The Korea Program invites junior faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students to apply for travel awards to attend an upcoming two-day conference organized by the Korea Program at Stanford' Asia-Pacific Research Center. The workshop titled "Future Visions: Challanges and Possibilities of Korean Studies in North America" will be held on November 1st and 2nd, 2018 at Stanford University.

The awards will cover accepted applicants' lodging, domestic airfares, and/or ground transportation. To apply for the travel awards, please submit your CV and 2-page statement as a single file by July 15 here.

About the conference:

“Future Visions: Challenges and Possibilities of Korean Studies in North America,” is designed to bring together leading scholars in the fields of language education, literature, history, social sciences, and library studies. Each panel will consist of three-four scholars who will be tasked with presenting a report on the state of the field. The purpose of the panels is to generate discussion around some of the following questions: 

Accepted applicants are expected to actively participate in discussion sessions and to engage in networking with other scholars during the 2-day conference.

Please direct questions on the conference to hjahn@stanford.edu.

During the 2017–18 academic year, SPICE’s Jonas Edman worked with six community college instructors from Las Positas College and Foothill College on their plans for integrating global issues into their classrooms. These six instructors were among ten Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) Fellows to work collaboratively with colleagues at Stanford on projects aimed at internationalizing course curricula and producing innovative curricular materials for use in community college classrooms.

On May 19, 2018, an EPIC Symposium, “Integrating Global Issues into Community College Curricula,” was held at Stanford University that featured presentations by the EPIC Fellows as well as presentations from Stanford faculty. Community college faculty and administrators from across California gathered at Stanford University to discuss ways to prepare students for a world that is increasingly interconnected.

The six EPIC Fellows, with whom Edman worked, and their presentation topics are:

• Brian Evans, Foothill College: The Latin American Lost Decade
• Ann Hight, Las Positas College: Using Global Lifestyles as a Platform to Teach Gene Expression and Longevity
• Natasha Mancuso, Foothill College: Using Online Games to Teach Business and Marketing from a Global Perspective
• Kali Rippel, Las Positas College: Internationalizing the Research Project Using Wikipedia
• Colin Schatz, Las Positas College: Globalized and Inclusive: Redesigning a Community College Honors Program
• Antonella Vitale, Las Positas College: Global Voices in American History

Since 2010, Stanford Global Studies (SGS) has partnered with community colleges through innovative projects such as the Stanford Human Rights Education Initiative (SHREI) and EPIC to bring together faculty and administrators committed to developing global and international studies. Fellows join a growing network of EPIC alumni from across the state who are developing innovative programs to internationalize curricula. SPICE as well as Stanford’s Lacuna Stories have been working with SGS National Resource Centers—Center for East Asian Studies, Center for Latin American Studies, Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies—on these efforts.

CISAC faculty offer their summer reading selections:

Martha Crenshaw, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and professor, by courtesy, of political science, recommends:

Muslims in a Post-9/11 America: A Survey of Attitudes and Beliefs and Their Implications for U.S. National Security Policy

“I am recommending a book for late summer, to be published by University of Michigan Press in August.  The author is Rachel Gillum, who recently received her PhD in political science from Stanford. It is the definitive account of who American Muslims are and what they think, a much-needed antidote to prejudice and misconception, and a clear warning about the unintended consequences of counterterrorism policies.”

François Diaz-Maurin, Nuclear Security Visiting Scholar and the European Commission’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow recommends one book for each month of summer:

The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War, by Eileen Welsome

“This book tells the harrowing story of the plutonium injections and other experiments conducted on U.S. citizens in the postwar era. It provides one of the best illustrations of how distrust in the government and fear about nuclear energy got firmly embedded in the minds of the American public; two of the main factors explaining today's difficulty to deal with the legacy of radioactive waste.”

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg

“Ellsberg's memoirs on his early-career involvement in the US nuclear war planning come 45 years after he famously leaked the Pentagon Papers helping to end the Vietnam War in 1975. Although mainly based on now declassified documents that will be known from historians, the book shows to the general public the insanity of U.S. and Russian nuclear policies based on a permanent state of alert of their early warning systems, which risks to humanity could only be exacerbated by prospects of a new arms race.”

From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, by Michael McFaul

“In this book mixing history, scholarship and memoirs, McFaul explains that after the Cold War, U.S.-Russia relations went from resetting relations aimed at more cooperation after the fall of the Soviet Union to a period of Hot Peace with the rise of Vladimir Putin. Deliberately echoing the past, McFaul argues that Hot Peace is no less dangerous than the Cold War because it brings new types of destabilizing factors, such as elections interference and military annexation, and calls for a bipartisan strategy to reset (again) the U.S.-Russia relations.”

Karl Eikenberry, Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center,

CISAC, CDDRL, and TEC affiliate, and director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center recommends:

Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari

Rodney C. Ewing, Frank Stanton Professor in Nuclear Security and Co-Director, CISAC, recommends:

Hue 1968 - A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark Bowden

This is a long, hard read, but I think it is appropriate reading on the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive.

Gabrielle Hecht, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Frank Stanton Foundation Professor of Nuclear Security, and professor of history, recommends:

“Stephen Graham, Vertical: the City from Satellites to Bunkers. Most of us think about maps and spatial politics in two dimensions. This book invites readers to incorporate a third dimension into their thinking: verticality.  Ranging from satellites, drones, and skyscrapers to sewers, mines, and tunnels, Graham upends our sense of how politics, geography, and urban spaces are entwined. A great read, sparkling with insight.”

Siegfried Hecker, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, emeritus, and research professor of management science and engineering, emeritus, recommends:

Geoff West's Scale: The Universal Laws of Life and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies.

“He is a good friend - former Los Alamos physicist, now at the Santa Fe Institute.”

David Holloway, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies senior fellow, recommends:

Svetlana Alexievich, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets. 

“This is based on interviews Alexievich did between 1991 and 2012 and it provides an incomparable insight into the Soviet Union and post-Soviet reality, on the basis of what has been called a “symphony of Russian voices."  I found it compulsive reading and very moving.  It is not not about policy, but it is very much about the impact of politics on individuals and on society.  Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015 but you shouldn’t let that put you off.”

Colin Kahl, Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Director of the Middle East Initiative recommends:

Paul Scharre, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War.

“Rapid technological advances in autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons systems and artificial intelligence will revolutionize the way humans fight. Yet security specialists are still in the early phases of thinking through the battlefield and ethical implications of these developments. This book, by a former Army Ranger, is a terrific starting point for that conversation.”

David Relman, Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in the Departments of Medicine, and of Microbiology and Immunology, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in Palo Alto, California recommends:

Thank You For Your Service, by David Finkel.

“After embedding himself with the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry during the 2007-2008 Surge in Iraq, Finkel, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and editor for the Washington Post, follows some of these soldiers after their return home to the U.S., and describes their painful struggles with the consequences of profound psychological trauma. His accounts are gripping, disturbing and for even the reader, life-changing. This book should be required reading for anyone who contributes to decisions about sending and subjecting people of any nation to war.”

Scott Sagan, Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, recommends:

S.C. Gwyne, Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Paker and Rise and Fall of the Commanches.

“Summer for me should include time away from the hustle and bustle of the city, to vacation in the wilds of the American West.  Gwynne's book brilliantly captures the story of both Quanah Parker, the last independent chief of the Commanche, and his mother, Sarah Ann Parker, who was captured by raiding warriors as a young girl and then lived with the Commanche until captured a second time, by white relatives, after having raised a family with her Native American husband.  This book, and the great John Wayne film, The Searchers, provides a summer window through which to glimpse dark elements of American history and culture.”

Amy Zegart, co-director of CISAC, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and professor of political economy (by courtesy) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, recommends two books:

“Daniel Pink, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, which is chalk full of useful (and sometimes frightening) research about timing -- with implications for how to improve efficiency and outcomes in a wide array of activities, from when to get medical procedures to how to get the most out of a nap. In international security, it is easy to overlook the human dimensions of good decision-making. One of McGeorge Bundy's best decisions during the Cuban missile crisis was to let President Kennedy sleep before telling him about the U2 photos showing Soviet missile installations. Pink's book grounds this essential intuition in research.

“Tara Westover, Educated. A moving memoir about a young woman's journey from a survivalist family in Idaho to Cambridge University, where she earned a DPhil in History. Told with a sense of love and brutal honesty, the book provides a penetrating glimpse into segments of American society that are literally and figuratively off the grid and one woman's singular determination to make a different future for herself.”

This is an excerpt of the the article, which was first published in Stanford News. You can read the whole article here.

A Stanford-led study in China has revealed for the first time high levels of a potentially fatal tapeworm infection among school-age children. The researchers suggest solutions that could reduce infections in this sensitive age range and possibly improve education outcomes and reduce poverty.

The study, published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, focuses on Taenia solium, a tapeworm that infects millions of impoverished people worldwide and can cause a disorder of the central nervous system called neurocysticercosis. The World Health Organization estimates that the infection is one of the leading causes of epilepsy in the developing world and results in 29 percent of epilepsy cases in endemic areas. It is thought to affect about 7 million people in China alone.

Since the mid-19th century, the United States has had strong—albeit sometimes tense—historic ties with Kanagawa Prefecture. In 1853, U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry entered Edo Bay (now Tokyo Bay) just south of Yokohama with the mission of pressuring Japan to open its ports to the United States. This resulted in the signing of the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854, which opened the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to trade and established the first U.S. consulate office. During World War II, the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal in Kanagawa was attacked by the United States, and since the end of the war in 1945, its facilities have been used by the U.S. Navy. Today, United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka is home port for the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

Students in Kanagawa Prefecture are taught about these historic episodes between their prefecture and the United States. They also live alongside a significant number of American residents today. Following Tokyo and excluding U.S. military personnel in Japan, Kanagawa has the second largest number of American residents in Japan. Because of these historical and contemporary ties with the United States, some of Kanagawa’s teachers have reached out to the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) with hopes to more fully introduce their students to U.S. society and culture and U.S.–Japan relations and also to encourage their students to study abroad in the United States. This encouragement was inspired in large part by the Japanese government.

On May 1, 2015, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Stanford University—a first by a Japanese prime minister—and said that he wants “the best and brightest Japanese talent” to study at places like Stanford and to learn about Silicon Valley. Shortly after Prime Minister Abe’s visit to Stanford, SPICE launched an online course called Stanford e-Japan for high school students in Japan with funding from the United States-Japan Foundation, New York City. Stanford e-Japan, which is taught by Waka Takahashi Brown, introduces topics like Commodore Perry, World War II, and Silicon Valley to students with hopes that they will come to better understand the bilateral relationship and also consider someday studying in the United States.

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One of the high schools that has enthusiastically supported and enrolled students in Stanford e-Japan is Yokohama Science Frontier High School (YSFH). Thanks to the initiative of teachers Nobuyo Uchimura and Yukimasa Uekusa, Naomi Funahashi and Rylan Sekiguchi traveled to Kanagawa Prefecture to visit YSFH and a partner school, Yokosuka Senior High School. They met with faculty, chatted with students, and led several classes and after-school sessions to encourage students’ global thinking. Following their school visit, English teacher Gentaro Tatsumi, noted, “Sekiguchi-sensei and Funahashi-sensei gave very impressive lessons to my students. I believe many of them surely had moments to think deeply about war and peace with different perspectives or viewpoints. Also, I was so happy to see that there were several students who showed a big interest in studying abroad following their after-school presentation.”

Four of these students had the occasion to see Funahashi and Sekiguchi again but this time at Stanford University. Three students (Ayaka Nakaminami, Daiichi Soma, and Rin Suzuki) from YFSH and one student (Keisuke Hara) from Yokosuka Senior High School participated in a SPICE-led seminar on January 24, 2018. After engaging in a series of globally themed lessons led by Funahashi and Sekiguchi, the students toured Stanford campus and experienced lunch in a student dining hall. The afternoon portion of the seminar featured a presentation by Tatsumi-sensei on English education in Japan, remarks by Uchimura-sensei and Uekusa-sensei, and four science research-focused presentations that were given by the students to Stanford community members.

One of the audience members was Stanford law student, Yuta Mizuno, an attorney with Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu in Tokyo. “I was truly impressed by the students’ preparation and performance with the presentations,” he reflected. “I’m sure that they gained inspiration and confidence from the seminar here at Stanford, and there’s no doubt that they have a promising future on the global stage. I wish I could’ve had such a priceless experience when I was in high school.” In between the student presentations, Mizuno also had the chance to talk with Hara, who aspires to be an attorney.

After their return to Kanagawa Prefecture, Uchimura-sensei commented, “Our visit to Stanford was a precious opportunity. The seminar we had at SPICE was focused on ‘globalization’ and ‘interdependence,’ which are especially important themes today. The four selected students, who are potential global leaders, were lucky enough to have been given the chance to experience studying at a U.S. university early in life. We are convinced that this experience at SPICE has given them a guide into their future.”

SPICE expects that many students from Kanagawa Prefecture will apply to future offerings of Stanford e-Japan, due in large part to the enthusiasm of the teachers and the students who represented their prefecture so well. SPICE’s hope is that the four students will someday return to Stanford or other U.S. universities as students. It is remarkable how the once tense relationship between Kanagawa (and Japan broadly) and the United States has evolved into a close interdependent friendship. We entrust the future of this friendship to students like Nakaminami, Soma, Suzuki, and Hara.

Stanford e-Japan is a distance-learning course sponsored by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Offered for the first time in 2015, Stanford e-Japan presents a creative and innovative approach to teaching Japanese high school students about U.S. society and culture and U.S.–Japan relations, and most importantly, the course introduces both U.S. and Japanese perspectives on many historical and contemporary issues. The Fall 2017 cohort was the fifth group of students to complete Stanford e-Japan.

On August 10, 2018, three of the top students of the Fall 2017 Stanford e-Japan course will be honored at an event at Stanford University. The three Stanford e-Japan honorees—Amane Kishimoto (Kyoto Prefectural Rakuhoku Senior High School), Yurika Matsushima (Keio Girls Senior High School), and Jun Yamasaki (Shibuya Kyoiku Gakuen Senior High School)—will be recognized for their coursework and exceptional research essays that focus respectively on “Open Innovation: A Secret to Silicon Valley’s Success,” “Employment Measures for People with Disabilities: A Comparison Between Japan and the U.S.,” and “The U.S. Education System: Lessons to be Learned from Japan.” Miteki Ochi (Keio Girls Senior High School) received an Honorable Mention for her research paper on “Working in the 21st Century: Innovations and Flexible Work in a Digital Society.”

Applications for the Fall 2018 session of Stanford e-Japan will be accepted from April 1 through May 15, 2018, and will be available for download at the following link: http://spice.fsi.stanford.edu/fellowship/stanford-e-japan

The Fall 2018 session will run from August 27 to December 21, 2018.

To stay informed of SPICE-related news, follow SPICE on Facebook and Twitter or join our email list.

—SPICE: Offering teacher institutes since 1973—

In 1973, the roots of the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) were established with the creation of the Bay Area China Education Program, which focused on the development of K–12 curriculum materials and teacher professional development. Only a year prior, President Richard Nixon had made his historic trip to China and many American students were able to view contemporary images of China on television for the first time in their lifetimes. Teachers who attended SPICE institutes on China in the 1970s often commented that they were at a loss about how to teach about China.

Forty-four years later, a new generation of educators expressed similar sentiments at a SPICE institute. However, the challenge wasn’t so much about the teaching of China but rather the teaching of North Korea. Thus, when Pulitzer Prize-winning author Adam Johnson spoke about his book, The Orphan Master’s Son, a New York Times bestselling novel about North Korea, teachers were riveted by his comments. Teachers were interested not only in ways that his novel could help them better understand contemporary North Korea but also in ways they could use the book to help their students gain a more balanced view of North Korea. The 22 teacher participants received copies of The Orphan Master’s Son to use in their teaching and were offered two SPICE curriculum units titled Inter-Korean Relations: Rivalry, Reconciliation, and Reunification and Uncovering North Korea.  

Co-sponsored by the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA), the SPICE summer institute, July 24–26, 2017, had the objectives of (1) deepening teachers’ understanding of Asia, U.S.–Asian relations, and the Asian-American experience; (2) providing teachers with teaching resources; and (3) creating a community of learners. The institute featured lectures by Stanford faculty (like Johnson), U.C. Berkeley faculty, and other experts on a range of Asia- and Asian-American-related topics closely aligned with the History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools standards, which were recently revised. Interactive curriculum demonstrations by SPICE staff were also offered.

One such standard focuses on recent economic growth in China. Following a lecture by Thomas Fingar, Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center Fellow, on “Recurring Themes in U.S.–China Relations,” a curriculum demonstration on the SPICE curriculum unit, China in Transition: Economic Development, Migration, and Education, was offered by its author, Rylan Sekiguchi of SPICE. One teacher remarked, “I teach about China, and it was so helpful to hear someone with such deep expertise [Fingar] speak about U.S.–Chinese history in a way that enriches my knowledge and understanding to bring back some bigger themes to my teaching. I can’t wait to bring this content back to my students [through the SPICE curriculum].” Other scholarly lectures on Japan and Korea were also followed by curriculum demonstrations by SPICE staff. This coupling of lectures and curriculum demonstrations has been a hallmark of SPICE since its inception.

Updated History-Social Science Framework standards on the Asian-American experience were also addressed at the institute. Dr. Khatharya Um, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, introduced the diverse cultural and historical backgrounds of the Asian-American student population which often comprises a significant percentage of students in schools in areas like the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. She emphasized the importance of acknowledging individual circumstances in minority student populations and breaking down commonly cited stereotypes of Asian Americans as being a critical element of effective teaching. One of the topics that she addressed was stereotypes of Japanese Americans that arose following the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor. Her lecture was coupled with the sharing of first-hand experiences by Dr. Joseph Yasutake, who was interned at the age of nine. Dr. Yasutake’s talk stimulated discussions on civil liberties, race relations, discrimination, and American identity among the teachers. “Hearing history from one who has experienced it as well as studied and taught the history is really wonderful,” said one institute participant. “This combination brings a great amount of authority and well as authenticity to the narrative he [Yasutake] provides.” The SPICE curriculum unit, Civil Rights and Japanese-American Internment, was recommended as a resource for teachers.

The institute brought together both experienced mentor teachers and those new to the field. Naomi Funahashi, who organized and facilitated the institute, remains in communication with many of the teachers and has noticed that a community of learners, who are committed to a long-term exploration of Asian and Asian-American studies, has grown from the institute. She reflected, “One of the unexpected outcomes of the institute was the recommendations that many of the teachers have written in support of their students’ applications to my online class on Japan called the Reischauer Scholar Program. My hope is that some of my students will someday attend SPICE institutes as teachers and that SPICE institutes will continue to serve teachers as they have since 1973 for many decades to come.”

SPICE is currently recruiting teachers to attend its 2018 summer institute for middle school teachers (June 20–22, 2018) and summer institute for high school teachers (July 23–25, 2018).

To stay informed of SPICE-related news, follow SPICE on Facebook and Twitter.