Lusting For Old Shanghai: Andrew Field And Tess Johnston @ Silf 2010,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Lusting For Old Shanghai: Andrew Field And Tess Johnston @ Silf 2010, Marta Cooper
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Shanghai is a city where one has to work particularly hard to find simple, unadulterated culture. So, when the blue moon opportunity comes to bask in it for two weeks, I do just that. Most recently, that’s meant heading to the sophisticated Glamour Bar, overlooking the curve of the Bund and the sci-fi lights of Pudong, which has been hosting the 2010 Shanghai International Literary Festival (SILF)this month. The venue has been brimming with excitement, with authors from County Cork to Manila sharing their work with the spoiled audience.
In Case You Missed It: An Introduction To Chinese Philosophy,
2010
University of California, Irvine
In Case You Missed It: An Introduction To Chinese Philosophy, Miri Kim
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
In this well written and organized book, Karyn L. Lai lays out the founding personalities, texts, and interventions in the early history of Chinese philosophy. What could easily have been a tortuous path through centuries’ worth of extant materials and a plenitude of voices devoted to their understanding is, rather, a brisk and focused guided tour that covers major developments in Chinese philosophy without eschewing its lesser known – but still important – aspects. An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy does exactly what it promises to do: provide a clear introduction, neither too truncated nor too bogged down in detail, that …
Buying American,
2010
Ron Javers Worldwide
Buying American, Ron Javers
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
When New York rumors began flying about fresh talks between Newsweek and The Daily Beast over Tina Brown’s taking over the editorship of the venerable but now reeling newsweekly I found myself wondering what Xiang Xi in Guangzhou thought of all that.
A New Book On Mao: A Quick Q & A With Author Rebecca Karl,
2010
New York University
A New Book On Mao: A Quick Q & A With Author Rebecca Karl, Rebecca Karl
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Rebecca Karl, who teaches at New York University and is known in Chinese studies circles as the author of important studies of nationalism during the final years of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) and the development of Marxist thought between the 1920s and the present, has a new book coming out soon. Titled Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A Concise History, it’s being published (simultaneously in paperback and hardback editions) by Duke University Press. The publisher promises that it will provide readers with a “lively and concise historical account of Mao Zedong’s life and thought,” and it comes …
In Case You Missed It: Dreaming In Chinese,
2010
National Committee on U.S.-China Relations
In Case You Missed It: Dreaming In Chinese, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Each time my three Chinese I classmates and I complained that we had chosen a language that was simply too hard to learn, our professor had an answer at the ready.
Liu Xiaobo And The Nobel Peace Prize: More Readings,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Liu Xiaobo And The Nobel Peace Prize: More Readings
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
It has now been a little more than one month since the announcement of Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize win, with the December 10 award ceremony a bit less than a month away. Here are a few links we’ve come across recently in our search for updates on the story:
Touring With A Book (Vs. Touring With A Band),
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Touring With A Book (Vs. Touring With A Band)
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
My “book tour,” which has had me adding a lot of miles to my frequent flyer account,has finally started winding down. I’ve got some things still to come, including an upcoming event in this area with Ian Johnson in June and then during the summer some book-related talks across the Pacific, including several Shanghai gigs (details to follow in a future post) and a July 24 presentation at the Suzhou branch of the Bookworm bookstore, and so on. Still, the pace has slowed down, which put me in a reflective mood and gave me time to finish writing a piece …
You Can’T Make An Omelette With Only One Egg,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
You Can’T Make An Omelette With Only One Egg, Vignesh Pillai
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
In her book Egg on Mao, Denise Chong chronicles the life of Lu Decheng, a seemingly ordinary man who committed the very extraordinary act of vandalizing Mao Zedong’s portrait during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. At the heart of the book is an exploration of morality under Communist rule in the Hunanese village of Liuyang, beginning with the lead-up to Lu’s birth in 1963, his formative years, his involvement in the 1989 protests, and his incarceration. Chong draws her narrative both from interviews with Lu, who now lives in Canada, and from interviews she conducted in China in April and …
Why I Support Liu Xiaobo’S Nobel Peace Prize,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Why I Support Liu Xiaobo’S Nobel Peace Prize, Wang Chaohua
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
What does a Nobel Peace Prize stand for politically? We probably can’t take the written words of Alfred Nobel himself and of the awarding committee at face value. In the past century, the prize has stirred up numerous controversies. For example, a war-mongering, coup-conspiring politician like Henry Kissinger was chosen to be honored, leaving the rest of the world with jaws dropped and the winner himself reluctant to revisit the moment in public. After all, the prize was decided and awarded by a committee of five retired politicians. In addition, no matter how politically balanced each of the actual committee …
A House Museum Café: Part 2,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
A House Museum Café: Part 2, Leksa Chmielewski
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
As I chat with the librarian-cum-barista, a Shanghainese family comes in and starts looking over the menu. They order three different kinds of imported coffee and as the librarian lights the flame percolator, I ask her whether there are differences between Shanghainese visitors and those from other areas of China.
Links, Links, And More Links,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Links, Links, And More Links
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
• The Economic Observer has started a new column that provides a roundup of the commentary and op-ed pieces contained in each week’s newspaper and also a few of the opinion pieces that appear on the EO‘s website. The most recent column can be found here. The EO has also begun providing abstracts of its monthly Book Review; check out September’s lineup here.
Planning To Write A China Book? Just Say No,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Planning To Write A China Book? Just Say No, Jonathan Watts
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
We wrote to Jonathan Watts to ask him to write a commentary on the book tour he’s been on to promote When a Billion Chinese Jump, which included a stop at UC Irvine, but he said he was too busy being whisked from champagne receptions to meetings with Hollywood directors seeking to buy the film rights to the book to craft something suitable. Watts was, however, good enough to offer us permission to run (in slightly trimmed-down form) a piece he wrote—with tongue firmly in cheek—for a 2009 issue of the newsletter of the Beijing Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Composed while …
A Bitter Pill For Prime Minister Kan,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
A Bitter Pill For Prime Minister Kan, James Farrer
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
It was a bitter pill for the Democratic Party of Japan, no matter how they swallowed it. By releasing a Chinese fishing boat captain detained by Japan without a trial, Prime Minster Kan Naoto was clearly bowing under Chinese pressure. The captain had been arrested by the Japanese coast guard for allegedly ramming his boat into Japanese coast guard vessels while in territorial waters claimed both by China and Japan. The Japanese government appeared to buckle and released the captain to China on Saturday. According to an unnamed official in the prime minister’s office quoted in the Asahi Shinbun on …
Ua3/9/2 Chuangxin Cuiba,
2010
Western Kentucky University
Ua3/9/2 Chuangxin Cuiba, Wku President's Office
WKU Administration Documents
Chinese newspaper regarding Gary Ransdell's visit to China.
The Political Economy Of Avatar’S Chinese Adventure,
2010
University of Southern California
The Political Economy Of Avatar’S Chinese Adventure, Stanley Rosen
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
There’s been a lot of discussion of the political meanings that can be read intoAvatar and how this might relate to it being pulled from or simply ending its run in some Chinese theaters. As a political scientist with a long-term interest in the Chinese film industry, and the fate of Hollywood movies in China, and someone who is interested in the working of SARFT (the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television), here are four things worth keeping in mind when considering the situation:
Lu Xun, Mao Zedong, Perhaps A Badger,
2010
University of Florida
Lu Xun, Mao Zedong, Perhaps A Badger, Sean Macdonald
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
Urbanatomy has been running a series called “Why I Write” for the past several months, and we’ve noticed that when asked for their favorite Chinese author, many interviewees name Lu Xun (though Ian Johnson is a vocal dissenter). It’s likely that Lu Xun’s work will be known to even more non-Chinese speakers in the future, since Julia Lovell’s new translation of his complete fiction has hit bookshelves — read an excerpt from her introduction here, and see Jeff Wasserstrom’s review of the book here. So many decades after his death, why does Lu Xun remain one of China’s best-known authors, …
In Search Of Remembrance: Jia Zhangke’S I Wish I Knew,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
In Search Of Remembrance: Jia Zhangke’S I Wish I Knew, Ken Kwan Ming Hao
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
In his new film I Wish I Knew, a documentary on Shanghai, Jia Zhangke recreates once again, after a detour of sorts with Useless and24 City, that wonderful tension between the biographical and the historical, the primal impetus of his art, that had made Platform,The World, and Still Life, his best films, so memorable. Jia is different from all other well-known mainland Chinese directors, be they of the 5th or 6th generation — his is a singular sensibility that is aware of but not chained to the social-political, which to him are meaningful only to the extent that they are …
Behind The Headline: Water, Water Everywhere…,
2010
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Behind The Headline: Water, Water Everywhere…, Ken Pomeranz
China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012
In mid-December, Financial Times published a piece about China’s south-north water diversion project. Writer Jamil Anderlini begins the article with a brief description of the project:
蜚語 (第二期),
2010
Lingnan University
蜚語 (第三期),
2010
Lingnan University
