Crossover Videos: Westerners in China and Chinese in the UK

Three documentary videos and discussion

Time: June 16, 2014 from 3-6.30pm

Place: London School of Economics, St Clements Building, STCS.75

 

Sponsored by the British Inter-university China Centre (BICC). Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

 

Schedule

3.00-3:15       Introduction, Robert Bickers and William A. Callahan

3:15-5:30       Video screening

3:15-3:45      “Robert Hart: For China and the World”; Jeremy Routledge & Robert Bickers

3:50-4:15      “Uncle Chuck: The Shanghailander”; William A. Callahan

4:15-4:45      “BBC” (British Born Chinese); Elena Barabantseva, Andy Lawrence, Ben Cheetham, Tom Turner

4:45-6:30      Panel discussion: Video documentary in humanities and social science research

Chair: Jeffrey Wasserstrom (UC, Irvine)

Panelists: Bickers, Routledge, Callahan, Barabantseva, Cheetham, Turner

Any questions, please contact w.callahan@lse.ac.uk

 

Robert Hart: For China and the World (31 minutes)

Robert Bickers (Bristol University) and Jeremy Routledge (Calling the Shots films)

‘For China and the World’ explores the largely forgotten history of Britain in China from the 1850s to the early 1900s through the life of Irishman Sir Robert Hart. Hart was the inspector general of China’s Imperial Maritime Customs from 1863 to 1911. An employee of China’s ruling Qing dynasty, he played a crucial role in the economic development of the country and in its interaction with foreign powers. Filmed in Shanghai and Northern Ireland, the film outlines the personal and political conflicts that motivated one of the most important foreign figures in Chinese history, as well as his legacy today.

Trailer: www.roberthartfilm.org

 

“Uncle Chuck: The Shanghailander (22 minutes)

Bill Callahan (London School of Economics)

What was it like to be an American in Shanghai in the 1920s? ‘Uncle Chuck: The Shanghailander’ examines the life-style of an American businessman who went to Shanghai in 1924, and left just ahead of the Red Army in 1949. It chronicles Chuck’s journey from small-town America to cosmopolitan Shanghai, and shows how he pursued the American Dream in inter-war China. The film puts the details of his family history in the context of global imperial history, when Shanghai was controlled by Europeans, Americans and Japanese.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/47901393

 

BBC (British Born Chinese) (30 minutes)

Elena Barabantseva (University of Manchester), Andy Lawrence, Ben Cheetham, Tom Turner (All Rites Reversed Films)

Little is known about life in the British Chinese community, which remains invisible to the public eye.  Daniel (age 11) and Kevin (age 13) are Chinese boys born in England, and this film explores how they fuse their Britishness with a strong sense of Chinese identity.  We look at the boys’ experiences at school and how they relate to people in their neighbourhoods, how they formulate their belonging and to what extent they feel they are stigmatised for being different. This is a ‘coming of age’ story, not just of two boys but of a community.  What can we expect from the next generation of British born Chinese?

Trailer: http://www.allritesreversed.co.uk/british-born-chinese.html

For China and the World: Sir Robert Hart

http://vimeo.com/87855511

In the winter of 2012-13 BICC collaborated with Dr Weipin Tsai (Royal Holloway University of London), and Professor Hans van de Ven (Cambridge) on a project to restore the decrepit gravestone of Sir Robert Hart and Hester, Lady Hart. The Harts are buried in Bisham, near Marlow, yards from the bank of the River Thames. The initiative culminated in a rededication ceremony held in the churchyard on a cold February day in 2013.

A new 31 minute film, ‘For China and the World’, documents this process, and explores the story and legacy of Robert Hart, who for six decades led China’s Imperial Maritime Customs service. With narration by Tim Pigott-Smith, the documentary assess the private and public worlds of this enigmatic figure. The film gets its world premiere on Saturday 29 March during the Asian Film Expo at the 2014 annual meeting of the US Association for Asian Studies in Philadelphia. You can catch the trailer here, and copies of the DVD can be purchased here.

Director Jeremy Routledge, from Calling the Shots, and co-producer Robert Bickers, will be on hand for a Q & A after the film screening: 2:10pm room 309/310, Marriott Downtown Philadelphia. The film will be shown at Queen’s University Belfast this coming May, and in London, on 12 June.

China Dreams: The Debate

China Dreams: The Debate
, Directed by Bill Callahan.

Bill Callahan’s film gets a screening as part of the AAS Film Expo, followed by a Q & A with the director himself. When: Saturday, 03/29/14, 2:50pm

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping made the ‘China Dream’ his official slogan, many people inside and outside the PRC have been asking ‘What is the China Dream?’ Is it for national greatness or for a comfortable life? This 11 minute video’s provocative approach will inspire student discussions of Chinese identity, politics and international relations.

Next month Bill is presenting another film he has directed at the Ethnografilm Festival in Paris: “Border Crossings”. Time: Friday April 18, 2014, 3:00pm. Venue: Cine 13, 1 Avenue Junot, 75018 Paris, France

Borders not only separate things, but are the place where people come together. “Border Crossings” (10 min.) examines how Chinese and non-Chinese people experience their encounters with the Other (and thus with their Self) at the Lo Wu Bridge, the iconic border between Hong Kong and mainland China.

BICC HEFCE Scholarship opportunities

Two BICC scholarships are available for study on the M.Phil. Modern Chinese Studies course at the University of Oxford, commencing in October 2014.  Both scholarships provide £20,000 p.a. towards fees and maintenance.  One scholarship is for the full two years of the course.  The second scholarship is for one year only.  These scholarships will be awarded on the strength of each candidate’s academic background and on the quality of a proposal for doctoral study. The scholarships are funded by the HEFCE Postgraduate Support Scheme award to the ‘Sustainable Funding for Language-based Area Studies’ initiative, led by SOAS, University of London.

Who can apply?

To be eligible to apply, applicants must:

  • Either qualify for UK or EU fee status or be ordinarily resident in the UK or EU.
  • Have submitted an application to the M.Phil. in Modern Chinese Studies and expect to start the course in October 2014
  • Intend to continue to a doctoral degree after completing the M.Phil.

Students who have not yet applied to the M.Phil. in Modern Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford should do so using the application code 2014/MCS/BICC no later than 20 April 2014. Your scholarship application will not be considered until you have submitted a full graduate application. Further details about making a graduate application are available at http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/applyReceipt of one of these scholarships will be dependent upon the applicant meeting all requirements for admission to the M.Phil. in Modern Chinese Studies, and taking up a place on this course for 2014/15.

Application Process

The deadline for applications is 20 April 2014.

Applications should include:

  • A copy of the application materials submitted to the University of Oxford for entrance to the M.Phil. in Modern Chinese Studies
  • A statement outlining how undertaking the MPhil in Modern Chinese Studies would prepare the applicant for doctoral study and provide an indication of the applicants’ research interests for doctoral study.

Applications should be submitted by email to hums-bicc@bristol.ac.uk

All applicants will automatically be considered for both scholarships.

For more information on the M.Phil. in Modern Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford see: http://www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/ea/chinese/mph_modchst.html

费城: BICC goes to Philadelphia

BICC has a strong presence at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, which is taking place in Philadelphia on 27-30 March. (In Mandarin Chinese it is 费城: Feicheng). BICC researchers have organised four panels, and contribute to several others. Two BICC-funded films were also accepted for screening in the AAS Film Expo: ‘For China and the World‘, produced by Robert Bickers and Calling the Shots, and ‘China Dreams: The Debate‘, directed by Professor Wiliam Callahan.

Dr Margaret Hillenbrand (Oxford) has organised a panel on ‘The Past and Present of Digital Culture in China‘, William Callahan has organised ‘China Dreams: Historical, Theoretical, and Policy Perspectives on the PRC’s Future‘, which explores in a multidisciplinary way the meaning of the concept ‘The China Dream-Zhongguo meng’ which was introduced by Xi Jinping soon after he was appointed the Secretary-General of the Communist Party of China in November 2012. This term struck a chord in China, becoming the “hottest term” of 2012 according to Beijing’s State Language Commission. Former BICC researcher Kelvin Cheung (The Hong Kong Institute of Education) is also presenting on the panel.

Anna Lora-Wainwright (Oxford) has co-organised a panel with Yanhua Deng on ‘Protest and Policing in Contemporary China‘, chaired by Prof. Kevin O’Brien and with Prof. Guobin Yang acting as discussant. The panel examines contention and policing in contemporary China.  It looks at various forces involved in protest control, including the police, work units, social ties, and information communication technologies (ICTs).  It also highlights the range of strategies citizens use to fight back against repression, such as resorting to elite allies and ICTs-based mobilization.  Focusing on one in-depth case study of high-profile resistance in a rural setting. Dr Rachel Silberstein (Oxford) has co-organised with Buyun Chen, of Swarthmore College, a panel on ‘Fashioning Textiles, Fabricating Fashion: The Technology of Cloth and Clothing from Seventh to Twentieth Century China‘, which  explores how the production and consumption of textiles shaped fashion in Chinese history.

Robert Bickers is participating in a roundtable assessing the impact and legacy of Paul Cohen’s 1984 volume Discovering History in China, while Professor Barend ter Haar (Oxford) is chairing another roundtable on ‘Literacy and Writing in Premodern China‘. Manchester network co-ordinators Pierre Fuller and Jane Caple are also presenting.

Dr Anna Lora-Wainwright awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize

Congratulations to BICC researcher Dr Anna Lora-Wainwright, who has been awarded a 2013 Philip Leverhulme Prize in Geography.

These prizes are awarded to a handful of individuals on a bi-annual basis in selected subject areas ‘to recognise and facilitate the work of outstanding young research scholars of proven achievement, who have made and are continuing to make original and significant contributions to knowledge in [their] discipline’.

Her most recent book is Fighting for Breath: Living Morally and  Dying of Cancer in a Sichuan Village (2013, University of Hawai’i Press).

Borders of Sexuality and Desire Network, 2013 workshop, Beijing

Hongwei Bao leads discussion at the workshop. Pictured are (facing camera) Andrew Diver (University of Cambridge postgraduate student) and Elisabeth Engebretsen.

In August 2013 the Borders of Sexuality and Desire network held an international workshop in Beijing at the city’s LGBT Center.

The event built on the successes of the historic 2013 National LGBT Conference, organised by several of the members of the network. This national conference was a two-day event that attracted more than 140 queer activists, organizers, and academics from across the People’s Republic of China, including not just developed eastern areas, but also Tibet and several other interior regions.

On the day following this conference, the network hosted more than 40 core participants from the enlightening weekend for discussion, planning, and dialogue. At the workshop we discussed ways to harness the conference’s momentum to strengthen global queer exchanges, especially as China is now a key voice in the growing international fields of sexuality and gender studies.

Discussions at the workshop focused on these key themes:

  • Indigenization versus globalization of the queer movement—How appropriate is contemporary queer theory, which emanates largely from the west, to the Chinese context, and what can the west learn from China’s example?
  • Defining terminology—How do concepts such as ‘comrade’ (tongzhi; a contemporary Chinese colloquialism referring to non-normative sexualities), ‘queer’ (ku’er; an English loan word used among academics and activists but that is also increasingly used in popular contexts), and ‘LGBT’ (another English loan, meant as a catch-all but that often excludes as much as it includes) contribute to an understanding of what it’s like to have a non-mainstream sexuality in contemporary China?
  • Understanding the movement—Is it necessary to define ‘a movement’, by which process inevitably some people will be excluded?
  • Locating practice—How can queer activists and scholars in China incorporate the needs of small towns and rural areas into what has been largely an urban movement?
  • Building relationships—How can queer activism and queer scholarship build fruitful mutual exchanges?

Organizing participants in the workshop included:

Future events are in planning and may include expanding the network’s activities to Hong Kong and Taiwan. An edited volume that builds on other workshops and includes contributions from many of the network’s participants is under consideration at the Nordic Institute for Asian Studies Press.

Introducing Dr David Tobin

David TobinAs a BICC student fellow, I conducted my doctoral research at the University of Manchester, with language training at Peking University and Xinjiang Normal University. My July 2013 thesis is titled ‘Nation-Building and Ethnic Boundaries in China’s North-West’, and was supervised by Professor William A Callahan and Dr Elena Barabantseva. It examines how the concept of performativity can be applied to the securitisation of identity in official discourse and the politics of the everyday.  The empirical focus is on how the party-state’s attempts to deepen integration of Xinjiang and Turkic-speaking Uyghurs into China shape popular responses and resistance to this nation-building project by both Han Chinese and Uyghurs. The interface between official and unofficial nationalisms is explored through discourse analysis of official documents and detailed semi-structured interviews with Han and Uyghur residents. The analysis is drawn from a year-long fieldwork period in Xinjiang’s largest city, Ürümchi. The training, expertise, and academic freedom provided by the BICC were absolutely indispensable in bringing this project to fruition.

My research interests are primarily identity politics, nationalism, and critical international relations theory using China and Xinjiang as case studies. Working with the BICC enabled me to develop networks, which have led to publications on nationalism and ethnic relations in the journal Inner Asia and a chapter in a forthcoming Routledge edited volume on identity politics amongst urban Uyghur youth.

I worked from September 2012 to September 2013 as Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester before taking up the position of Lecturer in Politics at the University of Glasgow. Most of my teaching is focused on the intersection between domestic and international politics using China as the key case study. I am currently working on converting my thesis into a monograph and writing several journal articles on ethnicity in contemporary China based on my fieldwork. My next large-scale research project will explore how China’s increasingly influential public intellectuals theorise the role of ethnicity in what they see as China’s rise to global superpower status.

Introducing Sam Geall

Sam Geall Photo (1)As the recipient of a BICC studentship from 2008-2012, I was able to pursue the research and fieldwork for a PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester, supervised by Dr Anna Lora-Wainwright and Prof Sarah Green. My dissertation focuses on climate change as it is explored in the contemporary Chinese public sphere.

My broader research interests include Chinese journalism, environmental activism and citizen science, themes that also run through the book I recently edited, China and the Environment: The Green Revolution (Zed Books, 2013) and the book-length report I authored, CIimate-change journalism in China: Opportunities for international cooperation (Caixin Media and International Media Support, 2011), as well as my writing for a number of publications, including The Guardian, The New Statesman, Foreign Policy, New Humanist, Index on Censorship, China Rights Forum, openDemocracy and Green Futures.

Sam Geall book front coverI am also Executive Editor of chinadialogue.net, a bilingual online journal devoted to open discussion of all environmental issues, with a special focus on China, and the International Coordinator of a Special Policy Study on Promoting Social Media and Public Participation in China’s Green Development for the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), a high-level think tank.

From 2012-2013, I worked as Departmental Lecturer in Human Geography of China at Oxford University, where I taught undergraduate courses and graduate seminars on China, environmental policy and sustainable development. In November/December 2013 I expect to complete my PhD, and in December 2013 I will join the STEPS Centre at the University of Sussex as a post-doctoral research associate on the Low Carbon Innovation in China project.