Art in the Age of Viral Infection Miniseries | Ohh/Pff/Wow, Useless Body (Artist: Yiyun Chen)

The Media & Arts Speaker series at Duke Kunshan University is a bi-weekly event that invites leading practitioners in media and arts to speak about their work and practice and engage with our DKU community.

The third miniseries of talks looks at the intersection of pandemic, virology, disease and art, presenting three artists whose works inspect the delicate relationship between ourselves and the sicknesses that plague us, presenting their unique perspectives on wellness.

The lecture scheduled on Friday November 13th, 2020 at 6pm China Central time features the Taiwanese bio artist Pei-ying Lin. This series is organized and hosted by Prof. Vivian Xu and Prof. Benjamin Bacon, and supported by Arts and Humanities and the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. This event is open to the public.

Time: 12/04, Friday 6-7pm China Time

Location: Duke Kunshan Innovation Building 1046

Zoom: 262-835-7204

Continue reading “Art in the Age of Viral Infection Miniseries | Ohh/Pff/Wow, Useless Body (Artist: Yiyun Chen)”

2020-2021 Call for Funding Proposals

The DKU Humanities Research Center (HRC) invites proposals from all DKU/Duke faculty and affiliates working on humanities-related projects. Projects should be based at DKU and/or connect Duke and DKU faculty. Proposals should be sent to Chi Zhang (chi.zhang323@dukekunshan.edu.cn), administrative assistant for the Humanities Research Center, by December 15.

Small Events

The HRC will fund a number of small-scale events, which could take the form of workshops, reading groups, film screenings and discussions, excursions, and so forth. Experimentation and innovation is encouraged, and applications may be submitted by either individuals or by groups of collaborators. All DKU and Duke faculty affiliates may apply.

A complete proposal (max 5 pages single-spaced) should include a title, a description of the research question, a summary of the activities to be undertaken, a list of collaborators to be invited (with brief bios), a description of anticipated outcomes, and a budget. The maximum contribution from the HRC for each small event is $5,000.

Large Events

The HRC will also fund at least one larger-scale event, which could take the form of a workshop, a lecture series, a curatorial project, and so forth. Experimentation and innovation is encouraged, and applications may be submitted by either individuals or by groups of collaborators. All DKU and Duke faculty affiliates may apply.

A complete proposal (max 5 pages single-spaced) should include a title, a description of the topic/research question, a summary of the activities to be undertaken, a list of collaborators to be invited (with brief bios), a description of anticipated outcomes, and a budget. The maximum contribution from the HRC for a large event is $20,000.

Manuscript Workshops

The HRC will fund one or more faculty book manuscript workshops, which provide a structure for generating constructive, informed criticism on near-final book manuscripts. The goal is to transform already excellent scholarly projects into superior published works, and the Center will provide funding (generally up to $5,000) for faculty to invite two experts in their field and an acquisitions editor from a major scholarly press to DKU or Duke. During a half-day workshop, these guests present their thoughts on the manuscript, followed by a response from the author and a general discussion. All DKU faculty working on humanities projects may apply.

A complete proposal should include a title, a synopsis of the book project, a draft of the introduction, a list of suggested invitees (including both outside scholars and local participants), and specification of which press the applicant would like to invite.

Art in the Age of Viral Infection Miniseries | Proposal for Collaboration with Viral Entities (Artist: Pei-Ying Lin)

The Media & Arts Speaker series at Duke Kunshan University is a bi-weekly event that invites leading practitioners in media and arts to speak about their work and practice and engage with our DKU community.

The third miniseries of talks looks at the intersection of pandemic, virology, disease and art, presenting three artists whose works inspect the delicate relationship between ourselves and the sicknesses that plague us, presenting their unique perspectives on wellness.

The lecture scheduled on Friday November 27th, 2020 at 6pm China Central time features the Taiwanese bio artist Pei-ying Lin. This series is organized and hosted by Prof. Vivian Xu and Prof. Benjamin Bacon, and supported by Arts and Humanities and the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. This event is open to the public.

Time: 11/27, Friday 6-7pm China Time

Location: Duke Kunshan Innovation Building 1046

Zoom: 262-835-7204

Continue reading “Art in the Age of Viral Infection Miniseries | Proposal for Collaboration with Viral Entities (Artist: Pei-Ying Lin)”

Kunshan Digital Humanities 2020 Project Proposals

The Humanities Research Center is currently accepting individual or group project proposals for the 2020-2021 academic year.

In 2019-2020 pilot project we:

  • Recruited students to create original artworks in any medium in and and around Kunshan in Fall 2019
  • Developed a database index for an archive of artworks and other media related to Kunshan
  • Curated an online exhibition of student artworks in Spring 2020

Continue reading “Kunshan Digital Humanities 2020 Project Proposals”

What Could/Should Curating Do 2020 Lecture Series | Kalokagathia: On the Possibility to Think Together the Aesthetical and Ethical in Curating By Suzana Milevska

Press Release WCSCD 2020        

The curatorial program What Could/Should Curating Do 2020 is proud to continue in 2020 with public program through  lecture series

The second  talk  in the 2020 series is titled:

Kalokagathia: On the Possibility to Think Together the Aesthetical and Ethical in Curating

By Suzana Milevska

Date: November 28, 2020

Time: 12:00 pm Belgrade/ 10:00 pm Melbourne/ 07:00 pm Shanghai/ 6:00 am New York

Venue: Zoom link ID: 985 237 3109

Live stream/Facebook link

In the lecture “Kalokagathia: On the Possibility to Think Together the Aesthetical and Ethical in Curating” Suzana Milevska will focus on the ongoing debate about the reciprocal relations and tensions between the categories of beautiful and good, between the form and content, and between other perpetual and artificially distinctions and dichotomies that emerged in art theory during modernism.

This lecture will address the questions of whether such dichotomies are and have ever been viable and how curating helps different art practices in overcoming the hierarchy between aesthetics and ethics over time. More specifically, this lecture explores the ways in which theories of curating brought back to mind the ancient Greek notion of kalokagathia, the intertwinement of aesthetics and ethics and with it, other ethical responsibilities, principles, and values that art forgot to address while giving privilege to its formal aspects. Continue reading “What Could/Should Curating Do 2020 Lecture Series | Kalokagathia: On the Possibility to Think Together the Aesthetical and Ethical in Curating By Suzana Milevska”

Third Space Lab Brown Bag Lunch Research Talk on Languages, Cultures and Intercultural Communication #2

Third Space lab (TSL) invites you to attend the second brown bag lunch research talk by Dr. Chen Mengtian (Language and Culture Center) on Reflective teaching through online Chinese as a Second Language courses during Covid-19: Experiences of beginning teachers at universities in China at noon on Friday Nov. 20th, 2020 (China Standard Time)

Please RSVP by 5 pm China Standard Time Thursday Nov. 19:

https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8faFZ1rutg1BGh7

Location: CC 1095. Zoom link will be sent to remote participants. Bring your own lunch and enjoy the inspiring conversation! Light snacks and bubble tea provided—please be sure to RSVP.

The TSL brown bag lunch research talk is open to all members of the DKU community who are interested in discussing and engaging in a conversation about research projects, either a work-in-progress or a recent publication, broadly related to languages, cultures and intercultural communication.

If you are interested in participating either as a speaker or as audience, please fill out this survey with your availability and potential topics/work you’d be interested in discussing: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bj9cfFmbMBwF80Z.

Student speakers are welcome but are encouraged to consult the TSL co-directors first. We will arrange in-person and hybrid sessions depending on the responses. Contact Thirdspacelab@dukekunshan.edu.cn or Dr. Zhang Xin (xz261@duke.edu) for inquiries.

UG students presented Third Space Lab project at 2020 SRS poster session and HRC conference

By Fei Wu and Samantha Tsang

On September 20th, sophomore Fei Wu, junior Samantha Tsang and co-director of the Third Space Lab (TSL), Professor Xin Zhang presented their preliminary findings at the 2020 Duke Kunshan University Humanities Research Conference. Their presentation was titled, “Negotiating Third Space Personae through Chinese as a Second Language (CSL): Foreign Professionals in Modern Chinese Workplace”  which focused on findings of the DKU Summer Research Scholar(SRS) program-funded research they had conducted remotely over summer 2020.

During the DKU family weekend on Nov. 7-8, 2020, Fei Wu presented the project at the poster session showcasing the 2020 SRS projects to families of DKU and visiting students.

Project Poster: Negotiating Third Space Personae

DKU sophomore Fei Wu presenting the project at the SRS poster session of the DKU family weekend.

Over the course of several weeks from June to August 2020, the team recruited five participants, conducted interviews via Zoom and analyzed interview data using NVivo 12 in an attempt to better understand the racialized identity aspect of Third-Space personae, more specifically the impact of race on the long-term motivational trajectory and identity co-construction of heritage and White American learners of Mandarin. Since this study aimed to shed light on Third-Space personae in the context of professional workplaces either in China or elsewhere, the participants recruited for this study were professionals with advanced Chinese skills and their native Chinese colleagues.

Dr. Zhang Xin, Fei Wu and Samantha Tsang met weekly to discuss the project during the summer of 2020.

After several weeks of conducting remote research on this topic, two main research questions were identified: 1) What role does one’s heritage background play in navigating “foreigner” identity in the professional Chinese workplace? 2) How does the image of “foreigner” in Chinese discourse, namely the image of foreigners as western and white (Mao’s (2015 ), impact the way white non-native speakers are perceived by native Chinese speakers compared to their non-native heritage speaking counterparts? How does this image impact non-native individuals’ motivations for studying Chinese?

During the presentation, the two student researchers focused on three cases and discussed their preliminary findings:
1) There appeared to be a double standard in terms of linguistic expectations placed upon non-native heritage speakers versus non-native foreigners who fit the image of the ‘foreigner in Chinese discourse. In other words, those who appear to be vaguely of Chinese descent, whether or not they actually are, are assumed to be native speakers of Chinese and those who appear to not be of Chinese descent are assumed to not know any Chinese.
2) The two non-heritage non-native subjects were more likely to be motivated intrinsically throughout their language learning journeys even after achieving fluency in Mandarin. On the other hand, the heritage subject’s learning motivations were more heavily influenced by both familial pressure and professional ambitions.
3) Working in Chinese workplaces as foreigners, the three subjects often switched between English-speaking and Chinese-speaking personae in the workplace. However, their reasons for switching back and forth appeared to be highly context-specific and dependent on their personal expectations for the given interaction. Additionally, the subjects who had lived in China for longer appeared to be more adept at switching back and forth between these personae without experiencing internal conflict to the same degree as the subject who had lived in China for the least amount of time.

Art in the Age of Viral Infection Miniseries | Threads Across Time: BioArt, Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies (Artist: Anna Dumitriu)

The Media & Arts Speaker series at Duke Kunshan University is a bi-weekly event that invites leading practitioners in media and arts to speak about their work and practice and engage with our DKU community.

The third miniseries of talks looks at the intersection of pandemic, virology, disease and art, presenting three artists whose works inspect the delicate relationship between ourselves and the sicknesses that plague us, presenting their unique perspectives on wellness.

The lecture scheduled on Friday November 13th, 2020 at 6pm China Central time features the renowned UK bio artist Anna Dumitriu. This series is organized and hosted by Prof. Vivian Xu and Prof. Benjamin Bacon, and supported by Arts and Humanities and the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. This event is open to the public.

Time: 11/13, Friday 6-7pm China Time

Location: Duke Kunshan Innovation Building 1046

Zoom: 262-835-7204

Plague Dress by Anna Dumitriu Contagious at the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave. Photo Fred Ernst.

Continue reading “Art in the Age of Viral Infection Miniseries | Threads Across Time: BioArt, Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies (Artist: Anna Dumitriu)”

Third Space Lab Brown Bag Lunch Research Talk: Languages, Cultures and Intercultural Communication

Third Space lab (TSL) invites you to attend our first brown bag lunch research talk by Dr. Feng Liying (Language and Culture Center) on Persistence in language learning: The role of future self-guides at noon on Friday Nov. 6th, 2020 (China Standard Time)

Please RSVP by 5 pm China Standard Time Thursday November 5 : https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9GoIWgZ9EymV3kV

Location: CC 1095. Zoom link will be sent to remote participants.

Bring your own lunch and enjoy the inspiring conversation! Light snacks and bubble tea provided—please be sure to RSVP.

The TSL brown bag lunch research talk is open to all members of the DKU community who are interested in discussing and engaging in a conversation about research projects, either a work-in-progress or a recent publication, broadly related to languages, cultures and intercultural communication.

If you are interested in participating either as a speaker or as audience, please fill out this survey with your availability and potential topics/work you’d be interested in discussing: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bj9cfFmbMBwF80Z.

Student speakers are welcome but are encouraged to consult the TSL co-directors first. We will arrange in-person and hybrid sessions depending on the responses. Contact Thirdspacelab@dukekunshan.edu.cn or Dr. Zhang Xin (xz261@duke.edu) for inquiries.