CGA & GPS Young Scholars Colloquium on Asia and the World

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• Overview

This two-day event brings together dissertation and postdoctoral fellows researching and teaching at NYU Shanghai, whose work examines and expands the ever-changing intellectual boundaries of academic scholarship on China, Asia and the broader world.  Inaugurating this first annual colloquium, Gordon Mathews (Professor of Anthropology, Chinese University of Hong Kong) will deliver a special keynote address as part of the NYUSH lecture series “Cultural and Social Worlds of Global Cities.” The research of these young scholars represents some of the newest and most dynamic directions in the fields of anthropology, art history, history, literature, and film studies.

• Keynote Address

"The World in Guangzhou: Africans and Other Foreigners in South China’s Global Marketplace", by Professor Gordon Mathews (The Chinese University of Hong Kong).

Date: March 8, Thursday

Time: 17:30 - 19:00

Only decades ago, the population of Guangzhou was almost wholly Chinese. Today, it is a global city, a place where people from around the world go to make new lives, find themselves, or further their careers. A large number of these migrants are small-scale traders from Africa who deal in Chinese goods—often knockoffs or copies—to send back to their home countries. In this talk, Professor Gordon Mathews explores how Guangzhou became a center of “low-end globalization.”  He will consider how the informal economy of low-end globalization can take place between two groups—Chinese and sub-Saharan Africans—that do not share a common language, culture, or religion. He will also examine the role of religion among these traders:  for some of them, particularly Christians, evangelizing China is their deepest priority, more important to them than trade. Finally, he will consider what happens when Africans move beyond their status as temporary residents and begin to put down roots and establish families – will we ever see a Chinese Barack Obama?

• Schedule

March 8, Thursday

10:00-10:15  Opening Remarks
Maria Montoya (Dean of Arts and Sciences, NYUSH)

10:15-12:00  Panel 1 –  Curatorial Responsibility: A Dialogue across Film, Literature & History

Chair: Duane Corpis (Associate Professor, NYUSH)

10:15-10:35: Fareed Ben-Youssef (GPS Fellow):  "Curatorial Responsibility in Film"

10:35-10:55: Jeong Min Kim (GPS Fellow):  "Curatorial Responsibility in History"

10:55-11:15: Adrian Thieret (GPS Fellow):  "Curatorial Responsibility in Literature" 

11:15-12:00: Discussion

12:00-1:30 Lunch for Speakers and Guests

1:30-3:15  Panel 2 – Understanding Economics and Politics through Ritual and Dispute

Chair: Nilanjan Das (Assistant Professor, NYUSH)

1:30-1:50: Cheryl Schmitz (GPS Fellow):  "Translation, Labor, and Witchcraft at a Chinese Company in Angola"

1:50-2:10: Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko (GPS Fellow): "Calling Money:  Mongolian Prosperity Rituals in Buddhist Temples"

2:10-2:30 Dannah Dennis (GPS Fellow):  "Claiming 'Gorkha':  Intimacy and Nationalism Online" 

2:30-3:15: Discussion

3:15-3:30  Tea/Coffee

5:30-7:00  Keynote Address:  “The World in Guangzhou:  Africans and Other Foreigners in South China’s Global Marketplace”

Gordon Mathews (Professor of Anthropology, Chinese University of Hong Kong)

March 9, Friday

9:00-10:10  Panel 3 – Commodities, Values, and Ethics:  Reconfiguring Trade in Global China

Chair: Alan Crawford (Postdoctoral Fellow, Jiaotong University)

9:00-9:20: Kunbing Xiao (CGA-ARC Postdoctoral Fellow): "Social Values and Geo-Political Considerations of Pu’er Tea in a Chinese Borderland"

9:20-9:40: Ka-Kin Cheuk (CGA Postdoctoral Fellow):  “Mapping 'Environmental Ethics' in the Emerging China-Netherlands Flower Trade Nexus”

9:40-10:10: Discussion

10:10-10:30:  Tea/Coffee

10:30-12:15  Panel 4 – The Validity and Limitations of Diasporas

Chair: Shirin Edwin (Associate Professor, NYUSH)

10:30-10:50: Asligul Berktay (GPS Fellow):  "Back and Forth between Brazil and the Slave Coast:  The Diasporic Lives of Nineteenth-Century Agudás" 

10:50-11:10: Dada Docot (GPS Fellow): "Balo-balo:  Rehearsing Faith, Migrants' Homecoming, and Kinship with the Sacred"

11:10-11:30: Rebecca Ehrenwirth (GPS Fellow): “Against Diaspora!The Meaning of Being Sinophone”

11:30-12:15: Discussion

12:15-1:30  Lunch for Speakers and Guests

1:30-2:40 Panel 5 – Art in Movement

Chair: Teng Lu (Assistant Professor, NYUSH)

1:30-1:50: Di Luo (CGA Postdoctoral Fellow): "The Asokan Stupa: From Reliquary to Pagoda"

1:50-2:10: Hui Fang (NYUSH Graduate Dissertation Fellow):  "Transregional Nanjing: A New Art Ecology in Fifteenth Century China"

2:10-2:40: Discussion

2:40-3:00:  Closing Remarks

Duane Corpis (Associate Professor and Co-Director of GPS, NYUSH) and Tansen Sen (Professor and Director of CGA, NYUSH)

• Sponsors

The colloquium and keynote address are generously sponsored by the NYUSH Office of the Provost, the Center for Global Asia (CGA), Global Perspectives on Society (GPS), and the Office of External and Academic Events.

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