The beginnings of Korean Wave are typically linked to the term 'hallyu', denoting South Korean cultural exports to China and Taiwan.

Presenter: Shruti Rana, Associate Professor of Law, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law

Discussant: Michael J. Madison, Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law

Presenter: Daniel C.K. Chow, Joseph S. Platt-Porter Wright Morris & Arthur Professor of Law, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law

Discussant: Peter Oh, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

In the spring of summer of 1954, Chinese gathered in lecture halls, classrooms, factory workshops and other venues to talk about the revolution. This was not, to be sure, the intention of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which wanted to use the constitution to consolidate its power and legitimacy. However, when the party asked people to raise questions about, and suggest revisions to, the draft Constitution, it allowed them to raise critical issues about the nature of the revolutionary process and China’s future.

Colleen O'Connor (BPhil: Chinese, 2012) is a Fulbright recipient currently researching the dynamics of tourism management in China and its connection to cultural preservation efforts in Mosuo minority communities in Yunnan Province, China. She began her research on this topic at Pitt as a Brackenridge Fellow and a BPhil candidate. O'Connor will discuss her research, as well as the Fulbright experience, her preparation at Pitt, and her career plans.

Previous research has found that among language students who study under the performed culture approach (PCA), the amount of time spent studying outside of class is negatively correlated with in-class performance (Curtin 2012, Luft, 2007). The current study investigates whether or not it is because lower performing students are overemphasizing form and neglect focusing on meaning during their out-of-class study that they were found to spend more time studying than higher performing students.

Please join Professor Sun in a fun and interactive exploration of a key mode of discourse in classical Chinese texts. Some famous but still not sufficiently understood passages from the Analects and Zhuangzi, as well as selected classical poems, will be discussed. You might just find something intellectually stimulating from these texts and even gain new insights in the way native Chinese speak today. 

The Japanese Civil War, also known as the Boshin War, is an understudied chapter in the Bakumatsu-Meiji transition. This talk will propose a new interpretation of the period as neither peaceful nor a conflict between a set pair of combatants, but rather as three conflicts in one. It will further analyze the defeat of the Northern Alliance (Ôuetsu Reppandomei), one of the conflict’s belligerent parties. Why was this alliance of 31 domains, stronger than the nascent Meiji government, defeated?

China already vies with the USA for Olympic gold. Will it similarly catch up in the innovation race? Chinese firms have come to dominate many manufacturing industries in the global marketplace. The Chinese leadership and some executives, however, have recognized the critical need for Chinese firms to be more innovative in order to break out of the low value-added segments that they occupy in most of these industries. The recent emphasis on “innovation” and “creative industries” is actually part of a long-term, continued effort to catch-up with leading nations.

Qi is a key element in Chinese cosmology and is important for understanding how people practice Traditional Chinese Medicine and fengshui in Taiwan. As qi is an intangible, invisible concept, it is important to determine how people sense the existence of it. In response, Sung looks at material culture to examine new Taiwanese fengshui objects and modern diagnoses devices of Traditional Chinese Medicine.