Portraits of Third Spaces: Your DKU/Kunshan/Durham Story – Narrative Contest

Your time studying at DKU, returning “home,” or living abroad may have been filled with unique and fascinating experiences; the Third Space Lab invites you to share them with the world!

Submit your personal narrative about intercultural or international experiences for a chance to win recognition and prizes. Topics could include such things as culture shock, finding yourself in another culture, new understanding of your own cultural background, your sojourn during the pandemic, your growth as a global citizen, or other intercultural or international themes. Submissions in other languages than English are welcome if they are accompanied by their an English translation.

Please submit your written narratives (up to 5000 words) to Chi Zhang by December 20 (chi.zhang323@dukekunshan.edu.cn). Various formats are acceptable, including personal narratives, scholarly self-analyses, short stories based on your experiences, poems, and others.

Three narratives will be selected by a panel of DKU students, faculty, and staff. Information about prizes will be shared soon!

Winners will be announced in January.

The Historicity of Crisis: Contingency and Continuity in Twentieth-Century Intellectual Histories

October 30-October 31, 2021

8-11pm CST/8-11am EST/2-5pm (UTC+2)

Zoom: 912 3984 7450

In this workshop, we invite scholars from the field of intellectual history to engage a global conversation on how historians in various areas in the world have narrated the crises in the twentieth century through the perspectives of both continuity and contingency. To borrow the concept “regime of historicity” from François Hartog, we, as globally concerned historians, attempt to examine the tensions between their “space of experience” and their “horizon of expectation” embedded in the writing about the collective fear in both Eastern and Western contexts. We do so through spatial, temporal, and identarian dimensions.

In specific, we are interested in making sense of how individual writers connect their local experience of fear and anxiety to the general, global conditions of crisis of the twentieth century, and vice-versa. To what extent is crisis individual, local, and/or global? Continue reading “The Historicity of Crisis: Contingency and Continuity in Twentieth-Century Intellectual Histories”

The Self and the Other: How We Navigate Identity in the 21st Century

Friday, October 29, 2021, 9:00 PM CST

Zoom: 336 052 6609 | passcode: aiyo

https://duke.zoom.us/j/3360526609?pwd=b0lDUmp2OU5RSEROTWdEUzZLbzVXdz09

Before embarking on complex sociocultural histories of fatness, beauty, disability, neurodivergence, and queer representation, the first seminar in the Body Liberation & Feminism series deals with the notion of the self, and by extension, the other. How does your ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual or romantic orientation, faith, education, body type, and other identity markers influence who you are? What impact do these markers have in defining and predicting your social position in different contexts? In what ways are you privileged or marginalised by these converging identities? Join us on Zoom to participate in an interactive workshop led by some of your favorite professors and peers where you can learn more about these questions through fun activities and group discussions!

Click here to RSVP.

For more information, please contact Honey at huang.bihui@dukekushan.edu.cn

The Humanities Research Center Welcomes Senior Program Coordinator Eugenie Chao

The Humanities Research Center is pleased to announce the appointment of  Eugenie Chao as Senior Program Coordinator. Reporting to co-directors James Miller and Carlos Rojas, Eugenie is responsible for the overall co-ordination and administration of the Center’s programs.

Currently working remotely from New York, Eugenie received her Bachelor’s degree in Music Education and her Master’s degree in Performing Arts Administration both from New York University. In her professional life, Eugenie has focused on making arts accessible. She has taught music in public schools and ceramics in her local community. She also organized antique art fairs, and, most recently, managed public art events for Arts Brookfield. She is excited to bring her broad experiences as an arts educator and arts administrator to the Humanities Research Center.  As Senior Program Coordinator, Eugenie will take charge of the Center’s activities by supporting its research programs, labs, workshops, and conferences to foster interdisciplinary research and exchange in the arts, humanities, and interpretive social science at DKU.

Ceramic Plate by Eugenie Chao

Eugenie loves to share the joy of art making and art appreciation with those around her. During her free time, you will likely find her throwing pots in a ceramic studio, playing music, or making pastries and cakes in her kitchen. The photo shows a shallow dish she recently made. You can also find more of her work here: www.eugeniechao.com.

WGDI Presents “Body Liberation & Feminism: A Series”

The Women’s, Gender, and Diversity Initiative (WGDI), in collaboration with the Humanities Research Center, is proud to present the first seminar in our pilot event series: Body Liberation and Feminism: A Series. The WGDI is an informal collective of DKU students and faculty who are working together to initiate conversations rooted in contemporary questions of power and inequality and how they connect to intersectional themes like race, gender, and sexuality.

In this series, we hope to engage students in dialogue surrounding the body by organizing a series of academic seminars that focus on the experiences of underrepresented groups in society. The body, apart from its physical experience, is also home to ideas of self and belonging. Discourse on the body transcends appearances as gender, sexuality, race, disability, and other axes of diversity continue to inform and frame the conversation. This includes dialogue on fatness and the fat experience; the beauty construct—especially for women, the experiences of neurodivergent people, the disabled community, and how this diversity is represented in queer spaces. Connecting these distinct topics are notions of beauty, femininity and masculinity, social acceptance, and the systemic and institutional erasure of these communities in broader society. We hope that through engaging with these complex themes and ideas, we can push forth the concept of body liberation by taking an intersectional, feminist approach.

For more information, please contact Honey at huang.bihui@dukekushan.edu.cn

TSL Brown Bag Lunch Research Talk | Dr. Harper Staples Oct. 22

You are cordially invited to attend the TSL Brown Bag Lunch Research Talk by Dr. Harper Staples on Mapping and analyzing multilingual student identities in the European context: outcomes and implications for learner engagement and wellbeing at noon on Friday October 22, 2021 (China Standard Time).

Location: CC 1095. Zoom link will be sent to remote participants. Bring your own lunch and enjoy the talk! Snacks and bubble tea provided.

RSVP by 5 pm China Standard Time Thursday October 21 :

https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_81jG3PJyYXQY3VY

Continue reading “TSL Brown Bag Lunch Research Talk | Dr. Harper Staples Oct. 22”

Superdeep #1: “Reactive Luck” (Nathan Hauthaler) | Wed, Oct 13, 6:30pm

Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 6:30pm CST

IB 2026 | Zoom 6979897969

All DKU students are invited to attend the first meeting of the Superdeep workshop, DKU’s work-in-progress workshop for philosophically-minded or -interested students and student projects. No prior knowledge of philosophy is required; all students, from all divisions and at all stages of their studies, are invited to join and participate in the seminar.

In our first meeting we will discuss the seminar format, lineup, and ways for students to get involved. Subsequently Nathan Hauthaler (Lecturer in Philosophy) will give a brief sample presentation on his current work on “Reactive Luck”, followed by Q&A with students.

Snacks and refreshments will be served at the meeting.

Continue reading “Superdeep #1: “Reactive Luck” (Nathan Hauthaler) | Wed, Oct 13, 6:30pm”

The Future of Work and Labor 劳动的未来 / 未来的劳动

Humanities Fall Conference

Scan to register

The Humanities Research Center is pleased to announce its fall conference: The Future of Work and Labor 劳动的未来 / 未来的劳动. The conference features three renowned keynote speakers: multimedia artist Cao Fei; science fiction author Chen Qiufan; and professor of philosophy and business, Wang Jianbao. In addition to the keynote speeches, DKU faculty from a range of disciplines will introduce their research, and various labs from the Humanities Research Center will make presentations about their research over the past year. DKU students may register for the conference by filling in this registration form or scanning the QR code. Those who register after October 29 are welcome to attend the sessions, but will not be eligible to attend the dinners. Continue reading “The Future of Work and Labor 劳动的未来 / 未来的劳动”

Aesthetic analysis of therapeutic urban green space in Shanghai

This project examines aesthetic features supporting therapeutic urban green space in Shanghai. Urban green space promotes public health by providing a therapeutic opportunity in nature, and its therapeutic impacts have been identified in many cities. Although aesthetic beauty contributes to therapeutic impacts of green space, however, we still know little about features of aesthetic and therapeutic urban green space. Thus, this research analyzes these features by eliciting public preferences in Shanghai and applying a machine learning approach. This research would help policymakers to promote public health by identifying potential features of therapeutic urban green space. Continue reading “Aesthetic analysis of therapeutic urban green space in Shanghai”

Student-lead Public Health Ethics Research Project

This project has two stages, where the philosophical portion of the literature review is done prior to beginning the next stage. Research through literature review, participating in discussions regarding the readings, potential research questions that are applicable to COVID-19 pandemics, and will complete a research paper for publication or presentation. The paper will focus on the historical and ethical dimensions of disease controls, such as quarantine and contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemics from the aspects of individual liberty, state power, and the general welfare. The diversity of disease controls across the countries from different political systems, as well as different approaches and steps of enforcing the controls offer a great area of exploring its ethical and legal implications. We hope to investigate areas within public health ethics, which often emphasizes the state’s obligation to protect the health and general welfare of the population at hand. This would lead to further exploration of biopolitics, and how much individual liberty is valued by the various states. Continue reading “Student-lead Public Health Ethics Research Project”