Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy Workshop featuring Fiona Cunningham – China’s Search for Coercive Leverage in the Information Age: Past, Present, Future
CGIS South, Room S050 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesSpeaker: Fiona Cunningham, University of Pennsylvania Fiona Cunningham is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a Faculty Fellow at Perry World House and affiliated with the Center for the Study of Contemporary China and the Christopher H.. Browne Center for International Politics at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests […]
Victor Fan – The Insight-Image: Illuminating the Reality of Deleuze’s Time-Image
Barker Center, Thompson Room 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MASpeaker: Victor Fan, King's College London In Zen Buddhism, the notion of here and now is the key to attain––or return to––paññā/prajñā (insight). On a day-to-day basis, we live each moment with a preoccupation of the past and an anticipation for the future. Our retrospection and expectation produce afflictions such as avarice, anger and frustration, as […]
China Humanities Seminar – Writing and Reading “Local Court Drama” in Late Imperial China: Texts, Genres, and Identities
Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave. 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesSpeaker: Tian Yuan Tan 陳靝沅: Shaw Professor of Chinese, University of Oxford; Professorial Fellow, University College
Recent reprint projects have given researchers much improved access to the vast corpus of Chinese court dramatic texts kept in palace archives and private collections, which in turn presents a challenge: how do we unpack the complex textual web and varied forms contained therein? I am interested in ways of reading court drama in connection with the wider textual and cultural worlds. This talk will focus on a body of texts that I call “local court drama” - playtexts that were presented to the emperor from across various regions, produced on occasions ranging from the celebration of imperial birthdays to welcoming the sovereign on tours. We will look at the textual problems and the generic labels applied, literary models invoked, and identities represented in the process.
Tian Yuan Tan 陳靝沅 is the Shaw Professor of Chinese at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow of University College. His main areas of research include Chinese literary history and historiography, text and performance, and cross-cultura
Urban China Series featuring Yang Zhan – “Keep Moving, Little Bees!”: Real Estate Promotion and the Financial Roots of Urban Precariousness in China
Presented via ZoomSpeaker: 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, […]
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 StatesSpeaker: 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 […]
Film Screenings – The Face of Time: Recent Films by Tsai Ming-Liang
Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, United StatesRare 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 […]
Jae-Jung Suh – Diatribes and Dialogues over the Past: “History Problems” and Regional Orders in Northeast Asia
Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave. 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesSpeaker: Jae-Jung Suh, Professor, Department of Politics and International Studies, International Christian University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2022-23 Chair/Discussant: Paul Y. Chang, Associate Professor of Sociology, Harvard University In this talk, I propose to re-analyze the history of the historical contentions in Northeast Asia as that of the regional actors’ attempts to manage their differences over […]
East Asian Legal Studies Open House
WCC Milstein East C, Harvard Law SchoolTake advantage of this opportunity to meet EALS Faculty, Staff, Research Fellows, and the 2022-2023 Visiting Scholars.Remarks begin at 12:45pm.Food will be provided. Venue
Critical Issues Confronting China Series featuring Yanzhong Huang – Is Zero Covid Crippling Xi Jinping’s Domestic Agenda?
CGIS South S020, Belfer Case Study Room 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA, United StatesRead our blog post on the event: Is ‘Zero-COVID’ Crippling Xi Jinping’s Domestic Agenda? Five Unintended Consequences Speaker: Yanzhong Huang, Professor and Director, Center for Global Health Studies, Seton Hall University China’s zero-Covid policy, while shielding the country from Covid-19 and facilitating state control over society, also has compounded, even undermined its ability to cope […]
Ya-wen Lei – The Gilded Cage: Techno-State Capitalism in China
William James Hall, Room 1550 33 kirkland st, cambridge, MA, United StatesSpeaker: Ya-wen Lei, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Harvard University Using Daniel Bell’s work as a springboard, I analyze the emergent post-industrial society in China, focusing on China’s techno-development from the mid-2000s to the present day. Noting the extraordinary transformation of China’s economy and society during this time, some scholars have compared China’s post-reform period […]
Film Screening and Discussion – Afternoon (Na ri xia wu)
Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, United StatesDirected by Tsai Ming-liang.Taiwan, 2015, DCP, color, 137 min.Mandarin with English subtitles. In-person discussion with the director follows the film screening. As if created to refute the notion that artists are notoriously aloof about discussing their own work, Afternoon ostensibly grants Tsai’s devoted audience an all-access peek behind the curtain of his decades-long artistic partnership with his muse […]
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 StatesSpeaker: 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 […]