Chinese Studies Research Group Lunch Seminar 31st October 2008

Chinese Studies Research Group Lunch Seminar

Date: Friday, 31st October, 2008

Location: Tutorial / Committee Room, Ground floor, Baillieu Library.

RSVP to Bick-har Yeung bhy@unimelb.edu.au by 27th October 2008 for catering purposes.

Program

10:30 - 10:45

Registration and morning tea

10:45 - 11:00

Welcome (Tyler Harlan, President, Chinese Studies Research Group, Faculty of Arts )

11:00 - 11:40

Topic: How is arts policy in China. responding to the major political, economic and cultural changes of the last 25 years?

Speaker: Liu Xinghui, Postgraduate Diploma in Arts Management, School of Culture and Communication.

Summary:

In the past 25 years, reform toward market economy has changed the relation between art and politics in China in a tremendous way. China’s speed of change, its integration into the world family, and its potent historical experience all affects the trajectory of transition in China’s cultural policy.
This essay aims to examine the trajectory of the transition in China’s arts policy using the models identified by Richard Kraus and hopes to analyze whether the tendency of leaving arts to the market, obviously having detached from its previous role of mass mobilization, is inevitably a process of culture liberalization.

11:45 - 12:25

What does "China/Chineseness" actually mean? I will approach this topic from a cultural-(preh)historical perspective (from the neolithic to the emperial period), based on - converging - views from linguistics, archae- ology, and ethnography. (Despite the circumstance that I am not a geneticist, I will try to provide also some information concerning the ongoing genomic research and its implications for this topic.) My treatment of the individual issues will certainly not be new and rather confined to sketches - being an intro- duction/overview to these topics for the general interes- ted public. However, in addition I will also try to pro- vide a synthesis, an issue often neglected by the specia- lists in the various fields of research.
Last but not least, as this view from (pre-) history is just one approach to the exploration of "Chineseness", my presentation is intended to be a contribution to the general discussion of this topic.

12:30 - 1:10

Topic: Ideology, Modernity and Identity: Architectural Discourse and Practice in Taiwan after 1949.

Speaker: Chia Hui Lin, PhD candidate, Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning.

Summary:

Taiwan, as an island encountered different ruling powers and settlements within approximately four centuries history, appears an interesting character in the development of modern society. That is to say, the transition of ruling powers in Taiwan might play an influential role who leads the turning points in shaping society in contemporary Taiwan. This study, therefore, attempts to examine the correlation in between the development of democracy and architecture in post-war Taiwan. More precisely, this thesis will focus on the interaction among political-economic transition, architectural discourse and practice in particular in modern Taiwan and try to establish a theoretical framework for the studies of contemporary architecture in Taiwan.

1:15 - 2: 00 Lunch

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