Past Student Exchange Programs

2010

The Art of Representing China:

The Development of Chinese Identity through the Individual

In order to examine Chinese identity through a global and individual representation, the two-day symposium series will feature distinguished speakers and performers as well as outstanding student delegates in an open dialogue about the influences of today’s changing society on their own identities. Topics covered in the symposium series will range from issues of ethnic identity to gender politics, from expressions through the arts to representations through goals, and from the implications of a changing society to changing expectations. In hopes of covering the full spectrum of Chinese art forms and various cultural aspects, HAUSCR will present an image of China that is multifaceted, dynamic and individualistic.

In our two-day symposium, we will focus on two approaches in examining Chinese identity: the rich historical diversity and the vibrant modern heterogeneity. By looking at the past, we will explore how Chinese identity has formed over the course of thousands of years. Through the present, we will explore how Chinese identity is presented in today’s world–focusing on the conformity and diversity that comes with China as a country and as a people. Ultimately, we aim to break down the barrier between the perception and the reality of Chinese identity–from the cultural perspectives of both sides.



2010 HAUSCR Second Annual Symposium Series Speakers List

I. From the Past to the Present

Peter K. Bol is a Harvard College Professor and the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. His research focuses on intellectual, social, and cultural change in China, and he led Harvard’s university-wide effort to establish support for geospatial analysis in teaching and research. In 2005 he was named the first director of the Center for Geographic Analysis. He also directs the China Historical Geographic Information Systems project, a collaboration between Harvard and Fudan University in Shanghai to create a GIS for 2000 years of Chinese history. He has lectured widely in the China, Taiwan, and Japan, as well as in the United States and has authored many books and articles on intellectual and cultural history. Bol was also named a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow, an award that recognizes tenured faculty members for distinguished accomplishment in the fields of literature, history, or art.

Stephen Owen, as the esteemed James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, is known for his work on Chinese literature as well as for his probing and masterful comparative studies. Owen’s specialty is the Tang Dynasty (618-906 A.D.), the age of the great lyric poets, Wang Wei and Du Fu. But his scholarly reach extends to all periods of Chinese literature and into other literatures as well. Owen’s interest in Chinese literature took root when he began to explore the Baltimore public library as an adolescent. “I became enamored of books of poetry and especially of Chinese poetry in translation, and I have been ever since. I wrote poetry when I was younger, but then I discovered that I was better at writing prose, particularly literary criticism,” he said. Since then, Owen has also made his mark as a translator, and has been described as “the most important person in the study of Chinese literature in the West.”

Trevor Simon is a private investor and art collector with an investment banking background. Mr. Simon has a undergraduate degree in Management and Systems Science from the City University Business School and has been invited as a Guest Lecturer to the strategy modules of the MBA courses at UOP-Wharton and NYU-Stern business schools. Since the mid 1990’s, Mr. Simon has assembled and advised on a dual collection of Chinese and American modern and contemporary art around a range of principal themes looking primarily at the relationship between art, finance, and spirituality / personal development. Evoking a deeply personal narrative, the Simon and BTC collections include works of a range of Chinese and American artists. A number of works have been gifted to European and US museums, and a separate sale program has set multiple world auction records for various artists.

II. From a People to an Individual

Xue Xinran was a radio journalist in China before moving to London where she wrote her best-selling book The Good Women of China (2002), a collection of stories drawn from hundreds of interviews conducted during her time as a presenter on her program ‘Words on the Night Breeze’. It has now been translated into over 30 languages. She is also the author of Sky Burial; What the Chinese Don’t Eat; Miss Chopsticks and China Witness: Voices From a Silent Generation, a collection of stories from the grandparents of modern China. Her new book, Message From an Unknown Chinese Mother, is a collection of heartbreaking stories from Chinese mothers who have lost or had to abandon children. In 2004 Xinran set up the charity ‘The Mothers’ Bridge of Love’ (MBL) which reaches out to Chinese children in all corners of the world by creating a bridge of understanding between China and the West and between adoptive and birth culture.

Wang Xiaohui is an artist-photographer and has also worked as a writer and film director. Wang’s photography and films have received international recognition. Her work was presented in numerous exhibitions held in international museums and galleries. Additionally she published 30 books with well-known publishers such as Fischer, Braus, and Prestel. Her autobiographical book “My Visual Diary – 15 Years in Germany”, won important Chinese Book Prizes such as the “Shanghai Excellent Book Award”, the National Award for Literature (Bingxin National Literature Award) and the National Female Literature Award. Since 2001 Wang lectured at Nankai University and currently she is a professor at Tongji University in Shanghai. Here in 2003 she founded the institute “Wang Xiaohui’s Art Workshop” and in 2006 the “International Media Art Center”. For the 2010 Shanghai World Expo she is responsible for the conception of the Chinese pavilion: the world culture museum.

Sun Yan is Professor of Political Science at City University of New York. She received her BA from Nanjing Univ., MA from Beijing School of Foreign Affairs, and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. She has written several articles on China’s ethnic relations for the New York Times online, including “A Sichuan Family and Tibet’s Future,” “My Han Relatives’ View from Xinjiang,” and “Millennia of Multiethnic Contradictions.” She is also the author of two professional books and many professional articles, and is completing a book on ethnic relations in China.

Zhang Jun is officially ranked as China’s national Top-class Performer. Regarded as the Prince of Kunqu Opera, Zhang plays the “Hsiao Sheng” (young-man) role in the 600-year-old Chinese Kunqu Opera, the “Mother of Chinese Operas,” which blends poetic eloquence, musical refinement, and dramatics. Zhang has acted in many leading roles in famous Kunqu plays and also played the leading role in Tan Dun’s opera Marco Polo, which was nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award. Apart from his achievements in the performing art field, Zhang also has been committed to popularizing and promoting the art of Kunqu worldwide. Reaching out to new audiences, Zhang has done many cross-over works with artists in different fields including Academy Award winner Tan Dun, Chinese-American pop singer Leehom Wang and Belgian Pianist Jean-Francois Maljean, among others. Zhang has also been appointed as the ambassador of China’s charity program Hope Project and of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Zhang published his biography I am Hsiao Sheng in the summer of 2008.

2009

Keeping Up with China:

Perspectives on Contemporary Changes and Challenges

The series of panel events and discussions will help foster a mutual exchange of perspectives and worldviews among Harvard students, expert academics, and Chinese student delegates in the exchange program. China is modernizing at a staggering pace, and the process should not be attributed to mere Westernization. A dynamic exchange is taking place between China and the rest of the world. Each day of our symposium will explore a specific aspect of this mutually progressive interaction.

2009 HAUSCR First Annual Symposium Series Speakers List

I. Challenges and Opportunities of China’s Economic Development

Dwight Perkins is the Harold Burbank Professor of Political Economy at the Kennedy School of Government, and a former director of the Fairbank Research Center. He studies economic history and economic development in Asia. He has done research regarding the sources of growth in China and the role of economic and legal institutions in East Asian development, and has served as an adviser to the Chinese government.

Dale Jorgenson is the Samuel W. Morris Professor of Economics at Harvard and John Bates Clark Medal recipient. Jorgenson has been highly involved in working with the Harvard China Project to develop a model for studying China’s economic growth, energy utilization, and environmental quality. He serves on a joint U.S.-China research team that includes environmental economists from Harvard, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management.

II. Political Perspectives: Shaping New Systems in Response to the West

Alastair Iain Johnston is the Laine Professor of China in World Affairs. His research and teaching interests include socialization in international institutions, the analysis of identity in the social sciences, and ideational sources of strategic choice, mostly with reference to China and the Asia-Pacific region.

Tarun Khanna is the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School, where he has studied and worked with multinational and indigenous companies and investors in emerging markets worldwide. He joined the faculty in 1993, after obtaining an engineering degree from Princeton University (1988), a Ph.D. from Harvard (1993), and an interim stint on Wall Street.  During this time, he has served as the head of several courses on strategy and international business targeted to MBA students and senior executives at Harvard.

III. Education and Society: The Evolving Balance between East and West

Martin Whyte is a Professor of Sociology at Harvard who specializes in the sociological study of contemporary China. He teaches a sociology class on social life in modern China as well as a course on the American family. He has done research in numerous topics pertaining to China, such as how the traditional Chinese emphasis on filial obligations of adults have changed, and how Chinese family patterns have begun mimicking those of Western societies. His talk may address how modern social life, family life, education, and social roles in China have evolved (or will evolve) with relation to the United States.

Tu Weiming is Harvard-Yenching Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy and of Confucian Studies at Harvard University and the Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. Born in Kunming, China, he has also taught at Peking University, Taiwan University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and l’École des Haute Études. He is on the board of the Chinese Heritage Center in Singapore, an international adviser of Rahman University in Malaysia, a member of the “Group of Eminent Persons” appointed by Kofi Annan to facilitate the Dialogue among Civilizations, a participant of the World Economic Forum, a moderator of the Aspen Institute, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has published six books and more than a hundred articles in English, primarily focusing on the modern transformation of Confucian humanism. A five-volume anthology of his works was also published in Chinese in 2001.

William Kirby is the T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, and a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. He also serves as Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Chairman of the Harvard China Fund. A historian of modern China, Professor Kirby’s work examines China’s business, economic, and political development in an international context. As HAUSCR’s adviser, he also takes special interest in comparisons between Chinese and American higher education.

IV. Martial Arts and Medicine: Finding Harmony between the Old and New

Xie Haiyang is a modern practitioner of traditional Shaolin Temple style martial arts and Qigong Healing Techniques. He became a member of the Xiao Long Wushu institute in Deng Feng, Henan at age nine and now serves as the head instructor to foreign students. He has witnessed the modern day transformation of the Shaolin temple as it struggles to adjust to an increasingly globalized and capitalist environment; at the same time, the resilience of the temple’s traditional methods of healing reveal their continued relevance to our lives today. In addition to discussing the development of these health-cultivating exercises and their role in the modern world, Xie Haiyang will also demonstrate some of the spectacular traditional martial arts to which he has dedicated his life in practicing and spreading internationally.

Shigehisa Kuriyama is a professor in Harvard’s department of East Asian Languages and Civilization and an expert on comparisons between Eastern and Western approaches to medicine and the perception of the human body. He teaches a Culture and Belief course on the subject and has written many research articles detailing the social implications related to the history of medicine in both the East and the West.

Jinhui Dou received his B.S. in Chinese pharmacy from the Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and his M.S. in pharmacognosy. He now works on the FDA in the U.S. as a member of the Botanical Review Team, promoting the use and incorporation of traditional herbal medicines in newly manufactured pharmaceuticals and fusing traditional knowledge with modern technology to perpetuate medicinal understanding.

V. Closing Ceremony Keynote Speakers: Standing at the Crossroads between China and the U.S.

Amy Tan, Chinese-American author of the Joy Luck Club and other novels which focus on the Chinese family dynamics and the assimilation experience