Chinese Studies Research Day 30 March 2007

Chinese Studies Research Day 30 March 2007

Venue: Tutorial / Committee Room, Ground Floor, Baillieu Library

Program:

10:00 -10:15 Registration and morning tea

10:15 - 10:25
Welcome (Dr Pradeep Taneja, School of Political Science, Criminology and Sociology)

10:25 – 11:05
Topic: When Chinese Taoism meets Emerson’s Poetics: a cross-cultural study on two different thinking
Speaker: Yi Tang, Master Candidate, School of Culture and Communication & Department of English

11:10 – 11:50
Topic: The nature of Chinese students' out-of-class group work
Speaker: Dongmei Li, Master Candidate, Learning and Educational Development, Faculty of Education

11:55 – 12: 35
Topic: Chinese Independent Filmmaking since the 1990s
Speaker: Yuxing Zhou, Ph D Candidate, Asia Institute

12:35 – 1: 15 Lunch

1:15 – 1:55
Topic: Materialization of new ideologies in urban spaces, People’s Square in the 1990s.
Speaker: Ming Wu, Ph D Candidate, Architecture, Building and Planning

2:00 – 2:40
Topic: Field Trips in China
Speakers: Cathering Ingram, PhD candidate, Faculty of Music / Asia Institute and GAO Yaning, PhD candidate, School of Anthropology , Geography, and Environmental Studies

2:45 – 3:25
Topic: Ideologies of Chinese Studies and their Histories
Speaker: Dr. Lewis Mayo, Asia Institute

3:25 – 3:30 Closing remarks (Dr. Lewis Mayo, Asia Institute)

3:30 – 4:00 Afternoon tea

Remarks: RSVP to Bick-har Yeung bhy@unimelb.edu.au for catering purpose.

Acknowledgment:
A sincere thanks is extended to Dr Pradeep Taneja, School of Political Science, Criminology and Sociology, and Dr. Lewis Mayo, Asia Institute who will be chairing the Research Day Program.

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Program Details

10:25 – 11:05
Topic: When Chinese Taoism meets Emerson’s Poetics: a cross-cultural study on two different thinking
Speaker: Yi Tang, Master Candidate, School of Culture and Communication & Department of English
Summary:
This paper intends to suggest the inherent similarity between Chinese thinking (especially Taoism) and the poetics of American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803~1882). It examines Emerson’s three most important essays, which reflect his idea on true poetry: Nature, The Poet and Poetry and Imagination. Also, the core of Taoism will be depicted according to the enduring text Tao Te Ching. Through the comparing, I find that Emerson’s belief in “language of nature” has the essence of Chinese characters; his emphasis on “imagination”, “intuition” and “paradox” are highly valued qualities of Chinese traditional way of perceiving things. Above all, in the history of Taoism and Chinese literature, “nature” is always a perpetual motif.

11:10 – 11:50
Topic: The nature of Chinese students' out-of-class group work
Speaker: Dongmei Li, Master Candidate, Learning and Educational Development, Faculty of Education
Summary:
As globalization becomes one of the major goals of Australian higher education, diversity starts to interest institutions, student support staff, teachers and researchers. Collaborative group work is supposed to be an ideal means for both local and international students to make use of diversity and improve their knowledge of diversity. In class, the tutor can control and guarantee diversity with formal instructions. However, out of class students are relatively more independent in forming group work. Thus, out-of-class group work is more likely to tell how the students see and do group work. Literature shows that Chinese students prefer out-of-class group work, mainly out of collectivism, a Confucian heritage culture (CHC) feature. The majority of the research studied the ethnical Chinese students, other than students from China. There is a lack of research on the Mainland Chinese students’ group work in Australian universities. This study aims to look at the nature of Chinese students’ out-of-class class group work by observing their group meetings and conducting individual interviews with the Chinese students from two Australian universities. The results show that Chinese students conduct two kinds of group work out of class: assignment and student-generated group work. Chinese students have positive attitudes towards assignment group work. The main reasons, from the students’ perspective, are a need for diversity and preparation for future career. Chinese students categorize their fellow students into different groups according to their preference. Also, Chinese students have positive attitudes towards student-generated group work, in which they seek for academic understanding and socializing. This study might have implications for Australian universities to seek ways to deal with diversity, and hopefully facilitate out-of-class activities of international students.

11:55 – 12: 35
Topic: Chinese Independent Filmmaking since the 1990s
Speaker: Yuxing Zhou, Ph D Candidate, Asia Institute
Summary:
Chinese cinema has been the subject of a wide variety of interpretations in western academia since the mid-1980s. However, since the early 1990s, a group of young filmmakers have brought a new dimension to Chinese cinema with films that have been independently made and, not infrequently, proscribed. Their unofficial stance has earned them a reputation as China’s underground, independent or dissenting filmmakers. The thesis seeks to investigate the impact of this latest wave of filmmaking (i.e. independent filmmaking) on Chinese cinema from an industry perspective and will examine the interplays of these filmmakers with the Chinese film authorities by looking at patterns of the production, distribution and exhibition of the films produced by these filmmakers.

1:15 – 1:55
Topic: Materialization of new ideologies in urban spaces, People’s Square in the 1990s.
Speaker: Ming Wu, Ph D Candidate, Architecture, Building and Planning
Summary:
This research intends to focus on the interrelation between Shanghai’s changing urban landscape and the city’s new ideologies, which have gradually formed since the start of China’s economic reform and opening up. Therefore, through a case study in regard to the transformation of People’s Square, which was once a racetrack belonging to the International Concession during the city’s semi-colonial history, but is becoming the City’s most significant civic space aggregating municipal, commercial and cultural functions all together, when Shanghai is undergoing an unprecedented urbanization process; the current study is going to discuss how different ideologies, reflecting the contemporary tensions between the globalization trend, the socialist state sovereignty and the society, transformed Shanghai’s urban spaces at a particular period, the 1990s.

2:00 - 2:40
Topic: Field Trips in China
Speakers: Cathering Ingram, PhD candidate, Faculty of Music / Asia Institute and GAO Yaning, PhD candidate, School of Anthropology , Geography, and Environmental Studies

2:45 – 3:25
Topic: Ideologies of Chinese Studies and their Histories
Speaker: Dr. Lewis Mayo, Asia Institute
Summary:
This talk will be a reflection on the way in which Chinese Studies is configured within the institutional structures of different university systems. It will examine the ideologies that inform the study of Chinese culture and society in different academic traditions, trying to locate underlying institutional forces that might explain varying ways in which Chinese cultural phenomena are studied by scholars operating in different educational cultures - in particular those of Australasia, the Chinese speaking world, Japan, North America and Western Europe. It will also look at "academic nationalism" (including Australian and New Zealand academic nationalism) and how this affects the study of Chinese culture, society and history.