Lectures

Empire of Dust event

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Join us for a discussion about Jiang Zilong’s Magnum Opus – Empire of Dust. We will be joined by Olivia Milburn, the translator of Empires of Dust (https://sinoistbooks.com/product/empires-of-dust/)
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sinoist-book-club-june-empires-of-dust-jiang-zilong-tickets-350565359427

Date and time: Sun, 19 June 2022; 15:00 – 16:30 BST

About this event

It is almost time for another session of our Readers’ Club! Join us, translator Olivia Milburn as we venture into Jiang Zilong’s Empires of Dust, an epic realist novel charting the relentless rise and depraved fall of restless entrepreneur Guo Cunxian, a ‘rugged individual’ of sorts who persists and profits through the revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the Reform and Opening that paved the way for business ventures bold, brave, and benighted. Greed is good, comrades… Continue reading →

Artist Geng Xue talk

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Sculptures in Front of the Camera: An artistic talk by Geng Xue
Wednesday, 15 June 2022
12:30 – 14:00 British Summer Time
Online

What happens when a work of sculpture is placed in front of the camera? Based on her own creative practices, contemporary Chinese artist Geng Xue reflects on her recently completed moving-image trilogy, which is composed of Mr. Sea (2014), The Poetry of Michelangelo (2015), and The Name of Gold (2019). The creative fusion of the language of film and that of sculpture – especially the ways in which lighting, poetry, sound, and traces of the hand come into play in the transformative process – will be discussed.

To register and for further information
https://bit.ly/3Lt1rBP

About the Speaker
Geng Xue (born. 1983) is a contemporary Chinese artist whose work covers a variety of media, including porcelain, sculpture, painting, installation, and moving image. She currently teaches in the Department of Sculpture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (of China), where she received her BFA in sculpture and MFA in printmaking. She has been invited to exhibit her works at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018), and the Busan Biennale, South Korea (2014), among many others.

Event Access
A Zoom link will be sent to registered attendees before the event starts.

Posted by: Panpan Yang panpanyangpanpan@gmail.com

Jia Pingwa ‘Broken Wings’

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MCLC members might be interested in this event, featuring the great Nicky Harman and Zhang Lijia:

Readers Club (May): Jia Pingwa – Broken Wings

Join us for a discussion about the issues faced by contemporary Chinese women from the viewpoint of one of China’s literary titans

About this event

It is almost time for another session of our Readers’ Club! Join us and translator Nicky Harman as we go through the story of Butterfly, a humble but also ambitious young woman who unexpectedly finds herself part of a plan that will change her life forever. Jia Pingwa’s 2019 novel Broken Wings addresses themes of great social importance that make it incredibly relevant and contemporary – among which women trafficking and forced marriage, great urban investments as opposed by the expenses paid by rural village life.

It will be an interesting discussion open to everyone, regardless if you’ve read the book before or not, but you can order your copy here [https://sinoistbooks.com/product/broken-wings/] with 10% off using code CLRCUK10. If you’d like a taster before you buy or find yourself opening this too close to the date to read the whole book, please find the afterword available to read here – trust us, it might be the afterword, but it is definitely worth reading before the rest.

We would love to see you there!

Daniel Yang Li

Book Marketer
Alain Charles Asia Publishing

Workshop on Taiwan Literature

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Learn more about the rich literature from Taiwan through this workshop that explores key works by Taiwanese writers. Focusing on six books in the Literature from Taiwan Series, the panel experts will discuss works by Ye Shitao, Husluman Vava, Li Ang, Ta-wei Chi, and many more. The event will be held on May 27 and 28, 2022.

The six books that will be discussed are:

  • A Taiwanese Literature Reader edited by Nikky Lin
  • The Soul of Jade Mountain by Husluman Vava; translated by Terence Russell
  • A History of Taiwan Literature by Ye Shitao; translated by Christopher Lupke
  • A Son of Taiwan: Stories of Government Atrocity edited by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin
  • Transitions in Taiwan: Stories of the White Terror edited by Ian Rowen
  • Queer Taiwanese Literature: A Reader edited by Howard Chiang

To sign up for the event, please contact Professor Christopher Lupke (University of Alberta) at lupke@ualberta.ca. For more information on the books, see https://www.cambriapress.com/taiwanlitbooks.cfm

International Exhibition of Chinese Art, 1935 lecture

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Dear all,

We invite you to an online Zoom lecture “Nationalist Internationalism: International Exhibition of Chinese Art, 1935” of Dr. Xing Zhao (Assistant Professor of Art and Design, Nanjing University). The lecture is part of the Lecture Series: Re-examining Modernity and Contemporaneity through Chinese Art (2022/23) at the University of Hong Kong, University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG).

Date/Time (Hong Kong Time): 18/05/2022 13:00-14:00
Venue: Online on Zoom
Language: English
Registration link: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=80864
Website: https://www.umag.hku.hk/event/nationalist-internationalism-international-exhibition-of-chinese-art-1935/

Abstract

This presentation focuses on the “International Exhibition of Chinese Art” (1935) in London, which deployed art for public diplomacy and spoke a modern international language that embodied the rising awareness of national culture as promoted by the League of Nations. While the Republican government lacked the fundamental economic and military infrastructure critical for navigating the modern world, the alternative system of soft power and brand nationalism rooted in culture, tradition, and morality assumed the responsibility of communicating a unified image of China as a modern nation-state to the domestic and global audiences. Continue reading →

Chen Qiufan on how sci-fi imagines the future

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Chen Qiufan | 2041: How Chinese Science Fiction Imagines Our Future

We invite you to join us at an online seminar titled “2041: How Chinese Science Fiction Imagines Our Future,” featuring sci-fi author Chen Qiufan and Cornell professors Andrea Bachner and Anindita Banerjee.

Time: Thursday, April 28 at 7:30pm (EST) | Friday, April 29 at 7:30am (China Time)
Speaker:Chen Qiufan (Sci-fi writer, translator, and curator; Author of Waste Tide and AI 2041)
Discussants: Andrea Bachner (Cornell University) and Anindita Banerjee (Cornell University)
Moderator: Song Han (Cornell University)

The greatest value of science fiction is not providing answers, but rather raising questions.

Can AI help humans prevent the next global pandemic by eliminating it at the very root? How can we deal with future job challenges? How can we maintain cultural diversity in a world dominated by machines? How can we teach our children to live in a society where humans and machines coexist? Continue reading →

Survey of Indigenous Taiwanese Culture and Literature

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Dear colleagues,

I write to share the information of the online event organised by the University of Canterbury and sponsored by the Center for Chinese Studies of Taiwan’s Central Library.

Title of the talk: Family in the North? A Survey of Indigenous Taiwanese Culture and Literature
Name of the speaker: Badai
Time/date of the event: Wednesday 11 May 2022, 2-4pm (NZ Time) / 10am-12pm (Taipei Time)
Zoom Meeting ID: 997 1615 4301 (https://canterbury.zoom.us/j/99716154301)

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me by email (chiarong.wu@canterbury.ac.nz).

Cheers,
Chia-rong Wu
Associate Professor, University of Canterbury

Lo Yi-chin event

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Please join us at a Zoom routable with writer Lo Yi-chin (Winner of Dream of the Red Chamber Fiction Prize) and Professor Mingwei Song (Wellesley College) on diaspora and identity politics in fiction.

The roundtable will be conducted in Chinese and will be moderated by Professor David Der-wei Wang (Harvard University). It is sponsored by Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation.

Time:
8:30-10pm (ET)
April 7, 2022

Zoom registration:
https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_RIGY-sFlQf2UzQVw4RTrDw

Televising Chineseness book talk

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Virtual Book Talk (April 21): Dr. Geng Song – Televising Chineseness: Gender, Nation, and Subjectivity
Thursday, April 21, 2022
8:00 p.m. CST
Virtual event held on Zoom. Please register to attend:
https://kansas.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAkfuqtrjIsGNH2qUAtayvnUHjgBXK18E8q

This talk, introducing the author’s new book (University of Michigan Press, 2022), will look at the interrelationship between gender ideals and the production of subjects that are both loyal to the party and useful for the market in contemporary China.

By examining a range of new gendered images on the TV screen and in digital entertainment, such as the “bossy CEO,” the “little puppy,” and the “supreme heroine,” this talk will focus on Chinese-style neoliberal gender dynamics and will address a conspicuous paradox in Chinese popular culture today – the coexistence between an increasing diversity of gender presenta­tions and a revival of patriarchy.

Dr. Geng Song teaches in the School of Chinese, University of Hong Kong. He has written extensively on issues such as men and masculinities in China, Chinese television, and Chinese nationalism. Continue reading →

Feminisms with Chinese Characteristics book talk

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Feminisms with Chinese Characteristics, with Faye Xiao and Ping Zhu
American Philosophical Society Public Event
Thursday, March 31, 2022, 6:00 p.m. EDT

Virtual event held on Zoom.
Please register to attend
https://www.amphilsoc.org/events/feminisms-chinese-characteristics

This Women’s History Month, join us for a discussion with Hui Faye Xiao and Ping Zhu of the ways in which Chinese feminist ideas have developed since the mid-1990s. Hui Faye Xiao and Ping Zhu are co-editors of the new volume, Feminisms with Chinese Characteristics and Hui Faye Xiao is a 2019 recipient of a Franklin Research Grant from the APS.

Juxtaposing the plural “feminisms” with “Chinese characteristics” both underlines the importance of integrating Chinese culture, history, and tradition in the discussions of Chinese feminisms and stresses the difference between the plethora of contemporary Chinese feminisms and the singular state feminism.

The twelve chapters in this interdisciplinary collection address the theme of feminisms with Chinese characteristics from different perspectives rendered from lived experiences, historical reflections, theoretical ruminations, and cultural and sociopolitical critiques, painting a panoramic picture of Chinese feminisms in the age of globalization. Continue reading →

Defectors from the PRC to Taiwan book talk

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USC Zoom Book Talk
Defectors from the PRC to Taiwan, 1960-1989: Anti-Communist Righteous Warriors

The USC East Asian Studies Center has launched an EASC New Book Series for the wider community. This series focusing on Sinophone Studies is co-sponsored by the Society of Sinophone Studies.

April 6, 2022
4:00PM (PT)/7:00PM (ET) | REGISTER FOR ZOOM

Defectors from the PRC to Taiwan, 1960-1989: Anti-Communist Righteous Warriors (Routledge, 2022)

AUTHOR: Andrew D. Morris (Professor of History at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo)
DISCUSSANT: Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang (Associate Professor of East Asian History, University of Missouri-Columbia)

https://dornsife.usc.edu/events/site/124/37530668843554/easc-new-book-series-sinophone-studies/

Posted by: Li-Ping Chen <lipingch@usc.edu>

A Remembrance for Dr. Po-Hsien Chu (1986-2022)

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A Remembrance for Dr. Po-Hsien Chu (1986-2022)
By Jyana S. Browne and Caitlin Marshall

Dr. Po-Hsien Chu was a brilliant scholar of Sinophone theater and performance, a nurturer of the field of Sinophone Studies, a generous and witty collaborator, a punctilious teacher, and above all, a cherished colleague who made scholarly fellowship into an art. Like the many colleagues who have spoken about Po-Hsien in the past several weeks, we looked “forward to years of collaboration and comradeship” (Yizhou Huang) with Po-Hsien, and struggle to grasp that those years of fellowship are in the past. Dr. Po-Hsien Chu passed away unexpectedly on February 8, 2022. He was 35 years old.

How do we build a monument to one who had just, as it were, officially “arrived” to the academic party? One whose lack of pretentions would cause him to shoo away with a flourish of the wrist, a sideways glance, and an urbane smile any too-exuberant hailing of welcome or extolled announcement of his presence? We build by acknowledging and holding with dignity all that Po-Hsien gathered to him in his time, and we reflect that labor of love by sharing here a congregation of voices that loved him in return. Continue reading →

The 1965 Lanting Debate and the Politics of Authenticity

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The University of Oxford China Center and the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities present:
The Buried Truth?: The 1965 Lanting 蘭亭 Debate and the Politics of Authenticity
Lecture by Guangchen Chen 陳廣琛 (Emory University)
Part of the Understanding Authenticity in China’s Cultural Heritage Seminar Series

In January 1965, an Eastern Jin dynasty tomb was discovered in the suburb of Nanjing. As the epitaphs showed, it belonged to Wang Xingzhi (王興之) and his wife Song Hezhi (宋和之), who were distant relatives of the celebrated calligrapher Wang Xizhi (王羲之). The tomb is located in an area that historically had deep links to the Wang clan, and the epitaphs were dated not long before the legendary Lantingxu. Because of the drastic stylistic discrepancy between the epitaphs and Lantingxu, this discovery triggered a heated debate over the latter’s authenticity involving many experts of the time, most notably Guo Moruo (郭沫若), Gao Ershi (高二適) and Shang Chengzuo (商承祚). However, it was quickly eclipsed by a bigger controversy: a year later, the history play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office (海瑞罷官) nominally triggered the Cultural Revolution. Continue reading →

Experts in Action book talk

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Zoom Book Talk: Experts in Action: Transnational Hong Kong-Style Stunt Work and Performance (Duke University Press, 2021)

USC EASC New Book Series: Sinophone StudiesLauren Steimer and Poshek FuWednesday, March 9| 5:00PM – 6:30PM | REGISTER

Join us for the next EASC New Book Series on Sinophone Studies! Register to attend this book discussion on Experts in Action: Transnational Hong Kong-Style Stunt Work and Performance (Duke University Press, 2021) with author Lauren Steimer (Associate Professor of Media Arts and Film and Media Studies, University of South Carolina) and discussant Poshek Fu (Professor of History, the University Of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).

https://dornsife.usc.edu/events/site/124/37530668843554/easc-new-book-series-sinophone-studies/

Posted by: Li-Ping Chen <lipingch@usc.edu>