Events

Wen-hsin Yeh – Vast Ocean, Small People: The Aborigines of Taiwan

Speaker: Wen-hsin Yeh, University of California at Berkeley For centuries under the Ming and the Qing, indigenous communities of Taiwan (i.e. the Austronesian-speaking tribal groups in the mountains and on the Pacific side of the island) led distinct styles of life in a state of relative insularity. That insularity ended in the 19th century when […]

MODERN CHINA LECTURE SERIES FEATURING Sören Urbanksy – Beyond the Steppe Frontier: A History of the Sino-Russian border

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C34LVzYgMuc&feature=youtu.be https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/beyond-the-steppe-frontier-a-history-of-the-sino-russian-border-with-soren-urbansky Read the transcript of the event here. Speaker: Sören Urbanksy, Research Fellow, German Historical Institute Washington The Sino-Russian border, once the world’s longest land border, was special in many ways. It not only divided the two largest Eurasian empires, it was also the place where European and Asian civilizations met, where nomads and […]

Modern China Lecture Series Featuring Gina Anne Tam – Dialect and the Making of Modern China: From Republican Revolutionaries to Hong Kong Protesters

https://youtu.be/30Q6tcBlH-g https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/dialect-and-the-making-of-modern-china-with-gina-anne-tam Read the transcript for the event here. Speaker: Gina Anne Tam, Assistant Professor of History, Trinity University Taking aim at the conventional narrative that standard, national languages transform 'peasants' into citizens, this talk will trace the history of the Chinese nation and national identity on fangyan - languages like Shanghainese, Cantonese, and dozens […]

Modern China Lecture Series Featuring Fei-Hsien Wang – Everybody Loves Qianlong: Vernacular Fantasies, Cultural Consumption, and the “Prosperous Age” in Post-Imperial China

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALs0xHS1uIg https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/everybody-loves-qianlong-with-fei-hsien-wang Read the transcript of the event here. Speaker: Fei-Hsien Wang, Associate Professor, Department of History, Indiana University Bloomington Examining a wide range of cultural products and genres from the late nineteenth century to the present, this talk traces the evolution of the vernacular myths and popular fantasies about Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799). As China’s […]

Modern China Lecture Series Featuring Covell Meyskens – Mao’s Massive Military Industrial Campaign to Defend Cold War China

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGH8wYKggXk https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/maos-massive-military-industrial-campaign-to-defend-cold-war-china-with-covell-meyskens Read the transcript of the event here. Speaker: Covell Meyskens, Assistant Professor of Chinese History, Naval Postgraduate School In 1964, the Chinese Communist Party made a momentous policy decision. In response to rising tensions with the United States and Soviet Union, a top-secret massive military-industrial complex in the mountains of inland China was […]

Modern China Lecture Series featuring Eddy U – A New Approach to Studying the Chinese Intellectual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80ptVvXWrKI https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/a-new-approach-to-studying-the-chinese-intellectual-with-eddy-u?in=fairbank-center/sets/public-lecture-series-fairbank Read the transcript of the event here. Speaker: Eddy U, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Davis No system of rule has objectified the intellectual as much as communist rule of the twentieth century. Communist regimes codified, identified, and governed part of the general population as intellectuals based on Marxist thought. This talk […]

Modern China Lecture Series featuring Andrew B. Liu – Tea War: A History of Capitalism in China and India

https://youtu.be/LM5J3E5pDmQ https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/tea-war-a-history-of-capitalism-in-china-and-india-with-andrew-b-liu?in=fairbank-center/sets/public-lecture-series-fairbank Read the transcript for the event here. Speaker: Andrew B. Liu, Assistant Professor of History, Villanova University Tea remains the world’s most popular commercial drink today, and at the turn of the twentieth century, it represented the largest export industry of both China and colonial India. In analyzing the global competition between Chinese […]

Modern China Lecture Series featuring E. Elena Songster – Presenting the Panda: The Symbolic Transformation of Animal to Ambassador to Advocate

https://youtu.be/ogWW2WSGSio https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/presenting-the-panda-with-e-elena-songster?in=fairbank-center/sets/public-lecture-series-fairbank Speaker: E. Elena Songster, Professor of History, History Department, Saint Mary's College of California The giant panda stumbled into ambassador work. Profoundly successful, its diplomatic roles multiplied and evolved, but its persistent existence as an animal repeatedly reframed its role as a diplomat and beyond. Songster discusses findings from her book, Panda Nation: The Construction […]

Modern China Lecture Series featuring Taomo Zhou – Leveraging Liminality: Shenzhen and the Origins of China’s Reform and Opening

https://youtu.be/dPpcJSF2k4w https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/leveraging-liminality-shenzhen-and-the-origins-of-chinas-reform-and-opening-with-taomo-zhou?in=fairbank-center/sets/public-lecture-series-fairbank Speaker: Taomo Zhou, Assistant Professor of History, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Immediately north of Hong Kong, Shenzhen is China’s most successful Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Commonly known as the “social laboratory” of reform and opening, Shenzhen was the foremost frontier for the People’s Republic’s adoption of market principles and entrance into the world […]

Modern China Lecture Series featuring Jeremy Brown and Louisa Lim – Reassessing June Fourth: New Approaches and Sources on the Tiananmen Protests and Beijing Massacre

Speakers:Jeremy Brown, Professor, Department of History, Simon Fraser UniversityLouisa Lim, Journalist and Lecturer, University of Melbourne Part of the Modern China lecture series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evla4wWSkKI&list=PLdMj8AtCCOREyCyE0QZzx7AOnzHnNOgJe&index=9&t=2s https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/reassessing-june-fourth-with-jeremy-brown-and-louisa-lim   How significant were the events of June 1989 in the broader span of recent Chinese history?  How does the aftermath of the Beijing massacre help to explain events since […]

Modern China Lecture Series Featuring Isabella Weber – How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate

  https://youtu.be/Vu34m6CeK5w https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/how-china-escaped-shock-therapy-with-isabella-weber Speaker: Isabella Weber, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country's rise without leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. This book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China's path. In the […]

Modern China Lecture Series Featuring Fang Xiaoping – Pandemics and Politics in Mao’s China: The Rise of the Emergency Disciplinary State

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw8Qrq8D1uw   Speaker: Fang Xiaoping, Assistant Professor of History, School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. During the 1961-1965 period, a cholera pandemic ravaged the southeastern coastal areas of Mao’s China which was already suffering from lingering starvation, class struggles, political campaigns and geopolitical challenges of the Cold War. This lecture focuses on the first […]