Chinese Studies

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 (Europe/Helsinki) | 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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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: 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: 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.

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: 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

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: 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 | 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。

CeMEAS: ENLIGHT WORKSHOP: "More than a Distant Relative: China and its Neighbours in an Increasingly Turbulent World"
2023-09-11 09:00 - 19:30
Click here to get more information.

Global China Conversations #24 Global Gateway und die Belt and Road: Eine Nachhaltige Alternative?
2023-09-21 11:00 - 12:00

Opening Events – Ma East Asian Studies/Modern Sinology (Meeting 1)
2023-10-04 14:00 - 16:00 | Online (Zoom)

Informationsveranstaltung für alle Erstsemester in den BA-Studiengängen des OAS
2023-10-20 10:00 - 12:00 | KWZ 2.601/ KWZ 2.739
Das Ostasiatische Seminar lädt alle Erstsemester für den 20. Oktober 2023 von 10:00-12:00 Uhr zu einer Informationsveranstaltung über unsere Bachelorstudiengänge in das Kulturwissenschaftliche Zentrum KWZ 2.601/ 2.739 ein.
Da wir an diesem Tag bereits die Gruppeneinteilung für den Sprachunterricht vornehmen werden, wird die Teilnahme dringend empfohlen.
Hier gelangen Sie zum Orientierungsphasen-Programm des Ostasiatischen Seminars.
Hier gelangen Sie zur Kursübersicht des OAS für das WiSe 2023/24.
Link zum Erklärvideo für die Stundenplan-Erstellung in EXA.

Prof. Lung Ying-Tai (Writer): How the Wild Changed Me. A Philosophical Journey: Readings and Discussions with Lung Ying-Tai
2023-10-26 19:15 - 20:45 | Zentrales Hörsaalgebäude, ZHG 002, Platz der Göttingen Sieben 5, Göttingen, 37073
Abstract:
Snail sex, demanding deities, a cold case – everyday life in Taiwan holds the most unbelievable stories in store. Lung Ying-Tai compiled them in her novel “Under Kavulungan.” In conversation with Dominic Sachsenmaier and Monika Li, Taiwan’s most famous author explores the complex answers to this question. Philosophical young adult novel, nature writing, nativist literature, an escapist zeitgeist portrait, thriller or love story – “Under Kavulungan” offers many ways of reading. On which themes did Lung Ying-Tai’s focus during the writing? Why did she choose southern Taiwan as the stage of her novel?
Bios:
Prof. Lung Ying-Tai (author) is one of Taiwan’s most renowned essayist and cultural critics, whose writing significantly contributed to Taiwan’s democratization. She taught at the University of Hong Kong and Heidelberg University and served as Taiwan’s first minister of culture from 2012 till 2014. With more than 30 published works, she is among the most well-known authors in the Chinese speaking world.
Monika Li (moderator and translator) grew up bilingual – German and Hungarian – and studied German studies, philosophy and Chinese studies in Heidelberg. She received a scholarship of the National Taiwan University in 2009 and lives with her family between Taipei and Berlin, where she translates Taiwanese literature into German.

Moderator:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Opening Events – MA East Asian Studies/Modern Sinology (Meeting 2)
2023-11-03 18:00 - 20:00 | Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum, KWZ 0.606, Heinrich-Düker-Weg 14, Göttingen, 37073

Chen Hao (Shanghai Jiaotong Univ.): A Tentative Interpretation of the Rise of Global History in China
2023-11-20 16:15 - 17:45 | Verfügungsgebäude, VG 3.101, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 7, Göttingen, 37073, Deutschland
Abstract:
Whether in a democratic or authoritarian society, it is not uncommon to explain academic currents by taking political and economic factors into consideration. However, the impetus in the intellectual realm itself shall never be disregarded. The recent development of Global History in China can be explained adequately by Chinese intellectuals’ persistent endeavor to stage global publics, rather than its pursuit of political and economic power worldwide.

Speaker:
Chen Hao is an associate professor of history at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He received his Ph. D at Free University of Berlin (2016) and is the 2023 recipient of the Göttingen Academy’s humanities award. His academic interests include Global History and history of Inner Asia, especially the Turkic-speaking peoples. He has published his first monography A History of the Second Türk Empire (ca. 682-745 AD), Brill, 2021. His forthcoming book deals with the historical semantics of “Turk”. The current project he is working on is about a 17th century Central Asian historian Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Global China Conversations #26: The Chinese Anti-espionage Law: What Risks for Companies and the Scientific Community?
2023-11-30 11:00 - 12:00

Fan Xin (Cambridge): Emotions as Politics: Rethinking Chinese Nationalism
2023-12-04 17:15 - 18:45 | Theologicum (Theol) 0.135
4. Dec. (Monday), 17:15 – 18:45
Theologicum (Theol) 0.135
Abstract:
The rise of history of emotions has been a recent development in historiography. In the field of Chinese studies, scholars such as Eugenia Lean, Haiyan Lee, Chen Li, and Zuo Ya have been writing about how emotions, feelings, and sentiments contributed to the formation and transformation of Chinese identities. In this presentation, I attempt to bridge the gap between tradition and modernity to rethink the theoretical implication when we historicize emotions beyond the Eurocentric paradigm of the rationality regime. By critically examining the existing scholarship on Chinese nationalism through the lens of history of emotions, I argue that emotions are a significant aspect to affect decision-making process in nationalist politics, and Chinese nationalism is not just political, cultural, ethnic, but also emotional.
Speaker:
Dr Xin Fan is Teaching Associate of Modern Chinese History and Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of World History and National identity in China: The Twentieth Century (Cambridge UP, 2021) and the second editor of Receptions of Greek and Roman in East Asia (Brill, 2018). As a historian of modern China with strong interest in global history, he is currently working on two book projects, “Global History in China” and “The Right to Talk about China: The Rise of Emotional Politics, 1900–1949.” In addition, he has written on global conceptual history, the history of international relations, and the rise of historical geography in China. He also the book review editor of China and Asia: A Journal in Historical Studies. He has studied and worked in China, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Global China Conversations #27: Zukunft der Technologiestandards: Deutschland und China im Wettbewerb?
2023-12-07 11:00 - 12:00

Online Präsentation & Diskussion, 14.12.2023: Was wäre, wenn…? Abkoppelung von China und die Kosten für Deutschland
2023-12-14 11:00 - 12:00

CANCELLED: Robert Kramm (Munich): Staging Radical Utopian Communities in the Early 20th Century
2023-12-18 16:15 - 17:45 | Verfügungsgebäude (VG) 3.101
VG 3.101
18. Dec. (Monday), 16:15-17:45
Abstract:
At the turn of the twentieth century, radical utopian communities were built all around the world. They served as retreats, but they simultaneously constituted hubs for activists, reformers, and revolutionaries to meet, share, and develop new ideas and practices of community and human existence. The project Radical Utopian Communities deliberately builds on different and seemingly unrelated case studies of communal experiments, encompassing the Tolstoy Farm in South Africa, the Nōson Seinen Sha’s anarchist commune in imperial Japan, and the Rastafarian Pinnacle Commune on Jamaica. In this talk, the main focus is on these communities’ intellectual work, and their staging as a struggle of modernity in the first half of the twentieth century.
Speaker:
Robert Kramm holds a doctoral degree in history from ETH Zurich and is currently Freigeist-Fellow and principal investigator of the research group “Radical Utopian Communities” in the School of History at LMU Munich. He received an Asia-Pacific History Fellowship at the GHI West at UC Berkeley, and was a post-doctoral fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and the Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolleg at the University of Konstanz. His first book, Sanitized Sex: Regulating Prostitution, Venereal Disease, and Intimacy during the Occupation of Japan, 1945-1952, was published 2017 with University of California Press. His peer-reviewed articles appeared in the Journal of World History, Journal of Women’s History, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Modern Asian Studies and Journal of Global History.
Organizer:
Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

Invitation – Global China Conversations #28: Prospects of the Chinese economy: short malady or fundamental slow-down?
2024-01-25 11:00 - 12:00 | Online
