'First Wednesdays' China Faculty lunch talks

SIAS seminar room, Hester Hall 140,
12noon – 115pm, lunch provided.
Open to OU Faculty, staff and graduate students. Talks in Chinese and English.
Please rsvp to Chen Miaomiao @ uschina@ou.edu

Spring 2009 Schedule

Febuary 4
LIU Yuanling, visiting scholar, Renmin University of China, School of International Relations
“‘Going Out’: China’s Pursuit of Natural Resources and its Implications for Sino-American Relations”
China’s “Going Out” Energy Strategy was implemented in the context of the development of China’s economy, politics, and society. It was also a result of globalization. China’s “Going Out” Energy Strategy has many characteristics which include the signal actors, the business strategic thinking, high pressure, and risk. The “Going Out” energy strategy has a significant impact on Chinese energy diversification, and increases China’s influence in international energy markets. Meanwhile, China’s “Going Out” energy strategy entails vulnerability to external energy markets, with implications for Sino-American relations. Therefore, how to balance the advantages and disadvantages of China’s “Going Out” strategy, and deal with the related risk of Sino-American relations is a serious challenge for China.

[March 4 no talk due to Mo Yan visit and Newman Prize for Chinese Literature conference ]

April 1
Garret Olberding 歐經朋, Assistant Professor of History
“How Did Ministers Err?:  The Use of Facts in Early Han Address”
Much of recent analysis on the contents of early Chinese ministerial addresses to the autocrat centers around the minister’s attention to and use of canonical sources, whether as an indication of the use of ritualized norms (禮) or a logic of signs.  This paper will take a different tack in the study of ministeral address by evaluating the types of evidence the addresses marshalled to shape public policy debates.  Focusing on those Former Han addresses relating to military affairs, such as Zhao Chongguo’s address to Emperor Xuan, my analysis will speak specifically to the ways in which error or “fault” was discussed in the court setting and how such might point to the standards by which a minister’s presented evidence could be taken to be flawed or mistaken.  The interest of this paper is not merely to describe the court environment but also to carefully evaluate the general standards of evidence used in the early Han.

Fall 2008 Schedule

September 3
Todd Sandell, Associate Professor of Communications
“I bought a bride: Advertising and the perception of Taiwan’s Foreign Brides”
As Taiwan has liberalized its politics and economy, and opened its borders to the world, one unanticipated effect has been the rise in transnational marriages, notably marriages between Taiwanese men and Southeast Asian or Chinese (PRC) women. The number of so-called “foreign brides” has reached nearly 400,000, meriting some to call them “Taiwan’s fifth ethnic group.” While many of these women came to know their husbands through personal contacts, or from contacts with Taiwanese men who went abroad for business, most were introduced through professional marriage brokers. This was facilitated in part by advertisements which were placed on billboards, newspapers, and cable television stations. However, a law passed in 2004 banned advertising for women from mainland China, as it was claimed that women should not be advertised as a “commodity” on a level with other products. A second law was passed in 2007 that put further limits on marriage brokerage agencies and restricted advertisements. This talk will discuss the discourse around matchmaking advertisements. It will explain reasons for banning such types of advertisements. It will also present findings from a study of transnational families in Taiwan, funded by the Fulbright Foundation, that explores how advertising affects the perceptions of foreign brides in Taiwan.

October 1
Peter Gries, Director, OU Institute for US-China Issues
Partisanship and American Attitudes towards China
It is well known that the elite politicians within the Democratic and Republican Parties are both internally divided on China. Much less is known, however, about how the political orientations and affiliations of typical Americans impacts their perceptions of China’s rise, attitudes towards the Chinese government, prejudice towards the Chinese people, and preferred US China policies. National opinion polls have generally lacked a sufficient quantity of nuanced questions about attitudes towards China to discern any impact of political orientation. Based on our own surveys, we find that political orientation does indeed impact American views of China. Self-reported “conservatives” perceive significantly greater threat in China’s rise, hold more negative views of the Chinese government, exhibit more prejudice towards the Chinese people, and advocate a much tougher US China policy than self-reported “liberals” do. In terms of party affiliation, Republicans perceive significantly greater threat from China and advocate tougher China policies than Democrats do, but party affiliation had no impact on prejudice scores. Simultaneous multiple regressions including education, gender, and age revealed that while each had an impact on American views of China, that impact was negligible compared to the impact of political orientation.

November 5
Tze-yue G. Hu, Adjunct Lecturer, OU SIAS
Letter from China: ‘First Eastern Animated Feature Film – Princess Iron Fan’
At the height of the Second World War, China’s pioneer animators, the Wan brothers created an animated feature film, Princess Iron Fan which surprisingly became very popular in Japan. This presentation discusses a recently discovered letter written by the Wan brothers at the request of the Japanese animation fans in September 1941. Ironically, the film contains a subtle anti-Japanese message and yet, it was and still is a highly popular film in Japanese memory. What are the contents of the letter? In what state of mind did the Wan brothers write the letter? The presentation also uses music ethnologist, Glenn M. Hudak’s theoretical analysis in Sound Identities (1999) in interpreting the issue of art and culture appreciation vis-à-vis the film, Princess Iron Fan (1941)

Spring 2008 Schedule

February 6
Elena Songster, Assistant Professor of History
“Panda Diplomacy: Animal Ambassadors, the World, and the Wild”
The People’s Republic of China began offering state-gift pandas to non-socialist countries in 1972 after President Nixon’s visit. This short-lived, but highly popular trend was very effective in assisting the normalization of relations between China and the international community. The use of giant pandas as animal ambassadors, however, had a negative impact on the wild panda population and provoked new PRC wildlife policy during the 1970s. Panda diplomacy continues to reenter the world news as China attempts to find new ways to negotiate its tense relations with Taiwan and respond to the crescendo of cries from environmentalists. Through panda diplomacy I will examine China’s relationship with its own wilderness and China’s place in the world.

March 5
Jonathan Stalling, Assistant Professor of English
“Ernest Fenollosa: Buddhism, Classical Chinese Poetics, and the Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry.”
Ernest Fenollosa’s ‘The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry,’” is considered by many to be the most important poetry manifesto of the Twentieth Century and certainly the most important document in East-West literary criticism in the last century. Yet Fenollosa’s name is nearly a dirty word in Sinology due to his misguided notions of Chinese characters. Yet in this talk I will discuss my recent archival discoveries which include the missing half of the essay to show that Fenollosa was far more knowledgeable about Chinese poetics than previously thought.

April 2
Jiening RUAN, Associate Professor, Literacy/Reading Education; Director, OU Reading Clinic
“Curriculum Reform in Basic Education in China.”
This presentation will address some key components in the curriculum reform recently implemented in basic education in China.  Issues related to curriculum structures, standards, materials, and assessments will be discussed. 

Fall 2007 Schedule

September 5
Ming-Chao GUI, Associate Professor of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics 
“Are all Chinese dialects really Chinese?”
Based on the unique and peculiar features of many so-called Chinese dialects, some scholars have recently challenged the traditional classification of these dialects.  It is intended in this presentation to give an overview of all the major arguments including the presenter's own stand and personal viewpoint. 

October 3
Mark Frazier, ConocoPhillips Professor of Chinese Politics & Associate Professor of International and Area Studies
“Popular Attitudes toward China’s New Welfare State”
Mark Frazier discusses his research on how urban Chinese citizens view the transformation in China’s social safety net, especially regarding pensions and retirement. 

November 7
Yiqi LUO, Professor of Ecology, Department of Botany and Microbiology
“Deserts and Desertification in China”
Desertification has rapidly developed in the past 50 years in Northern China, covering an area of 385,