Elizabeth Perry - Public Health, National Strength and Regime Legitimacy: China’s Patriotic Health Campaign
2024-03-05 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, 121 Bay State Rd, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Speaker: Elizabeth J. Perry, Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government, Harvard University; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute

This talk focuses on China’s longest-lived mass movement: the Patriotic Health Campaign(PHC). Introduced by Mao Zedong in 1952 during the Korean War, the PHC continues even today, having recently played a role in Xi Jinping’s Zero-Covid effort. The talk will question the official characterization of the PHC as a “uniquely Chinese” approach to sanitation and epidemic control, noting the influence of the American Tuberculosis Movement and YMCA health campaigns, while at the same time emphasizing the central importance of public health in the legitimation of Chinese Communist rule, from revolutionary days to the present.

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Echoes of the Past, Visions for the Future: The Power of Ideas to Navigate the China- West Divides
2024-03-08 09:15 - 2024-03-09 13:45 | CGIS South S020, Belfer Case Study Room, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speakers:Tiziana Lippiello, Ca’ FoscariMichael Puett, Harvard UniversityAnna Irene Baka, Harvard University; Ca’ FoscariBryan Van Norden, Vassar CollegeTao Jiang, Rutgers UniversityHsinning Liu, Academia SinicaWen Yu, Boston CollegeBenjamin Gallant, Harvard UniversityKaren Turner, Harvard University; College of the Holy CrossFranklin Perkins University of Hawai’iDimitra Amarantidou, University of MacauLisa Raphals, University of California, RiversideWang Hui, Tsinghua UniversityPeter Bol, Harvard University

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Michelle Miao - Health Code Apps as Social Control in China: Empirical Findings from the Pandemic
2024-03-19 12:20 - 13:20 | Morgan Courtroom, Austin Hall, 1515 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speaker: Michelle Miao, Associate Professor of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Fellow, Stanford University Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences

Michelle Miao is Associate Professor of Law at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Her major areas of research include ethics of technological innovation, comparative law, criminal justice, law and society, and rule of law and authoritarianism. As a CUHK-Stanford University Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences Fellow for 2023-2024, she is working on a project exploring the interaction between artificial intelligence and the shifting paradigm of authoritarian governance. Professor Miao is an awardee of the American Society of Comparative Law’s Hessel Yntema Prize for the most outstanding scholarship by a scholar under 40 years of age.

Boxed lunch will be provided.

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Mitchell Presnick - US-China Business Relations: Past, Present, and Future
2024-03-19 18:00 - 19:30 | Room K354, CGIS Knafel, 1737 Cambridge St, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Mitchell Presnick, Visiting Fellow, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Mr. Presnick will lead a fireside chat about his 30 years in China from 1988 – 2019. Topics will include serving on Budweiser’s（百威啤酒) China market entry team, founding the China practice of APCO Worldwide (安可顾问), a Washington, D.C. based global advisory and advocacy firm, founding Super 8 Hotels China (中国速8酒店连锁) an economy hotel chain with over 1100 locations, and serving as board member and vice chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China during China’s accession to the GATT (now WTO).

We will also explore current opportunities and challenges inherent in US-China business relations in the post-engagement era.

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Racing to Be a Better Race: A Longue Durée History of China's Toilet Revolution
2024-03-26 10:30 - 11:45 | Presented via Zoom
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Speaker: Nicole Barnes, Associate Professor of History, Duke University

More information: https://scholar.harvard.edu/seow/STinAsia

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Taiwan Conference: Tension in the Taiwan Strait: The Role of U.S. Allies
2024-03-28 16:00 - 18:30 | Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, 121 Bay State Rd, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
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Speakers:Akio Takahara, Professor of Contemporary Chinese Politics, Graduate School of Law and Politics, University of TokyoJa-Ian Chong, Associate Professor of Political Science, National University of SingaporeSatu Limaye, Vice President, East-West Center; Director, East-West Center in Washington

This event examines the risks for conflict in the Taiwan Strait and the implications that the changed geo-strategic environment has for the US, Taiwan, the Sino-US relationship and the US-led system of alliances in the region. It builds on a series of BUCSA events about Taiwan’s security that we have held over the past few years, including a talk with Taiwan Defense Minister Andrew Yang in the Spring of 2021 and a presentation and discussion with senior US diplomat Chas Freeman in March 2022.

For more information, visit: https://www.bu.edu/asian/2023/12/04/taiwan-conference-tension-in-the-taiwan-strait-the-role-of-u-s-allies-march-28-2024/ .

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Film Screening: Yi Yi (A One and a Two …), with introduction by Kalli Peng
2024-03-29 19:00 - 22:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Edward Yang’s cinematic swan song, released at the turn of the millennium, is a moving tapestry that weaves together the dissolution and reconstitution of the fragile subjectivities in an increasingly global, capitalist and mediated urban society. Yi Yi opens with a wedding and ends with a funeral. What unfolds between love and death is everything that saturates our modern existence: awakening, nostalgia, contingency, anxiety, alienation, the ennui of everyday banality and the oscillations between longings for interpersonal dependence and fears of intimacy. This three-hour-long audiovisual epic unfolds the confusions and struggles of the multigenerational Jian family. As the grandmother falls into a coma, the family members take turns sitting at her bedside relaying their life to her, only to hear their own doubts and uncertainties reverberate in the resounding silence. At his tenderest moment, Yang, through Yi Yi, delicately, wisely and elegantly portrays the poignant reminiscences of the stirrings of first love and unveils the beauty that all too often shies away in the face of a perceived emptiness of life.

Directed by Edward Yang. With Wu Nien-Jen, Elaine Jin, Issey Ogata

Taiwan/Japan 2000, 35mm, color, 173 min. Mandarin, Min Nan, Hokkien, English, Japanese and French with English subtitles

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Film Screening: A Brighter Summer Day (Guling jie shaonian sharen shijian), with introduction by Kalli Peng
2024-03-30 18:00 - 22:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Similar to Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City of Sadness (1989), A Brighter Summer Day also traces the experiences of a large family during a critical historical epoch in Taiwan. Set in the early 1960s, against the backdrop of a society witnessing the consequences of major demographic shifts and political oppression, this film depicts the difficult trials awaiting the simple and harmonious life of the Zhang family. With Yang’s exacting demands on the historical accuracy of the props, such as the family house and the furniture in the classrooms, A Brighter Summer Day splendidly restores the material historical world to us while inquiring into its zeitgeist. Caught between the world of rock ‘n’ roll, gang rivalry, love triangles and the White Terror paranoia, a group of teenagers are compelled to learn to negotiate the tensions and discrepancy between ideals and reality. The adolescent struggles in grasping that which is worth holding on to, be it people or principle, turn out to be an inescapable fate for adults alike.

Widely considered as Yang’s magnum opus, this film, based on a real-life murder, launched Chang Chen’s acting career at the age of fourteen. The brilliant juxtapositions of light and darkness, movement and stasis, sound and silence, all work together to yield a tragic lonesomeness that even the warmth of a bright summer day cannot cure.

Directed by Edward Yang. With Chang Chen, Lisa Yang, Chang Kuo-Chu

Taiwan 1991, DCP, color, 237 min. Mandarin, Min Nan, Shanghainese and English with English subtitles

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Film Screening: A Confucian Confusion (Du li shi dai)
2024-03-31 19:00 - 22:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
A satirical comedy with biting wit and a romance that is equally suspicious of and hopeful about love, this film ambitiously negotiates the coexistence of Confucianism with capitalism and democracy. In what feels like a second take of his Taipei Story, Yang stages a frantic tango that is danced not with two but twelve. A circle of closely knit friends and relatives forms an entangled web of relationships where lost and insecure young professionals (civil servants, accountants, businessmen, publishers, writers, and artists) navigate different emotional scenes in a vibrant Taipei. Following a series of misunderstandings, a pervasive sense of loneliness permeates these densely populated frames, resulting in a deliberate messiness. Intentionally not a guide for the perplexed, Yang’s dazzling world melts pretense, fakeness, authenticity and sincerity into a confounding pool of restlessness.

One of the two least heralded (or screened) films by Edward Yang (the other being Mahjong), A Confucian Confusion’sstylistic and narrative experimentation is in fact fiercer than ever, reflecting his ongoing formal exploration in a diverse oeuvre. Made after directing plays such as Likely Consequence (1992) and Growth Period (1993), A Confucian Confusionconducts, with a bold theatricality, a brilliant investigation into the challenging sedimentations of traditional ideals of social conformity and hierarchy in a modern age of independence.

Directed by Edward Yang. With Chen Li-Mei, Chen Shiang-chyi, Chen Yi-Wen

Taiwan 1994, DCP, color, 125 min. Mandarin and Min Nan with English subtitles

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U.S. - China Relations Today
2024-04-03 16:30 - 17:45 | L-332 DELAND, Littauer Building, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Register now

Speakers:Da Wei, Director, Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS); Professor of Department of International Relations, School of Social Science, Tsinghua University.Rana Mitter, ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations, Harvard University

Join the Greater China Society at Harvard Kennedy School for a discussion on U.S.-China relations featuring Professors Da Wei and Rana Mitter, leading scholars on this topic. This event is part of the preview series to the 2024 China Conference organized by students at Harvard Kennedy School.

Professor DA Wei is the director of the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua, and professor of department of International Relations, school of Social Science, Tsinghua University. He is renowned for his work on China-US relations and US security & foreign policy, and has a rich background in China’s academic and policy community.

Professor Rana Mitter, ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at Harvard, is an acclaimed author and commentator on China’s international relations and historical narratives. He is the author of several books, and his writing on contemporary China has appeared in influential media outlets. He previously taught at Oxford, and is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Register at: https://forms.gle/SZVqh5iwTpNBSkek7

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Glen S. Fukushima - U.S. Trade Policy, Japan, and China
2024-04-04 12:20 - 13:20 | Morgan Courtroom, Austin Hall, 1515 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speaker: Glen S. Fukushima, Vice Chair, Securities Investor Protection Corporation; Former Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan and China

Glen S. Fukushima was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden to serve as Vice Chair of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation in October 2021 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 2022. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1982, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo; associate at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker; Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan and China at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan; and senior executive in one European and four American multinational corporations. He served on Hillary Clinton’s Asia Policy Working Group in 2015-2016.

Boxed lunch will be provided.

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Film Screening: Mahjong (Ma jiang)
2024-04-07 15:00 - 18:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Mahjong is a game for four players, and the one who first collects winning sets of tiles wins. But the real game lies not in these rectangular pieces per se, but in deliberating what one already has and could afford to discard or how to acquire from others what one desires but does not yet possess. The funniest and angriest of Yang’s films, Mahjong questions the sustainability of the dominance of a calculating profit-mindedness and transactional mentality, incubated in a capitalist madness blown to the point of barbarity. Red Fish, the son of a missing millionaire, leads a group of four young men as they swim in the ocean of ambivalent values among European expats, entrepreneurs, liars and criminals. A series of surprising events expose a social world where tenderness only makes one vulnerable to be exploited or deceived, and people—avoiding responsibilities—lack courage to think or make decisions for themselves. Following A Confucian Confusion, this dark comedy continues to experiment with theatrical forms. Yang’s use of lighting in a scene of an astonishing and dramatically powerful murder recalls Béla Tarr’s intense chamber drama Autumn Almanac (1984). The repeated appearance of T.G.I. Friday’s and the Hard Rock Café, along with other globalist trinkets, casts an alluring, mysterious and uncanny shadow over Taipei’s colorful nightlife.

Directed by Edward Yang. With Tang Tsung Sheng, Chang Chen, Lawrence Ko

Taiwan 1996, DCP, color, 121 min. Mandarin, Min Nan and English with English subtitles

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Film Screening: The Terrorizers (Kong bu fen zi)
2024-04-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Characterized as “Yang’s most difficult, intellectually provocative, and structurally challenging film” (John Anderson), Edward Yang’s third feature-length film is a puzzle with immense reverberatory power. The Terrorizers depicts the intertwining of love and death among three different couples: a young photographer and his literary girlfriend; a middle-class and middle-aged married couple whose mutual estrangement grows to the point of no return; and a delinquent duo whose income comes from committing petty pickpocketing and blackmailing. Prank phone calls, amateur photography, writer’s block and coveted promotions serendipitously bring these separate lives together. As close relationships come to a dissolution, the distinctions between life and art, fiction and reality also edge toward implosion.

Directed by Edward Yang. With Cora Miao, Lee Li-Chun, King Shih-Chieh

Taiwan 1986, DCP, color, 110 min. Mandarin and Min Nan with English subtitles

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Dreams from China’s Past: Visions of the Future in Popular Science and Literature Magazines, 1927–1949
2024-04-09 10:30 - 11:45 | Presented via Zoom
Register now

Speaker: Aaron William Moore, Professor of Asian Studies and Handa Chair of Japanese-Chinese Relations, University of Edinburgh

More information: https://scholar.harvard.edu/seow/STinAsia

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2024 China Town Hall Featuring Kurt Campbell and Rana Mitter
2024-04-09 18:30 - 20:00 | L-332 DELAND, Littauer Building, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
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Speakers:Kurt Campbell, Deputy U.S. Secretary of StateRana Mitter, ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations, Harvard Kennedy SchoolJoin the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the Greater China Society at HKS on April 9th for the 2024 CHINA Town Hall (CTH), a two-part program that provides a snapshot of the current U.S.-China relationship and examines how that relationship reverberates at the local level – in our towns, states, and nation, connects Americans around the country with U.S. policymakers and thought leaders on China.

The 2024 CHINA Town Hall program will take place on Tuesday, April 9, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET, with featured speaker Dr. Kurt Campbell, Deputy Secretary of State. Following the official program, students have the opportunity to discuss with Prof. Rana Mitter in-person reflecting on the event from 7:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET.

RSVP: https://forms.gle/cjDyW6LbUmfi58fV9

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Arbitrary Detention in Xinjiang: A Survivor's Story
2024-04-11 12:15 - 13:15 | WCC 1015, Wasserstein Hall, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speakers:Rayhan Asat, Uyghur Lawyer, HLS LLM ‘16Mihrigul Tursun, Uyghur Activist, Former Detainee and Camp Survivor

In 2015, Mihrigul Tursun was imprisoned in a re-education camp in Xinjiang by the Chinese authorities. Rayhan Asat’s brother, Ekpar, has been detained for right years and counting. Join Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights for a discussion with Tursun and Rayhan to learn more about what is happening in Xinjiang and what can be done.

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China: The Rise and Fall of the EAST - How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to its Decline
2024-04-11 17:00 - 18:30 | Building 66, 110, 25 Ames St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, United States
Speaker: Yasheng Huang, Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management, MIT Sloan School of Management; Faculty Director, MIT-China Program, Center for International Studies.

Discussant: Will Knight, Senior Writer, Wired Magazine

More information: https://bit.ly/RiseFallChina

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Curatorial Chat: Central Asian Chronicles Echoes of the Silk Road in Manuscripts and Imagery
2024-04-12 12:00 - 13:00 | Houghton Library, Quincy Street & Harvard Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Join co-curators Dr. Gülnar Eziz, Preceptor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, and Isa Youshe, PhD Student, Committee on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies at Harvard University, for a 30-minute guided tour of the Central Asian Chronicles: Echoes of the Silk Road in Manuscripts and Imagery exhibition currently on display in Houghton’s Amy Lowell Room. This will include discussion of the rich histories and cultural significance of the collections on display and ample time for participant questions.

Attendees should gather in Houghton’s lobby. No registration is required.

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Film Screening: That Day, on the Beach (Hai tan de yi tian)
2024-04-15 19:00 - 22:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
A renowned young pianist, Tan Ching-Ching (Terry Hu) comes back to Taipei for the first time in thirteen years to give a performance. An old friend, Lin Jia-li (Sylvia Chang), gets in touch with her to reconvene over an afternoon coffee. That Day, on the Beach takes place over a conversation between the two female friends, during which Ching learns about how the romantic and domestic life of Jia-li and her elder brother evolved over the past decade. Through complex flashbacks, the microcosmic personal life is revealed to be closely interwoven with the drastic economic and social changes that Taiwan witnessed over the entire 70s. Full of subtle narrative and cinematic surprises, the film explores the difficulties that accompany freedom, love and trust; in staging the fragility of any sense of facile contentment and hope, it makes visible the pleasure and pain entailed in one’s pursuits of happiness. The film also marks the debut of Christopher Doyle as a cinematographer, best known for his collaborations with Wong Kar-Wai. Released in Taiwan four decades ago, Edward Yang’s first feature’s length, storytelling, and formal ingenuity all speak to his unwavering will to uphold his artistic vision despite all obstacles.

Directed by Edward Yang. With Sylvia Chang, Hsu Ming, Lee Lieh

Taiwan 1983, DCP, color, 166 min. Mandarin and German with English subtitles

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Contextual Annotation in Textual and Visual Media: COMARKUS and IMMARKUS
2024-04-17 16:00 - 17:30 | CGIS South, Room S153, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Hilde De Weerdt, Professor of Chinese and Early Modern Global History, KU Leuven

Hilde De Weerdt joined the Early Modern History Research Group, KU Leuven in March 2022 as Professor of Chinese and Early Modern Global History. Professor De Weerdt is broadly interested in intellectual, social, and political history, both within an East Asian context, and within a comparative or global historical framework.

She studied Chinese and Chinese History at KU Leuven (BA) and Harvard University (PH.D.) and taught history at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (2002-2007, Assistant Professor), Oxford University (2007-2012, Associate Professor), and King’s College London (2012-2013, Reader) before becoming Chair Professor of Chinese History at Leiden University in 2013. She has published five volumes on Chinese political culture and intellectual history, focusing on the workings of late imperial Chinese bureaucratic infrastructures and political communication (Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600, ed., 2021; The Essentials of Governance, tr. and ed., 2021; Information, Territory, and Networks: The Crisis and Maintenance of Empire in Song China, 2015; Competition over Content: Negotiating Standards for the Civil Service Examinations in Imperial China (1127-1276), 2007; Knowledge and Text Production in an Age of Print–China, 900-1400, ed., 2011).

She is currently working on a longue-durée global history of Chinese political advice literature. In 2021 she received funding from the European Research Council and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to extend her earlier work on Chinese state infrastructures into a large-scale collaborative project on the social and regional histories of material infrastructures (roads, bridges, city walls) (1000-1800).

She maintains an active interest in designing and developing digital research methods for East Asian and other languages. With Brent Ho she co-designed the text annotation and reading platform MARKUS, and with Mees Gelein two text comparison modules COMPARATIVUS and PARALLELLS. (On the history of and concept behind these and related digital research projects, see “Creating, Linking, and Analyzing Chinese and Korean Datasets: Digital Text Annotation in MARKUS and COMPARATIVUS”).

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2024 Harvard Visual China Graduate Symposium - Time and Temporality in Chinese Art & Culture
2024-04-19 10:30 - 17:30 | Sackler Building Auditorium, 485 Broadway, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
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How do humans and objects exist in relation to time and experience time? We often turn to space and spatial models as the dominant approach to analyzing visual materials, yet time could also serve as a way of organizing visual and perceptual experiences. In the case of Chinese art, time and temporality had particular salience as organizing principles for pictorial programs and designs. Harvard Visual China’s 2024 Graduate Symposium presents three panels on the topic of Time and Temporality in Chinese Art and Culture.

Sponsored by the Department of History of Art & Architecture and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Innovation Fund, and Harvard FAS CAMLab.

More info and registration: https://www.harvardvisualchina.com/hvc-2024-symposium-info-reg

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Film Screening: In Our Time (Guang yin de gu shi)
2024-04-22 19:00 - 21:00, 2024-05-05 15:00 - 17:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
The omnibus film In Our Time initiated radical innovations in terms of aesthetic styles, industry practices and commonly depicted themes, thereby revolutionizing the filmmaking industry in Taiwan and inaugurating the movement of Taiwan New Cinema. The four segments are shot by four young emerging directors and each film—set in different decades from the 1950s to the 1980s—represents roughly one of the four younger stages of life: childhood, adolescence, young adulthood (in college) and married life (as working professionals).

Titled Expectations, sometimes translated as Desires, Edward Yang’s segment features a series of sensitive and expressive vignettes that depict the growing pains of adolescents in mid-60s Taiwan. Yang sees the placement of the second short film as structurally akin to the second movement in a symphony, typically characterized by its lyrical and slow nature. The teenaged Hsiao-Fen (Shi An-Ni) serves as a kind of prototype for other young heroines in Yang’s cinematic corpus. The diversity of the cinematic techniques used in his debut short film accentuates the complexity of the protagonist’s emotional and perceptual experience.

Directed by Edward Yang, Chang Yi, Ko I-Chen and Tao Te-Chen. With Sylvia Chang, Emily Y. Chang, Lee Li-Chun

Taiwan 1982, DCP, color, 110 min. Mandarin and Min Nan with English subtitles

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Discovering Freshwater Jellyfish in Modern China: Arthur de Carle Soweby and Craspedacusta sowerbii, 1880–1941
2024-04-23 10:30 - 11:45 | Presented via Zoom
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Speaker: Christine Luk, Associate Professor of the History of Science, Tsinghua University

More information: https://scholar.harvard.edu/seow/STinAsia

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Michael Stanley-Baker - Evolution of A Recipe: How DocuSky’s Post-Search Classification function reveals historical change
2024-04-23 14:00 - 16:00 | CGIS South Room S250, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Michael Stanley-Baker, Nanyang Technological University

Join us for an illuminating workshop hosted by the Digital China Initiative (DCI) and the China Biographical Database Project (CBDB), showcasing the innovative DocuSky platform. Developed by the Research Center for Digital Humanities at National Taiwan University, this online platform is ingeniously designed to cater to the intricate demands of humanities scholarship. Under the expert guidance of Professor Michael Stanley-Baker from Nanyang Technological University, participants will delve into the bespoke tools and services offered by DocuSky. These include a diverse range of digital resources, analytical tools, and tailored services essential for the organization and examination of research materials.

This workshop will feature a diverse set of digital research tools designed for the historical study of Chinese medicine. At their core is the full-text corpus database hosted in DocuSky, which will be the primary focus of the presentation. We will examine the post-search classification feature, and how it allows users to parse through thousands of query returns in an exploratory way, oscillating between macro-scale data patterns, and micro-scale close reading, to come to a synthetic vision and analysis of specific research questions.

The advantage of digital tools go beyond acquiring more data. Such overviews should afford insights which prompt new questions we might not have asked before. DocuSky does more than provide answers, it stimulates new inquiry, and provides the means to explore further.

Speaker’s bio:

As an adept historian in Chinese Medicine and Religion, Professor Stanley-Baker’s expertise spans from the early Imperial period to contemporary Sinophone communities. His work intricately weaves together cultural knowledge in Chinese medicine with varied disciplines such as religion, botany, trade, modern biology, and policy. His methods range from meticulous textual analysis and interviews to cutting-edge digital humanities techniques.

Professor Stanley-Baker’s remarkable contributions to the field are evidenced by his editorial leadership in significant publications and his development of numerous digital humanities projects. His innovative creations include digital mappings of ancient Chinese medical texts and the Polyglot Medicine Knowledge Graph, a pioneering digital resource connecting traditional and modern medicinal knowledge across cultures. The project won the 2nd runner-up for Best Dataset in DH Awards 2023.

With a rich academic background that includes a PhD from the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London, an MA from Indiana University, and a clinical degree in Chinese medicine, Professor Stanley-Baker is a fount of knowledge. His esteemed research appointments across the globe have solidified his reputation as a leading light in the intersection of traditional knowledge and digital innovation.

If you want to participate in the workshop activities, please register for a DocuSky account at https://docusky.org.tw/DocuSky/home/?l=en

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Perspectives on Academic Freedom
2024-04-25 10:15 - 17:30 | CGIS South, Tsai Auditorium (S010), 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
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Speakers:Sugata Bose, Harvard UniversityWilliam Kirby, Harvard University Jayati Ghosh, University of Massachusetts, AmherstZeynep Kadirbeyoglu, Brandeis UniversitySidney Chalhoub, Harvard UniversityJoan Scott, Institute for Advanced Study, PrincetonDurba Mitra, Harvard UniversityBeshara Doumani, Brown UniversityBrian Connolly, University of South Florida

In 2019, alarmed by attacks on academic freedom happening simultaneously in several parts of the world (Brazil, India, Turkey, and the USA, among others), a group of faculty in the History Department decided to organize a year-long seminar series to discuss the role of academics in an age of advancing authoritarianism. The pandemic derailed our plans. The crises of the past few months have given us a new sense of urgency. How can the university remain a place of unfettered critical inquiry and expression when its mission is overtly challenged by corporate and governing interests?

Registration and a complete agenda available at: https://history.fas.harvard.edu/event/perspectives-academic-freedomOpen to members of the Harvard community only. Please bring your Harvard ID for check in.

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A Cosmos of Vital Feeling: Qing (Affect) and Qi (Breath, Atmosphere) as Critical Traditions in the Chinese Humanities, An International Conference情氣天下：重估抒情傳統與氣化論 國際研討會
2024-04-26 09:00 - 2024-04-27 17:00 | Plimpton Room (133), Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speakers:David Der-wei Wang 王德威 (Harvard University)Peter K. Bol 包弼德 (Harvard University)Wai-yee Li 李惠儀 (Harvard University)Thomas P. Kelly (Harvard University)Joo-hyeon Oh 吳周炫 (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)Yang Rur-bin 楊儒賓 (National Tsing Hua University)Cheng Yu-yu 鄭毓瑜 (National Taiwan University, Academia Sinica)Chan Kwok -Kou 陳國球 (National Tsing Hua University)Lai Shi-San 賴錫三 (National Sun Yat-sen University)Mark McConaghy 莫加南 (National Sun Yat-sen University)Lin Ming-chao 林明照 (National Taiwan University)Lin Su-chuan 林素娟 (National Cheng Kung University)Lee Yu-lin 李育霖 (Academia Sinica)Fabian Heubel 何乏筆 (Academia Sinica)Peng Hsiao-yen 彭小妍 (Academia Sinica)Paul J. D’Ambrosio 德安博 (East China Normal University)Tsai Yueh-chang 蔡岳璋 (National Tsing Hua University)Wang Wenfei 王文菲 (Harvard University)

Organizers:The Transcultural Sino-Island: The Global Sinology Forum, NSYSUCenter for the Humanities, NSYSUDepartment of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University

Co-Sponsors:Harvard-Yenching InstituteFairbank Center for Chinese StudiesTranscultural Sinology and Global Co-Becoming Research Group, NSYSUChiang Ching-kuo Foundation

Venue

Film Screening: Yi Yi (A One and a Two …)
2024-05-03 19:00 - 22:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States

Film Screening: A Brighter Summer Day (Guling jie shaonian sharen shijian)
2024-05-04 18:00 - 22:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States

Linking East and West: Yue-Sai Kan and her Cross-Cultural Influence
2024-09-16 17:30 - 19:00 | Boston University Tsai Performance Center, 685 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Speaker: Yue-Sai Kan, television host, producer, author, entrepreneur and humanitarianDiscussant: Min Ye, Professor of International Relations, Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies

Yue-Sai Kan, often referred to as ‘The Oprah of China’, is a renowned media entrepreneur, bestselling author, and philanthropist. Her talk promises to offer unique insights into China’s transformation over four decades and the importance of cross-cultural understanding.

A book signing for her book, “The Most Famous Woman in China,” follows the discussion.

Venue
