Chinese Studies

Lecture: Prof. Li Xuetao (Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU)): „Examples of research methods in the history of German Sinology / 德国汉学史研究方法举隅.“
2023-07-17 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.608
The lecture will be in Chinese.
Prof. Li is an expert among other topics on the history of Western China Studies and will address recent central questions of the development of China Studies in the West applying a global history perspective.
Abstract:
德国汉学从一开始就不局限于某一领域，今天对它的历史梳理，也必然是在历史学、语文学、人类学、自然科学等其他学科的理论和方法的参与下进行，这同时也体现了德国汉学史研究的活力和多样性。李雪涛教授以德国汉学史为例，指出近年来汉学史研究的范式，已经从之前的“内部论”（internalist）或“谱系式”（genealogical）的历史思考方式，转变为了将汉学研究的现象、事件与进程置于“全球脉络”中予以分析，从而形成了一种真正的跨文化全球史研究。

Lecture: Ying Zhou (Xiamen University): Education and democracy in modern China
2023-07-14 16:00 - 18:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.602, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:
Institutional change in education and the cultivation of a qualified citizenry were two sides of the same coin of developing democratic education in modern China. At stake is to understand how democratic education filled a critical role in bridging the gap between democratic ideals and political realities. This lecture will focus on teachings of citizenship and democracy in Chinese primary and secondary schools between 1923-1936 for the purpose of strengthening embryonic democratic politics by creating qualified citizens, and seek to shed some light on the complex intertwinement of educational and political reforms in modern China.
Short biography:
Ying Zhou is an assistant professor at the Institute of Education, Xiamen University, China. She obtained her PhD at the University of Groningen (NL), trained in both Educational Studies and Sinology. Her PhD dissertation is entitled Education and Politics in China: Civic Education in Times of Reform, 1901-1937, and her current research project is concerned with pragmatism and progressive education in China and Japan.

Lecture: Dr. Sally Chengji Xing (MPI Berlin) & Lucas Brang (Cologne): Transnational Knowledge Transfers Between China, Europe, and the United States: Actors, Institutions, and Dynamics, 1924-1935
2023-07-13 18:15 - 19:45 | Verfügungsgebäude (VG) 2.103, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
13. July (Thursday), 18:15 – 19:45
VG 2.103
Overview:
The two talks of this joint session interrogate processes of knowledge transfer between China, the United States, and Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. Focusing on two distinct organizations– the China Foundation (based in Shanghai and New York) and the League of Nations (based in Geneva) – both talks shed new light on the transnational entanglements of the Republican period in China, and demonstrate how foreign efforts to influence China often met with domestic resistance.
Bios:
Sally Chengji Xing is a visiting fellow of the Max Planck Institute of History of Science in Berlin (Lise Meitner Research Group, “China in the Global System of Science,” MPIWG) and the Joint Center for Advanced Studies “Worldmaking from Global Perspectives: a Dialogue with China;” she is also an incoming associate professor of US history at Nankai University. She is interested in writing US history from transnational and global perspectives. Her book manuscript in progress, “Pacific Crossings”: The China Foundation and a Negotiated Translation of American Science to China, 1913-1949″, examines how and to what extent did the American intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century influence the development of Chinese science. Her multi-archival research in China and the United States has been funded by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Rockefeller Archive Center, the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine and numerous other graduate research fellowships at Columbia University in the City of New York. Her long-term research explores Sino-American intellectual history in transnational approaches, from early 20th century all the way to the late 1960s.
Lucas Brang is a PhD candidate at the University of Cologne, where he is currently completing his dissertation on the rise of the discipline of international law in early twentieth century China. From 2019 to 2022, he was a recipient of a Marie Curie global research fellowship of the European Union, as part of which he was affiliated with the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Lucas’ research interests include China’s constitutional development and visions of international order in historical and comparative perspective. In his work, he employs approaches from different disciplinary traditions such as legal theory, conceptual history, and the sociology of knowledge. His research has appeared in journals like Global Constitutionalism, Modern China, and the International Journal of Constitutional Law.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Yuhang Li (University of Wisconsin-Madison): Engineering Religious Bliss at the Qing Court: Jile shijie in the Beihai Park
2023-07-12 14:00 - 16:00 | Verfügungsgebäude (VG) 2.103, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:
In 1770, with the purpose of presenting an unusual gift to his mother Empress Dowager Chongqing (1692-1777) for her eightieth birthday, Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) ordered the imperial architectural department to construct a Buddhist compound named jile shijie or World of Utmost Pleasure on the northern shore of imperial Beihai Park next to the Forbidden City. Inside of the main hall, instead of conventional Buddhist icons staged on the lotus pedestals, an innovative three-dimensional clay mountain site scenery adorned with various deities from the Pure Land occupies the interior space. Jile shijie, a synonym for the Western Paradise and Pure Land, has been consistently visualized and contemplated since early medieval China. But the jile shijie built for Empress Dowager Chongqing is a standalone case which creates the experience of religious joy through a site scenery. The Pure Land is usually experienced as a future connected to death, which one literally cannot experience as present. However, Qianlong’s filial gift allows his mother to feel the required affect in this world, by juxtaposing transcendence and immanence. The absolute future of the Pure Land, a future that one experiences only after one has no more future on earth, becomes present at least in part, in a man-made small-scale western paradise. In this paper, I will discuss the surviving architecture, sculptural mountain preserved in old photographs, imperial documents on the design process, and Qianlong’s own writings on the given subject. Through unpacking the layers of this site, I will demonstrate how a liminal temporality of religious joy is materialized.

Lecture: Viren Murthy "Hegelian Master Narratives and Periodizing Japanese and Chinese Modernity"
2023-07-11 16:00 - 18:00 | Oeconomicum OEC 0.168
Abstract:
Scholars of Asian studies have something of a love-hate relationship with Hegel; they love to cite him as the epitome of Eurocentrism, modernization theory and the legitimation of colonialism. Despite their prevalence, such criticisms overlook both the complexities of Hegel’s philosophy and the different ways in which Asian intellectuals attempted to turn Hegel on his head or rescue the rational kernel of his thought in a non-Western context. I contend that for much of the twentieth century, especially in Japan, but also in China, scholars engaged Hegel by incorporating and transforming his ideas. Such incorporations enabled us to see that Hegel was not merely a theorist of modernization but one of its most incisive critics. Indeed, it was precisely because of Hegel’s critique of capitalist modernity that conservatives such as Inoue Tetsujirō found him interesting. In this presentation, I will examine three attempts to rethink Hegel, respectively by the pan-Asianist, Okakura Tenshin, the Kyoto school philosopher of world-history, Koyama Iwao and the Japanese sinologist, Mizoguchi Yūzō. I argue that each of these thinkers narrates the history of Asia, while implicitly or explicitly responding to Hegel’s idea of the Orient as not having subjectivity. Against this static vision of Asia, these figures reconfigure the historical trajectories of Japan, China and the world to reconfigure both universality and subjectivity beyond Eurocentrism. Towards the end of my talk, I suggest that the contemporary “new leftist” intellectual Wang Hui, continues elements of the various thinkers mentioned above. The contemporary rise of China makes such responses to Hegelian master narratives especially relevant for our contradictory present.

Lecture: PENG Guoxiang "Confucius as a Cosmopolitan: Thought and Practice"
2023-07-07 14:00 - 16:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.601
Abstract:
Based on the Analects and other texts related to Confucius in classical period and taken “cosmopolitanism,” a concept with long history in the Western tradition as a counterpart for comparison, this talk aims to probe the thought and practice of Confucius as a cosmopolitan and point out the feature and significance of the Confucian “rooted cosmopolitanism” revealed in the thought and practice of Confucius. The rooted cosmopolitanism embodied by Confucius not only has the basic characteristics of all versions of cosmopolitanism, namely, going beyond the territory and ethnicity, but also keeps a dynamic balance between the one and the many, which is usually ignored by the radical cosmopolitanism. Last, a brief comparison between Confucian rooted cosmopolitanism and the rooted cosmopolitanism advocated by Appiah would be made.

Lecture: Dr. Fan Xin (Cambridge University): Before China Studies: Private Foundations and Cold War Politics in Colonial Hong Kong
2023-07-06 18:15 - 19:45 | Verfügungsgebäude (VG) 2.103, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
6. July (Thursday), 18:15 – 19:45
VG 2.103
Abstract:
The founding of the University Service Centre in Hong Kong in 1963 was a significant event in the development of China studies. Thanks to the city’s adjacency to mainland China and the Carnegie Corporation’s funding support, the Centre since its very beginning has become the “go-to” place for aspiring researchers to obtain first-hand information to study contemporary China. Yet in what way did U.S. government, private foundations, and the British Colonial government collaborate on founding this important institution? This is the central question of this talk. By using American and British archives, I will investigate the complicated relationship between state and society in the production of China-related knowledge in the Cold War era.
Bio:
Dr Xin Fan is Teaching Associate in Modern Chinese History at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, and he is also a fellow at Lucy Cavendish College of the university. Prior to the move to the UK, he was a tenured associate professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia. As a historian of twentieth-century China, he is the author of World History and National Identity in China: The Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and the second editor of Receptions of Greek and Roman Antiquity in East Asia (Brill, 2018). He also serves as book review editor for China and Asia: A Journal in Historical Studies. He is currently working on a book project tentatively titled, “The Right to Talk about China: The Rise of Emotions of Politics, 1900s–1949.” He is collaborating with Kristin Stapleton and Els van Dongen on editing “The SAGE Handbook of Interpreting Chinese History.” In addition, he is writing about nationalism, historiography, and the history of concepts.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Lecture: Prof. He Weihua (Central China Normal University): The Wandering Earth and China’s Construction of an Alternative Cosmopolitanism
2023-06-29 18:15 - 19:45 | Verfügungsgebäude (VG) 2.103, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
22. June (Thursday), 18:15 – 19:45
VG 2.103
Abstract:
As an epoch-making event in the history of the Chinese sci-fi film industry, The Wandering Earth boasts the extraordinary acting skills of cinema superstars and fabulous special effects. Instead of providing a description of the technical issues surrounding the film’s production, this paper looks at the film as a cultural expression and dramatization of China’s reconceptualization of the notion of cosmopolitanism. After scrutinizing tianxia, which is generally taken to refer to classical Chinese cosmopolitanism, this paper goes on to describe its experiential dimension, its techno-socio-economic foundation, and its cosmopolitan solidarity as shown in the film. Finally, after analyzing the ethical dimension of the cosmopolitan community, which is embodied in the idea of “home” in the film, the paper concludes by proposing a cosmopolitanism of ethicality.

Speaker:
Weihua He is currently Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Central China Normal University. He is also the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Language and Literature Research and the Secretary General of the International Ethnic Literature Commission of (China) Association for Comparative Studies of Languages and Cultures. His research interests include comparative literature, literary theory, and the modern transformation of China. He has published extensively in journals such as European Review, Journal of Modern Literature, Comparative Literature Studies, Neohelicon and Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Global China Conversations #22 Deutsche Forschungskooperationen: Wissen Schaffen für oder mit China?
2023-06-29 11:00 - 12:00
For more information please click here.

Workshop on New Civilizationisms (China-related speakers: Wang Hui, Rebecca Karl, Mohammed Alsudairi)
2023-06-26 14:00 - 19:15 | Historical Observatory, Geismar Landstr. 11, Göttingen
On Monday, June 26th (2.00 pm – 7.15 pm), we will have an international workshop on New Civilizationisms. The program is attached and listed below. If you wish to attend, you need to register by Friday, June 23rd: https://forms.gle/wAPRRjLxWXqvQdt89
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HISTORICAL MEMORY AS AN ACT OF WORLDMAKING:
Contextualizing New Civilizationalisms in the 21st Century
June 26, 2023, 14:00-19:30
Historical Observatory, Geismar Landstr. 11, Göttingen
Organizers: Srirupa Roy and Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen
CeMIS & OAS, University of Göttingen
Merian-Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies (ICAS:MP)
BMBF “Worldmaking-China” Initiative
Schedule:
Welcome and Introduction
14:00-15:00 Wang Hui, Tsinghua University
“If This is a Comeback, When was the Beginning? Some Thoughts on the Return of Civilizational Discourse”
15:15-16:15 Thomas Blom Hansen, Stanford University
“The River Beneath: Antiquity, Alterity, and the ‘Indic Present’ in Indian Nationalism”
16:30-19:15 Roundtable: “Contextualizing New Civilizationalisms”

Mohammed Turki Al-Sudairi, Humboldt Fellow, University of Göttingen
Matthew Blackburn, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Rebecca Karl, New York University
In conversation with Srirupa Roy and Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

19:15: Reception

Vortrag: Prof. Dr. Hans Peter Hoffmann (Universität Mainz): Vom Dichter zum Zeugen - Der Schriftsteller und Dissident Liao Yiwu
2023-06-21 18:00 - 20:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.602, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Mittwoch, den 21. Juni 2023, 18 h c.t.
KWZ 0.602
Abstract:
Der Nachwuchslyriker Liao Yiwu kam nach dem 4. Juni 1989 wegen zweier Gedichte für vier Jahre ins Gefängnis, wo er sich vom Dichter zum (Zeit)Zeugen wandelte. Danach beruflich in Schwierigkeiten, begann er, in hunderten von Interviews den Außenseitern der VR-chinesischen Gesellschaft, unter ihnen die vergessenen Opfer früherer Kampagnen sowie der Öffnungspolitik, eine Stimme zu geben und ein Bild der Gesellschaft von unten zu zeichnen. Gleichzeitig hielt er in autobiographischen Werken seine Erfahrungen in und nach der Haft und bei seinen mehrfachen Fluchtversuchen fest. Zuletzt legte er mit Wuhan einen Dokumentarroman über die Corona-Pandemie in China vor. Bei all dem hat Liao Yiwu doch nie aufgehört, ein Dichter zu sein. So stellt dieser Vortrag auch die Frage nach der Beziehung von Dichtertum und Zeugenschaft.
Short bio:
Prof. Dr. Hans Peter Hoffmann ist einer der profiliertesten literarischen Übersetzer aus dem Chinesischen in Deutschland. Er leitet zurzeit den Arbeitsbereich Chinesisch am Fachbereich Translations-, Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft der Universität Mainz in Germersheim. Dort lehrt und forscht er zur chinesischen Literatur und Kultur und unterrichtet literarisches Übersetzen. Hier wie in seiner weiter geführten übersetzerischen Tätigkeit beschäftigt er sich mit Texten verschiedener Genres, Autor:innen unterschiedlichster Hintergründe und mitunter weit auseinander liegenden Thematiken.

Prof. Edward Qingjia Wang (Rowan University): Changing Perceptions of World Order in Chinese Historiography: Three Phases of Development
2023-06-08 18:15 - 19:45 | Verfügungsgebäude (VG) 2.103, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
8. June (Thursday), 18:15 – 19:45
VG 2.103
Abstract:
“Changing Perceptions of World Order in Chinese Historiography: Three Phases of Development”: This talk takes a longue-durée perspective to examine and analyze the modern Chinese conception of the world from the middle of the 19th century to the present. This perception has changed significantly over the course of this period, which is reflected in the ups and downs of world/global history as a subfield of history. Foreign histories are commonly referred to as “world history” in the Chinese historical community; the term’s invention in the 19th century was a sign of a shifting worldview. The term “world history” has been increasingly been replaced by the term “global history” starting from the late 1990s, which suggests yet another significant shift in how the Chinese leadership and historians view the world.
Speaker:
Q. Edward Wang, a specialist in Chinese history and global historiography, received his education partly in China and partly in the US. He is now Eminent Professor of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey. He is also editor of Chinese Studies in History, a journal that promotes academic exchanges between historical communities in greater China and the rest of the world. Wang’s main publications include Historiography: Critical Readings (2021 in 4 volumes); A Global History of Modern Historiography (2008 and 2017); Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History (2015), and Inventing China through History: The May Fourth Approach to Historiography (2001). Some of the above titles have appeared in Chinese, Korean, German, Greek, Japanese, and Russian.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Andrew Cainey (UK National Committee on China): Xiconomics, Dual Circulation Strategy and Western Business
2023-06-05 17:15 - 18:45 | Zentrales Hörsaalgebäude, ZHG 003, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 5, Göttingen, 37073
5. June, 17:15 – 18:45
ZHG 003
Abstract:
In Xi Jinping’s China, national security, ideology and the political priorities of the Communist Party now play a much larger role in shaping China’s economic and business environment. The context is more politicized, more uncertain. China’s state media call this ‘Xiconomics’. Xi’s Dual Circulation Strategy marks out clear dividing lines between China’s domestic economy and the rest of the world. It sets out how China seeks to manage the interactions between the two. And it does so just as Western countries focus too on decoupling, ‘friendshoring’ and technology competition. In order to succeed, Western business needs to understand these new dynamics. Simply declaring them ‘too political’ no longer works. As a result, companies are reconsidering and revising their China strategy – driven by changes both in China and at home. How far can ‘ambidexterity’ in operations go? What are companies doing to maintain connectivity and build resilience and agility? And what comes next from geopolitics – is this all just getting started?
Speaker:
Having first visited China in 1981, Andrew Cainey has lived and worked for most of the past twenty-five years in China, Korea and Singapore advising businesses and governments. He now lives in London and works on the impact of geopolitics on business, with a particular focus on China and is the co-author of Xiconomics: What China’s Dual Circulation Strategy Means for Global Business.
Mr Cainey is a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, the world’s oldest security and defense think tank, and a founding director of the UK National Committee on China. He was previously China managing partner for Booz & Company; the head of the Rt Hon Tony Blair’s Asian government advisory practice; the head of Boston Consulting Group’s Asian financial institutions practice; and a project leader in BCG Germany. Andrew has also had roles with Chatham House and think tanks in Hong Kong and Shanghai. He has a First Class MA (Hons) in Economics from the University of Cambridge and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School; he speaks Chinese and German.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Lecture: Dr. Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann (CNRS-EHESS Paris): Hybrid Maps: Reformatting the Chinese Imperial Realm According to 19th-Century Western Cartography
2023-06-01 18:15 - 19:45 | Verfügungsgebäude, VG 2.103
1. June, 18:15 – 19:45
VG 2.103
Abstract:
The definition of “The Great Qing Everlasting Unified” was frequently used in titles of general maps of the imperial realm in the beginning of the 19th century. It formally distinguishes one of the most widely known and impressive group of Chinese maps, the so-called Blue Maps and their multi-coloured congeners. This series of large format wall maps is representative of the late imperial phase of the development of the traditional Chinese cartography. Göttingen State and University Library possesses a unique surviving copy of a hand-coloured map of this kund. The map is signed by Li Mingche (1751-1832), a Taoist master and a recognised Chinese astronomer and cartographer, who was propagating Western science in China. The proposed presentation analyzes how Li Mingche tried to reformat traditional Chinese representation of the realm of the Qing empire according to the standards of modern Western cartography and evaluate the outcome of this attempt from the point of view of Chinese and the Western cartographic traditions.
Speaker:
Dr. Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann studies historical Chinese conceptions of terrestrial space and their continuous influence on Chinese cartography. Since 2000 she is a Chargé de Recherche at the CNRS (France), and in 2017-2023 was recurrently a Visiting Scholar of the Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (Germany). Her latest publications cover a large scope of text-map relationships, including translation of text into maps.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Lecture: Prof. Malachi Hacohen (Duke University): Antisemitism(s) – Local to Global
2023-05-25 18:15 - 19:45 | Verfügungsgebäude, VG 2.103
25. May, 18:15 – 19:45
VG 2.103
Abstract:
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Antisemitism occupies a unique place among minority hatreds, weighing on historians’ conscience and challenging historical faculties. The variety, local contexts, and divergent character of antisemitism present a major challenge for historical explanation Yet, as globalization progresses, there is a convergence toward a global antisemitic discourse, crossing continents from Europe to Asia to the Americas. The lecture will seek to demystify antisemitism by projecting it against the growth of an ever changing Jewish Diaspora and provide a framework for understanding its transformation from local and diverse antisemitism to a more uniform global discourse.
Speaker:
Malachi Haim Hacohen is Professor of History, Jewish Studies and Religion at Duke University, and Director of the Religions and Public Life Program. His research interests focus on Central Europe and include social theory, political philosophy, and rabbinic culture. His Karl Popper – The Formative Years, 1902-1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna (Cambridge, 2000) won the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize of the AHA and Austria’s Victor Adler State Prize. His Jacob & Esau: Jewish European History Between Nation and Empire (Cambridge, 2019) won the Center for Austrian Studies’ Biannual Book Prize. He has published on the European Jewish intelligentsia, Cold War liberalism, and cosmopolitanism and Jewish identity in leading professional journals. He was a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, and the IFK in Vienna. He is presently Leibniz Professor in Leipzig for Summer 2023.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Vortrag Dr. Marc Hermann (Universität Bonn): "Marsianer und Mutanten: Chinesische Science-Fiction erobert den Planeten"
2023-05-24 16:00 - 18:00 | Verfügungsgebäude, VG 1.103
Abstract:
Der weltweite Erfolg von LIU Cixins Trisolaris-Trilogie hat der chinesischen Science-Fiction internationale Aufmerksamkeit beschert. Neben LIU als Galionsfigur haben sich auch jüngere Autoren wie CHEN Qiufan oder HAO Jingfang einen Namen gemacht. Was steckt hinter diesem Erfolg? Wie „chinesisch“ ist die chinesische Science-Fiction? Und welche unterschied-lichen Strömungen weist sie auf?
Short bio:
Dr. Marc Hermann ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter an der Abteilung für Sinologie der Universität Bonn und gehört zu den aktivsten Übersetzern chinesischer Literatur in Deutschland. In den letzten Jahren hat er schwerpunktmäßig chinesische Science-Fiction übersetzt – von Altmeistern wie LIU Cixin und WANG Jinkang bis hin zu Nachwuchsstars wie CHEN Qiufan und HAO Jingfang.

Dr. Hu Nan, Fudan University: Towards an Anticolonial Asian Cinema: the 1957 Asian Film Week and China’s Imagination of Asia
2023-05-11 18:15 - 19:45 | Verfügungsgebäude (VG) 2.103, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
11. May, 18:15 – 19:45
VG 2.103
Abstract:
This talk traces the forgotten history of the Asian Film Week held by and in China in 1957. It engages with two recent discussions of cultural politics in the Cold War era. First, there is a growing interest in Sino-Asian cultural relations in the 1950s and 1960s, but scholars have not focused attention on film festivals, which was a very important element of cultural diplomacy during the Cold War. Second, studies on film festivals among Asian countries in this period highlight events sponsored by either the U. S. or the Soviet Union, leaving the efforts and experiments of cinematic practices beyond the superpowers understudied. Drawing on a variety of sources including contemporary newspapers, magazines, festival brochures, local film gazetteers, government documents, and the films shown at the 1957 Asian Film Week, this talk demonstrates that film festival was a crucial part of China’s inter-Asian cultural diplomacy in the Bandung age and that the postcolonial Asian countries played an active role in defining “Asian cinema” and “Asianness” alternative to the superpowers’ imagination. Not only did the Film Week build an inter-Asian cinematic network beyond the Cold War divide to improve China’s diplomatic relations with many Asian countries, but it also sought to unite Asian filmmakers with anticolonial aesthetics and agenda, which challenged the cinema-as-entertainment model previously entrenched in other inter-Asian cinematic networks. This talk will also discuss the enduring influence of the Asian Film Week as an important event in the history of world cinema, including its connections with the Afro-Asian Film Festival (1958-1964) and the Third Cinema movement.
Bio:
Nan Hu is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Fudan University, Shanghai. She earned her Ph. D. in Chinese and Comparative Literature in 2021 at Washington University in St. Louis, where she completed a dissertation entitled “In Other Voices: Dubbing Foreign Films in Maoist China (1949-1976).” Her current research projects explore the idea of inter-Asian solidarity among Chinese intellectuals around the 1960s, and the ways zoos have reconfigured the human-animal relationship vis-à-vis the Chinese projects of nation-building, modernity, and revolution. Her studies have been funded by the McDonnell International Scholars Academy, the Center for the Humanities at Washington University, Ministry of Education (Taiwan), and China Postdoctoral International Exchange Program, among others.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Prof. Selcuk Esenbel (Bogazici Univ. Istanbul): Legal Transformation, Contemporary Civilization, and Sovereignty: Global Perspectives on the Quest for Modernity in Japan, China, and Turkey
2023-05-09 16:15 - 17:45 | Verfügungsgebäude (VG) 0.110
9. May (Tuesday), 16:15 – 17:45
VG 0.110
Abstract:
The paper discusses some key experiences of Japan, Turkey, and China during the nineteenth century, but primarily focuses on a comparative discussion of Japan and Turkey for the twentieth century and possibly the early years of the new millennium. It will offer reflections particularly on the conjuncture that was related to the adoption of European codes and constitutionalism, coupled with the larger aim of catching up with contemporary civilization and regaining sovereignty. Despite the fact that the perception of the West throughout this long history kept shifting between a friend or foe, the West has remained to be the “Un-forgettable Other.”
Speaker:
Dr. Selçuk Esenbel is Professor em. of History at Boğaziçi University, and the Director of the Asian Studies Center at the same institution. After studying at International Christian University Tokyo and George Washington University, she obtained her Ph.D. in Japanese history from the Columbia University. Since 1982, she has been teaching Japanese and Asian history at Boğaziçi University, where she is also in charge of the Asian Studies Center, Asian studies graduate program and Asian language courses. Esenbel has published many articles in various professional journals as well as a number of books on history of Asia with particular focus on Japanese history. Her research interests cover Japan and the world of Islam, Japanese pan-Asianism, modernization in Japan and Ottoman Turkey, peasant uprisings in Meiji Japan, and Japanese-Ottoman/Turkish relations. Esenbel is the recipient of various awards, like the Order of the Rising Sun, Japan Foundation Special Prize for Japanese Studies, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs special award for the promotion of Japanese-Turkish academic relations, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation George Forster research award.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Prof. Ho Wai Yip, Exeter University: Two Tales of the City: Conflicting Narratives on Hong Kong
2023-05-04 18:15 - 19:45 | Verfügungsgebäude (VG) 2.103, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073
4. May, 18:15 – 19:45
VG 2.103
Abstract:
As always, there are conflicting narratives on Hong Kong’s history from the British colonial period to the present comprehensive rule of the People’s Republic of China. In the early transition from British to Chinese rule in early 2000s, there were two contradictory views in explaining the economic success of the colonial Hong Kong, namely the nationalistic narrative – ‘Hong Kong has been part of Chinese territory since ancient times’ and the colonial narrative – ‘Hong Kong as a barren-rock-turned capitalist-paradise by benevolent rule’. In the present day of China’s Hong Kong, the debate continues with two opposing narratives. It involves the official campaign of telling the world the ‘good story’ of Hong Kong following ‘the new stage of transition from chaos to order’, which is to combat the ‘bad story’ of distorted anti-China prejudice. According to renowned literary educators, ‘telling the story of Hong Kong is so difficult’ (Leung Ping-kwan’s words) and ‘the personality and life of Hong Kong are blurred and obscured’ (Lo Wai-luen’s words), this presentation inquires the ambiguities of Hong Kong stories and the society has been navigating under superpowers in history.
Speaker:
Wai-Yip Ho is currently the Honorary Research Fellow, Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies, University of Exeter; Correspondent Member, Nantes Institute for Advanced Studies. He is the author of Islam and China’s Hong Kong: Ethnic Identity, Muslim Networks and the new Silk Road (Routledge: London, 2015, paperback). He held several research fellowship and research appointments, including the François Chevalier Fellow (2021-2022), Madrid Institute for Advanced Study (MIAS); Sir Edward Youde Fellow; Visiting Scholar at Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies at Oxford as well as Endeavour Research Fellow at Australian National University etc. His research interests include Islamic Studies, China’s Christian-Muslim relations, New Media and China’s Islam, etc.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Vortrag: Dr. phil. Volker Klöpsch "Jadeschleifer, Verseschmied Das Handwerk der Dichtung im Lichte der chinesischen Literaturkritik"
2023-05-03 18:00 - 20:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.602, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Dichtung ist ein universales Phänomen. Doch entsteht sie überall unter ähnlichen Voraussetzungen? Ein genauerer Blick zeigt, dass Dichten vielfach als ein gewöhnliches Handwerk verstanden wird. Darauf verweisen Begriffe wie Verseschmied oder Jadeschleifer, Vers oder Text. Der Vortrag untersucht an einer Reihe von Beispielen, wie im Alten China ein Gedicht entstand, welche Funktion sein Verfasser in Gesellschaft und Politik einnahm und wie seine Verse bewertet wurden. Aus der Betonung handwerklichen Könnens ergibt sich auch die Frage nach der Erlernbarkeit des Dichtens.
Zeigen wird sich, dass die chinesische Poetik des Altertums Gemeinsamkeiten mit Vorstellungen des europäischen Mittelalters aufweist, aber möglicherweise Leser enttäuscht, die an Goethe und Hölderlin geschult sind.
Volker Klöpsch (geb. 1948) studierte Germanistik, Anglistik, Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft und Sinologie auf verschiedenen Kontinenten. Er lehrte in Taipeh, Bochum und Köln, legte zahlreiche Übersetzungen von Lyrik und Prosa aus verschiedenen Epochen der chinesischen Literatur vor, gab mit Eva Müller das Lexikon der chinesischen Literatur (München 2004) heraus und ist Begründer und langjähriger Mitherausgeber der Hefte für ostasiatische Literatur.

线上讲座 Online Lectures – 吴中伟教授 Prof. WU Zhongwei, 复旦大学 Fudan University
2023-02-25 09:00 - 10:30 | Online
For further information please clicke here.

Christian Henriot & Cecile Armand , Aix-Marseille University: Taming the Digital Dragon. Textbases, Datafication, and the Study of Modern China
2023-02-23 16:15 - 17:45 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.602, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
23. Feb., 16:15 – 17:45
KWZ 0.602
Abstract:
Since the mid-1990s much has been written about digital history and how the Internet and the dematerialization of historical sources are transforming the ways in which historians can muster their materials. The major shift, however, occurred when historical sources became available in full text format. This finally opened the way to approaches and methods based on text analysis and natural language processing, though with a particular challenge due to the very nature of historical sources. The ENP-China project has been at the forefront of developing a set of resources — text database, spatial database, and HistText — that break through the limits of historical investigation on modern China.
Speakers:
Christian Henriot is Professor of modern Chinese history at Aix-Marseille University and a former Senior Research Fellow at the Institut Universitaire de France (2007-2012). He is the author and editor of several books on modern Chinese history, including Prostitution and Sexuality in Shanghai. A Social History, 1849-1949 (Cambridge UP, 2001), In the Shadow of the Rising Sun. Shanghai under Japanese Occupation (Cambridge UP, 2004), Visualizing China (Brill, 2012) and Scythe and the city. A social history of death in Shanghai (1865-1965) (2016, Stanford UP). Henriot is also the creator of a digital research and resource platform on Shanghai history (http://virtualshanghai.net) and the P.I. of the ENP-China Project (ERC) (https://www.enpchina.eu/)
Cécile Armand is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project “Elites, Networks and Power in modern China” (Aix-Marseille University), a former postdoctoral fellow of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (2018-20) and Andrew Mellon postdoctoral fellow in the DHAsia program at Stanford University (2017-18). Her first monograph based on her dissertation will be published by De Gruyter (Berlin) under the title: Madmen in Shanghai: A social history of advertising in modern China. She is the author of several articles on advertising, urban history, transnational elites in modern China, and digital history. She is the creator of a digital research platform (https://madspace.org/).
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Global China Conversations #18, 16.02.2023, Spannungen um Taiwan: Wie ist die aktuelle Situation und welche Herausforderungen ergeben sich für Unternehmen und die Wirtschaft?
2023-02-16 11:00 - 12:00 | Online

线上讲座 Online Lectures 李泉教授 Prof. LI Quan, 中国人民大学 Renmin University of China
2023-02-11 09:00 - 10:30 | Online

线上讲座 Online Lectures – 如何让学生爱学汉语 How to make students love learning Chinese
2023-01-28 09:00 - 10:30 | Online
讲座要点：
如何激发学生学习动机始终是一线教师需要关注的问题，本讲座首先分析了学习者汉语学习动机的类型，动机与学习效果的关系，并在此基础上从需求分析、目标设定、发现学习、难度控制等多个角度探讨了激发学生的学习动机的方式与方法。
Key points of the lecture:
The stimulation of students’ learning motivation is doubtless one of the key challenges of teachers in practice. After an analysis of different types of learning motives of Chinese learners and the relationship between motivation and learning outcomes, this lecture explores various means and methods of enhance students’ learning motivation from different perspectives, such as leaners’ needs, goal setting and levels of difficulty.

报告人简介
丁安琪 中国人民大学博士，华东师范大学国际汉语文化学院副院长兼国际汉语教师研修基地副主任，教授，世界汉语教学学会标准与评估专委会副主任委员，上海市语文学会理事。主要研究领域为国际中文教育、国际中文教师教育，主持或作为主要成员参与教育部语合中心《国际中文教学通用课程大纲》研制与《国际中文教师标准》修订工作。发表学术论文七十余篇，出版专著《汉语作为第二语言学习者研究》及《汉语作为第二语言学习者实证研究》（合著），作为主编或主要作者参与编写多部教材，主编《我的课堂活动设计笔记》系列丛书，多次参与海外本土汉语教师培训。
Prof. Ding received her PhD from the Renmin University and is currently deputy dean of the International Chinese Culture College and deputy director of the International Chinese Teacher Training Base of the East China Normal University. She also functions as vice chairwoman of the Standards and Evaluation Committee of the World Association for Chinese Language Teaching and as director of the Shanghai Chinese Language Association. Her main fields of research include international Chinese language education and international Chinese teacher education. She presided over and participated as a key member in the development of the „General Curriculum Syllabus for International Chinese Teaching“ and the revision of the „International Chinese Teacher Standards“ by the Language Coordination Center of the Chinese Ministry of Education. She has published over 70 academic papers as well as the monographs „Research on Learning Chinese as a Second Language“ and „Empirical Research on Learning Chinese as a Second Language“ (co-authored). The „My Classroom Activity Design Notes“ series of books has participated in the training of overseas local Chinese teachers for many times. As the editor-in-chief or the main author, she participated in the compilation of several textbooks, edited the „My Classroom Activity Design Notes“ series of books, and participated in the training of local Chinese teachers around the globe for many times.
Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81564277513

Meeting-ID: 815 6427 7513
讲座将用中文进行 This lecture will be held in Chinese.
隐私保护请参阅 Information on privacy can be found in：https://zoom.us/privacy-and-legal

This lecture will be held in Chinese. 讲座将用中文进行。

Drama reading
2023-01-27 15:00 - 17:00 | LSG University of Göttingen
“Mr. Big,” a play based on the leading figure of modern Chinese literature, is the first attempt to visualize Lu Xun’s image on the stage. The play starts with Lu Xun’s death and then shows the flashback scenes of the protagonist’s encounters with the people he was most concerned about during his lifetime. The play highlights how they fell into conversations and were engaged in arguments. Li Jing uses stream-of-consciousness writing to capture Lu Xun’s most painful knots in his heart.
Author: Li Jing
Language: Chinese
Venue: LSG University of Göttingen
Registration: yingming.theater@gmail.com
Anyone who is interested in Chinese theater or learning the language and culture is welcome to join the reading event.

Global China Conversations #17 Ideology First, Economy Second? What Challenges do European Companies Face in China?
2023-01-26 12:00 - 13:00 | Online
Here you get more information.

Vortrag Francois Gipoloux, CNRS Paris: The paradox of Wealthy Merchants and Weak Capital Accumulation in Late Imperial China
2023-01-24 18:15 - 19:45 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.607, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073
Tuesday, January 24, 18:15 – 19:45
KWZ 0.607
Abstract:
This presentation proposes another interpretation of the Europe/China divergence, based on a redefinition of capitalism in much broader terms than its mere reduction to the industrial revolution. It recalls the reasons why Chinese merchant networks did not formalize autonomous institutions, in order to confer a perennial scope to their affairs. It revisits the paradox of Chinese economic history where the emergencee of rich merchants does not translate into steady capital accumulation. What credit institutions facilitated the collection of capital in China? How did it circulate? Where were capital markets developing credit instruments, allowing a wide exchange of information and the diffusion of financial innovations? This presentation raises the issue of late imperial China’s capital sterilization, due to the fragmentation of financial institutions and high interest rates.
Speaker:
François Gipouloux (Emeritus Research Director, National Centre for Scientific Research, [CNRS] France), is a specialist in Chinese economics with a professional experience in China, Hong Kong and Japan of almost 20 years. He teaches at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. He also directs the International Research Programme : « The Globalisation’s Origins and the Great Divergence : Trading Networks and the Trajectory of Economic Institutions—— Europe-Asia, 1500-2000 », financed by CNRS and prestigious European and Asian universities. His research covers the dynamics of urbanisation in China, and the historically comparative analysis of economic institutions and business practices in Europe and Asia.
Organizer:
Prof. Dr. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen
Sponsor:
Department of East Asian Studies, University of Göttingen

Lecture: The Art of Audience Participation in Applied Theatre
2023-01-19 13:00 - 14:30 | Online
The Art of Audience Participation in Applied Theatre
Speaker: Estella WONG, Associate Professor and the Head of Applied Theatre in the School of Drama, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts
Date: Thursday, Jan 19, 2023, 13:00 PM CET
Zoom Link: https://uni-goettingen.zoom.us/j/69482194990
Language: English
More Information: https://yingmingtheater.com/chinese-culture-seminar-series/

„Contemporary Theater Arts“ Seminar Series No. 14
2022-11-29 13:00 - 14:30 | Online
The Department of East Asian Studies (the University of Göttignen) and the Department of Theatre, Film and TV Arts (Nanjing University) jointly host the “Contemporary Theater Arts” Seminar Series. It is open to anyone interested in the Asian theatre.
Topic: Draft Theatre: the Assembly Line Theatre Production
Speaker: ZHAO Chuan, author, art critic, independent theatre director
Time: Tuesday, Nov. 29th, 2022, 13: 00 PM CET
Language: Chinese
Zoom link: https://uni-goettingen.zoom.us/j/66476427828
