Ian Buruma

- Reciprocity: Asian-Americans in New York - New York in Asia -

"Hyphenated identities" stand for more than a shuttling between cultures; they provide a context for disparate individual biographies. Asian-American is one such designation. Asian immigrants to the USA move in the currents of America's cultural life while also acknowledging their Asian roots. "New York: usAsia" explores the interplay of cultural influences and creative impulses that arise out of migration from Asia to the United States. The programme also demonstrates the inspirational effect the image of New York has in Asia.

- New York: usAsia” is the House of World Cultures' contribution to the 6th Asia-Pacific Weeks. -

In his lecture, "The East Asian Option", the journalist and Asia expert Ian Buruma will discuss the ways China, Japan and Korea have struggled towards modernity since the confrontation with Western imperialism in the 19th century. He will talk about the various models they came up with -- Japanese imperialism, Chinese Communism, Korean Confucianism, Asian Values, etc. Modernity in East Asia, though much influenced by Western models, is different from Europe or the United States. Buruma will discuss if this contains lessons for Western democracies, or a threat.

Moderated by Christoph Lanz (director, Deutsche Welle)

Ian Buruma was educated in Holland and Japan, where he studied history, Chinese literature, and Japanese cinema. He now writes about a broad range of political and cultural subjects for major publications, most frequently for The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Corriere della Sera, The Financial Times, and The Guardian. He was cultural editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong (1983-86) and Foreign Editor of The Spectator, London (1990-91), and has been a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C., St. Antony's College, Oxford, and Remarque Institute, NYU. He has delivered lectures at various academic and cultural institutions worldwide, including Oxford, Princeton, and Harvard universities. He is currently Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College.

In cooperation with the international literature festival berlin.

Kindly supported by Deutsche Welle

An event of "Asia-Pacific Weeks 2007 – Asia-Pacific: Changing the World". Asia-Pacific Weeks receives funding from the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin DKLB.