Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Yuen Yuen Ang - Does Corruption Really Disappear as Countries Grow Richer?
2022-02-10 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Massachusetts
Speaker: Yuen Yuen Ang, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Discussant: Patrick O. Okigbo, founder of Nextier and M-RCBG senior fellow
This webinar is part of M-RCBG’s weekly Business & Government Series. Yuen Yuen Ang is the author of How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016) and China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption (2020). In 2021,she was named by Apolitical among the Top 100 Most Influential Academics in Government. She is also the inaugural recipient of the Theda Skocpol Prize for Emerging Scholar from the American Political Science Association for “impactful contributions to comparative politics.”
Hosted by the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School
This event is being co-hosted by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and the Harvard University Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.
Presented via Zoom
Register at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_o7m6hgkMRp-vG5WcVOmuVQ

Victoria Chen - Coastal Formosan, Nuclear Austronesian, and beyond: How do Formosan languages Inform Theories of Austronesian Expansion?
2022-03-03 19:30 - 21:00 | Presented via Zoom
Topics:

Art History

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Speakers

The Indigenous languages of Taiwan feature two patterns of morphological discrepancy. First, only some possess a symmetrical morphological paradigm associated with a phenomenon known as ‘noun-verb homophony’. Second, only a handful of the languages allow the Proto-Austronesian stative affix ma- to be used in a transitive clause. This talk addresses how these two foci of variation inform our understanding of the Austronesian diaspora and further explains how new comparative data on these phenomena offers a simpler answer to two ongoing debates in the field.

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Wendy Leutert - The Reform & Global Expansion of Chinese State-Owned Enterprises
2022-03-10 12:00 - 14:00 | Massachusetts
Speaker: Wendy Leutert, Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University Bloomington.
Discussant: Meg Rithmire, F. Warren MacFarlan Associate Professor in Business, Government, and International Economy, Harvard Business School.
Hosted by the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MULQyAnBS52u1kSTQIGNNw

Roselyn Hsueh - Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism: Sectoral Pathways to Globalization in China, India, and Russia
2022-04-07 12:00 - 13:00 | Massachusetts
Speaker: Roselyn Hsueh, Associate Professor of Political Science, Temple University
Hsueh will discuss how her book’s Strategic Value Framework shows that the perceived strategic value orientation of state elites rooted in significant phases of internal and external pressures shape dominant patterns of market governance, which vary by country and sector within country. Specifically, Hsueh’s research demonstrates techno-security developmentalism in China has shaped bifurcated capitalism, which governs dual-use capital- and knowledge-intensive versus labor-intensive industries. In India, neoliberal self-reliance has determined the bifurcated liberalism, which grounds transnationally networked high-tech versus rural, small-scale sectors. A bifurcated oligarchy governs defense and resource-oriented versus labor-intensive sectors in Russia shaped by resource security nationalism.
Ash Center Director Tony Saich will moderate.
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/8116415902412/WN_fzVkW01gRZS2iw01RSUJcw

More information: https://ash.harvard.edu/event/book-talk-micro-institutional-foundations-capitalism-sectoral-pathways-globalization-china

Jun Jing - Meaningful Dying and End of Life Care in China
2022-06-02 21:00 - 22:15 | Presented via Zoom
Topics:

Art History

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Improving end of life care in China represents one particularly important opportunity to enhance the well-being of the country’s older adult population as they enter their final phase of life. Designing effective end of life care policies and programs for Chinese communities necessitates asking fundamental questions about the factors that enable people to die meaningfully, including:

Does meaningful death signify only what is good for people themselves as individuals?How does one know what is best for oneself?What roles do doctors or families play in making critical end of life decisions?Is personal autonomy the sole criterion for advanced care planning?

To answer these questions, Dr. Jun JING, Professor of Social Anthropology at Tsinghua University, will discuss narratives on death and dying in mainland China based on hundreds of interviews conducted with family relatives, physicians, nurses, social workers, and voluntary workers in the field of palliative care. Dr. Jing will explore how these narratives relate to what he calls the “social ecology of healthcare,” defined as the social values governing healthcare systems, life-and-death decisions, and the corresponding behavioral patterns.

The event will be moderated by Dr. Winnie Yip, Professor of Global Health Policy and Economics and Faculty Director of the Harvard China Health Partnership.

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Lessons for East Asia from Eastern Europe’s Institutional Changes and Governing Challenges
2022-07-28 08:00 - 10:00 | Presented via Zoom
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Speakers:Bojan Bugarič, Professor at the University of Sheffield and former Deputy Interior Minister of SloveniaLance Liangping Gore, Senior Research Fellow at the NUS East Asian InstituteJacques Rupnik, Professor at CERI-Sciences Po and former advisor to President Vaclav Havel and to the European Commission

Moderated by: Richard Yarrow, Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and Visiting Fellow at the National University of Singapore

In the 1980s, governing systems of Eastern Europe were in a state of turmoil. Few people trusted political leaders or regimes’ ideologies. Large, little-changed bureaucracies were unable to cope with growing pressure for social and economic improvement. By the late 1980s, widespread protests shook political systems across the region, leading to a period of steady, inconsistent political changes and reform attempts across the region.Thirty years after the first elections following the end of the Warsaw Pact, what can countries in Asia learn from the governing challenges and development of new political institutions in Eastern Europe? This webinar brings experts on Eastern European politics to discuss causes of political turmoil in the 1980s, the challenges of reforming Eastern Europe’s political structures, and why Eastern European countries experienced varied outcomes in their institutional development. Through this analysis, panelists will comment on lessons for East Asia to learn from Eastern Europe’s political changes.

This event is the first part of a two-part series of panels. One can register for the second part, on economic challenges and transition, at https://nus-sg.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IVgHUfzMQAiGAnef7aNwLQ?timezone_id=America%2FNew_York.

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Lessons for East Asia from Eastern Europe’s Economic Challenges and Transformation
2022-08-03 08:00 - 10:00 | Presented via Zoom
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Speakers:Lajos Bokros, Professor at Central European University and former Minister of Finance of HungaryMarcin Piatkowski, Professor at Kozminski University, author of Europe’s Growth Champion, and former visiting scholar at Harvard’s Center for European StudiesDwight Perkins, Professor Emeritus in the Harvard Economics Department, former Director of the Fairbank Center and the Harvard Institute for International Development

Moderated by: Richard Yarrow, Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and Visiting Fellow at the National University of Singapore

In the 1980s, Eastern European economies were stagnant or in decline. Mass shortages and unemployment combined with decaying institutions to throw economies and societies in turmoil. Three decades later, Eastern Europe has transformed. Of the 23 countries to become high income since 1992, nine are in Eastern Europe. In the 1980s, Poland had a lower per capita GDP than Suriname; today, the total GDP of the EU states in Eastern Europe is larger than the GDP of Russia. In much of the region, corruption has declined, while education, health, and other social and economic indicators have improved.How did these changes occur, and what dilemmas did Eastern European countries encounter during the transformation of their economies and institutions? This webinar brings experts from across Eastern Europe to discuss causes behind Eastern Europe’s economic problems, and the challenges of rejuvenating economies and institutions after the end of the Cold War. In doing so, panelists will discuss the potential lessons that East Asian countries can learn from the challenges and successes of Eastern Europe’s economic reforms and transformation.

This event is the second part of a two-part series of panels. One can register for the first part, on governing challenges, at https://nus-sg.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IVgHUfzMQAiGAnef7aNwLQ?timezone_id=America%2FNew_York.

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In Search for a New Architecture for New China— Zhang Kaiji and Chinese Modern Architecture in the 1950s
2022-08-16 09:00 - 11:00 | Presented via Zoom
Topics:

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Organizer:Harvard CAMLab

Academic Convenor:Jeffrey W. CODYFormer Senior Project Specialist, Building & Sites Department, Getty Conservation Institute

WU JiangFormer Vice-President of Tongji UniversityAcademician of the French Academy of Architecture

Panelist:FAN SizhengTeaching Professor, College of Technology, Architecture and Applied Engineering, Bowling Green State University

CHENG LizhenAssociate Professor, School of Architecture and Design, Beijing Jiaotong UniversityAuthor of Architect, ZHANG Kaiji

CHANG Yung HoPrincipal Architect FCJZProfessor of the Practice MIT

LAI DelinMorgan Endowed Chair in Fine Arts, Department of Fine Arts, University of LouisvilleForeword Writer of Architect, ZHANG Kaiji

LI ShiqiaoWeedon Professor in Asian Architecture, Architecture + Architectural History,Director of the PhD in the Constructed Environment Program, School of Architecture, University of Virginia

Moderator:ZHANG QinAssociate in Research, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard UniversityAssociate, Harvard CAMLab

MIN JiajianProject Lead, Harvard CAMLab

Interpreter:ZHU NingResearcher, Harvard CAMLab

Abstract:Zhang Kaiji (1912-2006), graduated from the Department of Architectural Engineering of the Central University in 1935, is one of the most outstanding Chinese architects of the second generation. In the dynamic period of political and cultural transformation, the division and collision of different ideologies contributed to Zhang Kaiji’s architectural practice. In his 71 years of profession, he synthesized different ideologies and design theories, practiced with a wide range of typologies, focused on various issues of the built environment, and elevated the professional and technical exploration to a humanistic, social and historical level.

On the occasion of the 110th anniversary of Mr. Zhang Kaiji’s birth and the upcoming release of the new book “Architect Zhang Kaiji”, Harvard CAMLab China Builders Project launched this Academic Symposium. This event was academically convened by Professor Jeff Cody and Professor Wu Jiang. It is an honor to invite architect Chang Yung Ho, son of Zhang Kaiji, Professor Cheng Lizhen, the author of “Architect Zhang Kaiji”, Professor Lai Delin, the foreword writer of “Architect Zhang Kaiji”, and many other influential scholars. Starting from this new book, we will focus on Zhang Kaiji’s influence on Chinese modern architecture and urban planning, and more importantly, the underlying social, cultural and economic context in the 1950s, as well as the meaning of “New Architecture for New China” in a broader context.

Schedule:(120mins in total)

Part I Introduction 10minsIntroduction to Harvard CAMLab, Symposium, Panelists, Topic and Background

Part II Panel Talk 55minsEach Convenor/Panelist will have 10 mins to address the topic with their related research.

Part III Discussion and Q&A 45minsAcademic Convenors will summarize panel talks and start the discussion and the group dialogue.

Part IV Event Summary 10mins

Symposium in both Chinese and English with Simultaneous InterpretingThis virtual workshop is open to the public with registration. It will be recorded and the edited version will be released to the public online, or in other forms on the Harvard CAMLab platform.

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Youth Political Mobilization & Socialization in Contemporary China: The Centenary of the Communist Youth League
2022-09-08 08:20 - 2022-09-09 13:15 | Massachusetts
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2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the official establishment of the Chinese Communist Youth League (中国共产主义青年团, CYL), one of the largest youth political organizations in the world. As the Chinese Communist Party’s assistant and reserve force, the CYL is the Party’s main channel to socialize youth in the official political discourse and practices, and mobilize them to support the current system. Despite the importance of the organization, English-language academic work on its history, politics and multifaceted role in contemporary China remains sporadic.The CYL’s centenary offers an opportunity to bring together scholars from different disciplines to discuss their research and insights on Chinese youth political socialization and mobilization, with particular attention to the League and connected youth organizations. The Ash Center, working with Dr. Jérôme Doyon (University of Edinburgh), Dr. Sofia Graziani (University of Trento) and Dr. Konstantinos Tsimonis (King’s College London), is pleased to organize an online seminar, taking place on September 8th and 9th, examining emerging scholarship related to communist youth organizations in China.

Event Schedule Thursday, September 8th • Introduction: 8:20-8:30 AM by Tony Saich, Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School • Panel 1: The Mobilization of Youth during the Chinese Communist Party’s Early Years: 8:30-10:30 AM • Panel 2: The Socialization and Co-optation of Young Chinese: 11:00 AM-1:00 PMFriday, September 9th • Panel 3: Youth Organizations and State-Society Relations: 8:30-10:30 AM • Panel 4: Youth Narratives and Propaganda: 11:00 AM-1:00 PM • Concluding Remarks: 1:00-1:15 PM with Stanley Rosen, Professor of Political Science from the University of Southern CaliforniaDay 2 registration link: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0YAGp8NPRjyltJQPKgD1TQ

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Christine Wong - Local Finance Under Siege: Unpacking the Paralysis of Fiscal Policy on the Eve of the 20th Party Congress
2022-09-12 20:30 - 22:00 | Massachusetts
Zoom Meeting link

Speaker: Christine Wong, National University of Singapore

Local finances are under stress. In the first seven months of 2022 tax revenues were down 14%, and land revenues 32%, yet payroll and other expenditures have to be met, including the Covid-related bills for mass testing and other containment measures. Since 2021 social media has been flooded with posts reporting steep pay cuts for civil servants even in rich coastal regions. National aggregate data show social spending trending downward in GDP-shares. This seminar looks at the crisis in local finance that has accelerated through the pandemic, with local governments increasingly underfunded and tied down by contradictory policies. I will argue that local fiscal problems caused the government to under-deliver on its announced fiscal stimulus programs in both 2020 and 2021, a scenario on-track to be repeated in 2022 despite the massive injection of special project bonds.

Christine Wong is currently Visiting Research Professor at the East Asia Institute, National University of Singapore. She has previously taught at the Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University, the University of Melbourne, Oxford, University of Washington, University of California at Santa Cruz and Berkeley, and at Mount Holyoke College. She has also held senior positions at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Christine has published widely on China’s public finance and rural development. Her recent publications include “Reforming public finance for the new era” (CPC Futures), “Why China’s 2022 fiscal stimulus will fall short” (EAI Commentary No. 53), “China’s 2022 budget and the fate of local government finance” (EAI Background Brief No. 1644), and “Plus ça Change: Three Decades of Fiscal Policy and Central–Local Relations in China” (China – an International Journal).

We would like to thank the MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab, the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia, and the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. for supporting this event. Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/urbanchinaseminar.

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Urban China Series featuring Yang Zhan - "Keep Moving, Little Bees!": Real Estate Promotion and the Financial Roots of Urban Precariousness in China
2022-09-26 20:30 - 22:00 | Presented via Zoom
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Speaker: Yang Zhan, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityDevelopers in China’s real estate industry organize temporary workers, or “little bees,” to promote sales. Most developers rely on high-interest loans, and must repay their creditors as quick as possible to keep the chain of funding intact, reduce risk, and secure profits. Thus, little bees are pushed to sell quicker, rather than to sell more units. Due to this hyper-financialization, time on the market becomes a key management target. The little bees aim to convert random encounters on the street into meaningful business relationships. This conversion is facilitated by maps, numbers and speculative culture. Moreover, the demands on sales time are exploitative because in the Chinese real estate market there is a discrepancy between agency and responsibility: Even though little bees’ daily movements are beyond their control, they shoulder immense responsibility, suffer from physical and psychological stress, and are fired at little cost to management. Analyzing this entanglement with time and financialization provides critical insight into urban precariousness in China.

Yang Zhan is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She was selected a research fellow of China India Institute at New School for Social Research in 2021. Zhan’s research interests include infrastructure of development, urbanization and migration, mobility and temporality, voluntarism and anthropological theory. Zhan is the winner of 2020 Eduard B. Vermeer Prize for the Best Article and was shortlisted for Holland Prize in 2022. Zhan’s articles have appeared in Urban Studies, Cities, Positions, Dialectical Anthropology, Urban Anthropology, Anthropological Forum, China Information, Pacific Affairs, among others. Zhan is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Brutal Temporary: Venturing Migrants and the Politics of Future on China’s Urban Fringe.

We would like to thank the MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab, the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia, and the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. for supporting this event. Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/urbanchinaseminar.

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Film Screenings - The Face of Time: Recent Films by Tsai Ming-Liang
2022-09-30 19:00 - 2022-10-21 19:00 | Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Rare and valuable is the filmmaker who expands one’s conception of the cinematic art; rarer still is the filmmaker who enlarges one’s notion of the term “director.” Malaysian-born, Taiwan-based auteur Tsai Ming-liang (b. 1957) accomplished the former with his rigorous, uncompromising and reputation-defining features of the nineties and early 2000s, and ever since his self-declared retirement from narrative filmmaking after 2013’s Stray Dogs, he has been anything but inactive while exploring the endless permutations of what it means to be an image maker in the 21st century. Among the many formally adventurous international filmmakers who have struck out for greener pastures in the past decade upon finding the commercial prospects of arthouse cinema distribution increasingly deficient, Tsai has dabbled in the gallery space, the black box theater, virtual reality and the independently run exhibition space as venues to both showcase his uncategorizable work and influence how he produces it. Along the way, he has transformed his very approach to capturing filmic material, and where once a pithy precis for his films existed—Antonioni-esque studies of alienated Taiwanese youth, for instance—there is no longer such a firm summary for exactly what a Tsai Ming-liang project looks like or how it operates.Tsai Ming-Liang and his collaborators will appear in person at film screenings on October 10 and 14.For more information on this series, including a complete listing of showtimes and information on purchasing tickets, visit https://harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/the-face-of-time-recent-films-by-tsai-ming-liang.

This event is co-sponsored by the Harvard Film Archive and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

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Navigating Asia: Interdisciplinary Conversations in Honor of Ezra Vogel
2022-10-14 16:00 - 2022-10-15 17:30 | CGIS South, Tsai Auditorium (S010), 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
This conference is organized to honor and celebrate the late Professor Ezra Vogel’s role as the inaugural Director of the Harvard Asia Center and his commitment to transnational scholarship.

Day 1: Friday, October 14, 2022

4:00-5:00pm Welcome:James Robson (Victor and William Fung Director, Harvard Asia Center; James C. Kralik and Yunli Lou Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)Opening Remarks:Neil Rudenstine (President Emeritus, Harvard University, 1991-2001)Keynote:“Why America Needs an Ezra Vogel for Southeast Asia” Professor Chan Heng Chee (Ambassador-at-Large, Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, former Singaporean Ambassador to the United States 1996-2012; Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations; Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute; Chair of Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, Singapore University of Technology and Design)Reception to follow5:00-6:00pmDay 2: Saturday, October 15, 20228:15-8:45am Coffee and Continental Breakfast 8:45-9:00am Opening Comments by Arthur Kleinmen (Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology, Professor of Medical Anthropology in Global Health and Social Medicine, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Former Director of the Asia Center, Harvard University)

9:00-10:30am Panel 1: Governance and LeadershipModerator: Elizabeth J. Perry (Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute; Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government, Former Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University)Panelists:Christina L. Davis (Director, Program on US-Japan Relations, Harvard University; Professor, Department of Government, Harvard University)Cheng Li (Director, John L. Thornton China Center and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy, Brookings Institute)Eun Mee Kim (President, Ewha Woman’s University; Professor, Graduate School of International Studies; former Dean, Graduate School of International Studies; and former Director, Institute for Development and Human Security)Nakano Koichi (Professor, Sophia University)Doreen Lee (Professor of Anthropology; Acting Director, Asia and the World Program, Northeastern University)10:30-10:45am Coffee Break10:45am-12:15pmPanel 2: Regional RelationsModerator: Arunabh Ghosh (Professor, Department of History, Harvard University) and Carter Eckert (Yoon Se Young Professor of Korean History, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)Panelists:Selina Ho (Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore)Andrew Mertha (Inaugural Director, SAIS China Global Research Center; George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies, John’s Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies)Hirano Kenichiro (Professor Emeritus Tokyo University and Waseda University; Executive Director, Toyo Bunko)Li Tingjiang (Professor, Faculty of Law, Chuo University, Japan; Director, Center for Japanese Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing)John D. Ciorciari (Associate Dean for Research and Policy Engagement; Professor of Public Policy; Director, International Policy Center and Weiser Diplomacy Center, University of Michigan)12:15-1:15pm Lunch

1:15-2:45pmPanel 3: Political Economy and MarketsModerator: Mark Wu (Director of Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies; Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law, Harvard University)Panelists:William Overholt (Senior Research Fellow, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School)Kristen Looney (Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Government, Georgetown University)Meg Rithmire (F. Warren MacFarlan Associate Professor in the Business, Government, and International Economy Unit, Harvard Business School)Steven Vogel (Il Han New Professor of Asian Studies; Professor of Political Science and Political Economy; Director, Political Economy Program, University of California, Berkeley)2:45-3:00pm Coffee Break 3:00-4:30pmPanel 4: Asia in a Global ContextModerator: Sugata Bose (Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, Harvard University)Panelists: Manjari Chatterjee Miller (Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia, Council on Foreign Relations; Associate Professor of International Relations; Director of the Rising Powers Initiative, Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University)Aniket De (Ph.D. student in History, Harvard University)Engseng Ho (Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University; Muhammad Alagil Distinguished Visiting Professor in Arabia Asia Studies, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore)Ambassador Shyam Saran (President of India International Centre; Former Foreign Secretary of India; Indian Ambassador to Myanmar, Nepal, and Indonesia)Karen L. Thornber (Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Interim Chair, Regional Studies East Asia, Former Director of the Asia Center, Harvard University)

4:30-5:30pmPanel 5: Reflecting on Ezra Vogel and His LegacyModerator: James Robson (Victor and William Fung Director, Harvard Asia Center; James C. Kralik and Yunli Lou Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)Panelists:Charlotte Ikels (Professor Emerita of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve University)Richard E. Dyck (Owner and President, TGK-Japan)Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good (Professor Emerita of Global Health and Social Medicine, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School)Mary C. Brinton (Reischauer Institute Professor of Sociology; Director, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University)Chunli Li (Director, International Center for Chinese Studies; Professor, Faculty of Economics, Aichi University)

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Urban China Series featuring Toby Lincoln - Out of the Rubble of World War II: Reconstruction in China in Comparative Perspective
2022-10-17 15:00 - 17:00 | Presented via Zoom
zoom meeting link

Speaker: Toby Lincoln, Associate Professor of Chinese Urban History, Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester.This paper explores urban reconstruction in China after WWII, and argues that this was more successful than is normally thought, especially when compared with other countries similarly devastated by war. With a particular focus on Changsha, which probably suffered more destruction than any other city in China, it highlights how reconstruction in the late 1940s laid the foundation for the Chinese Communist Party to consolidate its power after 1949.

Studying postwar reconstruction frees modern Chinese history from the teleology of the Communist Revolution and the grand narrative of the Cold War. This opens the door to comparisons with Europe and other parts of the world, where reconstruction has long taken centre stage. It continues the historical re-evaluation of the Nationalist regime, casts the early years of Maoist China in a new light, and opens up new lines of historical enquiry into the social and cultural legacies of war. Finally, it is my contention that exploring how cities have faced disasters in the past has the potential to provide innovative solutions to contemporary issues.

Toby Lincoln is Associate Professor of Chinese Urban History at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester. He is the author of several articles and two books, the most recent of which is a summary of the history of Chinese cities entitled: An Urban History of China (Cambridge, 2021). His current research, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, explores how Chinese cities were reconstructed after WWII. Aside from this, he is also interested in questions of urban sustainability in the past and the present.

Zoom Meeting Link: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/96217779608

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The United States Indo-Pacific Strategy: A Conversation with Assistant Secretary of State Daniel J. Kritenbrink
2022-10-19 16:00 - 17:15 | Malkin Penthouse, Littauer Building, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
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Speaker: Daniel J. Kritenbrink, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Please join the Asia-Pacific Initiative and Future of Diplomacy Project for a conversation with Daniel J. Kritenbrink, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. The Assistant Secretary will deliver remarks on the Biden Administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, followed by a conversation moderated by Chris Li (Director of the Asia-Pacific Initiative) and Erika Manouselis (Manager of the Future of Diplomacy Project).

Advance registration is required, and attendance is limited to current Harvard affiliates (students, staff, faculty, fellows).

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Chia-Ling Wu - Making Multiple Babies: The Anticipatory Governance of Assisted Reproduction in Japan and Taiwan
2022-10-25 10:30 - 11:45 | Presented via Zoom
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Speaker: Chia-Ling Wu, Professor, National Taiwan University

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LGBTQ Rights Advocacy in China: Status and Challenges
2022-10-27 12:30 - 13:20 | Wasserstein Hall 1019, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
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Speakers:Yanhui Peng, Former Director, LGBT Rights Advocacy ChinaZhijun Hu, Founder, China’s Parents, Family, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)Wei Wei, Professor of Sociology, East China Normal University; Visiting Scholar, Harvard-Yenching Institute

If 5% of the population are members of the LGBTQ community, China’s LGBTQ population reaches at least 70 million. Over the past two decades, the LGBTQ community in China has become increasingly visible and diverse. Meanwhile, the community, civil society, and scholars also face unique challenges as they seek to provide social services, conduct queer studies, and disseminate queer theory in higher education institutions in China.

This panel features three activists/scholars sharing their insights into China’s LGBTQ movement over the past 20 years, ongoing challenges, and future prospects of the movement.

Lunch will be provided. RSVP at: tinyurl.com/HLSChinaLGBTQ.

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Hopkins-Nanjing Center Open House
2022-10-27 15:30 - 17:00 | First Floor Seminar Room, 9 Kirkland Place, 9 Kirkland Place, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
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The Johns Hopkins University Hopkins-Nanjing Center will hold an information session for students interested in graduate study in China. Madeline Satin, Assistant Director of Admissions at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, will be visiting to speak about the Hopkins-Nanjing Center’s graduate programs. To schedule a one-on-one appointment or admissions interview with her, visit https://applygrad.jhu.edu/register/?id=5a4768e1-3312-4182-8c30-c6723054586f.

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Panel Discussion - Lu Xun and World Literature: The Task of Translation
2022-10-28 20:00 - 21:30 | Presented via Zoom
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Panelists: Eileen Cheng, Pomona CollegeDavid Damrosch, Harvard UniversityTheodore Huters, University of California Los AngelesYing Hu, University of California – IrvineModerator:David Wang, Harvard University

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Minhua Ling - Containerization of Migrant Housing on Shanghai's Edge
2022-11-07 20:30 - 22:00 | Presented via Zoom
zoom meeting link

Speaker: Minhua Ling, Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study

China’s escalated infrastructural and real estate development has gradually erased urban villages and reduced affordable living space for rural-to-urban migrants. This talk showcases the emerging practice of container housing among low-income migrants who live in removable cargo containers or prefabricated metal shelters on the urban fringe of Shanghai. Despite the neglected appearance of container housing, I argue that its existence and operation exemplify “formal informality” entailing the acquiescence and surveillance of local state agents as well as entrepreneurs’ tactics of conformation that sustains structural inequality. Container housing also contributes to the deterritorialization of homemaking among migrant workers, who are channeled by hukou-related policies to invest and retire in their registered home places. The containerization of migrant housing thus reinforces migrants’ socio-spatial precarity in China’s exclusive urban citizenship and place-specific property regime.

Minhua Ling is a sociocultural anthropologist with research interests in mobility, inequality, sustainability, rural-urban relations, and environmental humanities. Her single-authored articles appeared in international journals including China Quarterly, China Journal, Anthropological Quarterly, Urban Studies, positions: asia critique, and HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. Her monograph The Inconvenient Generation: Migrant Youth Coming of Age on Shanghai’s Edge (Stanford University Press, 2020) offers the first longitudinal study of second-generation rural-to-urban migrant youth navigating through middle school to labor and consumer markets. She taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2013-2022) and is currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (2022-23), after which she will join the Geneva Graduate Institute as Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology in the fall of 2023.Zoom link: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/96217779608

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Chinese Kinesthetic Forms
2022-11-11 09:30 - 2022-11-12 17:00 | Sackler Building Auditorium, 485 Broadway, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
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Movement has a distinctively rich tradition in China. Chinese Kinesthetic Forms considers movement as an organizing principle across myriad media and cultural forms—from dance and music, to painting and calligraphy, to theater and martial arts. The conference explores how movement, as both expression and object of perception, opens experiential dimensions, even beyond the corporeal. Coinciding with the presentation of installations from CAMLab’s Cave Dance project, the conference joins fresh conversations on dance, kinesthetics, and China’s long history of performance, and it seeks to further understanding of movement as a way of defining experience.

This conference is organized by Harvard FAS CAMLab, with support from the Department of History of Art and Architecture.

Friday, November 11

9:30 AM Welcome RemarksDavid Roxburgh, Harvard University

9:45–10:30 AM Opening Remarks and Keynote Eugene Wang, Harvard University. “When and How Did Art Become Art? Crane Dances in Chinese Imagination”

11:00–12:30 PM The Lightness of Being: Sensorial KinestheticsPanel Chair: Alice Tseng, Boston UniversityChenchen Lü, Harvard University. “Flame and Fragrance: The Bodiless Body of Dancing Apsaras in Medieval Buddhist Art”Anne Feng, Boston University. “Taking Flight: The Modern Art of the Apsaras in East Asia”Panel Discussant: Shanti Pillai, Williams College

1:00–3:00 PM Sword Dance: Three Readings of Lady GongsunPanel Chair: Michael Szonyi, Harvard UniversityStephen Owen, Harvard University. “Where the Feet Touch the Ground”Xiaofei Tian, Harvard University. “The Phantom of the Dance”Lucas Bender, Yale University. “Sharp Turns, Indirect Transmission, and the Unity of the Arts”Panel Discussant: Wai-yee Li, Harvard University

3:30–5:00 PM Reviving Repertoire: Dunhuang Dance, Then and NowPanel Chair: Rowan Flad, Harvard UniversityMuyun Zhou, Pennsylvania State University. “How to Get From Dance Scores to Murals?: Bridging Representations of Tang Dance Events”Emily Wilcox, College of William & Mary. “From Wall to Stage: Flowers and Rain on the Silk Road (1979) and the Making of Contemporary Dunhuang Dance” Panel Discussant: Thomas Kelly, Harvard University

Saturday, November 129:00–11:00 AM Furor and Festivity: The Song-Yuan TurnPanel Chair: Leonard van der Kuijp, Harvard UniversityHuiping Pang, Hangzhou Normal University. “No More Fear: How Did the Southern Song Nuo Exorcists Cope with Pandemics?” Discussant: Heping Liu, Wellesley CollegeWen-chien Cheng, Royal Ontario Museum. “Tage (Stomping Songs): Images of Rural Festive Dancing in Chinese Paintings”Discussant: Heping Liu, Wellesley CollegeXiaotian Yin, Harvard University. “Demonic Divine: Reassessing ‘Dance of the Sixteen Heavenly Devils’ in the Mongol-Yuan Court”Discussant: Jinah Kim, Harvard University

11:00 AM–12:30 PM Calligraphic KinestheticsPanel Chair: Jeffrey Moser, Brown UniversityKathleen Ryor, Carleton College. “Martial Heroics in the Calligraphy and Painting of Xu Wei”Amy McNair, University of Kansas. “Like the Splash of a Great Whale Rising: Motion in the Criticism and Practice of ‘Mad Cursive’ Calligraphy”Panel Discussant: Aida Yuen Wong, Brandeis University

1:30–3:30 PM Kinesthetic MediaPanel Chair: Christina Yu Yu, Museum of Fine Arts, BostonJeehee Hong, McGill University. “Haptic Vision: Kinetic Architecture in Middle-Period China”Discussant: Aurelia Campbell, Boston CollegeCatherine Yeh, Boston University. “Dancing Pictures: Mei Lanfang’s ‘The Goddess Spreads Flowers’ and the Inherent Ambiguity of Modernism”Discussant: Eugene Wang, Harvard UniversityHu Ying, University of California, Irvine. “Recreating the Sword-dance, Reinventing Qiu Jin (1875–1907)” Discussant: Weihong Bao, University of California, Berkeley

4:00–5:00 PM From Immersion to Access: Lenora Lee Dance’s Filmic RemediationLenora Lee, Lenora Lee DanceSanSan Kwan, University of California, BerkeleyModerator: Simone Levine, Harvard FAS CAMLab

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Seung Wha Chang - An Arbitration Model for Resolving International Economic/Public Disputes: A (Korean) WTO Appeal Arbitrator's View
2022-11-11 12:15 - 13:15 | Morgan Courtroom, Austin Hall, 1515 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speaker: Seung Wha Chang, Chairman of Korea Trade Commission & Professor of Seoul National University

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Youqin Hang - Families in Transition: Living Arrangements, Intergenerational Support, and Subjective Wellbeing in 21st Century China
2022-11-14 20:30 - 22:00 | Presented via Zoom
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Speaker: Youqin Huang, Professor of Geography and Planning, Research Associate of the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis, University at Albany, State University of New YorkThis paper examines whether the Chinese family is undergoing a Western process of modernization and an associated reduction in previously very high rate of parent-adult child co-residence, and how this change in living arrangement affects subjective wellbeing. Using the China Household Finance Survey, this study reveals that only two decades into the 21st century, co-residence in China is as low as, if not lower than that in the West. Instead, living apart in proximity in the same city has replaced co-residence as the most prevalent living arrangement. This shift to proximity is a result of the negotiations between traditional and modernizing tendencies and is further enabled by significantly improved housing and household financial conditions. This is in contrast to an emerging trend of moving back to parents’ house in the West due to rising housing cost. Furthermore, living apart in proximity, together with strong inter-generational support, has a significant positive effect on subjective wellbeing. We conclude that even as China continues its progress in modernization and market transition, strong intergenerational connections based on Confucian values continue to persist, although with some modern twists, which promotes wellbeing.

Dr. Youqin Huang is a Professor of Geography and Planning and a Research Associate of the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis at University at Albany, State University of New York. Her research aims to understand the impact of major socioeconomic transformations and government policies, focusing on housing, migration, health, and wellbeing. She is the (co-)author/(co-)editor of ten books/edited volumes and has published papers in leading journals in geography, China, urban studies, and housing, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, The China Quarterly, Urban Studies, Housing Studies, as well as Environment and Planning A, and B.

Zoom meeting link: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/96217779608

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Urban China Seminar Series featuring Tingting Lu - Collaborative Neighborhood Governance During the COVID-19 Pandemic
2022-12-05 20:30 - 22:00 | Presented via Zoom
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Speaker: Tingting Lu, ​Shanghai Jiao Tong University

​The COVID-19 pandemic is a governance challenge for nations and cities across the world. While early observations have primarily focused on nation-scale government actions, our research shows that neighborhood social capital also plays a key role in Chinese neighborhoods. Drawing from collaborative governance theory, we examine the horizontal and hierarchical dynamics of neighborhood governance collaboration during crisis responses in urban China. Using a large-scale questionnaire survey of frontline community workers conducted in six Chinese cities in February 2020, we find that from the perspective of residents’ committees, the effectiveness of collaborative governance in pandemic control is predicted by both neighborhood social capital (i.e. civic engagement and citizen participation) and hierarchical steering by the government through setting policy priorities and providing support. We also surveyed residents for their opinions on neighborhood collaborative governance post pandemic. Social capital presents opposite correlations to one’s collaboration with a residents’ committee and collaboration with a private management company.

Tingting Lu is an Associate Professor at School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her research focuses on neighborhood governance and housing development in urban China. Recently she has also worked on gated communities, social segregation, and neighborhood attachment, and has published in leading journals in urban studies and geography, including Urban Studies, Urban Geography, and Geoforum.

Join Zoom Meeting: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/96217779608

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The Significance of Small Things: Small Hydropower, Renewable Energy, and Rural Development in the PRC, 1949-1979
2022-12-07 15:00 - 16:00 | Pierce Hall 100F, 29 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
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Speaker: Arunabh Ghosh, Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History, Harvard UniversityArunabh Ghosh is a historian of modern China, with research and teaching interests in social and economic history, history of science and statecraft, transnational history, and China-India history.

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Shaoda Wang - Judicial Independence, Local Protectionism, and Economic Integration: Evidence from China
2023-01-30 12:45 - 14:15 | Room 105, Hauser Hall, 18 Everett St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Shaoda Wang, University of Chicgao

Shaoda Wang is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He also serves as the Deputy Faculty Director at the Energy Policy Institute at UChicago, China center (EPIC-China). He is an applied economist with research interests in development economics, environmental economics, and political economy. His main research agenda aims at understanding the political economy of public policy, with a regional focus on China.

He holds a BA from Peking University, and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining Harris, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Economics and Energy Policy Institute (EPIC) at the University of Chicago.

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Stephen Halsey - Rocks and Bugs: Developmentalism and the Environment in Early Twentieth Century China
2023-02-07 10:30 - 11:45 | Presented via Zoom
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Speaker: Stephen Halsey

Presented via Zoom. Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJItfuuopzgpH9QA2pFC6FpjH_0wL_Nd7nB1

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Zhou Zhenyu - The origin of ancient Austronesian: from the perspective of archaeological discoveries in Southeast China
2023-02-08 11:00 - 12:30 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Zhou Zhenyu, Associate Professor, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2022-23

Discussant: Rowan Flad, John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology, Harvard University

Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar talk

Seating is limited. Masks are required for all in-person audience members.

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Asia-Pacific Practices: A Conversation with Brian Burke of Shearman & Sterling
2023-02-08 16:30 - 17:30 | WCC 1010, Wasserstein Hall, 1585 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
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Speaker: Brian Burke, Partner, Shearman & Sterling.

Brian Burke has conducted dozens of investigations across Asia-Pacific and is experienced in FCPA/anti-corruption, economic sanctions, antitrust, shareholder litigation, anti-money laundering, and other compliance and investigative matters. Mr. Burke acted as lead advisor to GlaxoSmithKline on the landmark bribery case against GSK in China, the first such case against a foreign company in China.

Mr. Burke will share his insights into litigation practice, Asia-related cases, and practice at Shearman & Sterling. He will also share career advice with students who wish to pursue a litigation career or a BigLaw career in general.

This event is co-hosted by the Harvard Trade Forum and the China Law Association at Harvard Law School. Please RSVP at https://tinyurl.com/BurkeHLS. Free boba will be provided.

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Scott Kennedy - Xi Jinping’s About Face: Implications for China’s Economy, Politics, and Relations With the West
2023-02-09 12:00 - 13:30 | Rubenstein 414AB, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
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Speaker: Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business & Economics, Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Lunch will be served for those joining us in person in Rubenstein 414AB. Others should register to join us remotely via Zoom. Register at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mrBlnYUUSwW9rduJgp_6wQ.

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