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Back to the Motherland
Greetings!
I have arrived safely to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I have taken my first shower and ate my…
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Posted May 7, 2013 at 4:26am in Cambodia Phnom Penh street photography travel Cambodian Khmerican nikon nikon d7000 35mm prime Street Photography khmer
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Asian American Studies Professor Earns National Honor
Cathy Schlund-Vials was born in 1974 at the Udorn Royal Air Force Base, in the northern Thailand city of Udon Thani, to a Cambodian mother and American father. As fate would have it, her parents gave her and her twin brother up for adoption. Her adoptive parents, a Japanese mother and American father, brought both of them to the United States as children.
Now director of the Asian American Studies Institute in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Schlund-Vials recently published her second book, titled War, Genocide and Justice: Cambodian American Memory Work (University of Minnesota Press, 2012), which considers the legacy of the day-to-day lives of millions of Cambodians who were oppressed and killed by their government in the early 1970s.
In part because of this work, she is being honored with the annual Early Career Award from the national Association for Asian American Studies. She will receive the award during the Association’s annual meeting in Seattle, April 18-20.
“Nobody has done a book like this on Cambodian Americans,” she says. “It’s based on what critic James Young originally termed ‘memory work’ in relationship to Holocaust memorials: How do people remember periods of suffering and oppression? How are genocides remembered and forgotten?”
The Killing Fields
The Killing Fields era in Cambodia was a period between 1975 and 1979 when about 2 million Cambodians – by some estimates 25 percent of the country’s population – died from execution, famine, forced labor, and poor medical care. Led by communist dictator Pol Pot, the government, called the Khmer Rouge, forced people out of cities and into the countryside to work in the fields.
“The Killing Fields was a time where the government forcibly evacuated cities, prohibited currency, and prohibited the practice of Buddhism,” says Schlund-Vials. “The idea was to go back to ‘year zero,’ before French colonialism and Western imperialism.”
Survivors of the period, mostly senior citizens now, can be loath to talk about this horrible time in their lives. But their children, many of whom, like Schlund-Vials, came to the U.S. as children, have started to tell their parents’ stories.
“I wanted to know how people of Cambodian descent, who now live in the U.S., remember that time,” she explains, “by talking to artists whose parents lived through it.”
Just the beginnin’
This generation, which Schlund-Vials calls “1.5-generation” Cambodian Americans, has emerged in recent decades with artistic renditions of their parents’ legacies.
One example is hip-hop artist Prach Ly, whose stage name is praCh. His parents lived through the Killing Fields, and in 1999 he wrote and produced an album in his garage that included lyrics from his father’s point of view, retelling his story of the atrocities and his survival.
The album, called Dalama: The End’n Is Just the Beginnin’, was quintessentially Cambodian-American in its lyrics and its musicianship, says Schlund-Vials.
“It fuses a Khmer backbeat with a hard rap beat,” she describes. “He recorded it in his garage, not for fame, but for himself and his family. It memorializes the Cambodian-American experience.”
To his astonishment, a bootleg copy of his album found its way to Cambodia, where he became the #1 artist in the country in 2000. He’s now credited with introducing hip-hop music to Cambodians.
These types of grassroots memorials are important to the Cambodian legacy, and they’re made even more so because the current Cambodian government has not erected a state-sanctioned memorial to the Killing Fields, Schlund-Vials says. Several important prison sites and fields are open to tourists, but ironically, she notes, Buddhist Cambodians tend to avoid such sites because their religion tells them the areas are haunted by those who suffered inauspicious deaths.
Asian American scholarship
As director of the Asian American Studies Institute, Schlund-Vials has overseen the rapid expansion of the program in the past few years. Five new faculty members in the Center will join UConn in fall 2013, including Meina Cai, a political scientist who studies Chinese politics, and Bradley Simpson, a historian who studies Indonesian history.
“When I came to UConn, I was struck by the need to engage emerging transitional and diaspora studies,” she says. With 40 students in the Asian American Studies minor and more joining each year, the affiliate base is steadily growing, she adds.
When Schlund-Vials travels to give talks around the country, local Cambodian American community members turn out to hear her speak. This is especially satisfying, she says, because it bridges the often-wide gap among scholars and artists, and scholars and the public.
“The task before me is to make relevant these experiences to a larger population,” she says, “to make issues of citizenship, migration, and oppression understood to us all.”
Shout out to a fellow Cambodian American interested in Asian American Studies, apparently it’s not very common!
(via titotito)
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I am in love with
Bridges!
I went to UCLA with a bunch of my friends for an engagement session. It was truly a…
The Graphic Photos of the Boston Marathon Victims
So many photos are getting circulating around social media depicting the gruesome effects of the bombing. It’s real. I think out of respect, we should allow the victims their privacy.
I can’t imagine how the man that had his lower legs taken away from him would feel knowing that he will be forever disabled because of this event. I understand that this occurs in places where the United States has created war, but even then I don’t want to see the photos.
Maybe I am sensitive, but I just don’t think it’s an appropriate image to share on your wall. I am pursuing media and I believe this steps the line of ethics. You just can’t put this out for the world to see. Some family and friends are still finding out the status of their family members…I just don’t think the front page of the newspaper should be the first sign of notifying all next to kin..
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Happy New Year!
It’s actually my 3rd and final celebration for this new year.
In the month of April, Southeast…
The Road Not Taken//Robert Frost
My favorite poem of all time.
(Source: yellowoods, via walkingzero1)
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A Love Story in the Making
Here is a sneak peak of an engagement session I shot today with my high school friends, Lisette…
UCI Literary Journalism Program to Host Digital Symposium
Join the Literary Journalism Program, the Department of History, and the Office of the Campus Writing Coordinator for a ONE-DAY symposium on new developments in digital storytelling.
DIGITAL STORYTELLING: A SYMPOSIUM
THURSDAY, 18 APRIL 2013
11 A.M.-6:30 P.M.
UC IRVINE SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE:
11-12:00 “The Future of Digital Publishing”: A Roundtable
Humanities Instructional Building 137
Moderated and introduced by Kavita Philip (UCI History)
Featuring:
Tom Lutz, Founder and Editor, LA Review of Books; Professor, UC Riverside
Department of Creative Writing
Angilee Shah, journalist, editor, and blogger (angileeshah.com)
Mark Bryant, Editor-in-Chief of Byliner.com
Nancie Clare, Founder and Editor of Noir Magazine (noirmagazine.tumblr.com)
Mike Sager, Writer-at-Large for Esquire and founder of digital publishing imprint The Sager Group (www.thesagergroup.com)
12:30-1:30 PM Master Class on Digital Narratives, Hosted by The Atavist
Humanities Gateway Building 1010
Gray Beltran, Multimedia Producer and Community Editor, The Atavist
Moderated by Erika Hayasaki, UCI English and Literary Journalism
1:30-3:00 Lunch Reception and Display of Student Digital Narrative Projects
Humanities Gateway 1010
3-4:30 PM Live Podcast Interview by Longform of Vanessa Grigoriadis
Humanities Gateway 1030
Interviewers: Aaron Lammer and Max Linsky of Longform.org
4-5 PM Coffee Reception and Display of Student Digital Narratives
Humanities Gateway 1010
5-6:30 PM “Storytelling, Narrative, and Writing in the Digital Age”: A Panel Discussion Moderated by: Barry Siegel and Erika Hayasaki (UCI English and Literary
Journalism)
Humanities Gateway 1030
*Featuring*:
Charles Homans, Editor, The Atavist
Jim Giles, Editor, Matter
Aaron Lammer, Editor, Longform
Mark Bryant, Editor-in-Chief of Byliner.com
PRESS RELEASE: UC IRVINE LITERARY JOURNALISM TO HOST ONE-DAY
SYMPOSIUM ON “DIGITAL STORYTELLING,” 4/18/13 11-6:30 PM—-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—-
By Erika Hayasaki
In 1946, John Hersey published the 31,000-word narrative nonfiction piece, “Hiroshima,” which filled an entire issue of The New Yorker, and later went on to become a short book. In the decades that followed, dedicating that much print space to a single journalism story in a newspaper or magazine didn’t happen very often, and in recent years, with cutbacks in newspapers and magazines, some feared longform journalism would die altogether.
But a shift toward e-reading over the last three years has led to an unexpected reemergence of the mid-length story — those pieces too long to be articles, too short to be traditional books. In the digital age, the 10,000 to 30,000-word story has staked its place as a viable literary form. These stories are now marketed digitally between 99-cents and $5—longform journalism that fits in your pocket or purse,
designed to be read within a few hours.
This month, the UCI community will discuss, debate and celebrate emerging trends in digital narrative and storytelling, highlighting a cross-disciplinary interest in new media and technology “Digital Storytelling: A Symposium,” hosted by UCI’s Literary Journalism Program, the Department of History, and the Center for Excellence in
Writing and Communication, with additional sponsorship from the Office of the Chancellor, and staff support from the Department of English.
The one-day symposium will take place on Thursday, April 18 on the UCI campus, bringing together local and national figures working in high-profile positions in digital and traditional media and fostering connections between academic and public writers to discuss questions including: Is the novella making a comeback? How do storytelling techniques like the narrative arc and the cliffhanger evolve with these changing formats? Is there a future for the traditional book? How can writers make a living in this new era of publishing? How have mainstream publishers and newspapers embraced or rejected digital formats? What is the difference between a Kindle Single and a Nook Snap? Is an Apple Quick Read as quick as a Kobo
ShortRead? And just how long, or short, are #Longreads?
“Digital Storytelling: A Symposium,” will feature guest speakers including Mark Bryant, the editor-in-chief of Byliner, a San Francisco-based company that launched in April 2011, devoted specifically to longform (or mid-length) journalism and fiction. The company has seen unprecedented success, with one of its nonfiction stories making it to the top of The New York Times bestseller list last year — an impressive feat, since the 20,000-word narrative was competing against full-length traditional books. This year, two of its stories are National Magazine Award finalists.
The event will also feature speakers from The Atavist, a Brooklyn-based digital publisher that has layered music, maps, videos, audio, and animation into its nonfiction narratives. The Atavist will offer a digital storytelling “master class” open to the campus and public. Other guest speakers will include editors from the Los Angeles Review of Books, New York-based Longform.org, Noir (a Los Angeles-based digital publication for crime stories), and Matter, a science and technology based longform journalism organization that raised over $140,000 through Kickstarter. Other panelists include Mike Sager, a bestselling author and award-winning reporter for Esquire magazine who also founded The Sager Group, a
consortium of multi-media artists and writers. There will also be a live Longform podcast interview with National Magazine award winner Vanessa Grigoriadis, a contributing editor at New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. The UCI symposium will build upon topics discussed last year in a lecture course, “Narratives in a Digital Age,” launched by the school’s Literary Journalism Program. The popular course welcomed 70 tweeting, tumblring, instagramming,
facebooking students who arrived on the first day armed with their devices: about 37% of the class owned I-Pads, Kindles, Nooks or other tablet reading devices, according to an informal survey.
However, 56% still preferred reading on a printed page, while 28% preferred digital, either on a tablet, computer or phone, and 16% liked reading both print and digital. However, most students still valued the paper page — 72% of them believed the future of publishing would be a blend of print and digital, while the rest believed it would be solely digital.
Whatever the future of publishing looks like, one point can’t be ignored: “The new digital venues and publications convincingly demonstrate that long form narrative nonfiction can survive and flourish in the age of the Internet,” said Barry Siegel, Director of the UC Irvine Literary Journalism Program. “ Despite epochal change,
literary journalists still have many places—in fact, more places than ever—where they can tell their story.”
EVENT DETAILS:
APRIL 18, 2013
11 A.M.-6:30 P.M.
UC IRVINE SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES: HUMANITIES GATEWAY AND HUMANITIES INSTRUCTIONAL BUILDING
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC—ALL WELCOME
For more information on Digital Storytelling: A Symposium please contact the Assistant Director of Literary Journalism, Patricia Pierson, piersonp@uci.edu, or Assistant Professor of Literary Journalism Erika Hayasaki ehayasak@uci.edu. Special thanks to the Humanities Research Institute.
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good motto but I sort of feel uneasy looking at this typography… is it just me but it’s off-centered.
It’s that “intern” graphic designer in me.
(Source: unimatrixzxero, via aaronjrhimself)
