“Write about Asia” was offered by the East Asia Resource Center in conjunction with the Seattle Asian Art Museum’s Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas Saturday University Lecture Series. Each Saturday (with the exception on February 23), there was a lecture followed by a writing workshop facilitated by Mary Barber Roberts.
Each Saturday, educators attended the public lecture from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. and then met for a writing workshop from 11:30 a.m to 2:00 p.m. During the workshop, time was given to solitary writing in response to the morning lecture. The workshop nurtured educators as writers through self-reflection and group discussion. Priority was given to full-time K12 teachers.
This University Lecture Series was titled “Roots of Culture: Essential Plants of Asia”. This seven-part series began with “an arts approach to plants through a comparison of musical structures and trees. Then six talks each focus on cultures and histories of one type of plant. Their uses vary from garden ornamentals to craft, agriculture, fiber, and fruit.” (excerpt from the Gardner Center website)
JAN 19
The Harmonic Forest: Musical Structures Heard as Trees
Jovino Santos Neto, musician and biologist
JAN 26
The First Satyagraha: Gandhi’s Campaign Against Indigo Plantations in Early Twentieth Century India
Anand Yang, University of Washington
FEB 2
The Story of the Camellia
Nicholas Menzies, Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
FEB 9
Soybean Worlds
Jia-chen Fu, Emory University
FEB 16
Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta
Tariq Omar Ali, University of Illinois
MAR 2
Fruit Trees, Family Trees, and Landscape Change: The Durians of West Kalimantan, Indonesia
Nancy Lee Peluso, University of California, Berkeley
MAR 9
The Japanese Basket 1845–1958: Mirror of Modernity
Joe Earle, Former Director, Japan Society Gallery
Workshop details
Saturdays from January 19 to March 9 (no lecture on February 23)
10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Seattle Art Museum, Plestcheeff Auditorium
Benefits
Free admission to the lecture and four free clock hours available for attending at least two lectures and fulfilling online discussion requirements.