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

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ɫ��ֱ�� Faculty Presenting at AAS

Elizabeth Williams — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 17:45:00 +0000

ɫ��ֱ�� Faculty Presenting at AAS Elizabeth Williams Wed, 03/12/2025 - 11:45

Friday, March 14, 2025

1:30 PM - 3:00 PM, Room A121 (Level 1, Convention Center)
Information Order: Domestic and Overseas Chinese Networks in the Age of Imperialism
Presenter, Timothy Weston - History
"Newspapers as Products in 19th-Century China"

3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Union B (2nd Floor, Hyatt)
Revisiting Feminist Movements and Literature in Cold War South Korea amid the Era of Antifeminist Backlash
Chair and Discussant, Sungyun Lim - History

Saturday, March 15, 2025

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, Room A213 (Level 2, Convention Center)
Youth Messing with Gender: Marriage, Sexuality, and Sociability in Contemporary Asia
Discussant, Carla Jones - Anthropology

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, Champaign (2nd Floor, Hyatt)
Poetry in the Making: Textual Variants, Fluidity, and Reception in Premodern China
Chair, Antje Richter - Asian Languages and Civilizations

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, Knox (2nd Floor, Hyatt)
China in the Context of Comparative Colonialism
Presenter, Dawa Lokyitsang
"Violent Secularism and Colonial Dispossession: China’s Socialist Modernity in Tibet"

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, Fayette (2nd Floor, Hyatt)
Global China: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Future Directions
Organizer and Discussant, Jessica DiCarlo - Geography
Discussant, Tim Oakes - Geography

Sunday, March 16, 2025

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM, Room B240/B241 (Level 2, Convention Center)
Women’s Rights Movements and Politics in Indonesia
Presenter, Rachel Rinaldo - Sociology
"The Gendered Labor of Care and Women’s Rights Activism in Indonesia"

10:45 AM - 12:15 PM, Room A124 (Level 1, Convention Center)
Push and/or Pull: Textual Forces in Literary Sinitic Cultures
Discussant, Antje Richter - Asian Languages and Civilizations

10:45 AM - 12:15 PM, Room B235 (Level 2, Convention Center)
Indigeneity, Cosmological Thinking, and Ecological Knowledge in Asian Art
Presenter, Brianne Cohen - Art and Art History
"A Humanimal Dance as Animist Worldview in Khvay Samnang’s Preah Kunlong"

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Spotlight All

Women on trial speak clearly through their clothing

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Asia Symposium 2025 — InterAsian Circulations April 11, 2025

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Very Successful "A Feminist Lens on Global China" Colloquium

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Center for Asian Studies Student and Faculty Achievements

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Asian Studies Senior Research Showcase

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CUBASGA 2025: The 26th Anniversary

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Event Friday - Things That Come and Go: Ephemera and Atmospherics in Times of Crisis

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Friday - Asia Symposium 2025: InterAsian Circulations

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Event Wednesday - FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER - Keynote with LOUNG UNG

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ɫ�����ֱ�� Faculty Presenting at AAS

Friday, March 14, 2025

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Sunday, March 16, 2025

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ɫ��ֱ�� Faculty Presenting at AAS