Chinese Studies Research Group Lunch Seminar 19 September 2008

Chinese Studies Research Group Lunch Seminar

Date: Friday, 19 September, 2008

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

RSVP to Bick-har Yeung bhy@unimelb.edu.au by 15th September 2008 for catering purposes.

Program

10:40 - 10:55

Registration and morning tea

10:55 - 11:00

Welcome (Jonathan Benney, President, Chinese Studies Research Group; Ph D Candidate, Asia Institute )

11:00 - 11:40

Topic: Greening in the Middle Kingdom: Contemporary Chinese Environmental Politics and the Beijing Olympics.

Speaker: Annabelle Crawford, Honours Student, Faculty of Arts, Asia Institute.

Summary:

After decades of intense industrialisation and rapid economic growth, and issues with enforcement and implementation of environmental policy in China, environmental degradation is one of China’s most prominent problems and is responsible for inhibiting China’s economy by an estimated twelve percent.

Since China successfully bid for the XXIX Olympiad in 2001 however, there has been tireless efforts and over US$17 billion spent on improving environmental standards, especially in the host city of Beijing.

This thesis aims to examine environmental development in the host city from 2001 until 2008, and hopes to analyse whether the recent environmental policy changes have the potential to be sustainable in the long-term.

11:45 - 12:25

Speaker: Dr. Ji Zhang, Ph D. The University of Melbourne.

Summary:

For globalisation, there is a lesson to be learnt from Chinese history. The first successful introduction of Christianity to China worked on the principle of common good; the Nestorian monks engaged in a two and half centuries dialogue with Buddhism and Daoism. Christianity, therefore, attended the unprecedented acceptance by the Imperial Court of the Tang China.

The Nestorian Stele is 279cm tall 99cm wide. On the head it is written: “Commemorating the Propagation of the Luminous Religion (an ancient name for Christianity) in the Middle Kingdom”. The main text describes major elements of faith including the Trinity, Christ, the doctrinal bases for the liturgy, the story of the Nestorian missionaries coming to China in the 7thcentury, and the names of the monks written in both Syriac and Chinese. The stele is one of the key historic evidences that can change the perception in the West.

The paper takes a comparative perspective and examines the evidences of cross-cultural exchange in the text. It argues two overlapping points:

a)     The common good is not defined by the idea of sameness, but shaped by the acceptance of difference.

b)    Comparative method is a dialogical process that does not only aim to understand the other, but also understands the self through the other.

12:30 - 1:10

Topic: Chinese Studies Research Group Annual General Meeting 2008

Chair: Jonathan Benney, ( President, Chinese Studies Research Group; Ph D Candidate, Asia Institute )

Agenda:

1. Attendance and apologies
2. Affiliation with UMPA
3. Reports of President and Treasurer
4. Election of office-bearers

1:15 - 2: 00 Lunch

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