Blog Archives

China Seminar: 15 February

CHINA SEMINAR | 15 FEBRUARY 2011 | Eva Ströber | The Story of a Ewer in the Shape of A Crayfish 

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lias

  The Story of a Ewer in the Shape of A Crayfish Speaker:  Dr. Eva Ströber (Curator Asian Ceramics, Museum Princessehof)
Expertise
:  Chinese art history, Asian ceramics

Date and time:  Wednesday, 15 February, 15.15 – 17.00h
Venue
:  Arsenaal building, room 014
Language:  English
Abstract:
Kilns in Southern China produced in the 16th century a not very spectacular kind of stoneware: small dishes and boxes, little ewers, sometimes animal shaped, glazed in yellow, green and brown. A special shape we would call rather bizarre is a ewer in the shape of a crayfish.
The topic of my talk will be the crayfish ewer and globalisation. Was it produced for a special market?  What were the reasons it was collected, and who were the collectors? What were the function and the meaning of this small vessel in different times and contexts? The story will cover some 400 years and very different cultures in East and West.

Speaker’s resume:
Eva Stroeber read Chinese Studies, East Asian art history, philosophy and comparative religion in Germany and Taiwan, and received her PhD on late Qing Buddhism. After years of teaching and travelling she worked as curator for East Asian porcelain at the Porcelain Collection, Dresden, Germany. Presently she is curator for Asian ceramics at the Ceramic Museum het Princessehof, Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
 Stroeber has written numerous articles, books and exhibition catalogues on East Asian art, some together with Lukas Kraemer. The range of publications include the catalogue of the Dresden collection La Maladie de porcelain … East Asian Porcelain in the Collection of Augustus the Strong (Leipzig 2001), and Ostasiatika. Sammlungskataloge des Herzog Anton Ulrich Museums Braunschweig (Braunschweig 2002). Her new book Symbols on Chinese Porcelain. 10.000 x Happiness (0Stuttgart 2011) explores the hidden meanings of Chinese ceramics designs in the context of Chinese cultural history, introducing the rich and varied collection of the Princessehof Museum.

E-maile.stroeber@princessehof.nl
Website:   www.princessehof.nl

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Subscribers to the RSS feed of the China Seminar blog  receive an abstract of each talk one week in advance.For more information about China-related activities and lectures at Leiden University, please visit the blog at http://chinaleiden.weblog.leidenuniv.nl/ or contact the organizer: Tineke D’Haeseleer(t.m.v.dhaeseleer@hum.leidenuniv.nl) To subscribe to e-mail notifications instead of an RSS feed,please go tohttp://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=ChinaLeidenList,enter your e-mail address, and confirm your subscription.


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MEARC Conference: Digital East Asia

MEARC Conference Digital East Asia

When: Friday 9 and Saturday 10 December 2011 
Where: Room Benoordenhout, Stichthage (entrance within The Hague Central Station), The Hague 
  
Guest registration now open for the Digital East Asia conference

The Modern East Asia Research Centre (MEARC), part of Leiden University’s Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), announces its international Digital East Asian conference, held on Friday 9 and Saturday 10 December 2011 at Stichthage, The Hague.

At the outset of the 21st century, the world is witnessing what communication scholars such as Clay Shirkey have called a “tectonic shift” in social, economic, and political processes. New information and communication technologies (or: ICTs) have made it easier than ever to form communities and act collectively. As sociologist Manuel Castells has argued, we have entered a new age: the “information age”, a period in which communication processes are cheaper, faster, and more effective, and in which societies are increasingly organized as “networks” rather than as hierarchies.

Click here for an overview of the programme [http://www.mearc.eu/digital.html].

The conference is open to the public. No fee is charged but please register by filling in the following form: http://www.mearc.eu/contact-form/index.php. Alternatively, you can send an e-mail to MEARC with ‘Digital East Asia’ in the subject line. Please note there is a limited availability of seats.


China Seminar 6 December 2011

CHINA SEMINAR | 06 DECEMBER 2011 | Annika Pissin | Must “left
behind children” miss their mothers?

 China seminar logo LIAS logo

 

Must “left behind children” miss their
mothers?

Speaker:  Dr. Annika
Pissin (Center for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund
University)
Expertise:  Children in contemporary and medieval China

Date and time:  Tuesday, 6 December
2011, 15.15 – 17.00h
Venue:  
M. de Vrieshof 4/ 012

NOTE: DIFFERENT VENUE AND
DAY FROM THE USUAL SCHEDULE

 
Language:  English

Abstract:
China’s
economic growth in the past two decades rests on millions of migrant workers
from rural areas. An increasing number of these workers are parents of young
children who either take their children with them or leave them in their rural
homes with grandparents or other relatives and neighbors. The latter group,
labeled ‘left behind children’, receives increasing attention. Their number is
currently estimated at about 58 million. This presentation provides a critical
analysis of the existing literature and discourses about ‘left behind children’
in China,
and deconstructs the dominant approach to ‘left behind children’ in terms of
its urban/academic/state bias and the implications of this bias. Problems
discussed are the nationalist idea of ‘the mother’ and its utilization in
capitalism, grandparents and the constructed estrangement of two ‘left behind’
generations, and new dangers children face in the era of ‘biopolitics’. The
talk presents part of ongoing research about children, family and security in
contemporary China
within an anthropological and historical framework.

Speaker’s resume:
Annika Pissin studied classical Chinese and anthropology in Heidelberg,
Tainan, and Leiden. She graduated in 2003 in Leiden with a thesis about demonic birds, and received a
PhD in 2009 for her research about children in medieval China from Leiden University.
Since 2010 she is a post-doctoral researcher at Lund
University in Sweden, where she conducts research about
children in disasters, migration, and educational violence in contemporary China among others.
Her fields of research are anthropology and history. She gives lectures in
world history, teaches gender, children’s rights, applied fieldwork,
comparative anthropology and other subjects mostly with a focus on South-East
and East Asia.

E-mailAnnika.pissin@ace.lu.se
Website:   www.ace.lu.se

 

 

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For more information about China-related activities
and

lectures at Leiden University,
please visit the blog at

http://chinaleiden.weblog.leidenuniv.nl/

or contact the organizer: Tineke D’Haeseleer

(t.m.v.dhaeseleer@hum.leidenuniv.nl)

 

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Public lecture in Amsterdam, 6 December

China
and the world

the
origins of Chinese global power from 1750 to today

 

een lezing door
Odd Arne Westad

dinsdag 6 december
16-18u
Agnietenkapel
Oudezijds Voorburgwal 231, Amsterdam

 

Odd Arne Westad is hoogleraar aan de London School of Economics en een van de meest
prominente kenners van de recente geschiedenis van de internationale
betrekkingen

 Westad
is onder meer bekend van zijn bekroonde The Global Cold War: Third World
Interventions and the Making of our Times
( Cambridge, 2006). Hij is eindredakteur van Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the
Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963
(1998).
Hij is ook mede-bezorger van het grote, drie-delige naslagwerk Cambridge History of the Cold War, en
oprichter van het tijdschrift Cold War
History
(Routledge). Vorig jaar
werd Westad verkozen tot de British Academy, en hij is momenteel kandidaat
President-elect bij de American Historical Association.

China Seminar 30 November 2011

CHINA SEMINAR | 30 NOVEMBER 2011| Wei-lin Lu| Chinese
postpositions in use: The case of shang
(上)

 

China Seminar Logo LIAS logo 

Chinese postpositions in use: The case of shang (上)

Speaker:  Dr. Louis
Wei-lin Lu
Expertise:  Cognitive Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Lexical Semantics

Date and time:  Wednesday, 30 November 2011, 15.15 – 17.00h
Venue:  Arsenaal
building, room 014
Language:  English

Abstract:
In this talk, I will explore the meanings in use of Chinese postpositions,
using shang
(上) as an illustration. I will
present two major sets of findings in particular. First, at the level of
lexical semantics, several related semantic clusters can be identified based on
a prototype analysis, with each cluster having its own collocational tendency.
Second, at the pragmatic level, shang
is found to be preceded by an abstract noun, the combination of which bears a
function of discourse management. I conclude that in order to fully manage the
use of a seemingly simple postposition like shang,
both the semantic and the pragmatic levels need to be considered, which is
paradoxically complex, and that working with real data is necessary, not only
for theoretical pursuit but also for lexicographic and pedagogical interests.

Speaker’s resume:
Dr. Lu recently obtained his Ph.D. from National
Taiwan University’s
Institute of Linguistics.

He is currently a visiting researcher at the LUCL.

E-mailweilunlu@gmail.com

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Subscribers to the RSS feed of the China Seminar blog 

receive an abstract of each talk one week in
advance.

For more information about China-related activities
and

lectures at Leiden University,
please visit the blog at

http://chinaleiden.weblog.leidenuniv.nl/

or contact the organizer: Tineke D’Haeseleer

(t.m.v.dhaeseleer@hum.leidenuniv.nl)

 

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RSS feed,

please go to

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subscription.

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China Seminar 9 November 2011

CHINA
SEMINAR | 09 NOVEMBER 2011 | Catherine Ingram | If You Don’t Sing…

China Seminar Logo

 

Subscribe to the RSS feed of the China Seminar blog and 

receive an abstract of each talk one week in
advance.

For more information about China-related activities
and

lectures at Leiden University,
please visit the blog at

http://chinaleiden.weblog.leidenuniv.nl/

 

To subscribe to e-mail notifications instead of an
RSS feed,

please go to

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China Seminar 4 May: Peter Ho

CHINA
SEMINAR | 04 MAY 2011 | Peter Ho | Land Evictions, Real Estate Bubble and Social
Conflict in China

 

Land Evictions, Real Estate Bubble and
Social Conflict in China

 

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Ir.
Peter Ho (Professor of Chinese Economy and Development, LIAS/MEARC)

Expertise: Chinese Economy and International
Development Studies


Date and time:  Wednesday, 4 May 2011, 15.15 – 16.00h

This is a departure from the usual format: a 30
minute presentation will be followed by 15 minutes of discussion. We hope this
allows busy people to attend the Seminar without taking away too much of their valuable
time!


Venue:  Arsenaal
building, room 001

Language:  English

 

Abstract:
This paper examines the current state of the property rights system for
agricultural land in present-day China. It explores whether the
rapid urbanization and forced evictions have had any negative effect on the institutional
credibility of the agricultural land tenure system in terms of the support it
can rally from the rural populace. Based on the findings of a nation-wide rural
survey of over one thousand farms, it is demonstrated that the view of the
Chinese countryside being ripped by grievances over land, might need revision.
In addition, the social support for the rural land lease system – despite its
tenure insecurity due to
redistributions in response to demographic change – has basically remained
unchanged compared with a decade ago. However, the research also found that in
the instances when conflicts over property rights do occur, discord over expropriation due to urban sprawl is one of
the prime causes. This is a matter of concern as it affects farmers’ trust in
the Chinese state in protecting their rights to land.

Speaker’s resume:
Peter Ho is Chair Professor of Chinese Economy and
Development and Director of the Modern East Asia Research Centre (www.mearc.eu)
at Leiden University. Previously he was Chair Professor
of International Development and Director of the Centre for Development
Studies. He has published numerous articles and books on China,
including Institutions in Transition,
Developmental Dilemmas, China’s Limits to Growth and the popular
Dat is Chinees voor Mij.

Ho is Chair of the
European Conference on Agriculture and Rural Development in China (www.ecardc.org),
and founder of the Academic China Meeting (www.aco-nl.org). He holds various
other positions including board member of the International Institute for Asian
Studies, member of the Scientific Council of the Centre for World Food Studies
(Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and member of the advisory panel for the Triodos
Bank. He is on the editorial boards of Biodiversity
Science
(Chinese
Academy of Sciences), Conservation and Society, Open Environmental Sciences, and the Journal of Peasant Studies


E-mailp.p.s.ho@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Website:  http://www.hum.leiden.edu/lias/organisation/chinese/hopps.html

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Subscribers to the RSS feed of the China Seminar blog  receive an
abstract of each talk one week in advance. For more in-
formation about China Seminar activities, please visit the blog at http://chinaleiden.weblog.leidenuniv.nl/
or contact the
organizer: Tineke D’Haeseleer (t.m.v.dhaeseleer@hum.leidenuniv.nl)

 
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China Seminar 20 April

CHINA SEMINAR | 20 APRIL 2011

 

Making the Confucianist Meditative Tool into the Maoist Revolutionary Weapon: The Chinese Seven-stringed Zither Qin in the Era of Cultural Revolution

 

Speaker: TSAI Tsan-huang (Music Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Expertise: Chinese Music, Ethnomusicology, Organology

Date and time: Wednesday, 20 April 2011, 15.15 – 17.00h

Venue: Arsenaal building, room 001

Language: English

 

Abstract:
In Chinese history, the seven-stringed zither qin has long been affiliated with Chinese intellectuals and religious practitioners (such as Buddhists, Confucianists, and Taoists) as a self-cultivating and meditative tool. These ideological associations made the instrument and its players one of the main targets at the beginning of China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-76). The situation was later reversed when the “Zither Reform Committee” was commissioned by Madam Mao, who aimed to make the qin and its music accessible to the general public in order to promote the party’s propaganda. This paper shows not only how the powerful dynamic between historical strength and revolutionary force was negotiated, but also how the changing perspectives and strategies towards traditional Chinese music culture and history could have taken place within a decade of cultural and political turmoil.

 

Speaker’s resume:
TSAI Tsan-huang studied Ethnomusicology (M.Mus degree) at the University of Sheffield and Anthropology (M.Phil and D.Phil degrees) at the University of Oxford. He taught three years at the Department of Ethnomusicology, Nanhua University, Taiwan before joining the Department of Music at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2007. At the CUHK, he teaches ethnomusicology, world musics, and Chinese folk songs, ritual music, and instrumental music, and serves as the Director for the Chinese Opera Information Centre. His research covers a wide range of disciplines, including ethnomusicology, organology, material anthropology, and Chinese studies. He is the author of an edited book Captured Memories of a Fading Musical Past: The Chinese Instrument Collection at the Music Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2010), and many research articles covering a wide range of subjects and areas. Tsai has been awarded the Australian Endeavour Research Fellowship 2009 and the Visiting Fellowship 2011 of the Centre for the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University.

E-mail: thtsai@cuhk.edu.hk

Website: http://web.me.com/thtsai/CUHKMUSIC/Welcome.html

 

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Subscribers to the RSS feed of the China Seminar blog receive an
abstract of each talk one week in advance. For more information about China Seminar activities, please visit the blog at http://chinaleiden.weblog.leidenuniv.nl/ or contact the
organizer: Tineke D’Haeseleer (t.m.v.dhaeseleer@hum.leidenuniv.nl)

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Lecture/Seminar (Japanese Studies): 9 March

Contact: Kiri Paramore k.n.paramore@hum.leidenuniv.nl

 

China Seminar 9 MARCH 2011

CHINA SEMINAR | 09 MARCH 2011 | Dennis Cheng | 太一生水研讀

 

太一生水研讀 (A Comprehensive Analysis of the “Taiyi sheng shui”)

Speaker:  Professor Dennis
C.H. Cheng  (National
Taiwan University/
European Chair in Chinese Studies, IIAS Leiden)
Expertise: study of the Yijing, Intellectual
history of the Pre-Qin period and Late  Imperial China

Date and time:  Wednesday, 9 March 2011, 15.15 – 17.00h
Venue:  Arsenaal
building, room 001
Language:  Chinese (Q&A in Chinese and English)

Abstract:
“Taiyi sheng shui” (The Supreme One gives birth to water) is one of the most
important texts of the “Guodian Chujian” (Bamboo slips excavated from a Warring State
tomb at Guodian in Hubei
province). It is defined by scholars as a Taoist text, narrating a
water-centered cosmology. The author is currently working on this paper as a
contribution to a collaborative project which involves 16 international
scholars, writing a series of new commentaries on some of the latest excavated
texts.

Speaker’s resume:
Professor Cheng holds a PhD from National
Taiwan University,
where he also been teaching as a full professor in the Chinese Department for
nine years. His rich publication record includes four monographs, and numerous
edited volumes and research articles on the Yijing
as well as intellectual history of the late Ming and Qing period.

Website:   http://eastasia.csie.org/cheng/

—————————————————-
Subscribers to the RSS feed of the China Seminar blog

receive an abstract of each talk one week in
advance.

For more information about China Seminar activities,

please visit the blog at http://chinaleiden.weblog.leidenuniv.nl/

or contact the organizer:

Tineke D’Haeseleer (t.m.v.dhaeseleer@hum.leidenuniv.nl)

 

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