Japan’s Surrender in 1945 and the Remaking of Asia

Speaker: Prof. Hans van de Ven, Professor of Modern Chinese History, Cambridge University

Chair: Prof. Sreemati Chakrabarti, Chairperson and Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies

Moderator: Prof. Madhavi Thampi, Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies

Japan accepted the allied demand for unconditional surrender on 15 August 1945. Rather than focusing on just Japan and the USA or seeing Japan’s surrender as the definite end of the Second World War, Prof. Hans van de Ven examines the complex politics of surrender as various parties in China, Indonesia, and India negotiated this crucial event.  He will argue that while the surrenders signified the definite end of European imperialism, it also saw the beginning of struggles for dominance of forces in each country that had grown strong and had begun to compete with each other during the Second World War in each of these three countries

(Collaboration: Institute of Chinese Studies)

Invitation Link: 
https://icsin.org/newsletter/show/vp-dutt-memorial-lecture-japans-surrender-in-1945-and-the-remaking-of-asia-20th-april-500-pm-ist-zoom-webinar 

Registration link

 

An ikebana demonstration in glass containers by Ms Makiko Morange, master of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana

Introduction: Smt. Veena Dass, Director, Sogetsu School, New Delhi

Glass containers are rarely used in Ikebana as the fixation can be seen through the glass so kenzans (flower holders with spikes) nor cross bar fixings are normally used. The glass containers that Ms Morange will use at her demonstration have been specially designed. She will be joined during the demonstration by Mr. Tomio Kurata, Manager of the glass factory where the vases are made, will explain the procedure.

(Collaboration: Sogetsu School, New Delhi; and Embassy of Japan)

Zoom Link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89834418065?pwd=ZVFxR083bnBGaDYydEhjV3F0c1NEd…
Meeting ID: 898 3441 8065 
Passcode: Sogetsu
 

The Greatest Kashmiri Stories Ever Told
By Neerja Mattoo (Aleph Book Company, New Delhi: 2022)

Discussants: Dr. Roop K. Bhat, author, linguist, translator and media freelancer; Shri Abid Ahmad, writer, poet, translator, columnist and Editor; Ms Niyati Bhat, writer, Editor; and Prof. Neerja Mattoo, academic, writer, poet and critic and author of the book

Moderator: Prof. Sanjukta Dasgupta, academic, poet, translator and Convenor, English Advisory Board, Sahitya Akademi

Registration link

Tashi and the Monk (UK) | Click here to watch
(39 min; 2014; English/Tibetan/Hindi with English subtitles)
Directors: Andrew Hinton & Johnny Burke

Multiple award winner including Best Directing Award, Autrans Mountain Film Festival 2015; Audience Award for Best Short, Independent Film Festival of Boston 2015; Emmy for Outstanding Short Documentary, News & Documentary Emmy Awards 2016; Jury Prize for Best Short Documentary, Prescott Film Festival 2015; among others

On a remote mountaintop a brave social experiment is taking place. Committed to raising children with love and compassion, former Buddhist monk Lobsang Phuntsok attempts to heal his own childhood abandonment by adopting 85 unwanted children and growing them as a family at Jhamtse Gatsal, a remote children's community in the foothills of the Himalayas. The film follows Jhamtse's newest arrival, a wild and troubled 5-year-old girl named Tashi, as she learns what love is and how it can help her to heal. 

https://vimeo.com/242367699

The Lost World of Pompeii | Click here to watch
(48 min; 2016; English)
Director: Michael Wadding

Pompeii, buried by an eruption from Mount Vesuvius back in 79 AD is a city which was frozen in time providing us with a shocking window into the lost world of the Romans but that window may close before all of her secrets are revealed as the city of Pompeii comes under treat from all sides.

Today the greatest mystery may be that the same force that destroyed Pompeii the first time might now be rumbling back to life.

With this scary possibility experts are now trying to solve any lingering riddles before it is too late and with the help of new technologies and scientific detective work this film attempts to uncover what Pompeii was like on the eve of its destruction. We discover who these people were and how they lived before their lives tragically came to an abrupt end.

https://documentaryheaven.com/lost-world-pompeii/

The Curse of the Methuselah Tree | Click here to watch
(50 min; 2007; English)
Director: Ian Duncan

On a desolate mountain top in California lives the world's oldest organism - a gnarled and twisted bristlecone pine. The scientist who discovered the tree gave it the name Methuselah. It was a seedling when the Egyptian pyramids were being built and a mature tree at the time of Christ. It is now over 4,000 years old.

The Curse of the Methuselah Tree is an impressive and multi-layered work. The history of this mystical tree reflects much of our own history in a manner that sets it apart from other documentaries that cover similar events. The film's conclusion is equally distinct as it delivers an unexpectedly vivid and harrowing environmental statement.

https://documentaryheaven.com/curse-methuselah-tree/
 

Schama on Rembrandt: Masterpieces of the Last Years (UK) | Click here to watch
(59 min; 2019; English)
Director: Frank Hanly

Icarus-like, Rembrandt flew ever higher towards the sun - the most successful artist in the richest city on earth, 17th century Amsterdam. He lived like a prince and he loved living like a prince. But when his fall came - deep into bankruptcy and scandal, poverty and unfashionability - far from destroying him, it took him to new creative heights and a sense of humanity and the human condition that speaks more directly to us today than Rembrandt in his heyday. Simon Schama celebrates the masterpieces of Rembrandt's last years.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x290mmx
 

The Secret History of Writing, a three-part BBC 4 documentary series presented by Lydia Wilson.
Wilson, an academic and journalist who is also the editor of the Cambridge Literary Review, started off by looking at the moment when writing with pictures transformed into writing with words, a quest that centred on the Rebus, a puzzle or pun in which pictures are used to represent words.

So who did create writing as we know it? As Wilson discovered, this was an entertainingly fraught topic that continues to be debated passionately by Egyptologists and specialists in Mesopotamian culture. The fascinating story that finally unfolded revealed that while some things stay the same (a hieroglyph on an Egyptian sapphire mine turned out to be a series of complaints about weather and working conditions), the smallest moment can change the world.

Series 2: Words on a Page | Click here to watch
(58 min; 2020; English)
Director: David Sington

Presenter Lydia Wilson and calligrapher Brody Neuenschwander set out to explore history’s most important technology - the technology of putting words on a page.

https://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=Words+on+a+Page

Fryderyk Chopin (Italy)
A documentary on the life of Frédéric Chopin
(56 min; 2015; Italian with English subtitles)
Director: Angelo Bozzolini

With Bobby McFerrin, Daniel Barenboim, Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Charles Rosen, Alexander Lonquich, Adam Harasiewicz, Janusz Janusz Prusinowski Trio and others... 

The documentary offers a careful use of the epistolary of the “protagonist”, entrusting to letters written and received by Chopin. The writings are interpreted by the two renowned actors Fabrizio Bentivoglio and Margherita Buy. Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) was born in Żelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, in a setting far from the limelight of the great musical tradition. His education is the fruit of Polish culture and cannot be separated from that, but he also feels the influence of the three main cultures of the time: Italian, Austro-German and French. This documentary describes the places that provided the basis for the young composer’s imagination, from the capital Warsaw to rural Poland, where Chopin spends part of his childhood and is formed as a man and a musician, on to Paris, theatre of the second half of the musician’s life. 
 

The Extraordinary Voyages of Jules Verne (USA) | Click here to watch
(72 min; 2008; English)
Director: Philip Gardiner

Jules Verne was truly a man ahead of his time. The 19th century Frenchman created some of the great futuristic works in the history of literature, including From the Earth to the Moon, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Centre of the Earth. The film explores the life and works of "the father of science fiction." From his childhood and his early career as a writer of plays and librettos to his rise to fame, the forces that shaped the life and works of the famed futurist are explored. A compelling portrait of one of the most influential and imitated writers of all time.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22tppe