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Home > Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchange > Intellectual Exchange > Hosted/Co-hosted Events > Asia Leadership Fellow Program > ALFP Related Program / Panel Discussion: Asian Women: Beyond Myths and Stereotypes

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Panel Discussion

Asian Women: Beyond Myths and Stereotypes

In our rapidly globalized world, the media is increasingly playing a significant role in shaping human perceptions. On the one hand, it contributes to facilitating effective communication of information in society; on the other, it dangerously functions as a power in its own right towards the disadvantaged and vulnerable, resulting in stamping determined and problematic one-dimensional images. With a focus on introducing misperceptions of Asian women perpetrated in the Western media's representation, in this panel discussion two female intellectuals will challenge the assumptions of constructed Asia based on deep-rooted stereotypes and unravel their mythologies, thereby reshaping our perception ---beyond dichotomous thinking and Orientalism--- of what Asia really is.

Speakers:	Sheridan Prasso, Journalist; Author of The Asian Mystique Ms. Prasso has been writing about Asia for more than fifteen years: formerly as Asia Editor and a Senior News Editor for Business Week, and as a Hong Kong-based Asia Correspondent and Cambodia Bureau Chief for Agence France-Presse. Her articles have appeared in the New Yorker, New Republic, the New York Times, Fortune, the International Herald Tribune, the Far Eastern Economic Review and other publications. She started her career as a reporter for the Associated Press. She is the recipient of a Human Rights Press Award for coverage of Cambodian land-mine victims. She was in Tokyo as a fellow of the US-Japan Media Fellows Program 2003 organized by the Japan Society in cooperation with the International House of Japan. Combining the results of this fellowship with her longtime research in Asian countries, Ms. Prasso recently published the book The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls, & Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient (Public Affairs, 2005).
	Urvashi Butalia, Co-founder, Kali for Women; Director, Zubaan Books, Asia Leadership Fellow Program 2000 Fellow Ms. Butalia is a well-known figure in gender studies not only in India but also in Europe and the United States. She co-founded Kali for Women, the first feminist publisher in India, which has published various books on gender issues in India. She has been instrumental in women's empowerment in India. She has been active in researching the modern history of India, and her book The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (Duke University Press, 2000), an oral history of the tragic separation of India and Pakistan, has been a bestseller in India. She is also an active participant in international citizen's exchange conferences, where she speaks on behalf of Indian women. She spent two months in residency in Tokyo as a fellow of the Asia Leadership Fellow Program 2000 co-organized by the International House of Japan and the Japan Foundation. Ms. Butalia is a recipient of the Nikkei Asia Prize 2003.
Moderator:	Chiharu Takenaka, Professor, Meiji Gakuin University
Date & Time:	Monday, September 26, 2005, 7:00 pm
Venue:	Gakushi Kaikan Room 202 3-38, Kanda Nishiki-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Tel: 03-3292-5940
Membership Fee:	1,000 yen (Free of charge for IHJ members)
*with English-Japanese simultaneous interpretation
Reservations/ Inquiries:	Program Dept. International House of Japan Tel: 03-3470-3211, Mon-Fri, 9 am-5 pm Fax: 03-3470-3170

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