Category: Upcoming Events

Time: Friday, 28 February 2025, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Location:99 Fucheng Road (near Dongchang Road) 震旦博物館, 富城路99号震旦大厦1楼, 近东昌路 Shanghai, China

To register, please scan the QR code below.

We continue our insightful 2024-2025 series China’s Arts and Aesthetics of the Past by delving into the material culture of the recent and distant history to assess how objects ranging from imperial patronage to utilitarian handicrafts have shaped China’s aesthetics through the ages.

In this unique session of night-at-the-museum, please join Art Historian and Art Focus Convener Julie Chun as we explore the emergence of ancient sculptures in China. We will discuss and examine the fragmentary evidences of abstract and figurative signifiers that were originally constructed as religious and funerary markers, reliquaries, steles, and monuments but eventually became ensconced as “art.” How did these site-specific objects from sacred caves, religious temples and even personal tombs find their way into museums and private collections? More importantly, what do these artifacts reveal about the context in which they were created, utilized and even venerated? And how did some of these objects articulate hierarchies of power beyond their purpose as spiritual objects of guidance? These aspects can be embodied in Buddhist imageries, many of which were constructed with iconographical standards set by devout monks, some who even wielded great influence at court. As a foreign doctrine to China, Buddhism is derived from the lives and teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, who lived during the 6th or 5th century BCE. His doctrine spread from South Asia to many regions in Asia, and beyond, to influence societies and civilizations throughout history with the compelling aid of visual imagery. Come join us as we study how Buddhist iconographies incorporated diverse ranges of foreign and local elements to assist devotees to elucidate an abstract concept as a visible and personal belief system.

Speaker’s Bio:

JULIE CHUN

Art Focus Convener at Royal Asiatic Society China

 

Julie Chun is a trained Art Historian and Art Critic based in Shanghai since 2011. She lectures about the state of art and museums in Shanghai for diverse foreign associations, including for the foreign Consulate General offices. She has taught East Asian art history as an Adjunct Professor at global programs in Shanghai and is a regular contributing writer for Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. Her art reviews and criticisms have been published in academic journals and online art journals in China and internationally. Since 2013, she serves as the Art Focus Convener of the Royal Asiatic Society in China where she devotes her time to expanding the public’s understanding of artistic objects, past and present.

*** Members of the DKU community are invited to attend at a discounted rate of 100RMB including two drinks.

Come explore history and engage in thought-provoking discussions!

Interested in labor, gender, and migration in history? Don’t miss the chance to hear from Prof. Titas Chakraborty, a historian specializing in 18th-century South Asia. She will share insights from her research on hired labor, slavery, and resistance in the East India Company era.

Time: Saturday, Feb 15, 3:00-5:00 pm

Location: Sketchyard Cafe (Next door to the RAS reading room) Dong’an Road 888, Haoshang Bay Building 13 F1, Shanghai, China

To register, please scan the QR code below.

The Royal Asiatic Society was founded in London in 1823, following the establishment of its predecessor in India, the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. At this time the British Empire in India was dominated by the English East India Company (EIC), which had been established in 1600 and functioned as a de facto colonial state until 1858. This talk explores the cultural worlds of both indigenous and European workers of the EIC during the period that led up to the establishment of academic societies such as the RAS.

While the religious and cultural worlds of monks, rulers, and merchants of the eighteenth century are relatively well known, the cultural and religious life worlds of ordinary workers remain much less researched even though they provide key insights into the transition to colonial rule in the region. Often at odds with interests of the EIC, workers’ cultural and religious practices constantly undermined the EIC’s efforts to streamline the labor market in India. For example, European soldiers converted to Islam, to escape the EIC and work for local rulers who paid better wages. The spiritual and mystical practices of Indian boatmen, as another example, often evaded British colonial classifications as either “Hindu” or “Muslim.” Such practices left their documentary trail not only in the archives of the EIC and other European companies but also in indigenous literature, religious texts, art and architecture.By the early nineteenth-century the EIC reined in this pluricultural world of work by creating a judicial and law enforcement mechanism that simultaneously fostered racial and religious divisions amongst and between European and indigenous workers as well as subjected all workers to iron-handed labor discipline. The workers thus transitioned into being subjects of the new colonial state, severed from a pre-colonial culture of work, through an experience of great violence.

Speaker’s Bio:

Titas Chakraborty Assistant Professor of History at Duke Kunshan University

A historian of labor, gender, and migration in 18th-century South Asia, Titas Chakraborty specializes in South Asian, labor, and world history. At DKU, she teaches courses on migration, inter-Asian connections, and world history. Her book project, Empire of Labor, examines the transformation of hired labor in Bengal through European and indigenous workers’ experiences. She has also published on slavery, the slave trade, and resistance in East India Company settlements. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin (2017–2018).

*** Members of the DKU community are invited to attend at a discounted rate of 100RMB including two drinks.

Come explore history and engage in thought-provoking discussions!

Date:Feburary 12th (Wednesday)

Time:5-6pm

Location:LIB 2121

On Feburary 12th, Prof. Andrew Field will hold a book proposal workshop for his new book: We Rock This City: Live Music Bar Scenes in Urban China. This book focuses on the live music bar scenes in three different Chinese cities—Shanghai, Suzhou, and Kunshan—with a particular emphasis on Kunshan’s live bar scene. It explores how Kunshan’s music scene connects with those of the other two cities and how it forms a unique cultural ecosystem at the intersection of globalization and localization. Through long-term field research, the book also seeks to reveal how Filipino migrant musicians have become the central link in this music scene, serving as a bridge between American-centric global music culture and local Chinese audiences.

If you would like to read the book proposal in advance, please reach out to the student coordinators at yuruo.zhang@dukekunshan.edu.cn or histy.mahmud@dukekunshan.edu.cn.