Events

“North Korea’s Mundane Revolution, 1953-1965”

October 17, 2024 | 5:00 pm

Joseph Regenstein Library, Room 122 1100 E. 57th St. Chicago, IL 60637

This lecture presents findings from Andre Schmid’s recently published monograph of the same title. It will examine how North Korean Party-state emphasis on ideological and cultural change in pursuit of socialist goals ironically led to the depoliticization of two of its key revolutionary categories - class and gender. This took place even as the Party-state continued to call loudly for heightened proletarian consciousness and celebrated their juridical implementation of gender equality. This depoliticization was fundamental to the consolidation of the Party-state’s power and the rise of Kim Il Sung. It also shows that north Korean ideology was neither as uniform or unified as is often claimed both inside and outside the country.

This event is co-sponsored with the University of Chicago Library.

“Changchun’s Journey to the West: Translating, StoryMapping, and Illustrating a Thirteenth-Century Chinese Travelogue”

Friday, October 18, 2024 | 12 pm

TBD Chicago, IL 60637

THIS IS AN IN-PERSON EVENT AND WILL NOT BE LIVE STREAMING.

In the early years of the Mongol empire, the Quanzhen Daoist master Qiu Chuji (1148-1227, religious name Changchun) made an arduous three-year round-trip journey from north China to the Hindu Kush in 1221-23 in response to a summons by Chinggis Qan. The record of this journey compiled by Li Zhichang (1193-1255), one of Qiu’s disciples, offers a detailed eyewitness account of travel across the Mongolian plateau as well as Central Asia in the immediate aftermath of Mongol conquest. This presentation will introduce the new complete and annotated translation of Li Zhichang’s account by Ruth Dunnell, Stephen West, and Shao-yun Yang, published by the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature in 2023. Yang will also speak on the process of creating the translation’s companion website, The Travels of Master Changchun, which combines digital mapping and storytelling with AI-generated illustrations.

Lunch will be provided to those who register.

This event is co-sponsored with the Digital Humanities Forum, and is supported by a Title VI National Resource Center Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

“Changchun’s Journey to the West: Translating, StoryMapping, and Illustrating a Thirteenth-Century Chinese Travelogue”

Friday, October 18, 2024 | 12 pm

TBD Chicago, IL 60637

THIS IS AN IN-PERSON EVENT AND WILL NOT BE LIVE STREAMING.

In the early years of the Mongol empire, the Quanzhen Daoist master Qiu Chuji (1148-1227, religious name Changchun) made an arduous three-year round-trip journey from north China to the Hindu Kush in 1221-23 in response to a summons by Chinggis Qan. The record of this journey compiled by Li Zhichang (1193-1255), one of Qiu’s disciples, offers a detailed eyewitness account of travel across the Mongolian plateau as well as Central Asia in the immediate aftermath of Mongol conquest. This presentation will introduce the new complete and annotated translation of Li Zhichang’s account by Ruth Dunnell, Stephen West, and Shao-yun Yang, published by the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature in 2023. Yang will also speak on the process of creating the translation’s companion website, The Travels of Master Changchun, which combines digital mapping and storytelling with AI-generated illustrations.

Lunch will be provided to those who register.

This event is co-sponsored with the Digital Humanities Forum, and is supported by a Title VI National Resource Center Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

We warmly invite you to next week’s East Asia: Transregional Histories Workshop, hosted on Thursday, Oct. 24, from 3:30-5:00 PM. The paper can be accessed here. The password is “highlands”.

October 24: Xavier Ante, PhD candidate in History, University of Chicago

“Salesmen for the Empire: Broker-elites and the Incorporation of Indigenous Peoples in the Southwestern Highlands of the Qing”

Time: 3:30-5:00 PM

Location: CEAS 319, 1155 E 60th St.

Discussant: Professor Steven Pincus, University of Chicago

Abstract:

In the early eighteenth century, the Qing empire sought to regularize administration of indigenous peoples in its southwestern frontier through the abolition of native chieftaincies. Rebellions forced a rollback towards indirect rule. However, the native chieftaincies continued to decline in importance, and integration into centralized structures of rule succeeded by the nineteenth century. This article analyzes the mechanisms behind this transition from differentiated to integrated administration using documents produced by indigenous households in southeastern Guizhou. It argues that indigenous elites who participated in the empire’s timber trade played an important role in the incorporation of indigenous villages by serving as parastatal brokers who obtained economic concessions from Qing officials and rendered indigenous villagers and their activities legible to the Qing administrative system. This study suggests that studies on the elimination of differentiated forms of governance overstate the hegemonic powers of territorial states, and fail to see the central role that parastatal brokers played behind abstracted accounts in state-produced primary sources. By focusing on state brokers and everyday governance, this account challenges simplified narratives of submission and resistance, and overdrawn contrasts between incorporation processes in empires and national states, a direction suggested by recent syntheses on histories of state formation.

THE BELOW EVENT IS IN-PERSON EVENTS AND WILL NOT BE LIVE STREAMING.

Please be sure to register foreachevent individually by selecting the appropriate date to ensure your registration for each event!

ABOUT THE PROGRAMS

Monday, October 28th Venue: 1126 E 59th St., Room 201 (Social Science Research Building Tea Room) Hosted by the French Chicago Center

Simon Leys, China, and the French Imagination

The Belgian art historian Pierre Ryckmans, better known under his pseudonym of Simon Leys, intervened in French political debates at the time of May ’68 and the waning Cultural Revolution from a position that was rare at the time—one of sustained and intimate engagement with Chinese culture. His polemics sparked intense controversy at the time, but have held up better than the glowing reports of a new Maoist civilization. Excluded from French academic institutions, he taught Chinese literature and art history at the Australian National University for decades, publishing on contemporary China as well as translating the Analects. Dr. Idier will situate the life and work of Simon Leys in the context of French-language conceptions of China.

A reception will be held following the conclusion of the program.

The above-events are co-sponsored with the French Chicago Center, and is supported by a Title VI National Resource Center Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

THE BELOW EVENT IS IN-PERSON EVENTS AND WILL NOT BE LIVE STREAMING.

Please be sure to register foreachevent individually by selecting the appropriate date to ensure your registration for each event!

ABOUT THE PROGRAMS

Monday, October 28th Venue: 1126 E 59th St., Room 201 (Social Science Research Building Tea Room) Hosted by the French Chicago Center

Simon Leys, China, and the French Imagination

The Belgian art historian Pierre Ryckmans, better known under his pseudonym of Simon Leys, intervened in French political debates at the time of May ’68 and the waning Cultural Revolution from a position that was rare at the time—one of sustained and intimate engagement with Chinese culture. His polemics sparked intense controversy at the time, but have held up better than the glowing reports of a new Maoist civilization. Excluded from French academic institutions, he taught Chinese literature and art history at the Australian National University for decades, publishing on contemporary China as well as translating the Analects. Dr. Idier will situate the life and work of Simon Leys in the context of French-language conceptions of China.

A reception will be held following the conclusion of the program.

The above-events are co-sponsored with the French Chicago Center, and is supported by a Title VI National Resource Center Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

THE BELOW EVENT IS IN-PERSON EVENTS AND WILL NOT BE LIVE STREAMING.

Tuesday, October 29th Venue: 1155 E 60th St., Room 319 (Center for East Asian Studies Conference Room) Hosted by the Center for East Asian Studies

Keeping Up: Engagement with China After Your Degree is in Hand

Since taking his doctorate in Chinese art history at the Sorbonne, Nicolas Idier has “kept up” with China by residing in Beijing for four years as cultural attaché at the French embassy, followed by four years in New Delhi at a similar post; by fashioning a personal China in his novels The Music of Stones and New Youth; by serving as a counselor for French government ministries and the national education system. He describes himself as enough of a Confucian to engage in state affairs and enough of a Daoist to preserve a core of anarchist values. In this talk, the omnipresent but often silenced question will be addressed: what comes after the Ph.D if not a classic teaching career?

Lunch will be provided to those who register.

The above-events are co-sponsored with the French Chicago Center, and is supported by a Title VI National Resource Center Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.