Chinese Sci-fi and the Imagination of Sustainable Futures:
An NCTA Resource Workshop for K-12 Educators
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
6:00 - 8:00 pm (Eastern Time)
Online, Synchronous
This online workshop explores how Chinese sci-fi engages with the challenges of environmental, social, and political sustainability that confront both contemporary China and humanity at large. We will explore the work of eminent sci-fi writers such as Liu Cixin, Hao Jingfang, Chen Qiufan, Han Song, and Chi Hui, whose short stories collectively address threats to biodiversity, environmental resources, and the social order while also presenting alternative imaginations of sustainable futures and interspecies coexistence. Our treatment of these texts will demonstrate as well how a global humanities approach might incorporate United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to further analysis and reflection.
The workshop will feature a lecture by Dr. Lu Liu (Georgia Tech) as well as a session led by Michele Beauchamp (Mannheim School District) on adapting Chinese sci-fi in the classroom. Dr. Shawn Bender of Dickinson College, an NCTA Seminar Site, will moderate the program.
The first thirty K-12 educators to attend and fully participate in the workshop will receive a complimentary copy of Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, by Ken Liu.
Pennsylvania teachers who complete the workshop will receive Act 48 hours.
For teachers in other states, we can provide you with a Certificate of Completion.
Registration deadline: November 13, 2023
Featured Speaker
Dr. Lu Liu (Ph.D. 2019, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is Assistant Professor of Chinese at the School of Modern Languages, Georgia Tech. Her research examines the interplay of science, technology, and medicine with media and visual cultures. Her book manuscript in preparation, Pestering Modern China: Animal, Socialist Subjectivity, and Biosocial Abjection, theorizes the pivotal role of the “pest” in shaping trans-species relationships, public health, and nation-building in modern Chinese history.
Moderator/Organizer
Dr. Shawn Bender is Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at Dickinson College. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, Dr. Bender teaches courses on contemporary Japan, cultures of care and the family, and the social effects of digital technology. His research examines the use of robotics in fields as diverse as eldercare and agriculture. He is the author of Taiko Boom: Japanese Drumming in Place and Motion (California, 2012). His most recent book monograph Feeling Machines: Japanese Robotics and the Global Entanglements of More-Than-Human Care is under review at Stanford University Press.
Master Teacher
Michele Beauchamp is an English teacher at Manheim Township High School in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She received her MEd from the University of Pittsburgh and for the past 25 years she has taught all levels of secondary English Language Arts. She has participated in two NTCA study tours and has taken advantage of numerous opportunities to study about Asia. In 2019 she trained to lead NCTA seminars and has since conducted several presentations and book discussions on East Asian novels and nonfiction texts.
Chinese Sci-fi and the Imagination of Sustainable Futures: An NCTA Resource Workshop for K-12 Educators
Wednesday, November 15, 2023 - 18:00 to 20:00
Online Workshop
Event Location:
Online via Zoom