Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Wei Hai Min and Her Personae: Jingju in Our Time
2023-09-28 16:00 - 17:30 (America/New_York) | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Wei Hai Mun, Awardee of the Plum Blossom Award and the National Award for Arts in TaiwanDiscussant: David Der-wei Wang, Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature, Harvard University

Co-sponsored by:East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard UniversityFairbank Center for Chinese StudiesAsian Cultural Council Taiwan FoundationChiang Ching-kuo Foundation

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Shakespeare’s Influence on Modern Chinese Literature and Culture
2023-10-04 11:30 - 13:00 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Tianhu Hao, Zhejiang University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2023-24Chair/discussant: David Damrosch, Harvard University

Shakespeare has had an important influence upon modern Chinese literature and culture since the 1830s, which constitutes a significant part of Shakespeare’s global impact. Based on the rich sources recently accessible in Chinese and English databases, this article reconsiders Shakespeare’s impact on modern China, especially in the indigenization of the sonnet and the rise of huaju (spoken drama). The abundant, newly discovered data reveal Shakespeare’s multi-faceted contributions to the shaping of modern Chinese literature and culture. This is a modest effort to revise literary, theatrical, and cultural histories.

More info: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/shakespeares-influence-on-modern-chinese-literature-and-culture/

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Reporting on China
2023-10-05 12:00 - 13:15 | Rubenstein 414AB, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
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Speaker: David Barboza, Co-founder of The Wire and WireScreen

David Barboza is the co-founder of The Wire Digital Inc., a New York-based news and data platform focused on China and global supply chains. The startup consists of a digital weekly news magazine, called The Wire, and a data and software analytics platform named WireScreen. Previously, Barboza was a longtime business reporter and foreign correspondent at The New York Times. In 2013, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting “for his striking exposure of corruption at high levels of the Chinese government, including billions in secret wealth owned by relatives of the prime minister, well-documented work published in the face of heavy pressure from the Chinese officials.” He was also part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting, for his coverage of Apple’s operations in China. That same year, he won a George Polk Award for foreign reporting. This event will be held in-person only and will not be recorded. Co-sponsored by the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Lunch will be served.

RSVP at this link.

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Harvard Law School Symposium: Economic Sanctions and National Security
2023-10-06 09:30 - 16:30 | WCC 2036 Milstein East A, Harvard Law School
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This symposium features Professor Ashley Deeks, former Associate White House Counsel and former Deputy legal Adviser to the U.S. National Security Council; and Ambassador C.J. Mahoney, Deputy General Counsel of International Trade and Azure at Microsoft, and former Deputy U.S. Trade Representative. The symposium will also feature a host of leading academics, attorneys, and regulators who are operating at the intersection of economic sanctions and national security, including a panel discussing sanctions on China and Russia. Lunch and refreshments will be served.

9﻿:30 – 10:00 | Registration and Welcome from the Editors

1﻿0:00 – 11:00 | Panel: The Private World of U.S. Economic Sanctions

M﻿aryam Jamshidi, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School

L﻿awrence Scheinert, Associate Director of Compliance and Enforcement at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, Department of the Treasury

1﻿1:15 – 12:15 | Panel: The Past, Present, and Future of Sanctions

E﻿lena Chachko, Assistant Professor at Berkeley Law

S﻿tephanie Connor, Assistant Chief Counsel for Foreign Assets Control at the U.S. Department of the Treasury

J﻿uan Zarate, Global Co-Managing Partner and Chief Strategy Officer of K2 Integrity, Former Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the Department of the Treasury

B﻿randon Van Grack, Co-Chair of National Security and Global Risk & Crisis Management at Morrison Foerster

M﻿oderated by Katniss Li, SJD Candidate at Harvard Law School

1﻿2:30 – 1:45 | Keynote Lunch: Sanctions and National Security

S﻿peech by Professor Ashley Deeks, Class of 1948 Professor of Scholarly Research in Law at the University of Virginia School of Law; former Associate White House Counsel; former Deputy Legal Adviser to the U.S. National Security Counsel

S﻿peech by Ambassador C.J. Mahoney, Deputy General Counsel, International Trade and Azure at Microsoft; Former Deputy U.S. Trade Representative

2﻿:00 – 3:00 | Panel: Regional Sanctions Regimes – Russia and China

J﻿im Mullinax, Senior Advisor to the Sanctions Coordinator, U.S. State Department

R﻿achel Alpert, Co-Chair of National Security, Sanctions, and Export Control at Jenner & Block

A﻿dam Smith, Co-Chair of the International Trade Practice Group at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher

M﻿oderated by Chris Mirasola, Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School

3﻿:15 – 4:15 | Panel: Corporate Compliance and Sanctions

E﻿d Peartree, Vice President, Head of Export Control at Airbus

B﻿ryce Bittner, Managing Counsel, International Trade Legal at McKinsey & Co.

J﻿acques Singer-Emery, Trial Attorney, Counterintelligence and Export Controls Section, Department of Justice National Security Division

S﻿hoba Pillay, Co-Chair of Data Privacy and Cybersecurity at Jenner & Block

R﻿obert Peri, Managing Director, Sanctions Compliance at Citi

Moderated by Patrick E. McDonnell, Associate – National Security and Privacy + Data Security at Morrison Foerster

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Harvard CAMLab Fall Public Visits
2023-10-06 12:00 - 18:00, 2023-10-07 12:00 - 18:00, 2023-10-13 12:00 - 18:00, 2023-10-14 12:00 - 18:00, 2023-10-20 12:00 - 18:00, 2023-10-21 12:00 - 18:00, 2023-10-27 12:00 - 18:00, 2023-10-28 12:00 - 18:00 and 4 more dates | Sackler Building, Lower Level, 485 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
reserve a tour

During Public Visits, CAMLab welcomes our audiences to explore immersive installations that stage cultural history with digital technologies.

CAMLab Cave Public Visits are guided group tours. Reservations are limited to 15 per hour, in order to preserve the experiential dimension of CAMLab’s multisensorial project installations. Tours are led by a team of Harvard Student Educators, hailing from graduate programs across the university as well as Harvard College.

Currently installed in CAMLab Cave, the Cave Dance and Embodied Architecture projects activate the narrative, cultural, and sensorial potentials of interpreting historical data.

Cave Dance integrates thousands of depictions of dance from Dunhuang with motion capture of trained dancers, who performed movements preserved by textual records. With this human-computer collaborative choreography as its foundation, the Cave Dance installation instantiates movement sequences within ethereal motifs and enacts the “bodiless body,” a state of transcendence epitomized by celestial dancers at Dunhuang.

Combining photogrammetry with procedural generation and CGI, Embodied Architecture presents the world’s most comprehensive 3D model of the Yingxian pagoda, the world’s tallest timber structure. Serving as a stage for opening a cosmological understanding, the installation progressively unfolds the multisensory experience that the pagoda embodies—elucidating the lens of ritual practice.

Advanced reservations are required, and all are welcome. Tickets are pay-as-you-wish, with $10.00 suggested for non-Harvard visitors. Proceeds directly support CAMLab’s future research and projects.

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Chinese Humanities 2033: New Visions, New Directions — A Two-Day Conference
2023-10-06 13:00 - 2023-10-07 17:00 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Detailed information, including an agenda, may be accessed at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lu4_McB0A-USCiJ5uTN7ZyKg-9QgQwc7/view?usp=drive_link

Panelists:Mian Chen, Northwestern UniversitySean Xiangjun Feng, University of British ColumbiaBrendan Galipeau, National Tsing Hua UniversityTenggeer Hao, Columbia UniversityKeren He, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillYizhou Huang, Saint Louis UniversityMaciej Kurzynski, Lingnan UniversityMelody Yunzi, Li University of HoustonDylan Suher, University of Hong KongMengyuan Tian, University of CambridgeYingchuan Yang, Columbia UniversiryWayne C. F. Yeung, University of Denver

Keynote Speaker:Ying Qian, Columbia University

Special Guests: Yusheng Wang, Lunghwa University of Science and TechnologyLiu Hsiu-mei, National Dong-hwa University

Organizers:David Der-wei WangKaren ThornberJie LiYedong Sh-ChenMichael O’Krent

Sponsors: Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department of Comparative Literature Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation

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Film Screening - People and Their Virtue: "Man in Black" by Wang Bing
2023-10-06 19:00 - 20:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
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Wang Bing’s first work made outside of China, this one-hour featurette boldly announces a new phase in the director’s career. Shot at the historic Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, it stages a biographical encounter with eighty-six-year-old modern classical composer Wang Xilin, whose anti-Communist sentiments made him the target of intense persecution and abuse during the Cultural Revolution. Standing naked against the empty theater’s distressed architecture, the artist proceeds to sing, play piano, contort his scarred body into odd shapes, and eventually recount the torture he endured at the hands of Mao’s army—all while excerpts from his compositions erupt in irregular measures on the soundtrack. Working with a French crew that includes cinematographer Caroline Champetier and editor Claire Atherton, Wang adopts a newly liberated style in which the fluidity of the camera and montage acts as a fitting frame for the vivid expression of historical trauma.

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Film Screening - People and Their Virtue: "Youth (Spring)" by Wang Bing
2023-10-07 18:00 - 22:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
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Shot between 2014 and 2019 and compiled from 2,600 hours of footage, Wang Bing’s latest opus centers on young migrant laborers in Zhili, an industrial town near Shanghai that is home to thousands of privately-run garment workshops. Employing his trademark long takes and fixed camera setups, Wang contrasts routine days of sewing, stitching and scissoring with bustling street scenes and after-hours sequences set in the workers’ cramped living quarters, chancing upon dramas that inevitably emerge from such a repetitive, cloistered and threadbare existence. While Zhili’s privatized structure and incentive-based production model allows for certain advantages over the kind of centrally governed factories seen in earlier Wang films like West of the Tracks (2002), it also leaves employees at the mercy of predatory managers, a situation the director depicts as an endless tug-of-war for better pay. With textbook rigor, Wang captures a new economic reality that, for all it promises, has only fostered a new form of exploitation.

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Diachronic Analysis of Human-Object Relations: A Case Study of the Kavinyangang Ancestral Pots, Taiwan
2023-10-11 11:30 - 13:00 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Chih-Hua Chiang, National Taiwan University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2023-24Chair/Discussant: Matthew Liebmann, Harvard University

More info: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/diachronic-analysis-of-human-object-relations/

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Erik Mueggler - Writing, Slavery, and Indigenous Sovereignty in Southwest China
2023-10-11 15:00 - 17:00 | Colloquium 101, Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering, 601 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Speaker: Erik Mueggler, Professor Anthropology, University of Michigan

Imperial China managed its border regions by negotiating power with indigenous chieftains. Hereditary chieftains were allowed sovereignty over indigenous domains in exchange for keeping the peace and lending their militias to imperial campaigns. Ming and Qing colonialism in the Southwest took the form of a long, staggered process of abolishing indigenous chiefly houses. Yet such houses often recreated themselves, seizing partial sovereignty over smaller domains. This talk follows the diary of an aspiring chieftain adopted into a twice-abolished, Yi-ethnicity chiefly house in the late Qing. A stranger to the house, the adopted chieftain used his daily account to probe its relational ecology—relations among the former chieftain’s wives, concubines, and daughters, the eighteen elite enslaved bondsmen who acted as the house’s agents, the forty-odd domestic slaves who attended the house’s elites, and the corpse of the former chieftain lying in his chambers waiting for the chiefly succession to be decided. I show how the adopted chieftain used his written diary as a tool for divination: for probing the undercurrents of collective intention among the house’s enslaved residents that would ultimately decide whether the house would make room for him or kill him.

Please RSVP to attend the lecture here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/contemporary-chinese-culture-lecture-tickets-720028894807

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Conference: China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) at Ten
2023-10-12 13:00 - 2023-10-13 16:30 | Boston University Hillel House, 213 State Road, 213 Bay State Road, Boston, MA, United States
zoom link

For more information, including a complete agenda and speaker list, visit: https://www.bu.edu/asian/2023/09/13/conference-chinas-belt-road-initiative-bri-at-ten-us-naval-war-college-and-bu-oct-12-13-2023/

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Asia-Africa Relations: Its Status and Possible Trajectories
2023-10-12 15:00 - 2023-10-13 17:00 | CGIS South S020, Belfer Case Study Room, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speakers:Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Harvard UniversityUfrieda Ho, Journalist and AuthorGayatri Sethi, Educator and AuthorDuncan Yoon, New York UniversityGeoffrey Jones, Harvard Business SchoolAnnette Skovsted Hansen, Aarhus UniversityIsaac Odoom, Carleton UniversityMarlous van Waijenburg, Harvard Business SchoolSeifudein Adem, Doshisha UniversityLina Benabdallah, Wake Forest UniversityMaria Adele Carrai, New York University ShanghaiIdriss Fofana, Harvard UniversityKumiko Makino, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade OrganizationXiaoyang Tang, Tsinghua UniversityVeda Vaidyanathan, Institute of Chinese Studies, DelhiAnnette Lienau, Harvard UniversityDaniel E. Agbiboa, Harvard UniversityGaurav Desai, University of MichiganPedro Machado, Indiana University Bloomington

For a detailed agenda, visit the conference web site.

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“Actually, We Are Mongols!”: Resurgence of the Yuan Non-Han Ancestries in the Late Qing North China
2023-10-17 11:30 - 13:00 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Iiyama Tomoyasu, Waseda University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2023-24Chair/discussant: Mark Elliott, Harvard University

This talk attempts to shed light on the largely unknown trajectories of the resurgence and evolution of Yuan non-Han ancestries in north China from the late eighteenth century through the early twentieth century. By exploring three relatively well documented cases of the resurgence of the Yuan non-Han ancestry, this talk offers two tentative conclusions. First, the commemoration of the non-Han ancestries seems to have been roused by the two-century-long Gazetteers of the Great Qing Empire compilation project, over the course of which the state reiterated extensive surveys of local worthies, widow chastity, and martyred loyal subjects, including those from the previous dynasties. Second, the late Qing era (roughly mid-eighteenth to late nineteenth century) was one of the pivotal turning points in making of modern ethnic landscape in north China. The memory of Mongol rule authorized by the Qing official historiography have become the wellspring of the twentieth century minzu identity.

More info: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/actually-we-are-mongols-resurgence-of-the-yuan-non-han-ancestries-in-the-late-qing-north-china/

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Gallery Talk - Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade
2023-10-18 12:30 - 13:00 | Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Led by: Sarah Laursen, Alan J. Dworsky Associate Curator of Chinese Art, Harvard Art Museums

Join curator Sarah Laursen for a closer look at artworks in the exhibition Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade (September 15, 2023–January 14, 2024). The exhibition explores the entwined histories of the opium trade and the Chinese art market between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. Laursen will share how these two commodities—acquired through both legal and illicit means—have had a lasting impact on the global economy, public health, immigration law, education, and the arts.

Gallery talks are limited to 18 people. Registration is required. You can register by clicking on the event on this form, beginning at 10am the day of the talk.

Please meet in the Calderwood Courtyard, in front of the digital screens between the shop and the admissions desk.

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Fears of Inheritance Disruption: Tracing ‘Establishing Heirs’ in Ancient and Early Imperial China
2023-10-24 11:30 - 13:00 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Hsinning Liu, Academia Sinica; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2023-24Chair/Discussant: Michael Puett, Harvard University

It is widely acknowledged that in Imperial China, the system of inheritance adhered to the principle of patrilineal succession, which bore the responsibility for performing ancestral sacrifices. Consequently, every man was obligated to have a male heir. In cases where he did not have a biological son, it became imperative to select and establish an heir who would carry forward his lineage, whether he was alive or deceased.

This presentation endeavors to trace the historical origins of this practice and reexamine the intricate relationship between inheritance and ancestral sacrifice. In ancient China, while inheritance was closely intertwined with ancestral sacrifice, it exhibited marked differences compared to later periods. Early Imperial China stands as a crucial transitional phase in this evolution.

More info: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/fears-of-inheritance-disruption/

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Sabine Stricker-Kellerer - Partner, Competitor, Systemic Rival: Germany/EU´s Business with China
2023-10-27 12:20 - 13:20 | Morgan Courtroom, Austin Hall, 1515 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speaker: Sabine Stricker-Kellerer, Attorney and German Co-Chair of the German-Chinese Dialogue Forum, German Federal Foreign Office

Dr. Sabine Stricker-Kellerer (LL.M. 1983) is a leading international legal expert on China business, with over 40 years’ experience on topics such as the establishment and restructuring of foreign investment projects in China, aspects of corporate structuring and regulatory issues, negotiations, technology licensing and dispute resolution. In 1985, she was the first European lawyer to open an office in China. She frequently acts as arbitrator with various Asia related arbitration institutions. Dr. Stricker-Kellerer received her legal education at the universities of Munich, Geneva and at Harvard Law School (LL.M.). In September 2023, she was appointed by the German Federal Foreign Office as the new German Co-Chair of the German-Chinese Dialogue Forum.

Boxed lunch will be provided.

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Objects of Addiction: A Conversation about Opium and Anti-Chinese Immigration Laws in the United States
2023-10-28 10:00 - 11:00 | Presented via Zoom
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Speakers:Erika Lee, Bae Family Professor of History, Harvard UniversityJolin Chan ’25, Harvard University; Student Board Member, Harvard Art MuseumsMadison Stein ’24, Harvard University

Award-winning author and Harvard history professor Erika Lee will be in conversation with students Jolin Chan ’25 and Madison Stein ’24 about the role of opium in the restrictions on Chinese immigration in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This lecture is offered in conjunction with the exhibition Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade (September 15, 2023–January 14, 2024), which explores the entwined histories of the opium trade and the Chinese art market between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. These two commodities—acquired through both legal and illicit means—had profound effects on the global economy, public health, immigration law, education, and the arts that are reverberating still today.

Presented via Zoom. To register, please complete this online form.

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Architecture of Virtuality: Liao Dynasty Pagodas and the Embodiment of Buddhist Vision
2023-10-31 11:30 - 13:00 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Youn-mi Kim, Ewha Womans University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2023-24Chair/discussant: Ryuichi Abe, Harvard University

This talk explores the pagodas of China’s Liao dynasty (907-1125), uncovering the intricate relationships between the materiality of Buddhist architecture and its entwined vision and virtuality. It’s essential to recognize that Buddhist materiality is deeply connected with its immateriality. This dual nature, inherent in Liao architecture, echoes the Buddhist perception of reality articulated in the renowned Heart Sutra phrase: “form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.” The Liao empire, established in the tenth century by the nomadic Khitans, dominated regions spanning current-day northern China, Mongolia, portions of Russia’s southern border, and Kazakhstan. Within this diverse empire, the dynamism of nomadism fused with the adaptability of Buddhist philosophy, birthing monumental architecture that emphasized Buddhist visuality and virtuality. Through a careful study of select pagodas, this talk sheds light on how Liao’s Buddhist architecture symbolized a virtual pilgrimage to India’s sacred sites, envisioned an ever-expanding Huayan 華嚴 cosmos, and transformed the pagoda’s vacant core into a representation of the Buddha’s truth body (zhenshen 真身).

More info: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/architecture-of-virtuality/

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Objects of Addiction: The Legacy of the Opium Wars
2023-11-08 18:00 - 19:30 | Harvard Art Museum, Menschel Hall, Lower Level, 32 Quincy St, cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speakers:Mark Elliott, Vice Provost for International Affairs; Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History, Harvard UniversityWilliam Kirby, T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies, Harvard University; Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business SchoolRana Mitter, S. T. Lee Professor of U.S.–Asia Relations, Harvard Kennedy SchoolMeg Rithmire, F. Warren McFarlan Associate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business SchoolMark Wu, Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University; Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

In conjunction with the exhibition Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade, Harvard faculty in Chinese history, business, politics, and law will take part in a roundtable discussion on the 19th-century Opium Wars and the legacy of the opium trade in U.S.–China relations.

Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade (September 15, 2023–January 14, 2024) explores the entwined histories of the opium trade and the Chinese art market between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. These two commodities—acquired through both legal and illicit means—had profound effects on the global economy, public health, immigration law, education, and the arts that are reverberating still today.

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