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Keywords of Chinese Labor: An Exhibition

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Keywords of Chinese Labor | 中国劳工关键词
Exhibition and Talks

145 Sterling Pl, Brooklyn, New York City
Sept 21-29, 2024
Daily Opening Hours: 11am – 6pm
Event is free but registration is required tinyurl.com/chinalaborkeywords

PREFACE

A preventable fire in Shenzhen in 1993, a series of mining accidents in the late 1990s, the fingers of factory workers severed by machines on assembly lines, the lungs of construction site workers wrapped and hardened in thick dust, the death of Sun Zhigang in detention for failing to possess a temporary residence permit in 2003, a general strike by Honda auto workers dissatisfied with their wages in 2010, suicide attempts of more than a dozen Foxconn workers from their dormitories, the increasingly angry and self-confident young workers leading a strike wave, the resistance of sanitation workers on college campus to protect their livelihood, female battery factory workers fighting to protect their health, worker centres blossoming and then disappearing, the suicide of the worker poet Xu Lizhi, and the closure of the Picun Migrant Worker Museum… How do we remember and narrate the history of the Chinese working class in the last thirty years? Continue reading Keywords of Chinese Labor: An Exhibition →

China Currents 23.1

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I’d like to share the recent publication of China Currents: A Journal of the China Research Center, Issue | 2024: VOL. 23, NO. 1.–Paul Foster <paulbfoster2008@gmail.com>

Editor’s Note:

This issue of China Currents is eclectic in nature, but the featured articles all relate to how China is trying to influence the world, how China’s historical experience weighs on the present, and how those outside of China are responding. Parama Sinha Palit examines how China, which has long carefully controlled messages that its own population receives, is using digital media in its public diplomacy aimed at the rest of the world. Vijaya Subrahmanyam, Usha Nair Reichert and China Currents Managing Editor Penelope Prime focus on how India is responding to China use of economic tools — specifically foreign investment — to gain influence in India’s home region. Andy Rodekohr turns to culture and analyzes the Netflix adaptation of the blockbuster Chinese novel, the Three Body Problem. Is it a problem that the Netflix version is widely viewed as not Chinese enough? China Research Center Director Hanchao Lu discusses how his book Shanghai Tai Chi: The Art of Being Ruled in Mao’s China, originally meant as a historical account, holds clues to the dynamics of the present moment. The issue also showcases, with a video and transcript, an excerpt from an interview Marketus Presswood did with the National Committee for U.S.-China Relations about his experience as a black student in China. China’s growing influence is a factor to be reckoned with everywhere, and these five offerings provide some touchstones to understand that phenomenon.

Thirty Years of the Internet in China

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NEW PUBLICATION

“Thirty Years of the Internet in China.” Special issue of Communication and the Public 9, 3 (2024), guest edited by Guobin Yang, Junyi Lv, and Jingyi Gu.

The special issue contains 23 essays by the following scholars: Kaiping Chen, Shaohua Guo, Rongbin Han, Michel Hockx Gianluigi Negro, Jack Qiu, Matt DeButts and Jenn Pan, Gabriele de Seta, Jingyi Gu, Angela Li, Sara Liao, Jun Liu, Junyi Lv, Florian Schneider, Yunya Song, Jiarui Li and Sheng Zou, Cara Wallis, Wei Wang and Huxin Guan, Angela Xiao Wu, Jian Xu, Elaine Yuan, Ge Zhang, Zhang Lin, and Weiyu Zhang.

The essays are available through open access.

The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo lecture

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USC EASC Guest Speaker Series: The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo
Talk by Scott D. Seligman
Saturday, September 28, 2024 | 10:00AM-11:20AM | Zoom (meeting link will be emailed) | RSVP

EASC Guest Speaker Series: Talk by Scott D. Seligman with Faculty Moderator Li-Ping Chen (GESM 120: Moving Stories from China)

Chinese in America endured abuse and discrimination in the late nineteenth century, but they had a leader and a fighter in Wong Chin Foo (王清福, 1847–1898), whose story is a forgotten chapter in the struggle for equal rights in America. The first to use the term “Chinese American,” Wong defended his compatriots against malicious scapegoating and urged them to become Americanized to win their rights. A trailblazer and a born showman who proclaimed himself China’s first Confucian missionary to the United States, he founded America’s first association of Chinese voters and testified before Congress to get laws that denied them citizenship repealed. Wong challenged Americans to live up to the principles they freely espoused but failed to apply to the Chinese in their midst.

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

ACLA seminar on Chinese comparative media–cfp

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CFP—2025 ACLA (held over Zoom)
China and the World: A Comparative Media Perspective
https://www.acla.org/china-and-world-comparative-media-perspective
Organized by Andrew Emerson (aje5555@psu.edu) and Dorothee Hou (houd@moravian.edu)

Abstract submission link: https://www.acla.org/node/add/paper (deadline October 14)

Much of modern Chinese studies revolves around the question of China’s place in the world. The specific terms of the debate vary: Chinese literature “and/as” world literature, global “Asias,” notions of the “Sinophone” and “Sinosphere,” and so on. But in each case, the end goal is to demonstrate why and how China should matter to the world outside China—a goal that speaks, in turn, to the continued influence of area studies, its insistence on treating China as the “inflection” of or “exception” to Euro-American norms.

This panel approaches the China/world debate through the lens of comparative media. Such a lens can counteract the literary bias in Chinese studies, a bias evidenced both in the way we do scholarship (e.g., the assumption that we “read” texts) and in the institutions playing host to our scholarship (e.g., the field’s flagship journals, which are all primarily literary). More broadly (and by extension), a comparative paradigm can help us desegregate. Scholars of literature debate China’s contributions to world literature, scholars of film the extent to which Chinese cinema is transnational, scholars of theater China’s place in global theater—yet little dialogue exists between these different mediatic silos, despite the similar questions being asked. Continue reading ACLA seminar on Chinese comparative media–cfp →

Asian Spy Lit and Cinema–cfp

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CFP for 2025 ACLA virtual annual conference (May 29-June 1, 2025)
ACLA Panel: Contemporary Asian Spy Literature and Cinema
Organizer: Lily Li (lily.li47405@gmail.com), Eastern Kentucky University
Deadline for submitting papers on ACLA website: Oct 14, 2024

The link to the panel: https://www.acla.org/contemporary-asian-spy-literature-and-cinema

This panel invites papers on contemporary Asian spy literature and cinema from the late 20th century to the present. The enigmatic and dangerous espionage world in literature and cinema is always fascinating to readers and audiences. Many Asian spy fictions and films are not only popular in their respective countries but are also translated into many other languages and well received in the world. For example, mainland Chinese novelist Mai Jia’s spy novel Decoded (解密 Jiemi, 2002) has been translated into more than 30 languages. Mai Jia’s another spy novel The Message (风声Fengsheng, 2007) has been adapted into a film, two TV series, and a stage production in China, and made into a film in South Korea. Another example is South Korean novelist Kim Young-ha’s spy novel Your Republic Is Calling You (빛의 제국Bichui jeguk, 2006), which has been translated into many languages. A spy work, literary or cinematic, has an overt espionage story with suspense, deception, a double life, enigmatic spy agent characters, unpredicted twists, and historical and political turmoil. However, despite its social, political, or historical circumstances or contents, a good spy fiction or film always has psychological, ethical, or philosophical depth. Our panel aims to explore the covert agenda in the narratives of espionage in fiction and cinema. We also welcome studies on contemporary theatrical productions about espionage.

Ye to perform in Hainan

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Source: NYT (9/15/24)
China’s Censors Are Letting Ye Perform There. His Fans Are Amazed
The provocative artist once known as Kanye West has received approval that was denied to Maroon 5 and Bon Jovi. China’s economic woes might be why.
By Vivian Wang, Reporting from Beijing

Ye, in a black jacket, stands onstage against a black background amid vapor or smoke.

Ye onstage in Inglewood, Calif., in March. Credit…Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times, via Getty Images

When the news broke that Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, would be performing in China on Sunday, the elation of many of his fans was mixed with another emotion: confusion.

Why would the notoriously prickly Chinese government let in the notoriously provocative Ye? Why was the listening party, as Ye calls his shows, taking place not in Beijing or Shanghai, but in Hainan, an obscure island province?

Under a trending hashtag on the social media site Weibo on the subject, one popular comment read simply “How?” alongside an exploding-head emoji.

The answer may lie in China’s struggling economy. Since China reopened its borders after three years of coronavirus lockdowns, the government has been trying to stimulate consumer spending and promote tourism.

“Vigorously introducing new types of performances desired by young people, and concerts from international singers with super internet traffic, is the outline for future high-quality development,” the government of Haikou, the city hosting the listening party, posted on its website on Thursday.

But it is unclear whether the appearance by Ye — who would be perhaps the highest-profile Western artist to perform in mainland China since the pandemic — is part of a broader loosening or an exception. Continue reading Ye to perform in Hainan →

Bridging the Gap btw Migration and Museum Studies–cfp

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CFP: Bridging the Gap Between Migration and Museum Studies in Chinese Diasporas and Beyond
Dates: Thursday 9 and Friday 10 January 2025.
Venue: Online with the possibility of having one small in-person section at the University of Westminster, London.
Fee: the symposium is free. Participants attending the in-person session shall cover the travel and accommodation themselves.
Language: English and Chinese

This symposium is jointly organised by the Hub on Migration, Exile, Languages and Spaces (HOMELandS) Research Centre of the University of Westminster and the Chinese Heritage Centre of the Nanyang Technological University, supported by the Centre for Chinese Language and Culture, Nanyang Technological University. It is the concluding event of the ‘Global Diasporic Chinese Museums Network Initiative’ project that has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Chinese Heritage Centre of the Nanyang Technological University.

The museum has become a vital platform for preserving diasporic heritage, articulating identities and negotiating the relationship between diasporas and the homeland. There has been an upsurge in the building of museums on Chinese diasporas in China and around the world over the past decades. From the late 1980s, museums related to Chinese diasporas have started to emerge in mainland China as new members of China’s museum scene. In parallel, museums of different sizes on the history of Chinese migration and settlement have been established by Chinese communities around the world. What we see here is an emerging global ‘museum-scape’ on the representations of Chinese diasporas. Continue reading Bridging the Gap btw Migration and Museum Studies–cfp →

Representations of East Asian Migrants conference

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CONFERENCE: Representations of East Asian Migrants and Settlers in the Western United States ca. 1850-1929
Hager Auditorium, Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University, Bozeman
26-28 September 2024

This conference provides scholars from universities, museums, libraries, and archives an opportunity to exchange research on the ways Asian American and Euro-American artists represented Asian migrants and settlers in art between the Gold Rush and the Great Depression. Over the last thirty years, historians have probed Asian American migrants’ experiences of work, settlement, and discrimination in the mining and railroad towns of the West while art historians have explored Asian American artists’ production of original works rooted in transnational dialogues, aesthetic choices, and social experiences on the East and West Coasts. This conference builds on these scholarly trends by ascertaining how Asian and European artists who journeyed through or resided in the American West between 1850 and 1929 contributed to a rich array of representations of Asian sojourners and settlers in different genres—documentary, picturesque, academic, expressive, illustrative, satirical—that promoted a range of views—ethnographic, nationalistic, empathetic, propagandistic, associational, filial, ethnic, gendered. A range of papers illuminate not only how Euro-American artists imposed naturalized, stereotyped, racist, and other identities but also how Asian American artists and individuals deflected, contested, or rejected such images in the construction of their own identities.

In the first half of the conference, “Daily Life in the West,” presenters will discuss images of Asian migrants and immigrants in contexts of labor, leisure, worship, and celebration; in the second half of the conference, “Contested Claims,” presenters will discuss representations of Asians in contexts of association, discrimination, and exclusion as well as visual strategies Asian Americans employed to negotiate hostile surroundings and to construct independent identities. In the last session, contemporary Asian American artists will share how they have engaged with, referenced, or distanced the past in their art. Continue reading Representations of East Asian Migrants conference →

Poem on the death of a delivery driver

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Source: China Digital Times (9/12/24)
Poem on the Death of a Delivery Driver: “A Man Is Not a Steed nor a Machine”
By

The plight of China’s delivery drivers is front-of-mind for the Chinese public. In August, CDT translated an account of one courier’s death in the summer heat, while a viral photograph of a Meituan driver kneeling before a security guard drew attention to the indignities many delivery drivers are forced to suffer. This week, a 55-year-old driver famous locally for his work ethic died while making deliveries. Video of the deceased driver, who had appeared to be sleeping on the back of his bike, went viral—spurring an outpouring of tributes to the deceased, and to the profession in general.

One such tribute, a poem titled “Algorithm” posted to the Bilibili account Koko the Earthling (地球人口口, dìqiúrén kǒukǒu), is translated in part below. The final lines of the second stanza, “A man/ Is not a steed/ Nor a machine” capture the long-unrealized desires of China’s working class. They closely mirror the Communist revolutionary Li Lisan’s stirring call for a worker’s strike at Anyuan in 1922: “Once beasts of burden, now we will be men!” A century later, the words still ring true.

Algorithm—dedicated to the departed delivery man

Your pose, lying flat
Never again to be seen as laziness.
Stretched all the way out,
Death allows you an ease that was long taboo.

Parsing your life is of no interest to me.
In this age of sound and fury
I’ll call you the simplest of names:
A man
Is not a steed
Nor a machine.

[…]

In the evening of this Republic,
Can the brand new algorithm
Tally the life of a slave—
His ancient fate
And fleeting existence?

Koko
September 10, 2024 [Chinese]

Texas A&M asst prof position in Global Studies

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The Department of Global Languages and Cultures, in the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University, invites applications for one (1) full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Global Studies, with the 9-months appointment beginning in the Fall semester of 2025. The B.A. degree in Global Studies emphasizes humanities-based critical thinking and understanding of global macro-processes, making connections across diverse fields such as climate and environmental change, urban and visual studies, arts, literatures, languages and virtual and A.I. technology, medicine, and scientific innovation. The Department of Global Languages and Cultures houses undergraduate B.A. degrees in Modern Languages (with concentrations in French, German, and Russian), Spanish, Global Studies, and Classics; the University Studies B.A. and B.S. degrees in Race, Gender, and Ethnicity; minors in Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese; interdisciplinary programs in Africana Studies, Jewish Studies, Asian Studies, and Religious Studies; and graduate (MA and PhD) programs in Hispanic Studies. The Department is one of 18 in the College of Arts and Sciences, encompassing more than 130 areas of study. Information about the Department is available at https://artsci.tamu.edu/global-lang-cultures/index.html. Information about the College, including the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, the Center of Digital Humanities Research, and the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute is available at https://artsci.tamu.edu/index.html.

Continue reading Texas A&M asst prof position in Global Studies →

‘Garbage time of history’ (1)

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Source: NYT (9/13/24)
Dejected Social Media Users Call ‘Garbage Time’ Over China’s Ailing Economy
The sports term refers to a time during a game when defeat becomes inevitable. Officialdom is warning against using it to take veiled jabs at the country’s political and economic system.
By Yan Zhuang

Tall buildings rise behind intersecting overpasses. In the foreground, two men in office attire walk past bicycles and motor bikes.

Beijing’s central business district. Credit…Vincent Thian/Associated Press

In basketball and other sports, “garbage time” refers to the lackluster period near the end of a game when one team is so far ahead that a comeback is impossible. Teams sub out their best players, and the contest limps toward its inevitable conclusion.

In China, where the internet is heavily censored, a handful of writers have repurposed “garbage time” to indirectly describe the country’s perceived decline. This summer, as the youth unemployment rate soared above 17 percent, the term became a popular shorthand on Chinese social media for describing a sense of hopelessness around the ailing economy.

Commentaries about garbage times of history, some written under pseudonyms, began appearing last year in blog posts and as opinion essays on respected Chinese news sites. They examined past regimes and dynasties and were broadly understood to be thinly veiled critiques of China’s political and economic system. They landed as discussion of the economy — even misplaced praise for the ruling Communist Party’s economic policies — was getting more sensitive. Continue reading ‘Garbage time of history’ (1) →

Texas A&M associate prof position

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The Department of English and the Department of Global Languages and Cultures, in the College of Arts and Sciences, at Texas A&M University invite applicants for a full-time 9-month joint appointment as a tenured Associate Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies, to begin in Fall 2025.

We welcome all qualified candidates, with a strong record of publication in transnational approaches to Asian and/or Asian American literatures and cultures. The position requires the ability to teach courses in literary and cultural studies, Asian Studies, and/or Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies.

Job duties will include teaching, research, and service. The successful candidate will be expected to maintain an active research agenda, contribute to the teaching mission of the departments (standard teaching load is 2 courses per semester), and fulfill service duties at the department, university, and disciplinary level.

The candidate should display engagement and experience in program-building and interest in course design (including introductory courses) to support undergraduate and graduate study and to build upon existing course offerings. Ideally, the candidate will contribute to the College’s Asian American Diaspora Studies Working Group and Asian American Studies Task Force. Continue reading Texas A&M associate prof position →

How Black Myth: Wukong navigates China’s political and cultural trends

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Source: Think China (9/10/24)
How Black Myth: Wukong navigates China’s political and cultural trends
By Ying Zhu

Black Myth: Wukong has revived interest in everything Monkey King, but the Chinese video game has also been criticised for not fully capturing the original myth. Even so, the game has given the Chinese gaming industry a boost, even though government endorsement may shift the focus from design to politics. Academic Ying Zhu explores the magic of Monkey King.

People wait in line to play Black Myth: Wukong at Gamescom 2023, in Cologne, Germany, on 23 August 2023. (Jana Rodenbusch/Reuters)

People wait in line to play Black Myth: Wukong at Gamescom 2023, in Cologne, Germany, on 23 August 2023. (Jana Rodenbusch/ Reuters)

In summer 2015, a Chinese animation film, Monkey King: Hero Is Back, made headline news for breaking the Chinese animation box-office record previously held by DreamWorks’ Kungfu Panda 2 (2011). The film features the Monkey King, a legendary trickster known for his mischief and magical powers, drawn from the beloved 16th-century Chinese literary classic Journey to the West.

Journey to the West narrates the 7th-century pilgrimage of Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who travels from Xi’an (the Tang Dynasty capital) to India in search of Buddhist scriptures. This whimsical and fantastical tale chronicles Xuanzang’s challenging journey, accompanied by three troublesome apprentices who have been assigned to him as protectors to atone for their sins.

Among the three, the monkey named Sun Wukong stood out for both his magical power in fighting evil and his troublemaking penchant. His captivating character has enchanted generations of readers, making him a legendary hero in Chinese mythology.

Monkey King fever a decade ago

The Monkey King story has been updated through stage performances, TV series, film and video games in China and beyond. Research shows that from 1906-2021, roughly 170 theatre, film and TV adaptations were said to have been produced in the Chinese-speaking world alone. Among them, Monkey King: Hero Is Back stood out for its success in vanquishing Hollywood in the Chinese domestic market. Continue reading How Black Myth: Wukong navigates China’s political and cultural trends →

Colgate position

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The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Colgate University invites applications for a tenure-stream position in Chinese at the level of assistant professor, beginning fall semester 2025. A Ph.D. in hand or near completion and native or near native command of both Chinese and English are required. The area of specialization is pre-twentieth-century Chinese literature and culture. The successful candidate will be expected to teach language at all levels, departmental courses in his or her specialization, courses in the Liberal Arts Core Curriculum, independent studies as needed, and to direct in rotation a semester-long study abroad program to mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Teaching will contribute to the interdisciplinary program in Asian Studies, and may contribute to Colgate’s other interdisciplinary programs, depending on the successful candidate’s area(s) of interest and expertise. The teaching load is five courses per year. Faculty responsibilities include productive scholarly research, student advising, and service to the University and the profession.

Please submit a letter of application that addresses your teaching and research, a CV, and three reference letters through [INTERFOLIO]. Colgate strives to be a community supportive of diverse perspectives and identities. Candidates should describe in their cover letter how their approach to teaching demonstrates an ability to work effectively with students across a wide range of identities and backgrounds. Review of applications will begin October 1, 2024, and continue until the position is filled.

Colgate is a vibrant liberal arts university of 3,200 students situated in central New York state. Colgate faculty are committed to excellence in both teaching and scholarship. Further information about the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures can be found here.

Continue reading Colgate position →