College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences > Academics > Global Asian Studies > About > Faculty Spotlight

Faculty Spotlight

Curt Hansman

Curt Hansman, Global Asian Studies and Chinese Studies

Curt Hansman is a board member of Global Asian Studies and Chinese Studies at DePaul University. She has taught courses on the history of Chinese, Japanese and Asian American art in the department of the history of art and architecture at DePaul since 1997. She holds the BA and MA in the History of Art/Asian Studies from the University of Oregon and the MPh and PhD in the History of Art and Chinese Intellectual History from the University of Kansas.

Her early research focused in and around painting and painting style as a political tool in Song/Yuan China. Recent projects have focused on the interaction of art/politics/language/identity in modern China and Asian America including the recent paper “Yayoi Kusama: Another Mirror”. Hansman has received grants from the Kress Foundation and The American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia and was an NEH Summer Institute Fellow in 2012. She has lived, worked, and traveled extensively in Asia.

Outside the academy she is a mother, potter, runner, and like so many art historians, an aficionado of detective fiction. She has worked actively through the Empty Bowls Project to raise awareness and funds to fight hunger and food insecurity. She is a faculty member in The Odyssey Project (a Bard College Illinois Humanities Council educational humanities project in underserved communities).

chansman@depaul.edu

Gallery of 2 videos with Professor Hansman

1) Professor Hansman tells us about herself and why Art History plays an important role in Global Asian Studies.
2) Professor Hansman explains why every student from different majors should take Global Asian Studies Program.


Kathryn Ibata-Arens

Kathryn Ibata-Arens, Political Science

Kathryn Ibata-Arens is Vincent de Paul Professor of political economy at DePaul University. Ibata-Arens specializes in high technology policy and Asian political economy. Her 2019 book Beyond Technonationalism: Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Asia, Stanford University Press compares national policy and firm-level strategy in China, India, Japan, and Singapore. Ibata-Arens’ previous book Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Japan: Politics, Organizations and High Technology Firms (Cambridge University Press, 2005) analyzed strategic networks of high technology firms and regional economies in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo.

Ibata-Arens directed the Global Asian Studies Program from 2013 to 2019. Under her leadership, the program raised more than $150,000 in student study abroad scholarships, hosted a series of inaugural international research colloquia and student career events, and initiated a major program expansion.

Ibata-Arens has held fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, Mansfield Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. She served on the METI-State Department Japan-US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Council (2012-2013) and currently on the Boards for the Japan-America Society of Chicago, American Council on Education (ACE) U.S.-Japan, and Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, DePaul University. In 2011, Ibata-Arens co-founded the TOMODACHI Tohoku Challenge, a new business competition sponsored by the U.S.-Japan Council and American Embassy, Tokyo. She conducted her dissertation research as a Fulbright Fellow at RCAST, Tokyo University and received a Ph.D. from Northwestern University. In her free time Ibata-Arens enjoys hiking, running with her dogs, and tennis. When she isn’t working with her students, Ibata-Arens’ son and daughter also keep her busy.

Twitter: @Ibata-Arens
kibataar@depaul.edu


Laura Kina

Laura Kina, Art, Media, and Design

Laura Kina (MFA, University of Illinois at Chicago) is a Vincent de Paul Professor of Art, Media, & Design at DePaul University. Her artwork addresses Asian American and mixed race identities and histories with a focus on Okinawa and Hawaiʻi diaspora. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries and museums including: the Chicago Cultural Center, India Habitat Centre, India International Centre, Nehuru Art Centre, Okinawa Prefectural Art Museum, Rose Art Museum, Spertus Museum, and the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience. Her exhibition Sugar/Islands: Finding Okinawa in Hawaiʻi – the Art of Laura Kina and Emily Hanako Momohara was recently on view at the Japanese American National Museum with an exhibition catalog published by Bear River Press.

Kina is co-editor of War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art (University of Washington Press, 2013), co-founder of the biennial Critical Mixed Studies conference, and a reviews editor for the Asian Diasporic Visual Culture in the Americas. She is currently editing the anthology Queering Contemporary Asian American Art and illustrating Okinawan Princess: Da Legend of Hajichi Tattoos, written by Lee A. Tonouchi. Her solo show "Uchinanchu" will open in Feb. 2016 at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA.

lkinaaro@depaul.edu
http://www.laurakina.com

Learn more about Professor Laura Kina and how you will benefit from taking her classes!


Yuki Miyamoto, Religious Studies

Yuki Miyamoto (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is Associate Professor, teaching ethics in the Department of Religious Studies at DePaul University. Since publishing her first book, Beyond the Mushroom Cloud: Commemoration, Religion, and Responsibility after Hiroshima (Fordham University Press, 2011), continuing to work on issues concerning the atomic bombing and radiation victims (“Inconceivable Anxiety: Representation, Disease and Discrimination in Atomic-Bomb Films,” “Sameness, Otherness, Difference: Discrimination through Indiscriminate Weaponry.”)

Miyamoto has worked on discrimination, social marginalization, and environmental disasters and published a few articles. Her recent research on Minamata disease includes papers, for example, “Before Good and Evil: Minamata’s Spirituality and Giorgio Agamben’s Ethical Elements,” and “Literature of Dystopia: Nature, Place, and genius Loci in Ishimure Michiko’s Heaven of Lake.” She has led five study-abroad programs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and was appointed as Nagasaki Peace Correspondent in 2010, and Hiroshima Peace Ambassador in 2011.

ymiyamot@depaul.edu