The Publishing World Turned Upside Down: The Promise and Peril of Electronic Publishing

Mark Selden (Senior Research Associate, East Asia Program, Cornell University; Coordinator, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus; and Professor Emeritus of Sociology and History, the State University of New York at Binghamton)

Date: Monday, December 16, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Vanserg Common Room, 25 Francis Ave., Cambridge


An Interdisciplinary Perspective to a Historical Issue: A Jesuit Madonna Case in the Seventeenth Century

Co-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Chen Hui-hung (Associate Professor, Department of History, National Taiwan University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Chair and Discussant: Thomas Cummins (Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Art, Harvard University)

Date: Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

Historical issues regarding cultural encounters can require explorations of complex relationships between the past and present, the Self and the Other, and various intercultural concepts.  These relevant questions not only shape the most prominent characteristics of the discipline of history in the humanities, but also entail other disciplinary methods, such as those of anthropology, sociology, and cultural and religious studies.  The study of the multicultural features of Christianity in China provides an insight into an early Chinese understanding of the West, which later served as a foundation for China’s modernization.  The image and cult of the Virgin Mary—much more popular, and yet also controversial in the early years of the Jesuit China missions—demonstrates well that an image was seen as an object, by means of its distinctive material elements, mostly by its viewers or respondents.  This can be revealed and narrated in terms of a material dimension, in which an unintended invention could have resulted when the viewer or recipient, rather than the author or person who had had its authority, was the dominant agent.  In this process—from the perception of a foreign object to the forming of a new idea—the image as object could have played the role of “first” agent, then the viewer as the “second” agent.  Due to this paramount nature of objecthood, Professor Chen will demonstrate how a displacement or diversion of the original sacredness of the image could have occurred, and that a new iconography more favorable to the viewer, or the second agent, could only have taken root in a non-Christian land, where the Madonna image and cult would have played a completely different role in its religious efficacy.  


Transition to the ‘Universal’ Welfare State: the Changing Meaning of the Welfare State in Korea

Co-sponsored with the Korea Institute, Harvard University

Kwon Huck Ju (Professor, Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Chair and Discussant: Anthony Saich (Daewoo Professor of International Affairs; Director, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation)

Date: Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

Over the last fifty years, the welfare state in Korea has evolved from a minimal structure of welfare programs to a comprehensive set of institutions and policies for social protection. This talk traces changes in understandings of the welfare state articulated by policy makers, examining their political strategies to lead Korean society to the welfare state. The concept of the welfare state has changed its meaning according to their political strategies at different conjunctures, while the aspiration for the welfare state as an ideal state of affairs, where a certain level of well-being is guaranteed for all by the state, remains strong if not stronger than before. For the welfare state is an essential component of Korea’s modernization project which goes beyond the left and right divide of the Korean politics. 


Campaigns on the Internet: Independent Candidates’ Use of Social Media in China’s Local Elections

Co-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

He Junzhi (Professor of Political Science, Fudan University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Chair and Discussant: Elizabeth Perry (Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government, Harvard University; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute)

Date: Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

While the contentious approach tries to find why and how people challenge the existing Chinese political system, the supportive approach endeavors to identify why and how citizens support the regime. The combination of rising social media and the evolution of independent campaigns provides an opportunity to establish a model of network interaction of political participation. Using materials gathered from micro blogs and interviews during 2011 local elections, this talk explores how independent candidates use social media to build collective action when campaigning for deputies. It shows that the micro blog provides a new platform for both political expression and political action for independent candidates. It is on this new platform that old and new campaigners form a nationwide cooperative network and thus innovate new campaign strategies to break through the political taboo at online and offline levels. But local authorities also use the platform to detect records of the independent candidates and discourage them in elections. Prof. He’s research endeavors to further understand this new development in terms of both social movements and elections and their implications for China’s democratization at the initial stage of out-Party campaign.


HYI Alumni Gathering in Hong Kong

Date: Sunday, November 17, 2013
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: Central, Hong Kong


Achieving Justice in Bilingual Legal Systems

Janny H.C. Leung (Associate Professor, School of English, The University of Hong Kong; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Chair and Discussant: Lawrence Solan (Don Forchelli Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School)

Date: Friday, November 15, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

How, and how far, does a legal system’s choice of language(s) affect the way in which justice is delivered? What challenges face jurisdictions that attempt to conduct their law in two or more languages? Answers to these questions are a priority for the 45 officially bilingual states of the world, as well as for other states contemplating a move towards bilingualism. Arguably such questions have implications for all countries, however, in a world characterized by interlocking social forces that include pressures of globalization and economic integration, and of population mobility, decolonization and linguistic recolonization. For lawyers, addressing such problems is made essential by the increased frequency and scale of transnational commerce and legal proceedings, as well as by the continued growth and reach of international law. But it is not only policy makers, legislators and other legal practitioners who must think about such questions. Bilingual and multilingual forms of law also raise questions for the burgeoning, scholarly field of language and law, and for the field of jurisprudence more generally. In those fields, they are a testing ground for legal theories developed mostly in and for monolingual jurisdictions, especially the traditional conception of law as an internally coherent, autonomous system governed by logical rules abstracted from complex social relations and demographics.

This talk presents findings from part of a larger project that attempts to answer the questions raised above. Specifically, it will focus on the problem of interpreting bilingual legislation. Established canons of statutory interpretation are based on an assumption closely associated with monolingualism: that there is one single text of the law. Bilingual jurisdictions which grant two or more language versions of enacted legislation equal authority accordingly call for additional or even new interpretation strategies whenever supposedly equally authentic texts show inconsistency and potentially even serious incompatibility. Prof. Leung will describe converging approaches to this problem in bilingual jurisdictions and argue that a new legal fiction has been invented in order to maintain internal legal coherence.


HYI Alumni Gathering in Bangkok

Date: Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: Bangkok, Thailand


The Phonographic Turn in East Asian History: Colonial Modernity and the Making of National Musics and Recording Cultures

Co-sponsored with the Harvard University Asia Center

Yamauchi Fumitaka (Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Musicology, National Taiwan University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Chair and Discussant: Carter Eckert (Yoon Se Young Professor of Korean History, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)

Date: Monday, November 4, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

Fumitaka Yamauchi’s study concerns the place of sound and music in a historic moment of change in East Asian history, namely, from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, initiated by the radical transition from the millennium-old Sinocentric world order based on the Confucian notions of tribute and hierarchy to the Eurocentric world order built on the international terms of nation-states and colonies, and increasingly complicated by the emergence of Japanese colonialism claiming to forge an alternative imperial order. This inauguration of colonial modernity as a key problematic in the region, Yamauchi will argue, was profoundly marked by what he coins as the phonographic turn: ideologies and technologies of sonic writing played a central role in fracturing, while being mediated by, the hierarchical assembly of political communities called the Sinosphere that had long been coordinated through the literate authority and legitimacy of Chinese characters. Juxtaposing his two research interests in issues of national music and the recording industry in East Asia, and across the territories of imperial Japan encompassing Korea and Taiwan in particular, he will illuminate the complicated ways in which what he calls two phonographic regimes of the modern West, as embodied literally in phonemic writing and mechanically in sound recording, respectively, functioned to give voice to some of the local differences that had hardly been represented under the regional literate regime, while at the same time advancing new forms of cultural hierarchy and homogeneity that subsumed the otherwise diversified voices under the logics of colonialism, nationalism, and capitalism. 


The Italian Renaissance in China: New Research by Chinese Scholars

意大利文艺复兴在中国:学界研究新进展

Organized by Villa i Tatti, with support from the School of Humanities, Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing), Harvard-Yenching Institute (Cambridge, Mass.), the Museum of Art and Archaeology at Zhejiang University (Hangzhou), and the Department of Art History and the College of Letters and Cultural Heritage, Tainan National University of the Arts (Tainan City).

Date: October 24-25, 2013
Location: Harvard Center Shanghai

Conference program: http://itatti.harvard.edu/shanghaiconferenceprogram2013


Gourmets in the Land of Famine: the Culture and Politics of Rice in Modern Canton

Co-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Lee Seung-joon (Assistant Professor of History, National University of Singapore; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: William C. Kirby (Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies, Harvard University)

Date: Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Time: 4:00 – 5:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

Based on his recent book, Gourmets in the Land of Famine: the Culture and Politics of Rice in Modern Canton (Stanford University Press, 2011), which explores the local history of Canton (Guangzhou) and the politics of rice, Seung-joon Lee will illuminate how China’s struggles with food shortages in the early twentieth century unfolded and the ways in which they were affected by the rise of nationalism and the fluctuation of global commerce.

By tracing Canton’s (China’s southernmost metropolis) transnational, high-volume rice trade with Southeast Asia, Lee will explore how the modern Chinese state’s attempts to promote domestically-produced “national rice” and to tax rice imported through the transnational trade networks were doomed to fail, as a focus on rice production ignored the influential factor of rice quality. Indeed, the KMT Nationalists’ domestic rice promotion program resulted in an unprecedented “famine” in Canton in 1936 and 1937. He will contend that the ways in which the KMT government dealt with the issue of food security, and rice in particular, is best understood in the context of its preoccupation with science, technology, and progressivism, a departure from the conventional explanations that cite governmental incompetence.


HYI Alumni Gathering in Taiwan

Date: Monday, October 7, 2013
Time: 4:00 – 5:30 pm
Location: Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan


New Progress in Rice Exploitation Research: Evidence from East China

Co-sponsored with the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Jin Guiyun (Professor of Archaeology, School of History and Culture, Shandong University)
Discussant: Richard Meadow (Director, Zooarchaeology Laboratory, Peabody Museum, Harvard University; Senior Lecturer on Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University)

Date: Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

As a worldwide staple, rice plays a very important role in modern life. Archaeologists, biologists, climatologists, and other scientists are interested in the origins and early development of rice agriculture. The origins and domestication of rice cultivation are hotly debated among scholars, including debate over where, when, how and under what circumstances did cultivation or domestication happen. Systematic archaeobotanical work around the Shandong highlands in eastern China provides interesting and critical evidence for understanding Neolithic rice exploitation and contributes to the knowledge of its agricultural origins not only by providing new data, but also by raising additional questions.


HYI Alumni Gathering in Wuhan, China

Date: Thursday, September 26, 2013
Time: Afternoon
Location: Wuhan University, China


什么是最好的历史学:中国近代历史研究的反思与展望

A workshop sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Department of History, Zhejiang University

Date: September 22, 2013
Location: Hangzhou, China


如何看待1949年以后中国大陆知识分子的“软弱”问题?——兼谈知识分子在历史中的作用与局限

Professor Yang Kuisong (Department of History, East China Normal University)
Discussant: Professor Elizabeth Perry (Department of Government, Harvard University; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute)

Date: Friday, September 6, 2013
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: VANSERG Common Room, 25 Francis Ave., Cambridge, MA

Talk will be given in Chinese

知识分子总是爱国的。而国家是需要一个政府来代表的,找到一个对国家前途有利的好政府,是几乎所有中国知识分子的愿望。问题是,什么样的政府是好政府?找到一个对国家好的政府,是否就是对国民好呢?到底是国家重要,还是国民重要呢?这个问题是1949年前后中国知识分子始终要面对的一个难题,也是许多国家知识分子常常会碰到的难题。


揭开朝鲜战争的神话

Professor Shen Zhihua (Department of History, East China Normal University)
Discussant: Professor Zhang Jishun (Department of History, East China Normal University)

Date: Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA


Micropolitics of Maoist China: Learning the Language of Socialism in Comparative Perspectives
毛泽东时代的微观政治:比较视野下的社会主义语言

A workshop organized by Profs. Feng Xiaocai (East China Normal University) and Henrietta Harrison (University of Oxford)
Co-sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute,  and the Center for Contemporary China Studies, East China Normal University

Date: July 13-14, 2013
Location: Center for Contemporary China Studies, East China Normal University, Shanghai

This workshop will bring together researchers currently working on the history of socialism in China, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe, to discuss the history of mentalités in China during the early Socialist period in a comparative context with a focus on political language and how it was developed, learned and used.  We hope to develop shared understandings and approaches to these issues, and also to promote a comparative approach to the historical study of the micropolitics of socialist countries.


International Conference on Tibetan History and Archaeology, Religion and Art (7th-17th C.)

Sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Center for Tibetan Studies, Sichuan University

Date: July 13-15, 2013
Location: Sichuan University, Chengdu, China


Urban Studies Training Program (比较视野下的中国都市研究)

Organized by the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at Hong Kong University, and the Shanghai History Research Center at East China Normal University

Date: June 21-28, 2013
Location
: Minhang Campus, East China Normal University, Shanghai

For more information on the program, click here


Early Navigation in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Maritime Archaeological Perspective

Workshop sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute, organized by Prof. Wu Chunming

Date: Friday, June 21 – Saturday, June 22, 2013
Location: Friday – Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave.


Christian Colleges in China: An Experiment in Globalized Higher Education

A workshop sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institue 

Date: Monday, June 3, 2013
Time: 9:30 am – 5:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA


The National Assembly in Fukuzawa’s Later Thought

Albert Craig (Professor Emeritus, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)

Date: Friday, May 24, 2013
Location: Debate Hall, Keio University, Japan


Cultural China Reexamined: The Question of Identity

Co-sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institue and the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard

Prof. Tu Weiming (Director, Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University; Senior Fellow, Harvard University Asia Center)
Chaired by Prof. Elizabeth Perry (Dept. of Government, Harvard University; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute)

Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Time: 12:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

Since the publication of Tu Weiming’s essay “Cultural China: the Periphery as the Center” (Daedalus, 1989), each of the three symbolic universes as distinct and yet inseparable dimensions of Cultural China has undergone major transformations. The first symbolic universe, consisting of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Singapore, has so profoundly reconfigured that the original essay’s subtitle must be fundamentally reformulated.  The assertion that the center is nowhere whereas the periphery is everywhere may be restated as follows: “the Center is Everywhere and the Periphery Has Also Become the Center”. The most significant development of the second symbolic universe is that the Diaspora (Cf. works of Wang Gungwu) has become the focus of increasingly fruitful interdisciplinary Diasporic studies. Perhaps the most challenging change in the third symbolic universe is now concentrated in the so-called Sinicization (Cf. the recent works of Peter Katzenstein) of fruitful discourses in China. In Professor Tu’s reexamination, attention will be directed to the possible emergence of a  “we” that is open, pluralistic, and self-reflexive.


Comparative Welfare from an East Asian Perspective

A workshop sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute, organized by Prof. Kamimura Yasuhiro

Date: Saturday, May 4, 2013
Time: 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge


Welfare and Labor in East Asia: Various Regimes, Common Challenges

Co-sponsored with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies

Kamimura Yasuhiro (Welfare Sociology and Comparative Social Policy, Nagoya University)
Discussant: Professor Mary Brinton (Department of Sociology, Harvard University)

Date: Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

While economic interdependence among East Asian countries has deepened, there has also been an increase in political tensions within and among countries in East Asia. Under these circumstances, furthering market liberalization without adequate social protection may easily cause international friction. Maintaining regional peace requires us to pay attention to the social situation in neighboring countries. Thus it is very important to understand welfare and labor in East Asia from a comparative perspective. Are there any common features among the countries? What are the challenges for the future? In this talk, Professor Kamimura argues that it is crucial to find a political way to overcome the informality of employment.


Chinese Cities: Booming Growth or Doomed to Fail?

Co-sponsored by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School; East Asian Legal Studies, Harvard Law School; Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard; Harvard School of Public Health China Initiative; Harvard-Yenching Institute; Kennedy School Student Government; and the Social and Urban Policy Professional Interest Council

Meg Rithmire, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School, and Faculty Associate, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
Tony Saich, Daewoo Professor of Public Affairs, and Director, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

Date: Monday, April 29, 2013
Time: 4:10 – 5:30 pm
Location: Land Hall, 4th Floor, Belfer Building, Harvard Kennedy School

China’s cities have reportedly been driving the country’s decades-long economic miracle. But behind this veneer of economic stability lies a system of mass migration and debt that appears to be collapsing under the weight of its own success. Join us as Tony Saich, director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, and Meg Rithmire, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, discuss the future of Chinese cities.


Rethinking the 1949 Divide in China: Dialogue Between Political Science and History

A workshop sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute, organized by Prof. Li Lifeng

Date: Friday, April 26, 2013
Time: 9:30 am – 5:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge


Cross-National Lessons: What are East Asian Countries Learning from Each Other Today?

Harvard-Yenching Institute Annual Roundtable

Co-sponsored with the Harvard University Asia Center

Date: Monday, April 22, 2013
Time: 2:00 – 5:00 pm
Location: Lower Level Seminar Room, Center for European Studies/Busch Hall, 27 Kirkland Street, Cambridge

This roundtable, organized by the Harvard-Yenching Institute and co-sponsored by HYI and the Asia Center, brings together a group of distinguished scholars (Sebastian Heilmann, Lan Pei-chia, Nishino Junya, Park Tae-gyun, Zhu Feng and Zhu Xufeng) to focus on how and what East Asian countries are learning from each other in the realms of culture, economy, social policy and politics.


What is China? Rockhill’s polyglotic approach as an example

Co-sponsored with the Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University

Chen Bo (Anthropology, Sichuan University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Professor Leonard van der Kuijp (Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University)

Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

In 1882, the United States and Korea signed a treaty according to which both exchanged diplomatic representation on the ground of equality. However, in 1887, the Korean king drafted the “sovereign” (君主) of the United States a note (照会), informing that Korea was a dependent state of China (朝鲜素为中国属邦), enjoying independent rights in its civil and foreign affairs; that the treaty between United States and Korea would be observed on equal grounds, and that affairs concerning the dependence of Korea to China had nothing to do with America. 

W.W. Rockhill (1854-1914) spent the last half of his life (1884-1914) interpreting this system, or what China is–a project that shifted most of his interest away from his Tibetan studies. Tackling the relations between China and Korea, China and Tibet, China and Europe, and China’s sea connections to Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and Africa, he suggested different “Chinas”, such as a tributary China, an imperial China, a ritual China, and a trading China. They remain relevant for the 21st century in that these “Chinas” are not based on ethnicity, but rather on a notion of being hua (华) , for a long time misunderstood to be “Chinese”, just as zhongguo (中国) was misunderstood to be “China”.


Intra-cohort Growth in the Inequality of Mathematics Achievement:Taiwan, the U.S., and the State of Massachusetts from an International Perspective

Co-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Huang Min-Hsiung (Professor of Sociology, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Professor Mary Brinton (Department of Sociology, Harvard University)

Date: Wednesday, April 10
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

This talk will present findings from a cross-national study of more than twenty countries, with a focus on the widening-gap phenomenon in mathematics performance among Taiwanese students as they progress through the grades. Student performance in mathematics in the state of Massachusetts, and in the United States as a whole, is also investigated. In Grade 4, students in Massachusetts and Taiwan perform equally well in mathematics. However, four years later, when the students are in Grade 8, a significant performance gap emerges between these two jurisdictions, due to a substantial improvement in performance among Taiwanese students. This performance gap between Taiwan and Massachusetts, which emerges over just four years, has implications for policy and research. The presence of a remarkable performance gap in mathematics between Massachusetts and the U.S. as a whole also calls for further investigation.

A participating country in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Taiwan has earned a reputation as one of the top-performing countries in multiple survey years. However, a much less known TIMSS finding peculiar to Taiwan was the remarkable contrast between Grade 4 and Grade 8 in terms of the inequality of student achievement in mathematics. Taiwan stands out from other countries as it exhibited a very narrow dispersion among fourth-graders, but an extraordinarily wide dispersion among eighth graders. This talk investigates the widening-gap phenomenon in Taiwan with respect to (a) its presence in different studies; (b) its magnitude and pattern; (c) its reappearance among students in different birth cohorts and different levels of schooling; and (d) its relevance to performance gaps on the basis of student family background, gender, the rural-urban divide, as well as between- and within-classroom differences. Some of the research questions listed above are addressed through international comparisons.


Information Structure and Word Order: Focusing on Asian Languages

A workshop sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Department of Linguistics, Harvard University. Organized by Professor Wang Bei (Linguistics, Minzu University of China; HYI Visiting Scholar 2012-13)

Date: Saturday, April 6 and Sunday, April 7, 2013
Time: 9:15 – 5:30 (Saturday), 9:30 – 12:30 (Sunday)
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge


Cultural Change from Aboriginal Man (蛮) to Immigrant Han (汉) in Southern China: An ethno-archaeological study on snake divinity worship

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the East Asian Archaeology Seminar Series at Harvard 

Wu Chunming (Archaeology and Museology, Xiamen University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Professor Rowan Flad (Department of Anthropology, Harvard University)

Date: Friday, March 29, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

In southern China, cultural change from the aboriginal Baiyue (百越) and Nan Man (南蛮) to the immigrant Han took place during the Han to Tang dynasties. The snake totem is one of the most distinctive native cultural artifacts of southern China, and is different from the dragon totem of the Han nationality. Snake totems took on different forms, reflecting the cultural change from aboriginal Man (蛮) to immigrant Han (汉) in ancient southern Chinese societies. The “positive snake divinity” originated from an indigenous totem culture. The “evil snake” originated from cultural interaction between the native Yue and the immigrant Han after the Han became the majority in the south, at which point the snake divinity changed into a negative role. Since the Tang-Song Dynasties, an “improved” snake divinity has appeared, showing both the transformation of the “evil snake” to a rehabilitated snake divinity and the history of Han cultural assimilation in southern China.


中国土地改革运动的再认识——基于县级档案的研究

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Prof. Cao Shuji (Chinese History, Shanghai Jiaotong University) and Liu Shigu (PhD candidate, Shanghai Jiaotong University)
Discussant: Prof. Li Lifeng (Dept. of Political Science, Nanjing University; HYI Visiting Scholar)

Date: Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

*Please note: Talk will be given in Chinese*

传统中国的“押租”与“典卖”导致地权分化并形成以下结构:普通租佃—永佃—相对田面—公认田面—绝对田面,与这些权利关系相匹配的权利所有者,构成乡村的“阶级”与“阶级关系”,才是乡村社会关系的根本。实际上,新中国的土地改革并不主要针对“封建剥削制度”与“地主阶级”。在土地改革的三个阶段中,以攫取粮食与货币为内容的“大户加征”与“减租退押”具有财政应急的性质,才是土地改革的目的所在,而“分配土地”以虚拟的封建制度与阶级关系为对象展开,只具有象征的意义。为了缓解由“大户加征”与“减租退押”导致的粮食危机,新政权默许农民进城,采取“清算”的方式从工商业者及其他自由职业者手中夺取粮食与货币。这一看起来像是“被迫之举”的临时行为,却成为新政权解决财政问题的常规措施。中国经济的重心和中国财政的重点从工商转为农业,“粮食立国”的方略由此而形成。


Roppongi through Photographs: Tokyo’s Emerging Cultural Treasure

Co-sponsored by the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies

Prof. Aoki Tamotsu (Director, National Art Center, Tokyo)

Date: Monday, March 25, 2013
Time: 1:00 pm
Location: Sever Hall 113, Cambridge, MA

About the speaker: Dr. Aoki, Director General of The National Art Center, Tokyo, is a Former Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan. He was awarded a Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2000 by the Government of Japan. A cultural anthropologist, Dr. Aoki has taught at Osaka University, The University of Tokyo, and the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. He has conducted extended anthropological fieldwork in Southeast Asia, China, and Europe. He was once ordained as a Thai Buddhist monk in Bangkok. Among his many publications, two of Dr. Aoki’s books received awards: “Changes of the Discourse on Japanese Culture since the End of War in 1945” received the Yoshino Sakuzo Prize, and “The Symbolism of Ritual” received the Suntory Academic Prize. His most recently published books are “The Age of Cultural Power: Asia and Japan in 21st Century” (2011, Tokyo) and “Contemporary Japanese Writers Are Migrating” (2010, Tokyo).


HYI Reception at the AAS Annual Meeting

Date: Friday, March 22, 2013
Time: 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Location: Del Mar Room, Manchester Grand Hyatt, One Market Place, San Diego, California


Economic Aspects of Population Aging in China and India   

Sponsored by The Program on the Global Demography of Aging, the South Asia Initiative, the Asia Center, the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the Harvard China Fund, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (all at Harvard University), and the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (at Stanford University)

Date: Thursday, March 7, 2013
Time: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Location: Bechtel Conference Center, Encina Hall, 616 Serra Street, Stanford University

More information: http://aparc.stanford.edu/events/population_aging/


Globalization of Law and Diffusion of Cultures — Glocalization of Arbitration From an East Asian Perspective

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the East Asian Legal Studies Program, Harvard University

Fan Kun (Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Professor Bill Alford (Harvard Law School)

Date: Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

Arbitration has developed significantly in recent years as the preferred method of dispute resolution for international commerce. In the context of harmonization of arbitration law and practice worldwide, what is the relevance of non-Western legal origins and traditions on the contemporary arbitration structures and practices? Will the efforts of harmonization of national laws lead to the emergence an ‘international arbitration culture’ at a global level?

Through the example of arbitration development in East Asia, China and Japan in particular, this paper illustrates the forces of legal globalization and forces of divergent cultures. On the one hand, global norms are localized with adaptations to accord more closely with local cultures — ‘localized globalism;’ on the other hand, through interactions with different cultures, local practices may produce shared norms and expectations, and eventually form a common culture — ‘globalized localism.’  It argues that the development of international arbitration will continue to be influenced by the combined forces of globalism and localism — a process of ‘glocalization’. It questions the inevitability of a worldwide convergence around Western values, and suggests a diffusion of cultures around the globe, bridging the Western and non-Western differences. 


How to Make a World of Perpetual Peace

Prof. Zhao Tingyang (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; HYI Visiting Professor of East Asian Thought)
Discussant: Professor Stephen Angle (Philosophy and East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University)

Date: Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Time: 4:15 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

The new problem of our times is that of a failed world rather than failed states. Globalization has brought us to the unpleasant fact that our supposed world is actually a non-world. Rather than dealing with the problems of globality by means of modernity, we must make a world, one of perpetual peace, with an ‘all-under-heaven’ system that reaches beyond the nation state system, with relational rationality emphasized more than individual rationality. 


This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land: Negotiating between Physical Geography and Political State in Yi Sang’s “Miscellaneous Writings by Autumn Lamplight”

Co-sponsored with the Korea Institute

John Frankl (Korean and Comparative Literature, Yonsei University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Professor David McCann (Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)

Date: Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

The enigmatic Yi Sang (1910-1937), despite his brief life and career, is widely regarded as both tortured genius and Korea’s premier modernist. Though best known for his experimental poetry and fiction, Yi was a complete artist who also produced award-winning paintings and rendered sketches to accompany his own literary works and the works of his most renowned peers. He was also an architect whose designs were acclaimed by his Korean peers and the Japanese colonial government alike. Finally, later in his career, Yi turned to the essay as a vehicle for expressing his musings on various aspects of 1930s Korea and Japan in a manner much more explicit and clear than in his other works. 

This talk will focus on Yi’s multiple identities as government architect and idiosyncratic artist, colonial subaltern and loyal subject. Although many critics, most often trying to confine Yi within a postcolonial nationalist paradigm, find these identities mutually contradictory, Yi himself appears to have moved rather seamlessly among them. Examining certain of his representative essays reveals a sort of situational identity based upon and changing according to geographical and emotional locations as well as real and imagined interlocutors. In particular, his essay “Miscellaneous Writings by Autumn Lamplight,” written in October 1936, the same month he would venture for the first time to Tokyo, where he would meet his untimely end only a few months later, Yi surefootedly negotiates a rugged terrain of competing identities as a modernist writer, an ethnic Korean, and a subject of Imperial Japan. Interrogating his various stances provides small but important glimpses into modernism’s movement from Europe to Asia, its adoption and modification in Japan and Korea, as well as how it informed the sensibilities of colonized artists who worked under the disquieting condition of artistic freedom coupled with political repression. 


Developments in Chinese Bronze Production

Co-sponsored by the East Asian Archaeology Seminar Series at Harvard 

Zhang Changping (Professor of Archaeology, Wuhan University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Professor Rowan Flad (Department of Anthropology, Harvard University)

Date: Friday, March 1, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: VANSERG Common Room, Vanserg Hall, 25 Francis Ave.

The bronze ritual vessel, as the main body of bronze artifacts in the Chinese Bronze Age, bore many social meanings. It accelerated the large-scale production and usage of bronze artifacts. Under this special social background, it could be said that the social meaning of bronze ritual vessels led to the formation and development of bronze casting technology. Casting technology affected the type and decoration of bronze artifacts, and influenced the way in which these ritual vessels were used.   

 


Reality and Reproduction: Aspects of Sino-Vietnamese Relations as Reflected in a Fourteenth-Century Handscroll Painting

Professor Nam Nguyen (Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City)
Discussants: Professor Hue-Tam Ho Tai (History, Harvard University) and Professor Eugene Wang (History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University)

Date: Thursday, February 28, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

The talk concentrates on a handscroll painting entitled The Mahasattva Truc Lam Coming Out of the Mountains 竹林大士出山圖 dated back to 1363 and attributed to a Chinese artist by the name of Chen Jianru 陳鑑如.  “Truc Lam” (Bamboo Grove) is the style name of the Founding Patriarch of the Vietnamese Zen school named after it, King Tran Nhan Tong (1258-1308).  After abdicating the throne to his son, Tran Nhan Tong retreated into the mountainous region of Vu Lam – Yen Tu to practice Zen Buddhism.  In 1304, the Patriarch came out of the mountains at the request of his son, King Tran Anh Tong (1276-1320), to confer the Bodhisattva commandments on him and his court.   The painting in question describes this historical event.  

This talk is an attempt to read the inner text (the painting) with the support of outer texts (Chinese and Vietnamese referential sources). Due to its artistic features, handscroll paintings embedded with colophons by literati from different settings should be “read” in a quite specific way that generates multi focal points during the course of reading. Thus, the talk is an interpretation of selected focal points identified in this work of art. By reconstructing the background of the coming-out-of-the-mountains event and the composition of the handscroll, it will point out various politico-diplomatic, historical, cultural and religious aspects in Sino-Vietnamese relations during the transitional periods of the two realms under the Chinese Yuan and Ming and the Vietnamese Tran dynasties.

The Speaker

Nam Nguyen is a lecturer and the former Chairperson of the Division of Chinese Studies (Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City).  After earning his MA (RSEA) and PhD (EALC) from Harvard, he served as the manager of the Academic Program of the Harvard-Yenching Institute (HYI, 2004-2010).  His research interests focus on comparative literature (dealing mainly with China and Vietnam), and translation studies.  He is currently an associate of the HYI. 


A Study of Cultural Exchange between Korea and China during the 18th and 19th Centuries: The Fujitsuka Chikashi Collection of the Harvard-Yenching Library

Co-sponsored with the Korea Institute

Jung Min (Korean Literature, Hangyang University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Professor Wai-yee Li (Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)

Date: Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA

This talk proposes a new resource for studying cultural exchange between Korea and China during the 18th and 19th centuries by introducing the Hujitsuka Chikashi collection of the Harvard-Yenching Library. Fujitsuka Chikashi (藤塚隣 1879–1948) was a Japanese scholar who specialized in the Qianlong (乾隆) and Jiaqing (嘉慶) Schools of Qing China. Around 1926, when he was appointed as a professor of Chinese philosophy at Keijo Imperial University (Seoul National University), he collected a large number of books concerning the Qianlong and JiaqingSchools in Korea and China. His collection included over 10,000 rare books and more than 1,000 calligraphy manuscripts and paintings, some of which were exchanged between Korean and Chinese literati. Unfortunately most of the books were lost in a fire caused by American air raids on Japan in 1945. The remaining books were sold or donated to South Korea and the United States. The Hujitsuka collection of the Harvard-Yenching Library will shed new light on the study of cross-cultural exchange between Korea and China during the 18th and 19th centuries.


浅谈满族的“国家认同”问题

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Ding Yizhuang (History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; HYI Coordinate Research Scholar)
Discussant: Professor Mark Elliott (Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)

Please note: Talk will be in Chinese

Date: Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Time: 4:00 – 5:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge

在中国,所谓“种族”、“民族”乃至“国家”、“国族”,这些名词和概念的应运而生都有着特定的历史背景,但学界对晚清时期这一“国族塑造”的过程尚未予以充分的关注,其中一个未曾被很多人注意的现象,那就是晚清知识分子面对西方世界的步步紧逼,感受到“亡国灭种”威胁时,为构筑“国族”所作的努力。就是晚清时期,当汉族建构自己“民族”的活动风起云涌之时 “满洲”或曰“旗人”却既没有这种自觉,也没有这种行动,而只能以鼓吹“立宪”和“满汉一家”来予以消极而无力的回应。这个报告就是想从满族自身的历史特点出发,探讨他们在这个特定的、关乎他们生死存亡的关头,却有如此表现的原因。


蒋介石如何选择接班人——台湾时期的蒋介石与陈诚 (1949-1965)

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Chen Hongmin (Professor of History, Zhejiang University)
Chair: Professor Elizabeth Perry (Government Department, Harvard University; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute)

Please note: Talk will be in Chinese

Date: Thursday, December 13, 2012
Time: 4:00 – 5:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge

陈诚是蒋介石在大陆时期刻意培养高级将领。到台湾时期,陈诚成为蒋介石最倚重与刻意栽培的人,担任国民党副总裁与副总统,党政地位仅次于蒋,似乎有“接班”的架式。但《蒋介石日记》与《陈诚日记》揭示出他们关系的另一面:蒋对陈诚一直心存不满,在日记中时常责骂,二人甚至有过正面冲突。蒋陈关系的复杂性,一方面是蒋介石的私德所致,更深的层次上则反映了中国近代以来在最高领导人交接问题上的制度困境。


Old Peasants and New Migrants: Social Practices in the Little Tradition and China’s Modernity Problems 

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Song Ping (Professor of Anthropology, Xiamen University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Professor Nicole Newendorp, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University

Date: Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge

Over the past three decades, a radical modernist ideology and attendant practices have produced deep and distinctive problems in China. This talk will examine the contemporary discourse of Chinese modernity, particularly the norms and policies co-created by socialism and neoliberalism. It will explore debates about civil society, citizenship and community, with a focus on the meaning of social practice at the grassroots level. It will also discuss Chinese migrants (primarily ex-peasants from rural areas of Southern China) who have recently emigrated to Western countries, particularly the US, and have revived local cultural and social patterns while constructing transnational self-ruled communities to realize their vision of modernity and a better life. Their rich experiences inspire us to look more deeply into the little tradition of southern China as a source of possible solutions as China seeks to balance its pressing problems of modernity.


Detecting Vices: An Analysis of John Burdett’s Bangkok Trilogy

Co-sponsored with the Department of Comparative Literature, Harvard University

Suradech Chotiudompant (Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Chulalongkorn University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: David Damrosch (Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University)

Date: Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge

John Burdett’s trilogy — Bangkok 8Bangkok Tattoo, and Bangkok Haunts — may be little known outside Thailand. But for those in the know, the trilogy is often regarded as a literary gateway to Bangkok, with such stereotypical figures as dark, mysterious femmes fatales, corrupt policemen, and inscrutable shamans, as well as iconic spaces of the Thai capital, ranging from such red-light districts as Patpong, Nana, and Soi Cowboy, to such unique, exotic locations as world- renowned Oriental Hotel, Lumphini Kick-Boxing Stadium, and Khaosan Road, a haven for backpackers. Analyzing the trilogy as a crossover between detective fiction and travel writing, Suradech will discuss the relationship between transcultural politics and narrative poetics in the author’s portrayal of Bangkok and its “vices”. 


The Sacred Wudang Mountain: Secular villagers, Wild Foods and Daoist heritage

Professor Wu Xu (Department of Anthropology, East China Normal University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Professor Robert Weller (Department of Anthropology, Boston University)

Date: Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge

Wudang Mountain, a Daoist sacred site in central China, attracts numerous pilgrims each year. Since 1994, when the mountain became a UNESCO World Heritage site, the local Daoist temple complexes have been protected. Local villages, especially ones near the temples or along the main pilgrimage roads, were considered secular and asked to disappear. Through examining villagers’ food-related activities and TEK, this study demonstrates how villages and villagers have profoundly contributed to maintaining the pilgrimage culture in the mountain. Pilgrimage culture has been the most important part of the Wudang Daoist heritage, giving rise to temple complexes in the past and providing an irreplaceable context for protection of the temple complexes in the future.    


Two Categorically Different Ways of Focus Realization in Intonation: Evidence from 19 Languages Spoken in China

Co-sponsored with the Department of Linguistics, Harvard University

Wang Bei (Associate Professor, Institute of Chinese Minority Languages, Minzu University of China; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Maria Polinsky, Professor of Linguistics, Harvard University

Date: Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge

Focus is one of the most frequently used communicative functions, highlighting a certain part of a sentence for pragmatic reasons, such as to make a contrast, to make a correction, or to provide information for a wh-question. In many languages, focus can be marked prosodically with lengthened duration, raised F0, expanded pitch range and a sharp post-focus compression in F0 and intensity (PFC). Recently, it has been found that the means of prosodic marking of focus are not universal. In many African languages and languages in South China, focus is mostly marked with lengthened duration and sometimes raised F0, but NOT PFC. In this talk, Professor Wang will present data from 19 languages spoken in China and will argue that the distribution of PFC and non-PFC languages may relate to language evolution and gene. Questions on the origins of Yi and Tibetan will be discussed. After reviewing how people learn to mark focus prosodically in a second language and how well people perceive focus in different languages, Professor Wang will show that PFC is effective on focus perception and is “easy to lose, but hard to gain”, which indicates that PFC is unlikely to appear automatically in a language and is not easily learned through language contact. As these two possibilities meet a big challenge, a third possibility deserves serious consideration, that is, PFC is probably inherited from a proto-language as proposed by Xu, Chen and Wang (2012). 


Faith, Society and New Social Media

A special panel at the 2012 Beijing Forum, under the Panel Session of “Innovation and Change in the Age of Social Media”

Date: Saturday, November 3, 2012 
Time: 9 am – 12:15 pm
Location: Yingjie Exchange Center, Peking University, Beijing

Panelists
Wu Fengshi (Department of Government and Public Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Yu Jianrong ( Rural Development Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
Zeng Fanxu (School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University)
Zhou Fenghua (Public Policy, Huazhong Normal University)

Chair:
Elizabeth Perry (Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government, Harvard University; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute)

For more information on the Beijing Forum, please visit: www.beijingforum.org


Understanding North Korean Refugees’ Education Experience: A contextual analysis of their hardships, failures, and resilience in South Korea

Co-sponsored with the Korea Institute, Harvard University

Pak Soon-yong (Associate Professor, Department of Education, Yonsei University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Avram Asenov Agov (Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Korea Institute, Harvard University)

Date: Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge

Issues concerning the education of resettled refugees within the same ethnic group but in a culturally novel situation differ significantly from those who experience transnational migration or minority status. The North Korean refugee case is thus vastly different from inter-ethnic attitudes and behaviors that often result in within-group favoritism and out-group rejection. It is expected that the cumulative number of refugees from North Korea who have fled to South Korea since 1990 will exceed 25,000 by the end of this year. Most have found adjusting to new life in South Korea to be a daunting challenge. Especially vulnerable are the young refugees in their teens and early 20’s. Many experience severe hardship, if not failure, in their transition from a strictly controlled socialist track of education to an open competition-based capitalist education system. 

The talk will address the patterns of failure among the young refugees and analyze them in the light of their previous educational and social environments in North Korea. The narratives on the realities of schooling in North Korea, as experienced by former teachers from North Korea, will provide the contextual base for understanding the hardships of the young refugees. Initial findings suggest that the academic failure or resilience of the young Korean refugees can be best explained along the lines of the relational dimensions of cultural competence. 


Globalization and Social Transformation: China in the 21st Century

The Fourth International Conference on Chinese Society and China Studies

Organizers (in alphabetical order)
Harvard-Yenching Institute 
Nanjing University: School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Department of history
Shanghai University: School of Sociology and Political Science
University of Freiburg: Department of Sinology
University of Sydney: China Studies Center 
University of Tokyo: The Institute of Oriental Culture 

Date: Saturday, October 27 and Sunday, October 28, 2012
Location: Heren Building (The School of Social and Behavioral Sciences), Xianlin Campus, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

Additional information (in Chinese and English)


Tibetan House Space at Labrang: An Architectural Inquiry into the Everyday Sacred and the Mundane

Co-sponsored with the Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum

Maggie Mei-Kei Hui (Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Discussant: Janet Gyatso (Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies, Harvard Divinity School)

Date: Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge

Labrang, located on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, has always been an important Tibetan Buddhist monastery since its establishment in the early 18th century. It has since then attracted lay Tibetans to settle in close proximity and produced relatively dense lay villages surrounding the monastery. The settlement has continued to grow and respond to social changes through time. In the present day, local Tibetans continue to carry out their religious practices daily. How do religious practices influence the everyday architectural experiences of these locals, which extend from the domestic space to the public realm, and at times, into the monastery? It is argued that there are priorities and rules governing the interchange of the sacred and mundane space between the religious and daily living tasks. Such response influences the spatial organization, such as the reading of house form and settlement pattern. In this presentation, an overall view on the house space novice monks, nuns and the lay Tibetans will be rendered, followed by an introduction to three nunneries next to Labrang that were established at different time in history.


中华人民共和国第一次普选运动中的上海底层社会 

(Shanghai Grassroots Society in the First General Election of the PRC)

Co-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Zhang Jishun (Professor of History, East China Normal University; HYI Coordinate Research Scholar)
Chair: Elizabeth Perry (Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government, Harvard University; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute)

Please note: Talk will be given in Chinese/本演讲将用中文进行

Date: Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge

中华人民共和国建国后第一次普选运动常常被书写为人民当家作主的体现,是最为广泛的、真实的民主。而随着大量档案史料的发掘,类似的书写应受到质疑。人民有没有当家,能不能作主?谁是普选运动的主体,何谓人民?人民民主是真实的,还是被权力话语建构起来的?第一次普选是革命的继续,还是宪政的开端?作为中国最具现代特征的大都市,上海的普选运动足以成为解析上述问题的最重要的案例之一。已经公开的档案及相关的文献、报刊资料,为我们走出概念的“人民民主”,从底层社会的政治生活中去发现真实的人民,提供了极大的可能性。


Mass Movements and Rural Governance in Communist China

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Li Lifeng (Professor, Department of Political Science, Nanjing University; HYI Visiting Scholar 2012-13)
Discussant: Elizabeth Perry (Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government, Harvard University; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute)

Date: Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge

Successive mass movements spread like wildfire across China’s urban and rural areas after the founding of the People’s Republic, setting the tone for the nation’s domestic politics until late 1970s. Mass movements had already been adopted as an unconventional political strategy during the revolutionary era and continued to be practiced as an effective strategy of mobilization and governance long after the revolutionary victory. Building upon his earlier research on land reform, the first among dozens of nationwide political movements, Professor Li will examine the features and functions of mass movements in Communist China, especially the close and complicated connections between mass movements and rural governance and the lasting impact of such legacies in contemporary China.  The goal is to shed new light on political operations in both revolutionary and post-revolutionary China.


Training Program: Social Sciences Approaches to Chinese Everyday Life since 1978: Family, Education, Religion and Consumption

Date: June 20 – July 3, 2012
Location: Johns Hopkins University – Nanjing University Centre for Chinese and American Studies

The Harvard-Yenching Institute, Nanjing University and the University of Sydney are pleased to announce a new training program on “Social Sciences Approaches to Chinese Everyday Life since 1978: Family, Education, Religion and Consumption”. The aims of the program are to spotlight the international implications of Chinese experiences against the background of globalization; to provide young scholars of the world engaged in China studies an opportunity to understand China; to share academic wisdom with outstanding researchers and be enlightened by criticisms from the younger generation; to initiate world-wide communication and cooperation among institutes for China Studies; and to advance international studies of China and promote their intellectual accumulation.

Additional information


Women in Academia: Meritocracy and Gender Equality

Date: June 18-19, 2012
Location: Seoul National University

Sponsored by Institute for Gender Research, Seoul National University, Harvard-Yenching Institute, and Korea Institute, Harvard University

Organizers: Sun Joo Kim, Harvard-Yenching Professor of Korean History, Harvard University; Chung Chin-sung, Professor of Sociology, Seoul National University; Lee Na-young, Sociology, Chung-ang University

Conference schedule

Women’s status in modern Korea has recently made much improvement, and now Korean women enjoy almost equal legal status as men in all aspects of life. With the legal inscription of gender equality in both domestic and public realms, women now have more representation in politics, business, and education. Discrimination of daughters in higher education has nearly disappeared as women comprise almost half of college students in Korea, and increasingly more women pursue graduate and professional degrees. Yet employment data, at the managerial and professional levels in particular, is not parallel to the educational level. In academia, institutional efforts have been made to hire more women faculty by assigning special employment quotas and by creating more congenial work environments for women over last decade. However, the representation of women in most departments and schools, except for a few women-dominated fields such as education, arts, and nursing, is still very meager and there are a number of departments at major universities that do not have a single woman faculty. More objective hiring and reviewing practices, such as grading publication records, have been introduced to put into practice true meritocracy. Whether adopting this type of conceivably more objective criteria in hiring and promotion practices has improved gender equality and meritocracy is controversial and questionable. This conference aims to analyze this discrepancy between legal and institutional prescriptions and employment practices in realizing gender equality, and tries to understand where the major obstacles exist. Comparative data and practices in China, Japan, and the United States will further enrich our understanding of the current status of gender equality in academia in these countries, and will give an opportunity to examine how different cultures and ideologies make impacts on policy making and practices.


Social Welfare Development and Transformation of Governance: East Asian Drama

Date: June 2012
Location: Central China Normal University

This workshop will bring together scholars from different regions and areas of study, mainly the fields of political, sociological and public policy studies in East Asia, and will lalow for the exchange ideas on the following themes:

Theme 1: current trends and the future of East Asia welfare regimes
Theme 2: the inter-government relationship in social welfare provision
Theme 3: the role of the state and its relationship to civil society in social welfare provision
Theme 4: seeking good governance in social welfare development

For more information, please contact Zhou Fenghua (siluoip@163.com).


Cultural Exchanges between Vietnam and East Asia

Date: May 14-17, 2012
Location: Institute of Culture, Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi

For Chinese, Lingnan refers to southern China.  For Vietnamese, Linh Nam means “South of the border (with China)” in other words, the area now known as northern Vietnam. Whatever the exact geographical coverage of Lingnan/Linh Nam, it is clear that modern southern China and modern northern Vietnam share a common cultural heritage despite their divergent political histories after the tenth century.

During the 1950s, in both Vietnam and China the socialist state sought to radically transform local culture, by banning practices that were deemed superstitious and wasteful. Over the last three decades, economic reforms and political liberalization have led to the revival of traditional practices at the local level; in many cases, this revival is abetted by global actors such as UNESCO.

This workshop is intended to highlight some of the commonalities between the popular cultures of southern China and northern Vietnam and to compare the experiences of Chinese and Vietnamese in transforming, preserving and reviving local religio-cultural practices.  Above all, it seeks to bring together scholars of Vietnam and China with the idea that they can benefit from such connections and comparisons.


Buddhism and the Production of Social Space in Yangtze Delta during 1368-1949: Focusing on Township Formation Based on Temple Locations

Co-sponsored by Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

A talk by Prof. Zhang Weiran (Institute of Chinese Historical Geography, Fudan University; HYI Visiting Scholar 2011-12)

Discussant: Peter Bol (Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages Civilization, Director of the Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard University)

Date: Thursday, May 10, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University


State Capacity and Local Governance: China and India Compared

A roundtable organized by the Harvard-Yenching Institute and co-sponsored with the Asia Center, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and the South Asia Initiative

Date: Monday, May 7, 2012
Time: 1:30 – 5:15 pm
Location: Lower Level Seminar Room, Center for European Studies (Busch Hall), 27 Kirkland St., Harvard University

This roundtable brings together a group of distinguished scholars of China and India to consider some of the major political problems and perils facing the Asian giants today.  How do the world’s two biggest countries compare in terms of their ability to manage and mollify their often unruly citizens?  How well does each of them cope on the ground with such enormous challenges as poverty and inequality, popular protest, ethnic conflict, and environmental degradation?  How effectively do central and local governments coordinate, complement, or contradict one another in meeting these challenges?  Can China and India’s relative successes and shortcomings shed light on prospects for democratic versus non-democratic governance in the twenty-first century? 


China’s Urban Political Cultures: A Comparative Perspective

Sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute, East China Normal University, and the Hong Kong Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences 

Date: Friday, May 4 and Saturday, May 5
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University


Mass Torts in China

Co-sponsored by Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

A talk by Prof. Zhu Yan (Law School, Renmin University of China; HYI Visiting Scholar 2011-12)

Discussant: William P. Alford (Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law, Harvard Law School)

*Please note different location*

Date: Friday, May 4, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Vanserg Common Room, 25 Francis Avenue, Harvard University

Mass Torts are concerned with legal accidents, which involve hundreds, thousands, and even millions of victims due to some risks which trace back to the uncertainty of industrial technology. The urbanization of demography and the globalization of marketing further increase the probability of mass torts.

In the past decade many mass torts happened globally, such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2008 contaminated milk scandal 2008 in China, and the 2011 Fukuyama nuclear leak caused by the earthquake in Japan. In the above mentioned accidents, more than 100,000 residents or consumers suffered personal injuries and economic losses to varying degrees. In oil spill accidents, environmental damage may not be restored in a foreseeable period. De facto, mass torts spawn new tasks for legal study, particularly for modern tort law, practically and theoretically.

In this talk Prof. Zhu will give an introductory analysis by means of statistics on recent mass torts cases in the past a few years in China, in order to demonstrate that mass torts constitute an important issue in modern Chinese tort law. Then he will explore this legal issue in terms of the specific characteristics of mass torts, such as losses and damage, causation, limitation of litigation, and class action as a lawsuit form. Due to the sophisticated implications of mass torts, Prof. Zhu will also analyze the influences of mass torts and their lawsuits upon the Chinese administration and judiciary. For example, he will argue that administrative resolutions dominated by central and local governments can’t efficiently, equally, and openly resolve the problems arising from mass torts. Although mass lawsuits will challenge the management and expertise of People’s Courts in different jurisdictions, refusing to open the court door to victims could result in more problems which may even threaten social stability.


The Making of Post-Socialist Individuals: A Case of Border Crossers from North Korea

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Korea Institute

A talk by Prof. Won Jaeyoun (Sociology, Yonsei University; HYI Visiting Scholar 2011-12)

Discussant: Martin Whyte (Professor of Sociology, Harvard University)

Date: Thursday, April 26, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University

This talk discusses the experiences and hardships that North Korean border crossers face upon arriving in South Korea. Arrival in South Korea is not the end of their hardship after a long journey, but only the beginning of something new. While the South Korean government provides subsidized housing, monthly stipends, and other benefits upon their arrival, many North Koreans have become desolate, suffering from job insecurity, low income, and concentration in lower-ranking occupations in South Korea due to their Northern accents, lack of support networks, and unfamiliarity with cultural and linguistic customs. To a very small number of North Koreans, South Korea might provide a chance to realize their dreams in the land of opportunity, but most have to face the harsh reality of the market economy as well as prejudices, biases, and stereotypes in South Korean society. This talk attempts to capture the complex process of unmaking “socialist” North Koreans and turning them into capitalist South Koreans.


A Re-study of the “Daoguang Depression”

Co-sponsored by Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies 

A talk by Prof. Ni Yuping (History, Beijing Normal University; HYI Visiting Scholar 2011-12)

Discussant: Dwight Perkins (Harold Hitchings Burbank Research Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University)

Date: Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University

Since the late 20th century, especially with China’s rapid economic rise through reform and opening-up in the 21st century, studies on Chinese economic history and China’s position in the world economy have attracted increasing attention. The Jiaqing and Daoguang period (1796-1850) of the Qing Dynasty has always been considered the most important turning point in Chinese economic history. The Daoguang Depression theory believes that the amount of customs duties continued to decline at that time, due at first to food trade being pre-blocked, and then due to a market slump. However, by aggregating the national customs revenue, Professor Ni argues that during the Jiaqing and Daoguang period, the amount of customs duties still maintained a level of more than 500 million taels. In short, the amount of customs duties is not able to support the conception of the Daoguang Depression.


The Unclaimed War: The Social Memory of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese Border War in China and Vietnam

Ngo Thi Thanh Tam (Max Planck Institute for study of Ethnic and Religious Diversity, Gottingen, Germany)

Discussant: Hue-Tam Ho Tai (Kenneth T. Young Professor of Sino-Vietnamese History, Harvard University)

Date: Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University

Twentieth century Asia was shattered by various devastating wars, some of which, such as the Japanese-Chinese war, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, has become foundational in national and international memories. Some other wars, however, have been hardly included in the memory politics in this continent. This is not because their role in national and international history is insignificant or that they have been forgotten. More accurate is perhaps that they are unclaimed wars. Like ‘unclaimed belongings’ such wars invite questions about why they are played down in national memory and why they ‘stand-in-the-way’ of proper national memory.

This talk addresses one of such wars; the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese border war. This destructive conflict erupted on 17 February 1979, officially lasted only 17 days but in reality dragged on for 10 full years in which tens thousands of lives of both side were lost or ruined. Thirty three years later, this war stands in both China and Vietnam as a war that-you-aren’t-supposed-to-talk-about which is barred from the states’ permitted national realm of memory and commemoration. For the people whose lives were devastated by it, the daunting memory of this war continues to haunt their daily existence today. The intensity of their suppressed memory is startling especially in the present context of a thriving politics and culture of war commemoration in both China and Vietnam.

In this study, I follow the life stories and narratives of different kinds of people whose lives have been defined by this war, such as the veterans, inhabitants of the borderland both ethnic minorities and Kinh and Han majority groups, the ethnic Chinese people in Vietnam, the ethnic Vietnamese people in China. I seek to understand the political context that led to the outbreak of the war and how its participants understood that context. How did that understanding impact the motivation to join the war and the formation of a sense of defiance, or to find a way out of it, or to endure the suffering caused by it, or to make sense of loss? To what extend social memory can persist independent of public commemoration? In this research I aim to contribute to a new understanding of how the memories of such unclaimed war impact local resistance to the center. In this project  I pursue a dual aim. While I want to use the repression of this memory to reflect on the dominant discourses of the present regimes, I also want to reflect on truth-seeking and commemoration as currently dominant modes of coming to terms with past violence.


哪里是中国?—— 有关“中国”论述的再思考
(Where is China? Rethinking the Theories of ‘China’)

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Ge Zhaoguang (Fudan University)

Chair: David Wang (Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)

*Please note: Talk will be in Chinese*

Date: Thursday, April 12, 2012
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University


How Did Medieval Chinese Learn Epistemology from Indian Buddhism? – A Study of Jingying Huiyuan’s Treatise on the Three Measures of Valid Cognition

Co-sponsored with the Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum

Chen-kuo Lin (National Chengchi University)

Discussant: James Robson (Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)

Date: Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University

The wide-spread consensus about Buddhist epistemology (pramāṇa-vāda) is that it has never received any serious attention outside of the development of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. As clearly shown in the current scholarship, the study of Chinese textual sources in this field has been totally ignored owing to the untenable belief that it is unhelpful, if not entirely useless, for our understanding of Buddhist epistemology in the original form. In this talk, however, Professor Lin will try to demonstrate the opposite by presenting a textual and doctrinal study of Jingying Huiyuan (523-592)’s Essay on the Three Measures of Valid Cognition (Sanliang zhiyi), a gem of early Chinese Buddhist epistemological treatises. This study shall show that reception of Indian Buddhist epistemology in the era before Xuanzang was far more significant than what has been previously assumed.

Before exploring Huiyuan’s contribution, Professor Lin will give a brief historical picture of how Buddhist epistemology was introduced from India to China during the 5th-6th century. This picture will be drawn from two angles. The first is a brief chronological sketch, while the other is a topical reconstruction. Regarding the topical background, he has selected three topics that were extensively discussed in the early texts in Chinese translation. The first topic in those early materials addresses the theological issues, such as arguments for the existence of soul (ātman, puruṣa) and cosmic creators (Iśvara, Viṣṇu). The second topic concerns metaphysical problem of the existence of external world. The third topic focuses on the relationship between epistemology and meditation. Professor Lin’s study will show that Huiyuan is in much favor of the third topic than the other two.


Suffering Bodies during the Sino-Japanese War: 1931-1945

Date: April 6-7, 2012 
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University


Power, Status and Space in East Asian Art

Date: April 6-7, 2012 
Location: William James Hall 1550, Harvard University


Forest or Not? Contentious Discourse on Expansive Oil Palm Plantations in Southeast Asia

Co-sponsored by the HKS Indonesia Program, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

A talk by Prof. Okamoto Masaaki (Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University; HYI Visiting Scholar 2011-12)

Discussants: Deborah Gewertz (G. Henry Whitcomb Professor of Anthropology, Amherst College) and Frederick K. Errington (Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus at Trinity College

Date: Friday, March 30, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University

This talk will focus on the contentious discourse regarding the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia. With the rapid rise in global demand for Crude Palm Oil (CPO) as the cheapest vegetable oil, oil palm plantations are sometimes devastatingly causing deforestation in Southeast Asia. CPO is used not only for cooking oil, but also for various usages including bio-diesel.  This has sparked serious debates between pro-expansion (the government and business sector) and anti-expansion groups (environmental NGOs and indigenous communities). The Indonesian government and business sector shrewdly moved to define plantations as forests, so that the expansion of oil palm plantations is no longer deforestation but rather “re”forestation. If a REDD++ scheme is implemented, plantations could even obtain carbon credit as forests.

Of course, global NGOs are harshly criticizing this movement and the contention is becoming sharper and sharper, as CPO is very lucrative for the government and business sectors in Indonesia, while NGOs view the movement as environmentally devastating. This talk will cover the development of this contentious discourse and present the emergence of a strange but positive dynamic equilibrium or consensus among stakeholders.


中国传统法律观念与清代婚姻类案件的审理

(Chinese Traditional Ideas of Law and the Judgment of Marital Legal Cases during the Qing)

Zhao Weini (Associate Professor, School of Law, Sichuan University; Visiting Scholar, Stanford University)

Date: Monday, March 26, 2012
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave.

Please note: talk will be in Chinese

中国传统法律观念是一个仿佛十分清晰,但事实上却十分含混的问题。一直以来,各路学人都从不 同的角度不断努力使这一问题变得更加明晰。传统司法是传统法律观念的具体落实过程,经过对清代地方婚姻类案件的诉讼过程、审理特点的考察发现,清代的司法 中固然包裹着我们所十分熟悉的内容:男女、老幼、士庶法律地位的不平等,刑讯和脱离法律条文的裁决等等,但从中的确也有不少出乎意料的发现:矜恤、慎杀, 以及对“最高法律”(天理)的信仰。


后冷战之后的中国主体想象
(Visualizing Chinese Subjectivity in the Wake of the Post-Cold War Era)

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

A talk by Prof. Dai Jinhua, Peking University

Please note: talk will be in Chinese

Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Time: 4:15 pm
Location: CGIS South, Belfer Case Study Room (S020), 1730 Cambridge St.

讲者拟在21世纪变化中的世界语境中,探讨中国社会及其文化政治的演变。讲者拟结合相关大众文化文 本,联系着全球变局、中国崛起/中国威胁的话语讨论中国想象、中国的自我想象的变化;拟在冷战、后冷战、后冷战之后的、关于历史与时间的异质性话语脉络 中,探讨中国主体呈现的多重社会症候意味。


Harvard-Yenching Institute Reception at the AAS Annual Meeting

Date: Friday, March 16, 2012
Time: 7:00  – 9:00 pm
Location: Conference Room B, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel


A Han vs. Minorities Dual System in Chinese Society

Co-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Studies

Ma Rong (Professor of Sociology, Institute of Sociology and Anthropology, Peking University)

Date: Thursday, March 8, 2012
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave.

In academic studies of the structure of Chinese society and discussions of main social contradictions in contemporary China, most attention has been paid to the “urban-rural dual structure”.  This talk sets out to discuss a different “dual structure” of segmentation within Chinese society, the systemic institutionalized separation in many spheres between Han and “ethnic minority” citizens. This group differentiation has simultaneously divided Chinese society into two parts in various dimensions, thus not only deeply interfering with the fostering of Chinese national identity, but also bringing about a number of social contradictions, conflicts of interest and a lack of cultural understanding, and even national separatism. This talk reviews the history of the formation of this structure since 1949, and how this system divides Chinese society into two parts in terms of administration, schooling, elite groups, academic community, and even entertainment. It seems that this structure is harmful to the overall construction of the unified nation of China and must draw close attention from all of society in the 21st century.


A Study of the Interchange of 5th-7th Century East Asian Gilt Bronze Buddhist Sculptures

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Korea Institute

A talk by Prof. Yang Eun Gyeng (Archaeology, Pusan National University; HYI Visiting Scholar 2011-12)

Discussant: Prof. Rowan Flad (Anthropology, Harvard University)

Date: Thursday, March 8, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University

This talk will focus on the comparison of gilt bronze Buddhist sculptures from Korea’s Three Kingdoms period and the Shandong region, especially Buddhist sculptures with halos. Existing studies on 5th-7th century international exchange in Shandong, an important center of cultural interchange between China, Korea, and Japan and the place of origin for Buddhist sculpture, seem insufficient. Identifying the exact characteristics of Buddhist sculptures from Shandong will provide vital information for understanding the exchange of Buddhism and Buddhist sculptures at the time. In previous studies on the origins and stylistic changes of Buddhist sculptures and cultural interchange in East Asia, Northern Dynasties gilt bronze statues were compared with other Buddhist artworks because they were large in number, thus able to provide extensive and diverse data. As not many bronze statues survive from the Southern Dynasties, making comparisons or doing research on them was virtually impossible.

Through the analysis of small 6th century gilt bronze Buddhist sculptures, Prof. Yang will examine whether gilt bronze Buddhist sculpture from the Three Kingdoms period and those of the Shandong region are similar. Second, she will explore the possibility of another origin of the Shandong Buddhist sculptures, since they differ somewhat from Buddhist sculpture of the Northern dynasties. Third, she will examine why Buddhist sculptures from two different regions look similar.


A Camouflaged Military: The Japanese Self-Defense Forces and Globalized Gender Mainstreaming

Co-sponsored by the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies

A talk by Prof. Sato Fumika (Sociology, Hitotsubashi University ; HYI Visiting Scholar 2011-12)

Discussant: Prof. Mary Brinton (Sociology, Harvard University)

Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University

Along with the global gender mainstreaming of militaries, recent sociological studies have directed increasing attention to the patterns of gender integration in the military. However, most of them focus on Western militaries, leaving a dearth of scholarship about Asian militaries.
Japan presents a particularly interesting case, in view of the constraints that Article 9 of the Constitution, which renounces the right of belligerency, places upon its military. In illustrating the history of women in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, Professor Sato will focus on the reasons of Japanese policy makers for introducing women into the SDF and will argue that they are not necessarily relevant to gender equality. She will apply a framework of “camouflaging” as she discusses these reasons, while exploring issues that concern globalized gender mainstreaming of militaries in the 21st century.


Were There New Women and Moga in the Japanese Community of Colonial Korea? Exploring Gender Politics and Colonialism

Co-sponsored by the Korea Institute and the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies

A talk by Prof. Kweon Sug-In (Anthropology, Seoul National University ; HYI Visiting Scholar 2011-12)

Discussant: Prof. Carter Eckert (East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)

Date: Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University

Professor Kweon’s talk will examine gender politics within the Japanese colonial settler community in Korea in the beginning of the 20th century. More specifically, it looks at urban middle class Japanese women, who were of a significant number in Korea in the 1920s and 1930s and who actively practiced and enjoyed modern ways of life comparable to lives in major metropolitan cities of Japan. These women were, on the other hand, under conservative gender ideology and paternalistic community scrutiny to maintain women’s virtues and morals. Existing data seem to show that Japanese women in Korea, as members of the colonizer community, benefited in areas of education, occupation, and family lives, on more favorable terms inaccessible to many women in the metropol, but could not create a separate space and arena where they could raise questions and speak for themselves about issues of their own.


China’s future: Smart State and Strong Society–a Review of the Wenchuan Earthquake Response

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

A talk by Prof. Zhang Qiang (Government, Beijing Normal University; HYI Visiting Scholar 2011-12)

Discussant: Prof. Arnold Howitt (Harvard Kennedy School)

Date: Thursday, January 26, 2012
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Harvard University

Frequent catastrophes have challenged China’s public policy and social management. Various policy dilemmas caused by specific crises and the limitation of the top-down policy-making system urge us to reconsider the interaction among state strength and social power while coping with disasters. Due to heavy social impact and economic damage, the government cannot take on full responsibility, and the boundaries between government and society need to be redefined. 2008 has been called the first year of an era of civil society (volunteering) in China because of the huge impact of the Wenchuan earthquake and the Olympic games on civil society development. By integrating a series of empirical studies on the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, this talk aims to explore a possible roadmap for transition from a model of “strong state and weak society” to “smart state and strong society” in China. Professor Zhang attempts to reveal the corresponding challenges and opportunities through reviewing the development of China’s emergency management system.


Civil society and grassroots politics in new democracies and hybrid regimes (Hungary, Poland, South Korea, Taiwan, Russia and China)

A Training Program

Date: January 7-13, 2012
Location: Korea University, Seoul, South Korea

Organizers: Professor Grzegorz Ekiert, Department of Government Harvard University and Professor Sunhyuk Kim, Department of Public Administration, Korea University

This training program is for young scholars interested in one of the key issues of contemporary democratic theory: the relationship between civil society and democratization. The program is designed to bring together scholars working on projects focusing on grassroots politics, civil society formation and its impact on various political regimes. Participants will have the opportunity to learn from leading scholars from Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan as well as from the US and Central Europe. The training program will facilitate the exchange of ideas and learning about the issues critical to the understanding of contemporary civil societies and their role in different political and cultural contexts. Through lectures by leading academics, discussion seminars, and workshops evaluating participants’ research projects, this training program will offer a unique opportunity to young scholars to learn about the state of the art research and theorizing in this field. The program will also offer the opportunity for established scholars from Asia, Europe and the US to discuss issues of common interests and to build foundations for future cooperation and exchanges.


Historical Materials and Methods: the New Horizon for Research on 1950s China

Date: January 10-16, 2012
Location: Fudan University, China

Organizer: Prof. Feng Xiaocai, History Department, Fudan University

In recent years, China has attracted attention from all corners of the globe; however, academia still needs to strengthen its understanding of the political, economic, social and cultural changes in post-1949 China. Undoubtedly, China’s more than sixty years of changes and experiences have raised a host of challenges to theories in both the humanities and the social sciences, and have provided an excellent opportunity for research on contemporary China to be integrated into the international mainstream discussion in these fields.  In the face of this vast amount of new historical material, we hope that scholars in this field, whether based in China or overseas, will be able to form a new research network, using the most complete set of new and old historical sources to further the development of research on China and thereby move the field towards a new horizon.
    
For this purpose, Fudan University and the Harvard-Yenching Institute have cooperated to convene an advanced training workshop entitled “Historical Materials and Methods: The New Horizon for Research on 1950s China” at Fudan University from January 10-16, 2012. We plan to enroll about 20 young scholars (including current doctoral students and young faculty and researchers) to participate in an intensive one-week training program. The workshop will invite 6-10 Chinese and foreign senior scholars to deliver special lectures, in which they will share their personal research experiences and their practical experiences directly related to the use of new historical sources, including how to consult, decode, and analyze materials. The workshop will also set aside time for attendees to discuss and explore how to employ new materials in academic research, particularly how to utilize new research methods and develop original perspectives from primary source materials.
    
Throughout the training process, attendees will be encouraged to draw upon their personal academic backgrounds and research interests to come up with original research agendas and innovative ideas. After the workshop finishes, the program will select a very small number of exceptional attendees from Asian Universities to spend the following academic year (2012-13) at the Harvard-Yenching Institute to pursue additional studies. Through this kind of positive academic exchange, we hope to significantly improve the quality of academic studies on the early history of the People’s Republic of China.