11/9/98
Editor's note: A headshot of Jenny Lau may be downloaded from the Web at: http://www.ohiou.edu/news/pix/LAU.JPG
ATHENS, Ohio -- More than 50 international scholars will attend an Ohio University-sponsored international conference in Hong Kong Nov. 16 through 18 to explore the cross-cultural impact of Western trends on Asian societies.
Assistant Professor of Film Jenny Lau, who conceived the theme for the conference "Asian Cultures at the Crossroads: An East-West Dialogue in the New World Order," is coordinating the event. She believes it is particularly important for scholars to re-examine the relationships between Asian and Western societies because of the increasing globalization of economies and cultures.
The David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University is co-sponsoring the conference. Scholars from a variety of disciplines, including film studies, sociology, history and philosophy, will participate.
"This multidisciplinary, multicultural approach to studying culture is vital because the world can no longer be viewed from a mono-cultural viewpoint," Lau said. "Scholars need to approach one issue from a variety of perspectives or they will fail to come up with really useful ideas as to how to understand the world of the 21st century."
Keynote speakers include Senior Professor Tu Weiming, director of Harvard University's Yenching Institute, a center founded almost 100 years ago to study the intellectual flow of ideas between Asia and the West; and Beijing University Professor Dai Jin-Hwa, an expert in contemporary Chinese culture.
Ohio University President Robert Glidden and President Emeritus Charles Ping will attend and papers will be presented by Lau, Professor of Journalism Anne Cooper-Chen and Assistant Professor of Departments/PoliSci/Political Science Takaaki Suzuki.
"Ohio University is among the leaders in the Lam Institute because of our longstanding commitment to international education," Glidden said. The university is one of only four North American universities in the Lam Institute, and Ping has been a member of the board since its inception in the early 1990s.
Benefits for the campus include participation in exchange programs, summer institutes, conferences, and the opportunity to network with other universities.
