The latest issue of Bulletin of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Vol. 102 is now available online at: http://www.mh.sinica.edu.tw/bulletins.aspx

Contents

[Articles]

Juntian Tunyong on the Nineteenth-Century Hunan Miao Frontier
By Lee Wen-liang

The Predicament of Public Administration Education at the Central Politics School and Its Solution
By Wang Chen-cheng

The Formation and Evolution of the Re-education through Labor, 1955-1961
By Xu Hetao

[Book Reviews]

William T. Rowe, Speaking of Profit: Bao Shichen and Reform in Nineteenth-Century China, Reviewed by Wang Xueshen

Posted by: Jhih-hong JHENG <bimhas60@gmail.com>

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the abstract submission deadline for the 2019 Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, i.e. “KFLC: The Languages, Literature, and Cultures Conference, 2018” has been extended. Abstract submission will remain open until November 26th, 2019 @ 11:59 PM, EST.

For general conference guidelines, to find the Call for Papers for each track, and to submit an abstract, please visit our website: https://kflc.as.uky.edu/

As always, the success of our conference is dependent upon the hard work and enthusiasm of our participants. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns. We look forward to working with you this year.

Wishing you all the best,

Luo, Liang 羅靚

Source: Sixth Tone (10/23/18)
Buddha-mania: Understanding China’s Buddha Building Boom
In the race to build the biggest Buddha, no one is a winner.
By Zhou Mingqi

Visitors look out at the world’s tallest Buddha statue from atop a viewing platform in Lushan County, Henan province, Aug. 26, 2017. Niu Yuan/IC)

Is there such a thing as too many Buddhas? China may be about to find out.

For the past few decades, the country has been in the midst of a Buddha-building craze. Just last year, for example, it was reported that a wealthy businessman had nearly completed “the world’s largest copper sitting Buddha” in a remote county in the northern province of Shanxi. The 22-story structure supposedly took 8 years to build and cost 380 million yuan ($57 million) — a relative pittance in the world of big Buddhas.

Travelers looking for the world’s largest Buddha statue, however, must make the trip to the neighboring province of Henan. Opened in 2008, the Spring Temple Buddha is located in Lushan County — one of the poorest counties in all of China, in which residents’ average annual discretionary income is just 12,800 yuan. In stark contrast to the poverty of the surrounding countryside, the Spring Temple Buddha, which took 11 years to complete, stands more than 208 meters tall, is plated with 108 kilograms of gold, and cost an eye-popping 1.2 billion yuan to build. Continue reading Buddha mania →

Source: NPR (10/10/18)
U.S. Charges Alleged Chinese Government Spy With Stealing U.S. Trade Secrets
by Ryan Lucas

GE Aviation exhibited equipment at the Zhuhai Airshow in 2010. Now, U.S. officials say, a Chinese intelligence officer has been charged with trying to steal American jet engine technology. Kin Cheung/AP

The Justice Department unsealed charges Wednesday against a suspected Chinese spy for allegedly conducting economic espionage and trying to steal trade secrets from U.S. aerospace companies.

The alleged Chinese intelligence officer, Yanjun Xu, was extradited to the United States on Tuesday from Belgium, where he was arrested in April at Washington’s request. Continue reading US charges Chinese national with stealing trade secrets →

ACLS Workshop: Reading Chinese Reportage across the Disciplines
Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in China Studies Collaborative Reading-Workshop Grants 2018

Charles Laughlin and Li Guo
Location: University of Virginia
Reading Chinese Reportage Across the Disciplines

Poster: 2018 ACLS reportage workshop poster version 3 revised(1)-172l72r

This collaborative reading workshop explores reportage narratives in contemporary China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, including travel writings, environmental reportage, nonfiction works, and documentary films. Participants appraise the activist function of the reportage genre, assess its ideological limitations, idiosyncratic constraints and concurrent ethical challenges. The reading sessions of the workshop cross-examine literary reportage and documentary cinematography, focusing on the textualization of real life images, and the visualization of texts narrating real people and events. Ultimately, the workshop evaluates the representations, discourses, and analytical demarcations of the reportage concept, and explore new perspectives on the aesthetics of global reportage.

Charles Laughlin <cal5m@virginia.edu>

It does not flatter a Journal of Chinese Humanities, to devote a whole issue(!) to Daniel Bell and his old-hat book and theories, which have been thoroughly refuted. In fact, it should be enough to read this assessment of Bell, short yet effective:

The Qing is dead! Long live the Qing!
By John Fitzgerald. InsideStory.au, 11 August 2015
http://insidestory.org.au/the-qing-is-dead-long-live-the-qing

–Magnus Fiskesjö, nf42@cornell.edu

Journal of Chinese Humanities has just released Volume 4.1 on the The Possibility of Political Meritocracy in China, a special issue focused on Daniel Bell’s 2015 book, The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction to The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy

Daniel A. Bell.
Volume 4, Issue 1, pages 1 – 5, 2018
http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/23521341-12340054

2. A Critical Discussion of Daniel A. Bell’s Political Meritocracy

Yushun Huang and Kathryn Henderson.
Volume 4, Issue 1, pages 6 – 28, 2018
http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/23521341-12340055

3. Building a Modern Political Ecology and the Need to Demystify Political Meritocracy

Continue reading Journal of Chinese Humanities 4.1 →

Posted by Magnus Fiskesjö <nf42@cornell.edu>
Source: Pensacola News Journal (2/7/18)
UWF cuts ties with controversial Chinese-affiliated Confucius Institute
By Joseph Baucum

Citing a lack of student interest, the University of West Florida will not renew its contract this year with the Confucius Institute, a state-affiliated installation of the Chinese government that on Monday drew the condemnation of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for its representation of China’s history and policies at Florida academic institutions.

A Press Release on February 1st, 2018, by Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC)
As a literary tribute to Liu Xiaobo from worldwide Chinese poets and writers, a public release of A Poetry Anthology in Commemoration of Liu Xiaobo is launched on February 1st in Taiwan and Hong Kong

Right before the opening of the 2018 Taipei International Book Exhibition on February 6, a new book entitled The Contemporary: A Poetry Anthology in Commemoration of Liu Xiaobo is publicly released in both Hong Kong and Taiwan by Waves Culture Media, an independent press in Hong Kong. The anthology has been triggered by an incident occurring in the summer of 2017 when  Langzi (Wu Mingliang), a Guangzhou poet and member of ICPC, was arrested for his participation in an effort to comply a collection of poems to commemorate Liu Xiaobo, capturing the international attention to the human rights infringement in China. Continue reading Poetry Anthology in Commemoration of Liu Xiaobo →

Ming Qing Yanjiu XXII 2018
Call for papers
Deadline: April 18, 2018

MING QING YANJIU ISSN 1724-8574; EISSN: 2468-4791
Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, Dept. of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies
Published by BRILL

MING QING YANJIU, founded in 1992, is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated primarily to advanced studies of pre-modern China. This journal provides a forum for scholars from a variety of fields related to late imperial and early republican period that aim to have a cross-disciplinary discourse. Contributions in sociology, literature, psychology, anthropology, history, geography, linguistics, semiotics, political science, and philosophy, as well as book reviews are welcome.

• Manuscripts should be submitted to Ming Qing Yanjiu, Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies, Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, Piazza S. Domenico Maggiore 12, 80134 Napoli, ITALY. Email: mingqing@unior.it and to baochai2@gmail.com Continue reading Ming Qing Yanjiu XXII–cfp →