October Symposium on Contemporary Chinese Society
Zhang and McNally head Symposium bill in October
October 21, 2013
- Directed by the Asian Studies Development Program (ASDP)
- Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, ASDP, and PCC
This workshop introduces participants to Contemporary Chinese Society, focusing on how each it affects and is affected by Chinese culture and language. The symposium (principal lectures given by Dr. Xudong Zhang, Department of Comparative Literature and Chinese, New York University, and Dr. Christopher McNally, Associate Professor of Political Economy at Chaminade University and Non resident Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu ), is open to all interested faculty, students, and community members. In addition to the public events, on special sessions will support the core group of PCC faculty – “The China Cohort” – as they design courses and add modules to existing courses focused on China.
Schedule of events
October 21, Monday – Southeast Campus, Administration Building Community Hall
- 9-9:30am: Coffee and chatting
- 9:30-11:30am: Professor Xudong ZHANG, Department of Comparative Literature and Chinese, at New York University (Open to the PCC and general community)
- Titles: (one hour each) The ‘Magic’ as “Real’ in Mo Yan’s Fictional Representation of Contemporary China: Reading The Republic of Wine and Death Are Wearing Me Out“and “The Conundrum of Chinese Identity in the Age of Globalization or, On Cultural and Economic Framing of Political Constitution”.
- Speaker’s bio: Xudong Zhang is Professor of Comparative Literature and Chinese at New York University. Among his visiting and advisory roles are Cheung Kong Chair Professor at Peking University, where he directs the International Center for Critical Theory; and Chair of Academic Committee of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Chongqing University. Born in 1965 in Beijing, Xudong Zhang received his B.A. in Chinese from Peking University and his Ph.D. in literature from Duke University. A prolific scholar writing in both English and Chinese on topics ranging from literary criticism and theory, modern Chinese culture, to political-philosophical discourse on modernity, he is the author of Chinese Modernism in the Era of Reforms, Postsocialism and Cultural Politics; Traces of Criticism; and Cultural Identity in the Age of Globalization.
- 11:30pm-12:15pm: Lunch on your own.
- 12:15-1:15pm: In the “Great Hall”, Performance and talk by Tsun-Hui Hung, Professor of ethnomusicologist at Univeristy of Cincinnati, who will play the Chinese 2-string violin, the erhu. (All are welcome for the performance.)
- 1:15-3:15pm: Associate Professor Christopher A. McNally, Department of Political Economy, Chaminade University and Nonresident Fellow at the East-West Center at the East-West Center, Honolulu.
- (Open to the PCC and general community)
- Title: “Sino-Capitalism: Understanding China’s International Reemergence and Its Global Implications.
- Speaker’s bio: Christopher A. McNALLY is an Associate Professor of Political Economy at Chaminade University and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, USA.. His research focuses on comparative capitalisms, especially the nature and logic of China’s capitalist transition, and on the implications of China’s capitalist reemergence on the global order. He has held fellowships conducting fieldwork and research at the Asia Research Centre in West Australia, the Institute of Asia Pacific Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington. He has edited four volumes, including an examination of China’s political economy: China’s Emergent Political Economy: Capitalism in the Dragon’s Lair(Routledge, 2008). He also has authored numerous book chapters, policy analyses, editorials, and articles in journals such as World Politics, The China Quarterly, Business and Politics, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, and Comparative Social Research.
- 3:30 – 5:30: Cohort Curriculum Workshop (not open to the public).
This symposium is part of a three-year faculty and curriculum development initiative funded by a Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education and directed by the Asian Studies Development Program (ASDP). This includes six participating institutions of higher education – three universities, and three community colleges – of which PCC is one. The project mission is to establish and accelerate the integrated development of undergraduate Chinese language and culture. It focuses on the introduction and development of Chinese language courses while simultaneously building complementary humanities and social science curricula, including adding modules on China to other courses.
The PCC China Cohort is comprised of the following fourteen faculty members:
- David Armontrout, History, SE Campus
- Martha Bailey, Philosophy, CA
- Kathy Casto, Composition and Literature, SE
- Jeffer Daykin, History, RC
- Kathleen Doss, Speech, CA
- Sylvia Gray, History, SY
- Bryan Hull, Composition and Literature, SY
- Tom Huminski, Cohort Leader, SY
- Dorothy Payton, Architectural Drafting, SY
- JulieAnne Poncet, Art History, CA
- Hsiao-yun Shotwell, Chinese, CA and SE
- Michael Sonnleitner, Political Science, CA
- Grace Van Ness, Health, RC
- Catherine Zimmerman, Sociology and Gerontology, SY
Other schools also part of the same grant include: Johnson County Community College (Overland Park, KS); Middlesex Community College (Lowell, MA); Missouri State University (Springfield, MO), and University of Texas, El Paso (El Paso, TX).