Arts & Sciences people and programs are often featured in local, national, and campus media. Learn about groundbreaking research and other accomplishments, and hear from faculty with expertise on complex societal issues. Be sure to check our event listings for upcoming performances, lectures, and more.
Most Recent
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Chinese Characters across Asia: Continuity and transformation in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese
Chinese, like the other earliest inventions of writing, emerged in complex societies, where people needed to use symbols for writing. The script started as pictures, but quickly evolved to incorporate other mechanisms capable of indicating abstract concepts and grammatical structures. When Classical (or ancient) Chinese script spread, literate people in other cultures not only mastered it, but they then used it to represent their own distinct spoken languages in written form. Zev Handel, professor and department chair of Asian languages and literature at the UW, is quoted. -
Rethinking the Academy Update
February may be the shortest month of the year, but it was very busy, especially for our College of Arts & Sciences Rethinking the Academy initiative. We were grateful to have an extra, 29th day this year since all aspects of the initiative were activated.
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Analysis: What is the Japanese ‘wabi-sabi’ aesthetic actually about? ‘Miserable tea’ and loneliness, for starters
"Wabi-sabi is typically described as a traditional Japanese aesthetic: the beauty of something perfectly imperfect, in the sense of 'flawed' or 'unfinished.' Actually, however, wabi and sabi are similar but distinct concepts, yoked together far more often outside Japan than in it," writes Paul Atkins, professor of Asian languages and literature at the UW.
UW Arts Events
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