University of Manchester Chinese Studies

15/08/2016

Eek, it's A-level results day this Thursday! Best of luck to everyone waiting for results this week. We should still have places available to do Chinese Studies as part of a Single or Joint Honours degree at Manchester this September, so please do get in touch with the languages admissions team of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures if you're interested in applying through clearing and adjustment. The full list of places available will be online (http://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/applications/clearing-adjustment/) on Wednesday 17th, but if you already know your grades (e.g. students in Scotland) or want to have a chat nice and early, here is the number to call: +44 (0)161 275 3211. We look forward to welcoming many of you to Manchester next month!

Whether you have a conditional offer or no offers going into A-level results day, you can apply for course vacancies at The University of Manchester via clearing and adjustment.

08/06/2016

Exams are very nearly over and the end-of-year Chinese Studies picnic is happening this afternoon, 3-6pm in Whitworth Park! Lots to celebrate. Please keep your fingers crossed that the weather will hold - if we end up with torrential rain we will meet instead in room A4 in the Samuel Alexander building. Final years, good luck with your last exam this afternoon and we hope to see you when you're done!

05/05/2016

Our final Chinese Studies talk of the academic year is THIS AFTERNOON, 5pm in Uni Place 4.212 (please note the different room this week). The speaker is Dr. Susan Daruvala of the University of Cambridge and her talk is entitled "Li Changzhi and the meaning of the word 批判: how Immanuel Kant inspired the first ‘critique’ of Lu Xun." We hope to see you there - and don't worry, the sun will still be out tomorrow!

26/04/2016

Another event this week: two of our final year students, Enda and Lani, have made it to the finals of Chinese Song UK (唱响英伦), which will be held in the Royal Northern College of Music this Thursday April 28th at 7pm. Congratulations Enda and Lani! They would love to have some support in the final so do come along if you can make it!

26/04/2016

Hi everyone! Our penultimate Chinese Studies research seminar of the semester is TOMORROW, Wednesday April 27th at 5pm in Uni Place 4.209. Federico Fattori will be presenting his paper "'Welcome to Sportmax Beijing': Selling Luxury Goods and Anticipating the Future of China in a High-End Retail Store." See the poster for more details - we look forward to seeing you there!

18/04/2016

Tomorrow afternoon, Professor Jing Wang of MIT will be giving a keynote lecture for CIDRAL (the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Languages), co-sponsored by the Centre for Chinese Studies, entitled "The Makers Are Coming! China's Long Tail Revolution." It's going to be a good one! Please do come along if you can make it. 5-7pm, Sam Alex A115.

Abstract: This talk situates the outbreak of the Maker Movement in contemporary China in the context of national innovation policy, the changing ethos of Chinese educators, and the revisionist take on copy culture (shanzhai). The author explores ‘change-maker’ as an alternative proposal to the ruling paradigm of ‘maker as entrepreneur’ and investigates several maker projects that have emerged from below as well as the implications of the spread of makerspaces to the national pursuit of creative China.

Bio: Wang is the founder and director of New Media Action Lab (http://web.mit.edu/newmediaactionlab/www/) and serves as the Chair of the International Advisory Board for Creative Commons China (http://cn.creativecommons.org/). Her first book The Story of Stone, a post-structuralist study on ‘intertextuality’ won her the Joseph Levenson Prize for the “Best Book on Pre-Modern China Published in 1992.” Her third single-authored book Brand New China: Advertising, Media, and Commercial Culture came out in Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese translations. In spring 2009, she launched NGO 2.0, a social media literacy project for Chinese grassroots NGOs.(http://www.ngo20.org/?lang=en). Wang’s current research interests include advertising and marketing, civic media and communication, social media action research, popular culture, and nonprofit technology, with an area focus on the People’s Republic of China.

18/03/2016

TONIGHT is the second and final performance of the fantastic Chinese-language play, Gao Xingjian's "Bus Stop" (车站), being put on as part of this year's Palaver Festival by a combination of Chinese Studies undergraduates and Chinese-speaking students at Manchester. If you're still in Manchester this evening and have not seen it already, please come along to support our talented and hardworking students, including first years, second years and final years! Place: Contact Theatre. Time: 7.30pm. Tickets: £5 for students, £9 for everyone else. And congratulations to all our students on-stage and off for pulling off such a wonderful show! We're very proud of you :-)

15/03/2016

Graduate students in Chinese Studies, do think about applying to give a paper at this conference at King's College London in June!

(IF YOU FAIL TO SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT TO THE EMAIL ADDRESS LISTED BELOW, PLEASE CONTACT GABRIEL F. Y. TSANG [PRESIDENT OF BPCS]: [email protected])

*****Call for Papers*****

TOPIC: “Dynamic China” British Postgraduate Network for Chinese Studies 2016 Annual Conference

23rd – 24th June 2016
King’s College London

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Prof. Kerry Brown (King’s College London)
Prof. Julia C. Strauss (SOAS, University of London)
Prof. Barend ter Haar (University of Oxford)

Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China has entered a new phase. Widely referred to as an era of realising the ‘Chinese dream’ and building the ‘new normal’, it is commonly characterised by notions of ‘slow growth’, ‘anti-corruption’, ‘middle income status’, and ‘urbanisation’. At the same time, Xi’s push to rehabilitate Chinese culture and traditional Confucian values prompted both the Chinese society and China watchers to rethink China’s ideological, cultural and historical heritage. But what are exactly the changes in politics, economy, culture and society that have taken place under Xi Jinping, and what can be expected in the future? With the 13th five-year plan underway, China is faced with revaluation of its past, complexity of its present, and uncertainty of its future.

Now is the time to revisit old questions and develop new lines of academic inquiry. What is the future of China in a changing world? What is the true nature of power in China? How far has popular culture in China been influenced by the proliferation of new media? What impact has China’s popular and literary culture had in the non-Chinese speaking world? Is China’s pre-modern history still relevant today? What is the relationship between urbanisation and a consumption-led economic model? What can China’s foreign relations tell us about its global future? These are some of the questions that the British Postgraduate Network for Chinese Studies 2016 Annual Conference will explore. We encourage submission of papers in the following broad areas:

History: interpreting and explaining Chinese current status and its changes in historical perspective
Urbanisation: state-led urbanisation and consumption-led economic growth model
Environment & Public Health: sustainability and social justice
Nation & Nationalism: the impact of external empires on China and China’s status as an empire or nation-state
Gender & Education: exploring gender, challenges and reforms in modern and historical China, unequal distribution of educational resources
Modern & Traditional Culture: rethinking Chinese literature, music, folk art, film, language and other kinds of cultural representation
Science, Technology & Society: studies on scientific policy-making, relationship between new technology and politics, and social influence of Chinese development in science and technology
Business & Finance: the shadow banking system and government debt
Corporate Governance: markets and networks
Public Policy & Public Administration: the modernisation of China’s public sector
Chinese Communist Party: the nature of Xi Jinping’s power and its anti-corruption campaign
World-Systems & Foreign Affairs: foreign policy and the South China Sea issues
Greater China: Taiwanese presidential election, relationship between mainland China and Hong Kong, studies on overseas Chinese

We are open to submissions from all postgraduate students with an interest in China whose work fits within the wide range of academic disciplines within Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences (including Economic Sciences). Students from the United Kingdom and abroad are encouraged to apply. We also welcome panel submissions consisting of 3 to 4 speakers.

An up to £40 contribution towards travel expenses will be granted based on travel distance. The papers will be considered for publication as a special working papers volume by the Lau China Institute, King’s College London.

Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words and in English. Information enclosed with your abstract should include: theme, paper title, author name(s), institution, and email address. Abstracts should be sent before 17th April 2016 to [email protected].

Main deadlines:
● Submission of abstracts: 17th April 2016
● Notification of acceptance: 20th May 2016
● If you have any enquiries, please contact us via [email protected]

CONTACT: [email protected]

15/03/2016

Update! Alas, Dr. Dirk Meyer's talk tomorrow has had to be postponed due to unforeseen circumstances - we will be trying to reschedule for after the Easter break so watch this space for more news nearer the time!

15/03/2016

Our next Chinese Studies seminar is TOMORROW (Wednesday), same time and place as last week: 5pm, Uni Place 4.209. The speaker is Dr. Dirk Meyer from Oxford University (http://www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/staff/ea/chinese/dmeyer.html) and he will be talking about the "Classic of Documents" 尚書, one of China's earliest and most important philosophical texts. Chinese Studies students, we expect to see you there - especially those of you currently taking Classical Chinese!

07/03/2016

Our first Chinese Studies seminar of this semester is THIS WEDNESDAY, 5-6.30pm in University Place 4.209. See the poster below for details - we hope to see as many of you there as possible!

07/03/2016

TONIGHT! Meet the Language Graduates, 5pm-6.30pm in The Atrium, University Place. Come along and chat to graduates of Chinese Studies and find out more ways you could be using your Chinese language skills and knowledge about China in your future career!

If it's not in your diary already, make sure it's in there ASAP: on Monday March 7th, the The University of Manchester Careers Service is putting on a special event for students studying languages to meet and talk to people who are already using that language in their professional lives. Come along to talk to people who already know how useful a degree in Chinese can be and get some ideas for your own future careers! 5.00-6.30pm, The Atrium, University Place.