Each year, the CSCC invites leading experts to Penn to present their research and share their knowledge about contemporary China. Typically scheduled for Wednesday afternoons 4:30-6 pm, speakers will deliver their remarks and then entertain questions from the audience. Attendance is open to the entire Penn community. Announcements about upcoming talks will be posted on the CSCC website and disseminated via the Center’s listserv. To be added to the listserv, please visit our signup page https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/cscc-announce.
Upcoming Speaker Series
The Authoritarian Commons: Neighborhood Democratization in Urban China
Shitong Qiao, Professor of Law, Duke University
Based on six-year fieldwork across China including over 200 in-depth interviews, Qiao’s new book The…
Americans in Chinese Courts
Yanbai Andrea Wang, Assistant Professor of Law, Penn Carey Law
The U.S.‑China relationship has come to be defined by geopolitical rivalry. The siren is loud and everywhere, even engulfing civil litigation. This talk examines the U.S.-China relationship from a quieter, more…
David Nelson Rowe, China, and How the History of IR’s New Right Was Lost
Robert Vitalis, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania
“Simply put, China was an integral part of what made the “New Right” new. –Joyce Mao
“Twenty years is about the length of time it takes a group of academics to storm the ramparts, take the…
China and Climate Change: Transnational Science, Politics, and Policy in Historical Perspectives
Zuoyue Wang, Professor of History, California State Polytechnic University
A Case for Dualism in the Chinese Legal System
Hualing Fu, Professor of Law, Warren Chan Professor in Human Rights and Responsibilities, University of Hong Kong
The Chinese legal system embodies a unique duality under a constitutional trinity: the Communist Party's leadership, responsiveness to popular demand, and legality. The Party's dominance is central, and its prerogative…
Guanchang Meixue: Heart Distress and Aesthetic Attunement in China’s Bureaucracy
Jie Yang, Professor of Anthropology, Simon Fraser University
The “aesthetic turn” in both political thought and mental health care centers around Western aesthetics and Euro-American psychology. This paper attempts to indigenize both by focusing on “bureaucratic aesthetics” in…
The Future of the South China Sea Dispute: Perspectives from the Philippines
Justice Antonio Carpio, Supreme Court of the Philippines
Co-sponsored by Perry World House.
The South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea remain geopolitically fraught locations. The People’s Republic of China has successfully militarized the region…
TBA
Elizabeth Wishnick, Senior Research Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Past Speaker Series
The Ongoing Quest for Judicial Independence in Contemporary China
He Weifang
Penn’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China is pleased to have the opportunity to host a talk by Professor He Weifang, one of China’s most prominent public…
The New China
William Overholt, Harvard Kennedy School
In the past decade China has changed almost beyond recognition. China’s leadership has changed from charismatic, entrepreneurial figures to administrators. A trend toward centralized power has been reversed by the…
Chinese Law Reform: Its Recent Past and Uncertain Future
Stanley Lubman, Berkeley Law School, University of California; Senior Fellow, Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law
Professor Lubman reviews the problems that law reform has encountered since the millennium, especially emphasizing the continuing tightness of control by the Party-State over the courts, the extensive power of…
Chinese Naval Strategy in the South China Sea: An Abundance of Noise and Smoke, but Little Fire
Lyle Goldstein, Associate Professor, China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI), U.S. Naval War College & Visiting Fellow, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University
Dr. Goldstein discusses his survey of official and quasi-official Chinese-language naval literature to provide new insights regarding Beijing’s evolving strategy in the South China Sea. Contrary to conventional…
Demystifying the Chinese Economy
Justin Lin (林毅夫), former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank
Dr. Lin will discuss China’s achievements in the reform era, analyze prospects and challenges for China’s future growth, and envision China’s status in the multi-polar growth world in the coming 20 years. He will…
What’s Next for China?
The Effect of the Leadership Transition for Chinese Politics, Economics, Foreign policy, and US-China Relations
In Autumn 2012, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will hold its 18th National People’s Congress. The Chinese president, Hu Jintao, prime minister, Wen Jiabao, and the other seven…
Eva Pils, Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Crackdown on China's Human Rights Lawyers
Eva Pils is an associate professor and director of the Centre for Rights and Justice at the Faculty of Law of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her scholarship focuses on human rights and China, with…
East Asia Law Review Talk
Contending Conceptions of Ownership and Property in Urbanizing China
Eva Pils, Chinese University of Hong Kong
In the wake of China's great urbanisation process, many of the tens of millions of Chinese rural and urban citizens affected by evictions and expropriations have engaged in complaints, protest and resistance.…