Month: November 2014

Cultural and Communications Semiotics–cfp

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First International Symposium on Cultural & Communication Semiotics 

On July 3-5, 2015, the First International Symposium on Cultural & Communication Semiotics will be held in Chengdu, China. The Organizing Committee is composed of the following institutions:

  • College of Literature & Journalism, Sichuan University;
  • Institute of Journalism & Communication Studies, CASS (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences);
  • Editorial Board of Literary Review, CASS;
  • Editorial Board of Literature & Art Studies, Institute of Art Studies, Ministr;
  • Editorial Board of Signs & Media, Sichuan University;
  • Editorial Board of Comparative Literature and Culture, Purdue University.

The Symposium aims at promoting semiotics of cultural and communication studies, applying it to the dynamic cultural situation around the world today.

We understand that you have been active in the field of cultural and communication semiotics, with notable achievements. We cordially invite you to participate in the Symposium. Continue reading Cultural and Communications Semiotics–cfp →

anti-domestic violence law

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Source: The Guardian (11/26/14)

China’s first anti-domestic violence law hailed as a step forward
Draft law defines term for first time and streamlines process for getting restraining orders, although activists say it falls short
By Agence-France Presse

Videos showing domestic violence and marriage breakdowns at a Shanghai exhibition. Domestic abuse has long been sidelined in China as a private matter. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Videos showing domestic violence and marriage breakdowns at a Shanghai exhibition. Domestic abuse has long been sidelined in China as a private matter. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

China has drafted its first national law against domestic violence, with activists hailing it as a step forward in a country where abuse has long been sidelined as a private matter.

The new law formally defines domestic violence for the first time and streamlines the process for obtaining restraining orders – measures long advocated by anti-domestic abuse groups.

“Over the years, we’ve many times felt powerless ourselves to help victims,” said Hou Zhiming, a veteran women’s rights advocate who heads the Maple Women’s Psychological Counselling Centre in Beijing.

“If this law is actually enacted – because the issuing of a draft means it will now enter the law-making process – we will be very pleased,” said Hou, whose centre is one of China’s longest-running anti-domestic violence organisations. Continue reading anti-domestic violence law →

book selling is booming in Taiwan

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From: Li-ping Chen <lipingch@usc.edu>
Source: CNN (11/24/14)

Nightclubs for literature? Why book selling is booming in Taiwan
By Johan Nylander, for CNN

Customers at Eslite's bookstore on Dunhua Road, Taipei read books in the early hours. The store is open 24 hours a day.

Customers at Eslite’s bookstore on Dunhua Road, Taipei read books in the early hours. The store is open 24 hours a day.

Taipei (CNN) — It’s midnight in the capital of Taiwan.

While some people are slowly walking home through the neon-lit streets, or getting ready to hit the club scene, others are on their way to a more unusual nocturnal hangout — a bookstore.

The Eslite store in central Taipei opens 24 hours and has more night owl visitors than most Western bookstores could dream of during their daytime hours.

Here, young and old sit side-by-side on small steps or around reading tables, deeply engrossed in literary worlds.

Others stand and some sit on the floor, all reading in hushed silence as soft classical music seeps out from the speakers. Continue reading book selling is booming in Taiwan →

Taiwan election

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Source: Christian Science Monitor (11/26/14)

Taiwan election: Wild, wooly, and partly a referendum on China (+video)
The Taipei mayor’s race is the most watched, but there are 10,000 offices to fill on Nov. 29. The races are marked by mud-slinging and new debates over Chinese nationalism and Taiwanese identity.
By Julian Baum

TAIPEI, TAIWAN

Taiwan’s young democracy puts down deeper roots with every election cycle, and the island holds an important vote this weekend with 20,000 candidates for more than 10,000 offices.

The most watched election is for mayor of Taipei, where candidate Ko Wen-je is causing panic in Taiwan’s ruling party and making Chinese leaders in Beijing nervous.

A newcomer to politics, Mr. Ko has become a lighting rod for debates over national identity and traditional values in Taiwan. The independent candidate is receiving prominent media coverage, which he has been using to step outside mainstream politics and challenge the establishment. Continue reading Taiwan election →

80% of China’s rich send children abroad

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Source: The Nanfang Insider (11/25/14)

80% OF CHINA’S RICH SEND CHILDREN ABROAD TO STUDY, HIGHEST IN WORLD
By Charles Liu

China’s wealthy want a western education for their children. An astonishing 80 percent of the country’s upper-class are sending their kids abroad to attend school, the highest rate in the world by far. Ten percent of Germany’s rich send their children away for school, while only five percent of the French upper-class do the same. In Japan, this figure stands at one percent.

The Hurun Research Academy said in its report that millionaires usually send their kids abroad at 18, while multi-millionaires do it when they are 16. The top choice for an overseas education is the USA, followed by Australia, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand, Singapore, France, Japan, and Germany.

The report says Chinese children with an overseas education will help the country grow:

The long-term interactions and studies made by these children overseas will definitely ensure the success of the internationalization of China’s economy.

college teachers must be more positive (5)

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During my time teaching English major students at a 2nd tier university in 2002, 2003 and 2004, I was informed not to talk about 4 topics during class by my faculty leader. In addition the program that I came with mentioned that one student in each class would be given the responsibility of being my monitor and submitting reports on the content of my teaching. It was during SARS which was not classified as a sensitive topic back then.

As a professor, you just became used to it and referred questions to those topics to out of class discussions.

Simon Laing <slaing4@gmail.com>

HK police remove protesters’ camp

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Source: NYT (11/25/14)

Hong Kong Police Remove Protesters’ Camp After a Night of Chaotic Clashes
By CHRIS BUCKLEY and ALAN WONG

Police officers in Hong Kong removed barricades on Wednesday that had been erected by pro-democracy protesters.CreditLam Yik Fei/Getty Images

HONG KONG — The Hong Kong police seized control of a street on Wednesday that had served for two months as a base camp for pro-democracy protesters, who were forced into retreat after a night of clashes, pepper spray and more than 100 arrests.

The police removed, for now at least, a protest camp that had attracted many of the pro-democracy movement’s most combative voices. By noon, dozens of protesters watched quietly as officers dismantled the barricades that had protected the camp. Continue reading HK police remove protesters’ camp →

CHESS Young Scholars Conference 2015–cfp reminder

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Call for Papers: CHESS Young Scholars Conference 2015
Responding to China’s Environmental Crisis: Interdisciplinary Approaches
Organized by CHESS (China and the Environment in the Social Sciences)
Hosted by the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna, Austria
27-28 February 2015

Keynote speaker: Yu Xiaogang, Green Watershed
Deadline for abstract submissions: 30 November 2014

Submissions are welcomed for the inaugural CHESS Young Scholars Conference to be held at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna on 27-28 February 2015. Continue reading CHESS Young Scholars Conference 2015–cfp reminder →

Women, Writing and Visuality–cfp

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Women, Writing and Visuality in Contemporary China
A proposed special issue of
Frontiers of Literary Studies in China (FLSC)
Edited by Géraldine Fiss and Li Guo

Chinese women writers and filmmakers today contribute in unique and significant ways to cultural change, while both embodying and transcending feminist concerns. Rather than perpetuating 20th century discourses concerning women’s emancipation, many contemporary women intellectuals, writers and visual artists are articulating new forms of consciousness and addressing pivotal concerns of our time in provocative, oftentimes experimental ways. This special issue of Frontiers will explore novel modes of narrative invention, aesthetic innovation and cultural critique in contemporary Chinese women’s literature and film. Areas of inquiry include but are not limited to: 1. modes of articulating and expressing subjectivity in fiction and film; 2. unconventional subject matter and voices in feminine/feminist texts such as, for instance, homosexual and transsexual themes; 3. creative de/constructions of the relationship between gender, language and the body; 4. ecocritical consciousness and creative engagement of environmental degradation; 5. re-conceptualizations of the intersection between urban space and human subjectivity; 6. the creative utilization and re-imagination of classical Chinese culture as well as the corpus of modern Chinese literature and film; 7. male authors’ critical engagement with and portrayal of women’s themes. Continue reading Women, Writing and Visuality–cfp →

China Dreams and the Road to Revival (3)

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The China Dreamers film is nicely done.  Particularly quotable was the remark of a twenty-something woman working in Beijing:

“Our generation has higher expectations. We need more freedom. We need freedom to imagine things, freedom to develop. But in real life, we get neither.”

Perhaps in Chinese discourse the word “development” is starting to take on a wider meaning than it has generally had up to now.

A. E. Clark <aec@raggedbanner.com>

CCTV reviled at home

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Source: China File, Foreign Policy (11/24/14)

China Central Television, Reviled at Home
The state outlet has fallen so far from its perch that editors are embarrassed to wear the CCTV logo in public.
By HU YONG

BEIJING — In Dec. 2013, China Central Television (CCTV) producer Wang Qinglei wrote a post on his Weibo account criticizing the Chinese government’s campaign-style attacks on prominent social media figures. Wang argued that the media had also been drawn in and was “sidestepping the law,” allowing the government to “rape our journalistic standards.” Wang had just been dismissed from his post for violating CCTV’s microblogging and “discipline management” rules, and in his farewell post, he wrote that he intended to “record the truth” about “the era in which we live.” With shocking candor, Wang laid bare the true face of Chinese Central Television. Continue reading CCTV reviled at home →

readers/translators of Uyghur lit?

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Dear list,

I’ve been asked to put together a new collection of Chinese short fiction for a US publisher. I am determined to include quality writing from Xinjiang, preferably stories written in Uyghur. Since Uyghur lit. is not within my area of expertise, I’d like to talk to as many readers and translators of it as I can. Please reach out to me at canaan@paper-republic.org. I would love to hear your opinions and recs.

Best,

Canaan Morse

college teachers must be more positive (3,4)

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It seems that fear is a part of living in a democratic society which China is gradually becoming. I just saw CITIZENFOUR about Edward Snowden being a fugitive living in fear of NSA’s global spy surveillance to find him and hunt him down. The good thing is that more and more people in China’s higher education become critical of policies they consider hypocritical and talk to students openly about political change. In doing so they also face opposing views and bullshit like “patriotism” which the government often uses to silence the dissenting voices.

Rujie <rwang@wooster.edu>

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間諜就在你身邊 – spies are right at your side, an old KMT slogan in Taiwan.

Martin Winter <dujuan99@gmail.com>

Composite Realities–cfp

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Reminder: Deadline for proposals is the 16th of January, 2015!

Fall 2015 Special issue of the TAP Review, guest edited by Claire Roberts (University of Adelaide, Australia) and Yi Gu (University of Toronto, Canada)

Composite Realities: the Art of Photographic Manipulation in Asia

Manipulation – of light, time and process – is central to the production of photographs. It is because of this inherent flexibility, perhaps, that practitioners have long played with the apparent objectivity of the medium. In the pre-digital era, techniques that have been used to improve upon or challenge the rhetoric of truth associated with photography include the use of painted studio backdrops, and techniques such as masking, vignetting, multiple exposures, composite photography, photo montage, photo collage, as well as retouching, inscribing and hand colouring. Continue reading Composite Realities–cfp →