Events

Please join us at APEA on Friday, February 21st from 3 to 5pm at CEAS Room 319 (1155 E. 60th St). Jieming Zhu will present his paper “Toward a Communist Transformation of Shenghuo (Life): Family Abolition as Theoretical Horizon in the Early Great Leap Forward.” This workshop will focus on pre-circulated materials and will be largely discussion-based. The dissertation proposal can be found HERE with the password GLFfamily. Please do not circulate the materials without the author’s permission. We hope to see you at the workshop!

Toward a Communist Transformation of Shenghuo (Life): Family Abolition as Theoretical Horizon in the Early Great Leap Forward

Abstract: This paper traces the rise and subsequent demise of “family abolition” as a theoretical issue during the early phase of China’s Great Leap Forward (GLF), when the “transition from socialism to communism” once described by Marx seemed to be within reach for Chinese Marxists. Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi first invoked the idea of family abolition in their respective talks in 1958, quickly to be joined by the writings of party theoreticians (most notably Hu Sheng) and state feminists published in national-level journals like Red Flag and Women of China. The paper pays particular attention to the eclectic theoretical and political traditions being cited during the GLF to establish family abolition as a legitimate communist aspiration: Mao and Liu, for example, valorized classical texts of Engels and Marx as a way of bypassing Stalinist orthodoxy, but they also drew from non-Marxist radical thinkers, including “indigenous” traditions of anti-family theorizing such as Kang Youwei’s Book of Great Unity, as well as various strands of European and Japanese utopian socialisms. Although the horizon of family abolition was to be swiftly discarded, and the GLF’s ambitious projects of collectivizing housework and “women’s thorough liberation” would also falter under the imperative of socialist accumulation, this paper argues that the category of shenghuo 生活 - which was imbued with a sense of post-familial futurity by GLF theorizations - remains relevant for reimagining social reproduction today.

Presenter: Jieming Zhu is a second-year PhD student in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, where he is also pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies. His research explores the cultural politics of family revolutions in modern Chinese and Sinophone literature, cinema, and intellectual history, with a particular focus on feminist, Marxist, anarchist, and queer articulations situated within transnational contexts.

Discussant: Yueling Ji is a postdoctoral Teaching Fellow and former doctoral student in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, with specializations in Chinese literary theory and criticism, Sino-Soviet relations, and Cold War cultures.

Time & Location: 02/21, Friday 3-5 PM, Room 319, Center for East Asian Studies (1155 E. 60th St)

Please feel free to contact Nicole (yliu07@uchicago.edu) or Lilian (lkong168@uchicago.edu) with any questions you might have, and we look forward to seeing you at the workshop!

Friday, Feb 21, at 4:45-6:45pm CT, CWAC 152 for the fourth VMPEA workshop this winter. 

Mengge Cao Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Art History, University of Chicago

Who will be presenting the paper titled: “The Expanded Surface of Painting in Middle Period China”

Abstract:

The development of painting formats in Middle Period (750-1300) China was often portraited as a linear progression, emphasizing the decline of mural tradition and the growing prevalence of scroll mountings. This reductive narrative oversimplifies the dynamic interactions among diverse painting formats and limits our understanding of historical viewers’ experiences. This research proposes a “surface-oriented” framework that broadens the scope for exploring the ontologies and functions of paintings during this period. In his influential book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979), James J. Gibson argued that surfaces provide the essential affordances for perception and action, serving as the primary interface between an organism and its surroundings. Surfaces serve as the interface through which humans and animals navigate the world, traversing the boundaries of objects, the self, and others. They provide the contexts and relationships that connect things, bodies, and environments. This framework repositions surfaces as a critical lens to examine the roles of paintings on furniture and utilitarian objects, as well as the emergence of independent mounting formats such as hanging scrolls, handscrolls, and leaves. By focusing on surfaces, paintings are no longer seen as static entities in fixed categories but as dynamic, conceptual, and material processes that actively shaped the experiences of historical viewers. In this workshop, I will present a work-in-progress exploration of this “surface-oriented” framework and analyze selected art objects to illustrate its potential for rethinking the development of painting formats in Middle Period China.

Bio:

Mengge Cao is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center for the Art of East Asia (CAEA) in conjunction with the Department of Art History. 

Remixing Wong Kar-wai: Music, Bricolage, and the Aesthetics of Oblivion

Thursday, February 27, 2025 | 5 pm CST

Franke Institute for the Humanities, 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, IL 60637

BOOK GIVEAWAY!

Score a FREE copy of Giorgio Biancorosso’s book!

The first (5) University of Chicago students (currently enrolled) who register to attend the event will receive their very own copy, compliments of the Center for East Asian Studies! Please click HERE to register and for more information!

This event is presented in partnership with the Seminary Co-op Bookstores and sponsored by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies.

A 2-Day Workshop at the University of Chicago

March 7, 2025 | 9 am CT

Swift Hall | 1025 East 58th Street 1st Floor Common Room Chicago, IL 60637

To assist us with our planning, please be sure to register foreachdate individually by selecting the appropriate date to ensure your registration for each day of the workshop! Click HERE to register and for the full program schedule. 

This workshop seeks to move beyond an East/West axis in exploring the emergence and subsequent development of so-called “modernist” forms of Buddhism. In focusing on the entwinement of movements within Asia itself, the workshop takes inspiration from and aims to address recent concerns in the critical Asian humanities after the “transnational turn.” Central to this wider methodological aim is to reconsider the usefulness of “modernism” as a framework for conceptualizing Asian, and ultimately global, religious identities. As such, the workshop addresses itself not only to scholars of religion but also to those with broader interests in the study of Asian political and cultural histories from a transnational perspective.

This workshop is sponsored by the University of Chicago Divinity School, the Wedemeyer Faculty Fund for Tibetan Studies and History of Religions, the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the Center for East Asian Studies.

A 2-Day Workshop at the University of Chicago

March 8, 2025 | 9 am CT

Swift Hall | 1025 East 58th Street 1st Floor Common Room Chicago, IL 60637

To assist us with our planning, please be sure to register foreachdate individually by selecting the appropriate date to ensure your registration for each day of the workshop! Click HERE to register and for the full program schedule.

This workshop seeks to move beyond an East/West axis in exploring the emergence and subsequent development of so-called “modernist” forms of Buddhism. In focusing on the entwinement of movements within Asia itself, the workshop takes inspiration from and aims to address recent concerns in the critical Asian humanities after the “transnational turn.” Central to this wider methodological aim is to reconsider the usefulness of “modernism” as a framework for conceptualizing Asian, and ultimately global, religious identities. As such, the workshop addresses itself not only to scholars of religion but also to those with broader interests in the study of Asian political and cultural histories from a transnational perspective.

This workshop is sponsored by the University of Chicago Divinity School, the Wedemeyer Faculty Fund for Tibetan Studies and History of Religions, the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the Center for East Asian Studies.

Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past

Tuesday, March 11, 2025 | 5 pm CST

Franke Institute for the Humanities, 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, IL 60637

BOOK GIVEAWAY!

Score a FREE copy of Hang Tu’s book!

The first (4) University of Chicago students (currently enrolled) who register to attend the event will receive their very own copy, compliments of the Center for East Asian Studies! Please click HERE to register and for more information!

This event is presented in partnership with the Seminary Co-op Bookstores and sponsored by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies.

“The Stuff of Literary Labor: Thinking about Text (wenzi) in China, 1000-1800 CE”

May 13, 2025 | 5:00 pm

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

Please click HERE to register and for more information!

This event is co-sponsored with the University of Chicago Library and the Center for East Asian Studies.