Events

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 […]

Modern China Lecture Series Featuring Eugenia Lean – The Ideograph and a Cantonese Pun: Linguistic Divergence and Spurious Chinese Marks in Global Capitalism

Speaker: Eugenia Lean, Professor of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures; Director, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University By examining two early legal cases featuring the alleged counterfeiting of Xiangmao Honey Soap, this talk shows how the Chinese language and linguistic practices in Chinese commercial culture often stymied Western manufacturers and import companies’ attempts […]

Modern China Lecture Series Featuring Joan Judge – China’s Mundane Revolution: Vernacularizing Science and Scientizing the Vernacular in the Long Republic, 1894-1955

Speaker: Joan Judge, Professor, Department of History, York University What can we learn from intellectual detritus? Focusing on cheap print, vernacular daily-use knowledge, and common readers in the Long Republic (1895-1955), this talk argues that the books an age discards as slipshod and unscientific, and the readers it disparages as superstitious and ignorant, comprise the […]

Modern China Lecture Series featuring Yajun Mo – Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912–1949

CGIS South Room S354 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA, United States

Speaker: Yajun Mo, Boston CollegeWhen and under what circumstances did modern tourism infrastructure emerge and expand in China? How did the development of tourism shape print media and travel culture? This talk, based on Yajun Mo’s recently published book, Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912-1949, explores these questions by tracing the roots of […]

Modern China Lecture featuring Philip Thai – Communist China’s Capitalist Front: The China Resources Company in Cold War Hong Kong

CGIS Knafel K262 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

Speaker: Philip Thai, Northeastern University The China Resources Company is a Hong Kong-based, Chinese state-owned conglomerate with diverse businesses interests in real estate, retail, pharmaceuticals, energy, and other industries. Today, it is one of the largest corporations in the world and currently ranked no. 70 on the Fortune Global 500. During the Cold War, China […]

Modern China Lecture Series featuring Taisu Zhang: The Ideological Foundations of Qing Taxation: Belief Systems, Politics, and Institutions

Room S030, CGIS South 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Speaker: Taisu Zhang, Professor of Law and History, Yale UniversityHow states develop the capacity to tax is a question of fundamental importance to political science, legal theory, economics, sociology, and history. Increasingly, scholars believe that China's relative economic decline in the 18th and 19th centuries was related to its weak fiscal institutions and limited revenue. […]