Dan Arnold – Personalism and the Mādhyamika Recuperation of Conventional Truth: Some Heretical Thoughts
Speaker: Dan Arnold, University of Chicago Over the years, I have advanced an interpretation of Madhyamaka that frames Nāgārjuna’s arguments in terms suggested by some contemporary debates in philosophy of mind. Nāgārjuna can thus be understood to reject the reductionist elaboration of anātmavāda that was epitomized for him by Ābhidharmika philosophy, and as doing so […]
Ya-Wen Lei: The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China
William James Hall, Room 1550 33 kirkland st, cambridge, MA, United StatesDeparment of Sociology Colloquium Series Speaker: Ya-Wen Lei, Harvard University. In this talk, I will situate my book, The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China, in relation to one of the department’s traditions and discuss issues related to disciplinary boundaries. I will then discuss how the book speaks to the relationship between globalization, institutions, […]
David Dollar – Challenges to China’s Economy: At Home and Abroad
CGIS South S020, Belfer Case Study Room 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA, United StatesRead event summary here Speaker: David Dollar, Brookings Institution David Dollar is a senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. From 2009 to 2013, Dollar was the U.S. Treasury’s economic and financial emissary to China, based in Beijing, facilitating the macroeconomic and financial policy dialogue between the United States […]
Paul Clifford: The China Paradox – At the Front Line of Economic Transformation
Speaker: Paul Clifford, Author Respondent: Jie Bae, Harvard Kennedy School Moderator: Tony Saich, Harvard Kennedy School HKS Professor Jie Bae will serve as a respondent, and Tony Saich will moderate. The event will be next Thursday, 3/1, 4:15-5:30 at the Ash Center.
Stalemate Across the Taiwan Strait: A Trip Report
Speakers: Michael Szonyi, Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies Steven Goldstein, Sophia Smith Professor of Government, Emeritus, Smith College Robert Ross, Professor of Political Science, Boston College
Eric Greene – Repentance in the Formation of Chinese Buddhism
Speaker: Eric Greene, Yale University The ritual activity that in China was known as chanhui 懺悔 – often understood to mean “confession” or “repentance” – was without doubt one the central forms of Buddhist practice in medieval China. Despite this, scholars have often disagreed concerning, firstly, what “repentance” even means in the Chinese or Buddhist contexts, as […]
Wang Liping – More than Affirmative Action: China’s Preferential Policy in Historical and Comparative Perspective
Speaker: Wang Liping, Peking University; Visiting Scholar, Harvard-Yenching Institute Chair/discussant: Lei Ya-Wen, Harvard University With the ethical appeal of equality and justice as well as a more cohesive society, affirmative action has been in place for many years around the world. Such measures, going by various names depending on the context and perceived acceptability, have attained […]
Bilahari Kausikan: US-China Competition for Influence in Southeast Asia
CGIS South S020, Belfer Case Study Room 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA, United StatesRead event summary here Speaker: Bilahari Kausikan, Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore This event is co-sponsored by the Harvard University Asia Center.
Stephen Owen: Translation in its Kinds
Speaker: Stephen Owen, EALC, Harvard University The Poetry of Du Fu: The Complete Poetry of Du Fu presents a complete scholarly translation of Chinese literature alongside the original text in a critical edition. Scholars know that there is scarcely a Du Fu poem whose interpretation is uncontested. A reader with a basic understanding of the […]
Those Waters Giving Way
An overview of Michael Cherney’s artistic process and recent works. The art combines photography with the subject matter, aesthetics, materials and formats traditionally associated with classical Chinese painting, which allows for viewing the present day environment and landscape in China through the lens of art history. In addition to the presentation, the artist will guide […]
Joseph Esherick: Bandits and Bolsheviks: the Shaanxi-Gansu Base Area before Mao
CGIS South Room S354 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA, United StatesSpeaker: Joseph W. Esherick, Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego In the fall of 1935, Mao read a newspaper article about a Communist base in Northern Shaanxi. He redirected the Long March to that base, which would become the Yan’an-centered “revolutionary holy land” from which the Chinese Communist Party would rise to power during […]
The Rise of New Religions in Asia
Speakers: Helen Hardacre, Harvard University Adam Lyons, Harvard University Frank Korom, Boston University Amanda Lucia, University of California Riverside Robert Hefner, Boston University Juliane Schober, Arizona State University Gareth Fisher, Syracuse University Chien-yu Julia Huang, City Colleges of Chicago Wei-ping Lin, National Taiwan University More Info: www.bu.edu/asian/2018/01/03/the-rise-of-new-religions-in-asia/