Modern China Seminar (Columbia University): Recent Years' Presentations

      1999

• October 14: Settling Business Disputes in China, JEROME A. COHEN.
• November 11: Nationalistic Contestation and Movement Politics: Railway Rights Recovery at the End of the Qing, MARY RANKIN.
• December 9: Military Culture in Eighteenth Century China, JOAN WALEY COHEN.

      2000

• February 10: When a House Becomes His Home: Male Property Investments and the Re-Commodification of Domestic Real Estate in Shanghai, DEBORAH DAVIS.
• March 16: Migrating for Marriage: Women, Economic Strategies and Social Mobility in Post-Mao China, CHRISTINA GILMARTIN.
• April 13: reappraisal of post 1949 Chinese history. WILLIAM KIRBY.
• September 14: Sino-Mongol Relations, 1986-2000: A Mongol Perspective, MORRIS ROSSABI, Professor of History, CUNY/Hunter College.
• October 12: Sex and the State: Taxing Prostitution in Republican China, ELIZABETH REMICK, Political Science Dept. Tufts University.
• November 9: Globalization and the Paradox of Participation, DOROTHY SOLINGER, Professor of Political Science, University of California/Irvine.
• December 14: Placing the Hundred Days: the 1898 Reforms as Urban History, RICHARD BELSKY, Assistant Professor of History, CUNY/Hunter College.

      2001

• February 8, 2001: The Tiananmen Papers, ANDREW NATHAN, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University.
• March 8: To Show and to Tell: The Creation of the First Chinese Museum, 1906-1930, QIN SHAO, Associate Professor of History, The College of New Jersey.
• April 12: Mediating Mandarins: Extending Qing Foreign Office Control Beyond Beijing, JENNIFER RUDOLPH, Assistant Professor of History, SUNY/Albany.
• May 10: Insinuation, Insult and Invective: The Thresholds of Power and Protest in Modern China, PATRICIA THORNTON, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Trinity College.
• September 13, 2001: Modernity and Writs of Passage in Late Imperial China: One Rural Community's Documentation of Contracts and Other Practical Understandings. MYRON COHEN, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University.
• October 11: Chinese Images of Japan in the 1990s: Balancing Partnership and Rivalry in a Great Power and Regional Context. GILBERT ROZMAN, Musgrave Professor of Sociology, Princeton University.
• November 8: Central vs. Local Control Over Policing in Contemporary China and the Impact on Social Control. MURRAY SCOT TANNER, Professor of Political Science, Western Michigan University.
• December 13: The Evolving Shape of Elite Politics. JOSEPH FEWSMITH, Boston University.

      2002

• January 10, 2002: Macheng: Seven Centuries of Agrarian Violence in a Chinese County. WILLIAM T. ROWE, John and Diane Cooke Professor of History, the Johns Hopkins University.
• February 14, 2002: Problems of Nationalism in China Today: Student-Government Conflicts During the Nationalistic Protests. DINGXIN ZHAO, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago. (Event co-sponsored by Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, Columbia University.)
• March 14: Identifying China's Northwest, for Nation and Empire. PETER C. PERDUE, T. T. and Wei Fong Chao Professor of Asian Civilizations and Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• April 11: Yueju: Politics of Popular Culture in Modern China. JIN JIANG, Assistant Professor of History and Asian Studies, Vassar College.
• September 12: The Political and Moral Implications of Grammar, Rhythm, and Other Formal Facets of Chinese Language, E. PERRY LINK, Professor of East Asian Studies, Princeton University
• October 10: Contracting Business Partnerships in Late Qing and Republican China: Paradigms and Patterns, ROBERT GARDELLA, Professor of History, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy
• November 14: Chinese Birth Policy at the Turn of the Millenium: Program Change, Regime Shift, EDWIN WINCKLER, independent scholar
• December 12: From Ming He Yuan to the Sackler Museum: Art and Atrocity in One Corner of China, VERA SCHWARCZ, Professor of History, Wesleyan University

      2003 

• February 13: Debating Self-Sufficiency: Mao and Zhou Confront the International Economy, CHRIS REARDON, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of New Hampshire
• March 13: Collaborationist Nationalism in the 1940s, MARGHERITA ZANASI, Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese History, University of Texas/Austin
• April 10:  The World Trade Organization Viewed from Below: A Comparison of the Views of Migrant and Non-migrants in Urban China, PIERRE-FRANÇOIS LANDRY, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Yale University.
• May 1: The Politics of Corruption in the PRC: The Yuanhua Smuggling Case in Xiamen, SHAWN SHIEH, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Marist College
• Sept. 11, 2003: Upstream, Downstram, China, India: The Politics of Environment in the Himalayan Region, JOSHUA MULDAVIN, Henry R. Luce Chair in Asian Studies and Human Geography, Sarah Lawrence College. Discussant: James D. Seymour.
• Oct. 9: Mediating Modernity: Textbook Publishing and the Spread of Ideas in Republican China, ROBERT CULP, Assistant Professor of History and Asian Studies at Bard College. Discussant: Jin Jiang.
• Nov. 13: Naval Warfare and the Refraction of China's Self-Strengthening Reforms into Scientific and Technological Failure After 1895, BENJAMIN ELMAN, Professor of East Asian Studies & History, Princeton University. Discussant: Moss Roberts.
• Dec. 11: How Muslim Minorities Negotiated Their Place in Chinese National Histories,  ZVI BEN-DOR, Assistant Professor of World History, New York University. Discussant: Adam McKeown

      2004

• February 12: Eating Spring Rice: Gender, Disease and Transactional Sex in Sipsong Panna, SANDRA HYDE, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, McGill University. Discussant: Meg Davis.
• March 11: Journalism, Intellectuals, and the Philosophical Economy of Value in Republican China, REBECCA KARL, Associate Professor of History, New York University. Discussant: Dorothy Ko.
• April 8: Collapse Perhaps: The Stability of the Modern Chinese State, GORDON CHANG, independent scholar. Discussants: Elizabeth Economy and James D. Seymour
• May 6: The Colonial History of Western International Law: How American Law Became the Law of China After the Opiuim War,  TEEMU RUSKULA, Assistant Professor of Law, American University. Discussant: Madeline Zelin.
• Sept. 9: Poverty and Educational Opportunity in Rural Western China, EMILY HANNUM, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania. Discussant: Frank Kehl.
• Oct. 14: Remembering and Reshaping Tao Chengzhang: From Acclaimed Revolutionary to Marginalized Memory, KEITH SCHOPPA, Professor of History and Doehler Chair in Asian Studies, Loyola College. Discussant: Renqiu Yu.
• Nov. 11: The Lure of the New Repromedia and the World vs. Realities of Ownership and Audience Conservativism in Late '20s Shanghai, JAMES POLACHEK, independent scholar. Discussant: Mercedes Dujunco.
• Dec. 9:  Pacifism in Imperial China, SHAOHUA HU, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Wagner College. Discussant: Murray Rubenstsein.

      2005

• Feb. 3: Predicates for Regulatory Effectiveness in China, MICHAEL DOWDLE, Visiting Associate Professor of Law, University of Washington.
• March 3: The Western Discourse on Communist Party-States, DAVID SHAMBAUGH, Professor of International Affairs and Political Science, George Washington University. (Paper e-mailed.)
• April 14: Urban Network and Medium Sized Cities in the Lower Yangzi, 1842-1937, XIN ZHANG, Associate Professor of History, University of Indiana.
• May 5: The Imagination of the Countryside in 1930s China, CATHERINE LYNCH, Associate Professor of History, Eastern Connecticut State University.
•  Sept. 8: Gray Tuttle, Columbia University, Modern China-Tibet relations. Making China a Multi-Ethnic State? The Failure of Racial and Nationalist Ideologies in Republican China. Discussant: Uradyn Bulag, Hunter College.

• Oct. 6: Yang Guobin, Barnard College, Chinese sociology. Underground Culture among Sent-down Youth, 1968-1978. Discussant: Dorothy Ko, Barnard College.
• Nov. 10: Jing Tsu, Rutgers University. Different Science: Electric Bodies and Credulity in Early Twentieth-Century China. Discussant: Fan Fa-ti, SUNY Binghamton.
• Dec. 8: Fan Fa-ti, SUNY Binghamton. Nationalism, International Politics, and the Preservation of Antiquities in Republican China. Discussant: Adam McKeown, Columbia University.

      2006

• Feb. 2: Timothy Brook.

      Chinese Torture in World History.

      Discussant: Robert Hymes.

• March 9: Michael Gasster.

      Taking the Long View: How Shall We Assess the Qing's Place in Modern Chinese History?

      Discussant: Joanna Waley-Cohen, NYU.

• April 20: Kristen Stapleton, University of Kentucky.

      Popular Histories of China and the American Reading Public. 

      Discussant: Rob Culp, Bard College.

• May 4: Sanjay Reddy and Camelia Minoiu.

      China's Poverty Reduction Experience since 1990.

      Discussant: Carl Riskin, Columbia University.

• September 7:

Eugenia Lean, Columbia University.

Public Passions in 1930s China.

Discussant: Yang Guobin, Barnard College.

• October 5:

Zhang Li, UC Davis.

Intersecting Space, Class, and Consumption: The Making of the New Middle-Class after Mao.

Discussant: Rebecca Karl, New York University.

• November 9:

Shen Shuang, Rutgers University.

Adversary Cosmopolitanism: The History of Internationalism and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the 1930s.

Discussant: Adam McKeown, Columbia University.

• December 7:

Annie Reinhardt, Williams College.

National Capitalism in Context: Lu Zuofu’s Minsheng Company and ‘Saving the Nation through Enterprise,’ 1925-1952.

Discussant: Madeleine Zelin, Columbia University.

           2007

• February 8:

Dorothy Solinger, University of California, Irvine.

The Nexus of Democratization: Guanxi and Governance in Taiwan and the PRC.

Discussant: Myron Cohen, Columbia University.

• March 8:

Pat Giersch, Wellesley College.

Title: Copper, Caravans, and Empire: Long-distance Commerce and the Transformation of Southwest China.

Discussant: Joanna Waley-Cohen.

• April 12:

Larissa Heinrich, University of New South Wales.
“What’s Hard for the Eye to See”: Anatomical Aesthetics from Benjamin Hobson to Lu Xun.

Discussant: Fa-ti Fan.

• May 10:

Peter Carroll, Northwestern University.

Policing the City for Commerce.
Discussant: Richard Belsky, Hunter College.

• September 6: Susan Naquin, Princeton University. 
•       Religion and Material Culture in a Small City: Shou-zhou, Anhui.

         Discussant: Dorothy Ko, Columbia University. 

•  October 11: Ching Kwan Lee, University of Michigan.

•          Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt.

         Discussant: Charles Tilly, Columbia University.

• November 8: Pierre-Etienne Will, Collége de France.
•          The 1911 Generation: Xi'an 1905-1930. 

         Discussant: Edward Rhoads, History Department, UT-Austin (Emeritus).

• December 6: Yue Meng, University of Toronto, “The Wonder of Plants: Vegetation Studies Before Botany in Nineteenth Century China.”  

         Discussant: Fa-ti Fan, SUNY Binghamton.

           2008

• February 7: Fabio Lanza, University of Arizona. 
•          Mapping the City:  Activism and Urban Space. Beijing, 1919.

         Discussant: Richard Belsky, Hunter College, CUNY.

• March 13: Andrew Jones, University of California at Berkeley.
•          Inherit the Wolf: Natural History and Narrative Form in Lu Xun's Fiction.

         Discussant: Weihong Bao, Columbia University.

• April 10: Neil Diamant, Dickinson College.
•          Vulnerable Heroes: The Contestation over Rights and Status among Disabled Veterans in the PRC, 1949-1985.

         Discussant: Rob Culp, Bard College

• May 1: Henrietta Harrison, Harvard University. 
•          Did Chinese Christians benefit from modern schools and hospitals set up by foreign missionaries?    
•          The Catholic church in a Shanxi village 1900-1945.

         Discussant: Joseph Lee, Pace University.

• September 9: Kenneth Pomeranz, University of California, Irvine.

         Up and Down on Mt. Tai: Bixia Yuanjun in the Politics of Chinese Popular Religion, ca.    

         1500-1949.

         Discussant: Chun-fang Yu, Columbia University.

• October 2: LIU Lu, University of Tennessee.
•          The Politics of Refugeedom: The Emergence of the State Welfare System During the War of Resistance.
•          Discussant: Danke Li, Fairfield University.
• November 13: Kirk Denton, Ohio State University.
•          Exhibiting the Future: Municipal Urban Planning Centers in the People's Republic of China.

         Discussant: Qin Shao, The College of New Jersey.

• December 4: Janet Chen, Princeton University. 
•          "Parasites Upon Society": Between Charity and Punishment in Republican China.
•          Discussant: Eugenia Lean, Columbia University.
• 
  
•            2009
• 
  

• February 12: Hong Guo-juin, Duke University.

         Limits of Visibility: Taiwan's Tongzhi Movement in Mickey Chen's Documentaries.

         Discussant: LU Xinyu, Fudan University.

• March 12: Liu Xun, Rutgers University.
•          Quanzhen Proliferates Learning: The Xuanmiao Monastery and Modern Reforms in Nanyang, 1880s-1940s.
•          Discussant: Robert Hymes, Columbia University.
• April 2: Gail Hershatter, University of California, Santa Cruz.

         Hidden Accumulation: Rural Women, the Great Leap Forward, and China's Collective Past.

         Discussant: Carl Riskin, Queens College, CUNY and Columbia University.

• May 7: Megan M. Ferry, Union College.

         Chinese Travels to Africa: Cultural Representation in the Age of Globalization. 

         Discussant: Weihong Bao, Columbia University. 

• September 10: Pamela Crossley, Dartmouth College. 

         Comparing Rulership and Identity Ascription, Qing and Ottoman. 

         Discussant - Karen Barkey, Columbia University.

• October 8: Melissa Macauley, Northwestern University. 

         Qingxiang: The Transnational Repercussions of  Rural Pacification in Southeast Coastal China 

         1869-1891.

         Discussant: Helen Siu, Yale University.

• November 12: Adam McKeown, Columbia University. 

         The Social Life of Chinese Labor.

         Discussant: Janaki Bakhle, Columbia University.

• December 10: Yinghong Cheng, Delaware State University.

         Mao's China and the "Singapore Story." 

         Discussant: Guobin Yang, Columbia University.

           2010

• February 11: Martin Dimitrov, Dartmouth College. 

         Piracy and the State: The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights in China. 

         Discussant - Andrew Nathan, Columbia University

• March 11: Pär Cassel, University of Michigan. 

         Getting Away with Manslaughter: The Vagaries of Justice in Maritime Courts in Late Nineteenth  

         Century China and Japan.

         Discussant: Madeleine Zelin, Columbia University.

• April 8: Alexander Cook, University of California, Berkeley. 

         Chinese Uhuru: A Maoist Reading of the Congo Crisis

         Discussant: Mamadou Diouf, Columbia University.

• May 6: David Porter, University of Michigan. 

         Of Poetry and Pottery: Gendered Utopias in Transcultural Context.

         Discussant - Dorothy Ko, Barnard College.

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