UCC - Department of Asian Studies

Planning a trip to Japan this summer? Get ready with our short evening course "Travel Japanese"

https://uccshop.ie/shop/travel-japanese-course/

Many congratulations to Shuai Liu who successfully completed her doctoral viva voce examination this week, defending her thesis "The Translation, Dissemination, and Influence of Late Qing Prose in the Anglophone World".
Here you can see Shuai in the middle with her supervisors on the left: Dr Yanyu Guo, Prof Julia Schneider (University of Hamburg), and Prof Helena Buffery. On the right we have Dr Till Weingärtner (Head of Department) and the examinars Dr Constantin Holzer and Prof Isabella Jackson (Trinity College Dublin)

Elevate your global expertise with the MA in Asian Studies at University College Cork, where world-class scholarship meets a uniquely accessible path to graduate success. Located in the heart of Ireland’s vibrant cultural hub, this program offers a streamlined alternative to traditional stateside master's degrees, providing a prestigious, one-year qualification with a significantly more competitive tuition structure. Whether you are looking to master a new language or deepen your understanding of transcontinental relations, UCC provides a welcoming, high-value environment that prioritises your academic trajectory and professional growth, ensuring you gain a sophisticated international edge without the typical overhead of American graduate school.

https://www.ucc.ie/en/cke81/

Explore our postgraduate programmes at UCC, Department of Asian Studies

Thinking about learning Japanese this year? Planning a trip to Shanghai and want to master some Mandarin conversation?
Join our evening classes in Mandarin Chinese or Japanese this January and make 2026 the year you do something extraordinary!

https://uccshop.ie/product-category/online-bookings/asian-studies/

Classes are offered by the Department of Asian Studies at University College Cork.

Asian Studies - UCC Shop

Languages in Collision: Life Writing and Exophony
A Reading and Conversation with Yoko Tawada

Friday 17th October 2025, 2:00 pm

O’Rahilly Building G.27

What happens when the language one writes in is not the language one dreams in? Or when memory surfaces in a voice that was never one’s own?

You are warmly invited to a conversation with Yoko Tawada, whose work meditates on the uncanny experience of living and writing across and between languages. Together, we will explore the creative and cognitive dissonances of what Tawada calls exophony: writing and being in a language other than one’s mother tongue.
Drawing from The Bath, Portrait of a Tongue, and Memoirs of a Polar Bear, our discussion will trace threads of voice, memory, and linguistic displacement. How does the self emerge, or dissolve on the page when languages collide, overlap, or refuse to align?

Born in Tokyo and long resident in Berlin, Yoko Tawada writes in both German and Japanese. Her playful and unsettling reflections on identity, translation, and the strange intimacy of language have earned her wide recognition, including multiple national and international literary awards.

This event is organised by UCC’s Life-Writing-Cluster, Centre for Advanced Studies in Languages and Cultures (CASiLaC, University College Cork, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures with financial support by CASiLaC and the departments of German and Asian Studies.

Contact: [email protected]

Photo (C)

PS: Yoko Tawada will also read from her works on the 18th October 2025 as part of the Cork International Short Story Festival:
https://www.ticketsource.com/corkartstheatre/cissf-2025-yoko-tawada/e-erzzkl

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a moment that forever changed the course of history. Earlier this year, Dr Till Weingärtner, Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies, and our 1st year Asian Studies students visited the Boole Library Special Collections (University College Cork Library). Together, they explored rare materials and posters documenting the events of August 1945, engaging in critical discussion on the memory, legacy, and continued global relevance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As we reflect the past on this day, we honour the lives lost and reaffirm our commitment to peace, dialogue, and historical understanding.