Duke Kunshan University Humanities Research Center
Interdisciplinary Research Center in the Arts, Humanities, and Interpretive Social Sciences at Duke Kunshan University
The Superdeep Nighthawks offer a space for late birds to take Superdeep respite after a week of classes. The Nighthawks gather on Thursdays around 8:08pm, for movie screenings & discussions (…& food & drink).
If you would like to propose something or to get involved otherwise, follow this link; for other feedback, follow this one.
The Workshop is Superdeep‘s work-in-progress research…—you guessed it—…workshop. It’s a forum for DKU’s philosophical community to discuss & refine philosophical ideas & projects (essays, presentations, signature work projects, etc.). Meetings generally feature a presenter’s brief presentation followed by general Q&A. Snacks and refreshments are served. Everyone (faculty, students, staff, guests…) is welcome to attend; no prior knowledge of philosophy required.
The workshop usually meets Thu ~6pm in IB 2026.
If you are interested in presenting or in otherwise getting involved in the Workshop, follow this link; for other feedback, follow this one; for more info on Superdeep generally this one.
As part of their residency project Drawing the Lines: Politics and Technology in China’s Industrial History with DKUNST Art on Campus, artist Ho Rui An and curator Zian Chen are seeking research assistants for their archival and field research within the Yangtze River Delta region and participants for a workshop that will culminate in a research-based exhibition.
Expanding the narrative developed in Ho’s recent film, Lining (2021), which examines the rise and decline of the textile industry in Hong Kong, their residency considers the development of the industry within the Yangtze River Delta region before their displacement to Hong Kong in the late 1940s as well as the subsequent “return” of industrial capitalism to the mainland following the launch of China’s economic reforms. A key line of inquiry looks into the shifting relations between labour, technology, and capital within this history, with a focus on the (de)politicization of technology as a result of these changes.
As an extension of their research, the artist and curator will also organise a two-week workshop, during which they will share their research process with the participants and explore with them different ways of engaging with industrial history. Topics to be covered include industrial modernity and cinema, mapping (post)industrial space, and aural/oral industrial history. Following the workshop, participants will have two to three weeks to work together with the artist and curator to realise a research-based exhibition at Ming Contemporary Art Museum in Shanghai.
Requirement for research assistants
* Research assistants should ideally be available for the entire period as indicated. However, they can discuss with the artist and curator to work out a feasible schedule should they have other commitments during this period.
Workshop participants will have to attend all four sessions of the workshop and work together with the artist and curator to realise the exhibition at Ming Contemporary Art Museum. They should also be prepared to be involved in the public programs that will be organised to accompany the exhibition. All participants will receive an honorarium for their involvement in the exhibition and its related programs.
Period of Commitment
* Workshop participants should work out a feasible schedule with the artist and curator for their involvement in the installation and public programs for the exhibition.
Application deadlines
For research assistants, please complete your submissions by 9 May 2023, 23:59.
For workshop participants, please complete your submissions by 18 August 2023, 23:59.
IB 1008 (IB Auditorium)
Don’t say the Superdeep Nighthawks & Jeff Nichols 2011 hadn’t told you to Take Shelter (& food & drink). Just to be safe: Thu, Apr 27, 9 pm, IB Auditorium.
HRC Superdeep Nighthawks meet on Thu eve (9pm till late). Their current screening series, revolving around dreams in film, is hosted in collaboration with the HouTu Research project Unforgotten Dreams.
Reported by Vicky Yongkun Wu, Class of 2026
This workshop was part of the Women’s History Month 2023 events organized by the HRC’s Gender Studies Initiative.
The Women’s History Month Student Workshop 2023, hosted by Professor Titas Chakraborty, focused on 9 student papers. On Friday April 21, after Professor James Miller’s opening remarks, student presenters, who were accordingly distributed to three panels, gender in China, women and conflict, and feminism and media, were given approximately 10 minutes to introduce their projects, followed by professors’ comments and the Q&A session. The wide range of gender topics covered in the workshop was impressive and truly enhanced gender studies at DKU. Continue reading “Student Report on Women’s History Month Student Workshop”
Reported by Scott Mauldin
The DKU Community was invited on Friday, April 7th, to a live tour via Zoom of the Lascaux Cave complex, one of the world’s most famous and significant sites of prehistoric cave paintings. For nearly two hours, Lascaux guide Olivier and Lascaux IV technical coordinator Laurent Puichaud demonstrated the wealth of paintings, carvings, and other archeological traces from the cave system, located in Southwest France, which was inhabited and decorated more than 17,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. The more than 600 paintings and 6000 figures in the cave depict many of the animals that the artists shared the area with, including images that resemble extinct species (aurochs), species no longer found in the area (Przewalski’s horses), or even mythical animals (unicorn). Significantly, the cave also depicts geometric and abstract shapes, giving insights into the development of human art and psychology, and possibly spirituality. The guide answered many questions from the more than 50 students, faculty, and staff in attendance.
The event was organized by Emmanuelle Chiocca, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics and International Education in the Language and Culture Center, and was originally planned only for the students of her French 102 course. However, after high excitement and interest, the event was opened to the entire DKU Community. The event was sponsored by the Third Space Lab, Humanities Research Center, Language and Culture Center, and the Office of Undergraduate Studies, which helped to cover the fees for the tour as well as refreshments for attendees of the on-campus viewing.
If you are interested in watching the recording of the live tour, please email Dr. Emmanuelle Chiocca at emmanuelle.chiocca@dukekunshan.edu.cn or join the Third Space Lab Sakai site with your Duke Net ID.
Superdeep is DKU’s extracurricular philosophical* ecosystem, comprising:
* If you ask yourself who qualifies as philosophical, you already do 😉
* * * Continue reading “”
Nikita Yingqian Cai is Artistic Deputy Director and Chief Curator of Times Museum. She has curated exhibitions such as Times Heterotopia Trilogy (2011, 2014, 2017), Jiang Zhi: If This is a Man (2012), Roman Ondák: Storyboard (2015), Big Tail Elephants: One Hour, No Room, Five Shows (2016) , Pan Yuliang: A Journey to Silence (Villa Vassilieff in Paris and Guangdong Times Museum, 2017), Omer Fast: The Invisible Hand (2018), Zhou Tao: The Ridge in the Bronze Mirror (2019), Neither Black/Red/Yellow Nor Woman (Times Art Center Belin, 2019) , Candice Lin: Pigs and Poison (2021) and One song is very much Like another and the boat is always from afar (2021). She initiated the para-curatorial series in 2012 and launched “All the Way South” research network in 2016. She was awarded the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in 2019.
Public Lecture: When a Trebuchet Met a Museum
Tuesday 25th April 15:00 – 17:15 | AB 3107
Over the past five years, Nikita Yingqian Cai has been focusing on curating an interdependency in the evolving network of Times Museum. By referring to a case of how a trebuchet entered a contemporary art museum, how it was fabricated and contextualized in an exhibition she curated in time of the pandemic, Cai maps the variety of human agencies and non-human actors in the network of a museum, and unpacks the disparate tools of ‘curating’ and the expanded field of ‘the curatorial’.
In Candice Lin: Pigs and Poison, the artist offers a speculative archaeology of the ‘Black Death’. Rather than being an inert object, the ‘trebuchet’ (used by the Mongol army to siege the town of Caffa in 1347) materializes how the Asiatic ‘other’ might have become associated with disease and condemnation in the fourteen century European context, connects the administrative activities of exhibition-making with the formative events of the curatorial to tell a history of the present. By inserting things into already existing conditions and setting up a friction between them, a shadowed context is activated and may subsequently change what we think it is all about. In this sense, the curatorial allows us to blur boundaries and categorizations thus challenging their constraining powers, and forms a constellation of meanings. So when a trebuchet met a museum, it sent off a recurring process of unlearning which inquires what might have or could have been.
In this public lecture, Nikita will also share some insights into different career paths in the broad field of museum, exhibition making, and contemporary art.
(organized by prof. Zairong Xiang, with support of AH, HRC, and DKUNST Art on Campus)
IB 1008 (IB Auditorium)
Superdeep Nighthawks Malkovich Malkovich, Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Spike Jonze‘s 1999 Being John Malkovich (Malkovich & food & drink…Malkovich). Malkovich Malkovich Thu, Apr 20, 9 pm, IB Auditorium. Malkovich.
HRC Superdeep Nighthawks Malkovich Thu eve (9pm till late, Malkovich). Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich HouTu Research Malkovich Unforgotten Dreams. Malkovich Malkovich.
Malkovich Malkovich nathan.hauthaler@duke.edu Malkovich.
EVENT 1: [Celebrating Women’s History Month]
“Writing & Illustrating Women’s Histories”
Presentation and Q&A with Aura Lewis
Time: April 18th, 11:45 am – 12:45 pm
Location: IB Lecture Hall
EVENT 2: [Quilting Workshop]
ATTENTION: On April 21st, Aura will host a workshop!
“Women’s History Quilt”
Time: April 21st, 10:00 am – noon
Location: AB Beauty Salon (Glassroom next to the east gate)
In the workshop, we will create collages on canvas, inspired by ‘personal’ women’s history. We will meet twice; in the first meeting, we will create art pieces, using photographs, drawing, painting, writing, and collage techniques. In the second meeting, each student will discuss their work, and finally, we will stitch the pieces together to create a collective quilt of our stories.
Please scan the QR code below before April 19th to register.
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