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Directed by Dr. Kathryn Hansen, the center started a three-year project to examine the transformations brought about by new technologies in Asia.

As part of that effort, the center recently hosted filmmaker Peggy Chiao, director of the Taiwan Film Center, whose film Tale of Three Cities won several awards at the Berlin Film Festival.

The center also welcomed Shula Zuo of the magazine Film Art in Beijing to lecture on independent film production in contemporary China.

Susan Napier, a professor in the center, is an internationally recognized expert on Japanese animation or anime. Her popular course on animation was offered during fall semester, and she also delivered a special talk on "Metamorphosis in Japanese Animation" to a large campus forum.

The pervasive effects of mass media in India and the ways in which popular imagery represents violence were the recent topics for discussion in a three-day conference held at the center.

Seven international scholars, coming from as far away as India and Australia, attracted an audience of more than 200. Shohini Ghosh of the Mass Communications Research Centre in New Delhi discussed the traumatic and beneficial effects of television broadcasting in India.

The well-known historian Tanika Sarkar of Jawaharlal Nehru University spoke on the 19th-century Bengali public theatre as a form of entertainment that predated cinema and supplied it with themes.

Kajri Jain of the Getty Research Institute presented an illustrated slide lecture on the efficacy of images in Indian mass culture.

Next year, the center will continue the theme of cultural transformation with a focus on the history of science and technology in Asia.

Leading historians of science in South Asia will be brought together with sociologists and anthropologists to examine the cultural consequences of the Asian boom in information technology.

The conference will build on this year's successful two-day symposium on "The Body in Indian Medicine." That symposium was organized by center Professor Martha Ann Selby, a scholar of ancient Indian medical texts. Speakers included Dominik Wujastyk from the Wellcome Institute in London.

Other activities slated for next year include a conference "India in the New Global Order," organized by center Professor Sumit Ganguly, and a symposium on intra-Asian cultural exchanges in the Himalayan region.

The center also houses Outreach Asia, which provides support services to educators and community members to foster a better understanding of Asia. Several times a year, Outreach Asia organizes workshops for teachers to faciliate the inclusion of Asia in K-12 and post-secondary curricula.

The program also coordinates speakers who travel to schools to speak to classes on topics of their interest related to Asia. The Outreach Asia office has a large lending library of educational materials that are available for loan to schools and institutions around the country.

The Center for Asian Studies provides an entry point for students, faculty, school teachers and the public to all aspects of Asia's culture. As the major Asian research institute in the south and southwestern United States, the center sponsors a variety of scholarly conferences, films, lectures, seminars and performing arts events.

The center also provides a comprehensive background in Asian studies through its degree programs for undergraduates and graduate students.

Asian studies has 155 undergraduate majors and 30 students in its M.A. and Ph.D. programs.

The center is one of nine universities in the United States recognized as a National Resource Center for South Asia by the U.S. Department of Education.