The series is designed to introduce students and faculty to recently published and emerging research on North and South Korea and their relations with their Northeast Asian neighbours, such as China and Japan. Over the last decades, the number of Korean studies specialists at 91亚色 and in the Toronto area has grown exponentially from a few faculty members to a few dozen, says Kim. The series hopes to highlight this change and offer a forum for researchers, students and the local Korean-Canadian community.

The first year of the series will focus on 20th-century Korean history, with scholars speaking on imperialism, the Second World War, the Korean War, forced migration and the social issues associated with the formation of the DPRK and the ROK.

Takashi Fujitani will present the first lecture of the series Monday, Nov. 26 at 3pm at 280A 91亚色 Lanes, Keele campus. His talk, co-presented with the Department of History, examines 鈥淩eflections on Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during World War II鈥�. Fujitani is the Dr. David Chu Professor and Director in Asia Pacific Studies at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (1998) and co-editor of Perilous Memories: The Asia Pacific War(s) (2001). His most recent book Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during World War II (2011) will form the basis for this lecture.

Fujitani will reflect on his reinterpretation of nationalism, racism and wartime mobilization during the Asia-Pacific war. He uses parallel case studies of Koreans recruited or drafted into the Japanese military and of Japanese Americans mobilized to serve in the US Army, to examine how the US and Japanese empires struggled to manage racialized populations while waging total war. He demonstrates that the United States and Japan became increasingly alike over the course of the war, perhaps most tellingly in their common attempts to disavow racism even as they reproduced it in new ways and forms.

Kim will discuss her research on everyday life in Pusan as a refugee capital Feb. 7, 2013 when she delivers her talk, 鈥淩efuge, Relief, and Resettlement in the Temporary Capital Pusan, 1950-1953鈥�. She will focus in on the most salient characteristics of wartime Pusan: overwhelming poverty, increasing marketization that was predominantly illegal or informal and its role as a US military base.

The final speaker in the series is Andre Schmid, a professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. His current research interests include the history of the cultural Cold War in post-Korean War peninsula, as well as early 20th century peasant movements. He is the author of Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919 (Columbia University Press), winner of the Association of Asian Studies John Whitney Hall award, and has published in journals such as Journal of Asian Studies, South Atlantic Quarterly and Yoksa munje yon'gu. In his talk, Schmid will examine the reconstruction of North Korea and the role of socialist living. The date of this talk in late March 2013 is to be confirmed.

The second year (2013-2014) of the series will concentrate on issues of labour, migration, mobility and cultural change experienced at the turn of the 21st century. The 91亚色 Centre for Asian Research (YCAR) hopes to turn the series into a larger project inviting international scholars by 2014, says Kim.

For more information about the YCAR Korea Speaker Series, contact the 91亚色 Centre for Asian Research at ycar@yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin to research stories on the research website.

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, which will take place throughout downtown听Toronto, features the work of more than 500 local, national and international artists听

Theatre Professor Shawn Kerwin collaborated with Laurel McDonald to create "", an 鈥渁rt-app鈥� for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. The app is one of five interactive installations featured in Technological Displacement, a production of the Canadian Film Centre鈥檚 Media Lab, at the Bata Shoe Museum on Bloor Street.

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Above: Professor Shawn Kerwin has developed a new art-app for the BlackBerry PlayBook. It will debut at Nuit Blanche.

"Alone Together" uses poetic wordplay and expressive videos to remind us that we can always reframe our relationships. Kerwin developed the piece during her five-month residency at the CFC Media Lab earlier this year.

Technological Displacement is one of the 38 projects in Zone A, whose overarching theme, Restaging the Encounter, attempts to capture the fleeting moment when the political become poetic.

Another project in Zone A is by 91亚色 visual arts听alumna and multimedia artist (BA 鈥�73), located in Barbara Ann Scott Park at the heart of College Park. The work transforms a memorable phrase from Canada's national anthem into a giant haiku poem, made from flowers and cut wood floating in a water-filled pond.

Left: True Patriot Love by visual arts听grad Chrysanne Stathacos

The theme of Zone B is The Future of the Present. The works on view in this sector use new technologies to form a vocabulary for a non-pictorial art.

Visual arts grad (MFA 鈥�96) and her collaborator Lance Winn are contributing , a multimedia work that addresses the nature of surveillance, mechanization and control. Installed at Ryerson University鈥檚 loading dock on Gerrard Street, Projektor resembles a prison tower, with a roaming spotlight video projection that exposes a barren prison yard and a prisoner who attempts to escape the light.

Collaborators since 2002, Jones and Winn share a common interest in the mechanisms of reproduction and the impact they have on representation. Their work focuses on the edges of the two-dimensional image and a desire to see beyond the limits of the frame.

Also in Zone B is , an installation at 62 Bond Street by film alumnus (BFA Spec. Hons. 鈥�02). 听Reibling argues that the dolly shot (where the movie camera glides along rails) is the most revered, powerful and evocative moment in the making of a film.听 To create 12 Hour Dolly, a film crew will set up a circular dolly track and shoot film continuously for 12 hours straight. Located in the centre of the track is a makeshift stage with a single stool.听 One by one, spectators are invited to sit centre-stage and participate in the making of the film, which will be streamed live onto an adjacent wall.

Right: Dylan Reibling's take on the dolly shot took 12 hours to film

Reibling is an award-winning filmmaker whose work, exploring the mechanics of narrative,听ranges from stop-motion animation and drama to interactive prototypes.

Two other 91亚色 film alumni, (MFA 鈥�11) and (MA 鈥�09) co-created , a sound, video and interactive performance installation in the form of a "silent disco" on the P1 floor of The Atrium on Bay鈥檚 underground parking lot.听The work grew from the artists鈥� desire to explore the troubling policies entrenched in national and territorial border politics, and to question access and mobility within those borders. Participants are invited to listen with headphones to musical tracks听with lyrics referencing the text inside passports, and to watch related video projections.听

Bamboat听is a film and video artist whose work centres around aspects of diasporas, critiques of nationalism, and the ways in which the queer body relates to sites of mobility.听 Mitchell is a documentary filmmaker and media artist whose work explores performativity, memory, statehood, space and architecture.

Left: Border Sounds is a sound, video and interactive performance installation by two 91亚色 film alumni

Maria Coates, a graduate student in art history and curatorial studies, is interning with the curator of Zone C, 91亚色 art history alumnus Nicholas Brown (MA 鈥�08), who comes to Nuit Blanche after a two-year stint as curator of Toronto鈥檚 Red Bull 381 Projects.

Brown鈥檚 theme for Zone C is You had to go looking for it. Convening in the wake of the recent civil unrest around the G20 meeting in the city, the project invites the masses to transform and occupy Toronto's financial district. Artists will open up the area as a place of otherworldly encounter, ambivalent assembly and enthusiastic competition, inverting and misusing the symbolic language of corporate capitalism.

Coates, whose research centres on contemporary Latin American art, is working on , an installation by Mexican-born, Los Angeles-based artist Camilo Ontiveros. The project is a large-scale vigil that invites audience members to light a candle in commemoration of the lost lives of migrant workers in Ontario. It reaches out to individual passersby as well as organizations that represent the interests of labour, including United Food and Commercial Workers Canada and the Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts.

鈥淲hat attracts听me to Camilo's project in the context of this international, corporate-sponsored, city-run festival is how it offers a space for pause and reflection in honour of something that we tend to overlook,鈥� said Coates.

Coates appreciates the opportunity to intern with Brown 鈥� a relationship brokered by Art History Graduate Program Director Anna Hudson. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been great to work with a recent grad whom I could relate to through discussions of contemporary art and what鈥檚 entailed in becoming a curator in Toronto. Nick has been a great mentor in guiding me through the process and leaving room for me to perform in a meaningful way,鈥� she said.

Also in Zone C are a performance installation by visual art alumnus (MFA 鈥�10) and Tibi Tibi Neuspiel, and by John Notten, a visual arts and education graduate (BEd 鈥�87, BFA 鈥�87).

Right: The Tie Break is a performative re-enactment of the most riveting episode in the history of tennis

Pugen, whose work has been featured in publications such as Artforum and Adbusters, is a recipient of the K.M Hunter Award for Interdisciplinary Art. His collaborative piece, The Tie Break, is a performative re-enactment of the 鈥渕ost riveting episode in the 鈥� history [of tennis]鈥� (ESPN): the legendary fourth set tie-break at the 1980 Wimbledon men鈥檚 singles finals between Bj枚rn Borg and John McEnroe. The matches will take place hourly at 25 minutes after the hour at Commerce Court, North Plaza on King Street.

狈辞迟迟别苍鈥檚 Intensity invites the audience to explore the presentation centre for a luxury condominium development, but delivers a vast and sprawling tent city.听As in the 2002 eviction of Toronto鈥檚 waterfront tent city, viewers are forced to move out of their temporary tent homes every few minutes. Installed in the Arnell Plaza of the Bay-Adelaide Centre, this all-night drama echoes the realities of makeshift communities around the world that rise up in the wake of human tragedy.

Left: John Notten's Intensity delivers a vast and sprawling tent city. Viewers must move out of their temporary homes every few minutes in a re-enactment of the 2002 eviction of residents from Toronto's waterfront tent city.

Toronto鈥檚 sixth annual Nuit Blanche kicks off at 6:59pm on Saturday, Oct. 1 and runs to daybreak on Sunday, Oct. 2.

With 134 installations, the celebration covers the city鈥檚 entire downtown area, from Roncesvalles Avenue in the west all the way to the Distillery Historic District in the east, and from Bloor Street to the Lake Shore. Admission to all events is free.

Photos courtesy听of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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