Chinese Studies

Prof. Jane Duckett (University of Glasgow): "Who cares about inequality in China? Public attitudes toward inequalities in access to health care "
2017-12-12 18:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Theologicum, T0.136, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 2, Göttingen, 37073
About the letuerer:
Jane Duckett is Edward Caird Chair of Politics, International Dean (East Asia), and Director of the Scottish Centre for China Research at the University of Glasgow. She is also Guest Professor at Nankai University (Tianjin, China). In 2012 she received the Lord Provost of Glasgow Education Award. In 2014 she was elected President of the British Association for Chinese Studies. In 2016 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.
Prof Duckett’s early research on the Chinese state under market reform included a book-length study, The Entrepreneurial State in China (Routledge, 1998). It explained state business activities as the outcome of fiscal and staffing constraints on officials in an institutional context of poorly defined property rights. Jane also (with colleague Bill Miller) made a comparative study of public attitudes to openness in East Asia and Eastern Europe, published as The Open Economy and its Enemies (CUP, 2006). Her current research is concerned with the politics of China’s social policy making and implementation. She argues through studies across a range of social policies (on local social welfare financing, health insurance, poverty and unemployment), that the politics behind them and their enormous redistributive consequences make them central to the Chinese state’s marketising project. Her monograph, The Chinese State’s Retreat from Health: Policy and the Politics of Retrenchment (Routledge, hdbk 2011; pbk 2013) draws on comparative political theory to explain the Chinese state’s retrenchment in health care provision. She has also co-edited (with Beatriz Carrillo), China’s Changing Welfare Mix: Local Perspectives (Routledge, 2011), a book that takes a local perspective on China’s evolving social welfare provision. She has recently published papers in Health Policy and Planning and Health Expectations that draw on a project to survey Chinese public opinion on health care.
(Information from The University of Glasgow, School of Social & Political Sciences)

Prof. Xiong Yuegen (Peking Univ.): "Poverty Alleviation as an Instrument of Technical Governance in Rural China”
2017-12-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.602, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:
In the past decades, China has achieved a great success in poverty reduction by helping more than 800 million of poor farmers out of poverty trap. However, Chinese government has made a series of serious efforts on social policy implementation in rural areas, poverty as a problematic persistent issue is still perplexing owing to institutional constraints and policy failure. In 2015, the Party and central government launched a new national campaign entitled the Targeted Poverty Alleviation Programme aiming to eradicate the problem of poverty in rural areas by 2020. In this lecture, I will mainly discuss the following issues: First, how does this national campaign on poverty reduction in the new era differ from the previous ones? Second, what is the main impact of the targeted poverty reduction programme on the farmers’ life and local government? Third, what are the main limitations of the top-down model of poverty reduction programme in the centralized regime and its implications for the socio-economic development in future in China. Based on the field research conducted in Jiangxi Province, the author will link the empirical data with theoretical interpretation on the ongoing social changes in the country.
Bio of the Speaker – Prof. Dr. Xiong Yuegen:

Yuegen Xiong is Professor and Director, The Centre for Social Policy Research (CSPR) in the Department of Sociology at Peking University, China. He is the author of Needs, Reciprocity and Shared Function: Policy and Practice of Elderly Care in Urban China ( Shanghai Renmin Press, 2008 )and Social Policy: Theories and Analytical Approaches ( Renmin University Press, 2009 ) . He was the British Academy KC Wong Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford during November 2002- September 2003, the Fellow at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study (HWK), Delmonhorst, Germany during December 2003- February 2004 and the JSPS Fellow at the University of Tokyo in October, 2005, Visiting Professor in the Department of Social Sciences & Humanities, Jacobs University Bremen from November, 2015 to December, 2015, Germany. In the past years, he has published extensively in the field of social policy, comparative welfare regimes, social work, NGOs and civil society. He is the editorial member of Asian Social Work and Policy Review (Wiley), Asian Education and Development Studies (Emerald) and the British Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (UK). He was the faculty of 483rd Salzburg Global Seminar on “ Economic Growth and Social Protection in Asia ” held in Austria during 7th-12th November, 2011.

Prof. Mark Frazier (India-China Institute, New School): "Urbanisation and Social Policy: Prospects for Social Citizenship in China"
2017-11-30 18:00 - 20:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.606, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:
As numerous commentators have pointed out, China is the first country in the world to experience an ageing population without first having reached developed country status. China is indeed ‘growing old before it grows rich,’ but the meanings and significance of this demographic event are not clear. A substantial body of scholarship, generally public policy-oriented to measure and propose solutions to China’s demographic challenge, has emerged since the mid-2000s, with some observers concluding that the ageing burden will impose an insurmountable obstacle to China’s continued economic growth. Many analysts also wonder what population ageing will mean for the fiscal conditions of the Chinese government, given the demands to be placed on a still fragmented, and seemingly fragile, public pension system. Yet, will be argued in this paper, the effects of population ageing will in large part depend on questions of citizenship. Inclusion and access to basic social protections—and, by implication, exclusion from them—are debated not only in China but also in most high-income countries, many of which are ageing. In both the former and the latter, pressures from population ageing would be lessened if those now treated in law and social policy as non-citizens were to be granted access to pension and other social welfare programs (notably, healthcare) that rely on mandatory contributions from citizens.

Prof. Hsiung Ping-chen (Chinese University of Hong Kong): "Discovering Childhood and Paediatrics in Chinese History: Further Considerations "
2017-11-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Theologicum, T0.136, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 2, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:

As a reflection on thirty plus years of research on childhood and paediatrics in Chinese history, this lecture intends to present further concerns after a systematic review, in three parts:
First, a retrospective on the why’s and how’s of studying children and childhood in history, the conceptual definition that the Chinese case had to start up with, the categorical materials for the investigation, the basic methodological questions to conduct the study with.
Second, an in depth re-examination of the physical conditions in the beginnings of life , and the role of traditional pedestrics in the Chinese and East Asian cultural linguistic world.
Third, further considerations are offered in way of world history, interdisciplinary childhood studies, and contemporary Chinese youth culture, in this ongoing journey.

Prof. Mayfair Yang (UC Santa Barbara): “Gendered Religiosity: Patriarchal Structures and Women’s Agency in China”
2017-11-16 18:00 - 20:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.602, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:
This lecture will examine how social structures of power, such as patriarchal power, depend on the vicissitudes of human agency to implement their principles, opening them up to subtle shifts and reconfigurations in social practice (Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu). Traditional religiosities, whether Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, or others, are often seen to produce conservative agents of patriarchy, in both men and women. Writing about the women’s Islamic piety movement in contemporary Egypt, Saba Mahmood has criticized the narrow definition of women’s agency put forth by liberal Western feminism. She suggests that women’s agency cannot be understood or defined in terms of oppositionality, critical discourse, or rebellious acts, but must also take into account the modesty, self-effacement, and self-sacrificing ethos of pious women. Here, I will examine the non-oppositional religious agency of pious women in rural and small-town Wenzhou. Two divinities in particular, the regional deity of Chinese popular religion, known as Goddess Chen the Fourteenth, and the Buddhist mother goddess Guan Yin, inspire these women’s religious agency. However, I depart from Mahmood, who almost closes herself off from feminist inquiry, by showing how local women have, through their self-sacrifice, religious leadership, and religious transcendence, carved out a public space and role for women. In the absence of feminism, and without directly confronting or resisting patriarchal power, women’s religious agency has made a social impact and brought changes in local society.
Short bio:
Mayfair Yang received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from UC Berkeley. She has been a faculty member in the Anthropology Department at UC Santa Barbara, and is now a Professor in Religious Studies Department and East Asian Studies Department there. Yang was Director of Asian Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia, and has been visiting scholar at the University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Harvard University, Academia Sinica in Taiwan, Beijing and Fudan Universities in China, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She is the author of Gifts, Favors, & Banquets: the Art of Social Relationships in China, and editor of Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernities & State Formation, andPlaces of Their Own: Women’s Public Sphere in Transnational China. Her forthcoming book: Re-enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy & Religious Civil Society in Wenzhou, China (Duke University Press). She is also working on a second, more theoretical book on Wenzhou religiosity and politics.

Prof. Reza Hasmath (Alberta): "Is Policy Innovation Possible Under the Xi Jinping Regime?"
2017-11-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Theologicum, T0.136, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 2, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:
Despite playing a key contributory role in China’s recent economic reforms and the Party’s regime durability, there has been a noted reduction in central-level policy experimentation under Xi Jinping’s administration. Recent studies have further noted an empirical reduction in policy innovation at the subnational level, and question whether local officials will continue to experiment in the foreseeable future.
This talk suggests that although these changes at the central-level are filtering down to local officials, a great deal of variation in policy experimentation exists. Thus, the puzzle motivating this talk is how do local officials filter these institutional changes to the extent of observed variations in local policy innovation?
Using recent fieldwork evidence, this talk presents three potential explanations: (1) the ineffectiveness of the vertical reward and punishment systems operated by the Party-state; (2) differing base preferences of local officials; and, (3) the presence of a cohort effect, viz. a communities of practice. While some officials are still conducting policy experimentation, the overall reduction in innovation strongly suggests that potential solutions to governance problems remain trapped at the local level, and that the central government will lose this “adaptable” governance mechanism that has contributed
to its past economic and political successes.

Dr. Armin Müller (Göttingen): "Social Policy in China: Retrospect and Prospect"
2017-11-01 18:00 - 20:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.609, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:
Since 1979, social protection in China has undergone fundamental institutional transformations. This presentation provides an overview of the state of the literature on social policy in the PRC, the institutional change which has characterized social protection in the reform period, and an outlook on future developments. Social protection under the planned economy was characterized by a division between urban and rural areas, decentralization, and companies functioning as enclosed mini-welfare states. In the course of economic reforms, urbanization, marketization and migration have generated substantial frictions with the institutional legacies of planned-economy social protection. The examples of health and pension insurance illustrate the pattern of institutional change that resulted from these frictions: a process of gradual functional integration. This process adapts social protection to marketization through the creation of insurance systems pooling risks between companies and households; it adapts previously separate urban and rural insurance systems to urbanization by integrating them; and it adapts insurance to migration by improving the portability of benefits from the decentralized and formally enclosed local insurance systems. Functional integration is also driving forward a dualization of social protection in China, with relatively generous benefits for people in regular, formal employment, and merely basic protection for the remainder of the population. While we enter the second term of the Xi administration, China’s social protection system keeps reproducing economic and political inequality rather than counter-balancing it. Current policy initiatives aim at attenuating inequalities related to employment status, locality, and the urban-rural divide. However, the potentially contentious nature of social redistribution raises questions regarding the degree to which these reforms can achieve their envisioned outcomes.

Picture: Pedro Szekely， Shanghai, China, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, https://flic.kr/p/YkeqME

Conference: Conceptions of the World in Twentieth-Century Chinese Historiography
2017-10-26 18:00 - 2017-10-27 19:00 | KWZ & Sternwarte, Göttingen
Over the course of the twentieth century, the constant writing and rewriting of history reflect aspects of the changing conceptions of the “world” in China. Through various lenses – including but not limited to nation-states, empires, races, civilizations, cultures, and classes – Chinese historians both creatively imagined global time and space and actively negotiated China’s position in it. This conference will posit new questions about the formation of Chinese worldviews by focusing on historiography as its primary field of inquiry. It will investigate a variety of ways in which Chinese historians constructed and deconstructed temporal and spatial concepts such as “Asian,” “Asiatic,” and “China.” In that manner, the workshop will also establish an exchange between the field of China studies and global and transregional studies. A cohort of leading scholars from China, North America, and Europe have already committed their participation in this event, and Professor Ge Zhaoguang from Fudan University will deliver a key speech during the event.
The conference is jointly hosted by the Göttingen Department of East Asian Studies, the Center for Modern East Asian Studies and the Academic Confucius Institute. Outside sponsors: Volkswagen Foundation and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Here you may find the whole conference program!

Prof Ge, Zhaoguang (Fudan University): “Global Elements in Traditional Chinese Historiography” (in Chinese, with English translation)
2017-10-26 18:00 - 20:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.60, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen

本年度第三次“汉语作为外语”专题工作坊 (3. Workshop „Fachdidaktik Chinesisch): 教学组织与管理 (Organisation und Management von Lehr- und Lernprozessen)
2017-10-14 10:00 - 17:00 | 地点: Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerzimmer (LULZ), Waldweg 26, Göttingen, 37073
Prof. Dr. XIN Ping (辛平教授)
Peking-Universität
北京大学
教学组织与管理
(Organisation und Management von Lehr-und Lernprozessen)
Der Workshop findet in chinesischer Sprache statt.
本次工作坊工作语言为中文。
Ein kostenloses Mittagessen wird angeboten. Aufgrund der begrenzten Teilnehmerzähl bitten wir um rechtzeitige Anmeldung bis spätestens 6. Oktober.
我们为每位正式报名参与工作坊的同行提供免费午餐。因座位有限, 请有意参 加培训的老师/同学尽快报名(报名截止日期：2017 年10 月6 日) 。
Anmeldung über / 报名方式: info@aki-goettingen.de!
Erfahren Sie mehr …

CFP: Manchu in Global History: A Research Language for Qing Historians
2017-09-19 08:00 - 2017-09-22 17:00 | Kulturwisssenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 1.601, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Organisers:
Julia C. Schneider (Department for East Asian Studies, University of Göttingen)
Katja Pessl (Centre for Modern East Asian Studies, University of Göttingen)
The deadline for submissions is April 4, 2017, full papers need to be provided by August 18, 2017. To submit an abstract, please email the organising committee at: cemeas@cemeas.uni-goettingen.de.
Continue reading

CeMEAS Podium: What is the Future of Made in China? Opportunities and Challenges for Europe
2017-07-17 14:00 - 18:00 | Emmy-Noether-Saal Tagungs- und Veranstaltungshaus Alte Mensa, Wilhelmsplatz 3, Göttingen, 37073
Introduction:
This half-day event will explore these issues in discussion with leading international scholars and government experts. A first roundtable will analyze the economic challenges and policy aims behind “Made in China 2025” and evaluate the prospects of this state-led approach to industrial upgrading. A second roundtable will focus on the opportunities and challenges for European economies by analyzing both the drivers and impact of outward Chinese investment in Europe as well as the new terrain of global competition in key sectors, including clean tech.
Program
2:00 pm Welcome
Hiltraud Casper-Hehne, Vice-President, University of Göttingen
Sarah Eaton, Centre for Modern East Asian Studies, Director
2:10 – 3:40 pm Made in China 2025: Context, Goals and Prospects
Sebastian Heilmann: Made in China 2025: What? Why? Will it Work?
Barry Naughton: China in Search of a New Growth Model
Victor Shih: Financing Mercantilism: China’s Quest to Dominate Global Trade
3:40-4:00 pm Coffee Break
4:00-5:30 pm Made in China 2025: Opportunities and Challenges for Europe
Doris Fischer: Fighting for the Lead: The Case of Green Tech
Thilo Hanemann: The Implications of Made in China 2025 for Europe: Investment Flows and M&A
Eric Thun: The Challenge of Upgrading and Innovation in Global Markets: A View from the Firm Level
5:30 pm Wrap-Up
If you are interested in the podium and want to paticipate, please write us an email by 3rd of July, 2017.
Contact: cemeas@uni-goettingen.de
Click here for more details.

Prof. WANG Hui (Tsinghua University): The Beginning of the Century: A Reconsideration on the 20th Century in Chinese/Global History
2017-07-12 18:00 - 20:00 | Adam-von-Trott-Saal, Alte Mensa am Wilhelmsplatz, Wilhelmsplatz 3, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:
At the beginning of the 20th century, the alien idea of century began to replace other traditional concepts of chronology in China and reshaped Chinese idea of time. Following the application of 20th century in Chinese context, other related concepts such as 19th century, 18th century and their sequence emerged as derivatives of 20th century. Before 1900, the concept of century had almost not been discussed in this sense in China and never used as the self-consciousness of our era. The notion of century is closely connected with the 20th century, its distinction from past eras being not just a simple temporal demarcation but an understanding of singular propensity of the time, which render the history of the
others into a history of one’s own, while situating it within history in toto for explanation and identification. This is the birth of global synchronicity in the history of China. How did intellectuals theorized the idea of 20th century? This talk will examine the birth of the notion of the 20th century in China from an intellectual history perspective and analyze its particular position in the history of China from the perspectives of time (history), space, self-identification, social ideals and etc.
Presenter:
Wang Hui is a Changjiang Scholar Professor in the Department of Chinese Literature and the Department of History, Tsinghua University, and is Director of the Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences. His recent publications include China’s Twentieth Century (London/New York, Verso, 2016), and China from Empire to Nation-State (two volumes) (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2014).

CeMEAS Lecture: Liberating the “oppressed nations”: Chinese communist networks and the Comintern in Southeast Asia, the Americas, and Europe, c. 1920s-1930s
2017-07-11 18:00 - 19:30 | Verfügungsgebäude VG 1.105, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
Anna Belogurova, CeMIS, Universität Göttingen
Abstract:
In the context of unprecedented circulation of people and ideas in the interwar global moment, Chinese communists built their overseas networks in the old empires and invented new nations. As they were making revolution both in and outside China, they aspired to liberate the world from imperialism and to save China. Their rationale was rooted both in long held ideas about China’s place in the world, as well as in new theories of political revolution which had originated outside China.
Different local contexts and transnational actors such as the Comintern, shaped the interaction of the Chinese networks with local nationalism and local anti-colonial movements. As the result, the historical roles of the Chinese networks in Americas, Europe, and the Southeast Asia were different.

CeMEAS Lecture Series: Air Pollution and the Public in China: Perspectives from Urban and Rural Areas
2017-07-04 18:00 - 19:30 | Verfügungsgebäude VG 2.104, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
Bryan Tilt, Oregon State University
Continue reading

Vortrag Prof. Kerry Brown (King’s College, London): „The Powers of Xi Jinping“
2017-06-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.606, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:
This year will see the 19th Party Congress. marking a moment of re-evaluation for the Communist Party policy and elite leadership. Under Xi since 2012 there has been what is claimed to have been a concentration of power within his hands. But how can we best understand this power, and what sense does it make to say that Xi is the new Mao of China? What is his political programme, and how does it relate to the organisation he is meant to be serving and leading to a sustainable future – the Communist Party of China.’
Presenter:
Kerry Brown is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London. His main interests are in the politics and society of modern China, in its international relations and its political economy. His monographs include `Struggling Giant: China in the 21st Century’ (London, June 2007 )and `Friends and Enemies: The Past, Present and Future of the Communist Party of China’ (London, 2009).

CeMEAS Lecture Series: Paper Tigers, Hidden Dragons: Firms and the Political Economy of China’s Technological Development
2017-06-27 18:00 - 19:30 | Verfügungsgebäude, VG 3.103, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
Doug Fuller, Zhejiang University
Continue reading

CeMEAS Lecture Series: Headlines are not the Main Story: Tracking Xi Jinping’s Economic Reforms
2017-06-19 18:00 - 19:30 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.602, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Christine Wong, University of Melbourne
Continue reading

Pun Ngai (University of Hongkong): Working in China
2017-06-14 11:15 - 15:00 | SOFI Göttingen, Friedländer Weg 31, Göttingen, 37085
If you are interested in it and want to participate, please contact Villarama, Jennifer per email (jennifer.villarama@sofi.uni-goettingen.de).

“Bhiksunī Chao-Hwei’s Buddhist Social Activism: From Solidarity with the Disadvantaged to Marriage Equality”
2017-06-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Verfügungsgebäude VG 1.104, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
Hsiao-Lan Hu, Ph.D.
(Associate Professor of Religious Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies University of Detroit Mercy)
Abstract:
On 24 May 2017, the Supreme Court in Taiwan ruled in favor of marriage equality, nearly five years after the much celebrated first Buddhist lesbian wedding officiated by Bhiksunī Chao-Hwei. She has officiated a few other same-sex weddings since that time. While the cultural significance of such same-sex weddings officiated by a Buddhist monastic is debatable since lay Buddhists typically do not turn to monks and nuns for weddings and since historically Buddhism has not been vehemently anti-homosexual as many other religions have, such ceremonies are nonetheless groundbreaking in opening up public discourses.
In the Chinese academic and Buddhist circles, Bhiksunī Chao-Hwei is the lone monastic-scholar-activist who develops systematic discourses on Buddhist ethical principles and actively applies them to social issues. She often condenses Buddhist ethics into three phrases: co-arising, protection of beings, and the middle way. Based on these principles, she engages in social activism defending various groups of sentient beings who are discriminated against and/or deprived of rights by the dominant groups, including LGBT persons. This lecture aims to examine her reasons for supporting marriage equality in the light of her overall understanding of Buddhist ethics, and to analyze the significance of her public discourse and social activism.

Vortrag Prof. Michael Schoenhals (Lund Univ., Sweden): „Are they reading our mail? – Postüberwachung in the early People’s Republic of China“
2017-06-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Verfügungsgebäude VG 2.101, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
On the basis of Chinese archival records, this presentation describes and critically assesses – including from a global, comparative perspective – covert postal inspection as conducted by state security organs in Mao Zedong’s China (1949–1976). According to an early classified directive, postal inspection and monitoring was to “pay attention to the imperialist countries as well as conduct spot checks of the domestic correspondence of targets.” What ensued in the technically primitive conditions prevailing was, for many years, a…
Continue reading

CeMEAS Lecture: The 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party
2017-06-06 18:00 - 19:30 | Verfügungsgebäude VG 2.104, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
The 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party: a Quantitative Assessment
Victor Shih, University of California San Diego
Abstract:
Two important questions that can be asked about the 19th Party Congress, scheduled to take place in the fall of 2017, include who will take over key positions at the top of the party hierarchy and whether Party Secretary General Xi Jinping can dominate the upper echelons of the Communist Party. Drawing from a quantitative biographical database of over 4000 Chinese political elite, I first attempt to present some theoretical and machine learning predictions about who will enter the Politburo in the fall of 2017. Then, using the same data, I assess whether Xi Jinping already dominates the Chinese Communist Party, or whether that is still a goal he needs to achieve in the fall congress.
About the lecturer:
Victor Shih is an associate professor of political economy and has published widely on the politics of Chinese banking policies, fiscal policies and exchange rates. He was the first analyst to identify the risk of massive local government debt, and is the author of “Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation.”
Prior to joining UC San Diego, Shih was a professor of political science at Northwestern University and former principal for The Carlyle Group.
Shih is currently engaged in a study of how the coalition-formation strategies of founding leaders had a profound impact on the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party. He is also constructing a large database on biographical information of elites in China.

International Conference: “Teaching and Assessing Chinese in Europe: Proficiency Expectations and Assessment Instruments”
2017-06-02 - 2017-06-03
Organizer:

Prof. Dr. Andreas Guder, Department of East Asian Studies, Göttingen und German Director of the Academic Confucius Institute at the Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen
Prof. Dr. Erwin Tschirner, Institute for Test Research and Test Development, Leipzig
Priv.-Doz. Dr. Olaf Bärenfänger, Institute for Test Research and Test Development, Leipzig

If you have any questions please contact Prof. Dr. Guder via email.
What levels of Chinese proficiency may be expected after so many years of secondary or tertiary education? How should proficiency be measured? Are all frameworks equal: HSK, the Common European Framework of Reference (CERF), the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012? What are the correspondences between these frameworks and how can they inform the development of Chinese curricula in Europe focused on success?
Continue reading

CeMEAS Lecture Series: Farmers, Market and Agricultural Policy in China
2017-05-30 18:00 - 19:30 | Verfügungsgebäude VG 3.103, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
Yu Xiaohua, University of Göttingen
Continue reading

Prof. XIAO Huafeng: “Cultural Imperialism and Americanization in China”
2017-05-17 18:00 - 20:00 | Verfügungsgebäude, VG 1.102, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
Along with the practice of the Reform and Open Policy in China in the 1980s, more and more Chinese have been much influenced by American way of life. Undeniably, as Michel Gueldry writes, China has imported capitalism but not democracy(2009). But I think that for the ordinary Chinese people to live an American way of life is more threatening to Chinese traditions than the official practice of American democracy. That is the power of American popular culture.
The lecture is divided into four parts: definition and experience of cultural Imperialism in world history; two implications of Americanization; phenomena of Americanization in China, and personal observations about Americanization.
Continue reading

Prof. Dr. Jinhua Chen: Market and Merit: Reconsidering the Monastic Financial and Banking system under the Rule of Emperor Liang Wudi (r. 502-549)
2017-05-17 16:00 - 18:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.609, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Scholars have made great strides to study the important role that Buddhism played in promoting economic, financial, and commercial activities in medieval China. There is, however, one limitation is in need of addressing: almost singular focus on the economic activities carried out within or in connection with the saṃgha, with little attention to the economic and financial context for some allegedly “pure” religious programs installed by Buddhists. This lecture endeavors to make some long overdue compensation for this unbalanced approach. First, it introduces the proto-banking institution known as wujinzang 無盡藏 (Inexhaustible Treasury), which was established during the reign of the Chinese Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty (i.e. Liang Wudi, r. 502-549), who modeled himself upon King Asoka. Then it traces its provenance back to some significant precedents and practices in India. Finally, I highlight several major impacts Liang Wudi’s wujinzang system appears to have wrought on its counterpart during the Sui-Tang period in China when, primarily because of the charismatic Buddhist monk Xinxing (540-594) and the leader of the Buddhist movement known as Sanjie jiao (The cult of Three Stages), the Inexhaustible Treasury shaped the institutional role of the Buddhist church in China for centuries.
Zur Person:
Jinhua Chen is a professor of East Asian Buddhism at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he has served since 2001 as the founding director of the UBC Buddhist Studies Forum. He is currently the director of the newly-awarded multi-year international and interdisciplinary Partnership project sponsored by SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) Project that aims at reconstructing several key aspects of East Asian religions through multi-media sources and interdisciplinary perspectives, based at UBC (www.frogbear.org). His numerous publications cover different parts of Eats Asian Buddhism, such as state-church relationships, monastic (hagio/)biographical literature, Buddhist sacred sites, relic veneration, Buddhism and technological innovation in medieval China, Buddhist translations, and manuscript culture.

Prof. XU Guoqi (Hong Kong University): „Chinese and Americans: A Shared History“
2017-05-15 18:00 - 20:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.602, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
In this talk, Professor Xu Guoqi will discuss the shared visions, experiences, journeys, and frustrations Chinese and Americans have had with each other from the mid-19th century to the present. Professor Xu will
Continue reading

2. Workshop „Fachdidaktik Chinesisch“: „Grundlagen und Didaktik der chinesischen Schrift “ 汉字基础及汉字教学, Dr. Haiying Zhang (张海英) Beijing Foreign Studies University / Georg-August-Universität Göttingen 北京外国语大学 / 哥廷根大学
2017-05-13 10:00 - 17:00 | Tagungszentrum an der Sternwarte, Geismar Landstraße 11, Göttingen, 37083
Das Akademische Konfuzius-Institut Göttingen lädt am 13. Mai 2017 zu seinem 2. Workshop „Fachdidaktik Chinesisch“ ein: 哥廷根大学学术孔子学院诚挚邀请您参加 本年度第二次“汉语作为外语”专题工作坊 Dr. Haiying Zhang (张海英) Beijing Foreign Studies University / Georg-August-Universität Göttingen 北京外国语大学 / 哥廷根大学 „Grundlagen und Didaktik der chinesischen Schrift “ 汉字基础及汉字教学
Continue reading

Thomas H.C. Lee (Prof. emeritus, National Tsing-hua University, Taiwan): Archery Ranges in the Educational Tradition of Confucian Academies in China
2017-05-09 16:00 - 18:00 | Verfügungungsgebäude, VG 4.104, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
It is almost impossible to imagine that archery range was an integral part of Chinese academy compound, and supposedly a part of its Confucian education. It is true that in Confucius’ classical teaching, archery was a part of the so-called “six arts” that constituted the education of a gentleman, but that its becoming a part of school’s civil curriculum appeared quite late, only in the Song times. Before that, archery was taught only in military camps, and at most a part of civil rituals, taking place mainly for ceremonial purposes, such as “village libation ceremonies”.
Systematic and wholesale rethinking on the purpose and curriculum of education in the 11th to 13th centuries, during which both government and privately or family organized schools began to appear in large numbers, led to significant consequences: the debates on the relationship of schools and the imperial examination system that was also rising in importance; the rise and intensified activity of the so-called “private” academies resulted in a rethinking on how Confucian ideals could be implemented both within and without the public/government educational sphere.
This re-emergence of Confucian thinking resulted in the idea of “Confucian-military commanders”, in that civil officials were expected to involve themselves in military policing and even defensive activities, and that military officials should receive sufficient Confucian education to enable them to help realizing Confucian ideals of a stable and harmonious civil order. Several famous Song thinkers were singled out as quintessential “Confucian generals” – Han Qi, Fan Zhongyan, etc. It grew into a tradition in that many thinkers in later times were also praised of their military commandership. Actually, the conception was not new, but it became a widely embraced conception in the Song times, and it was at this time that “archery ranges” (shepu 射圃) first appeared notably in school compounds. The academies also gradually caught up.
Although there is no evidence that Song academies already had archery ranges, the practice had definitely begun to appear in various school compounds or government offices. Obviously, this reflected at least a preliminary or fledgling realization again of archery as education or rite.
By the Mongol Yuan times, the building of archery ranges had become widespread, and references to academies with archery ranges began to appear in the early Ming. By the mid-Ming times, the academies were almost uniformly equipped with them. Leading scholars such as Wang Yangming, Li Dongyang, Xue Yingqi, and others all wrote essays extolling their importance and even expounded on their educational values, advocating their construction.
Archery ranges continued to be built in academies, especially after the academies had become largely an integral part of government schools and a preparatory ground of the imperial examinations.
The rise of archery ranges in Chinese academy education contributed not in the growth of academies as a ground realizing the ideal of complete education, for the upbringing of l’uomo universal (Vittorino da Feltre). Instead it quite struggled to help cement a society of uniformity, orderly managed according to moral ideologies. Indeed, its perpetuation depended ironically on its function as a ground where members of government schools (of which many academies had evolved into) gathered for ritualistic performances and, perhaps even more often, to listen to imperial decrees and prescripts. The existence and continuation of the ranges thus reflected perfectly the Chinese penchant for “squares” – the Chinese peculiar equivalent of “public spaces”.

CeMEAS Lecture Series: China’s Road Towards Sustainability: Democracy or authoritarianism
2017-05-09 14:00 - 16:00 | Theologicum, T0.136, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 2, Göttingen, 37073
Arthur Mol, Wageningen University
Continue reading
