A new special issue of “Positions Asia Critique”

HRC is proud to announce a new special issue from Positions, which came out of an HRC sponsored workshop.

Issue editors:
Nellie Chu – Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Duke Kunshan University (DKU)
Mengqi Wang – Assistant Professor of Anthropology at DKU
Ralph Litzinger – Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University
Qian Zhu – Assistant Professor of History at DKU

Positions – August 1, Volume 30, Issue 3

Congratulations to Professor Rasoul Namazi on his new book “Leo Strauss and Islamic Political Thought”

Rasoul Namazi

Congratulations to Rasoul Namazi, Assistant Professor of Political Theory, on his new book, “Leo Strauss and Islamic Political Thought,” published by Cambridge University Press.

Description: “In this book, Rasoul Namazi offers the first in-depth study of Leo Strauss’ writings on Islamic political thought, a topic that interested Strauss over the course of his career. Namazi’s volume focuses on several important studies by Strauss on Islamic thought. He critically analyzes Strauss’s notes on Averroes’ commentary on Plato’s Republic and also proposes an interpretation of Strauss’ theologico-political notes on the Arabian Nights. Namazi also interprets Strauss’ essay on Alfarabi’s enigmatic treatise, The Philosophy of Plato and provides a detailed commentary on his complex essay devoted to Alfarabi’s summary of Plato’s Laws. Based on previously unpublished material from Strauss’ papers, Namazi’s volume provides new insights into Strauss’ reflections on religion, philosophy, and politics, and their relationship to wisdom, persecution, divine law, and unbelief in the works of key Muslim thinkers. His work presents Strauss as one of the most innovative historians and scholars of Islamic thought.”

The book is available on different platforms including Amazon but if ordered from the Cambridge website, one can get 20% off by entering the code NAMAZI22 at the checkout.

Continue reading “Congratulations to Professor Rasoul Namazi on his new book “Leo Strauss and Islamic Political Thought””

Congratulations to Prof Qian Zhu on her new paper titled, “Exile to the Equator: Chinese Anti-Colonialism and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, 1939–1946”

Congratulations to Assistant Professor of History at Duke Kunshan University, Qian Zhu, who recently published a paper in the journal of China & Asia – A Journal in Historical Studies.

Read below to learn more about Prof Zhu’s paper and the “behind the scenes” interview.

Abstract

This paper discusses and compares the ideas of Chinese leftists in exile, as expressed in their publications and journals and in their anti-colonial activism in collaboration with the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia from 1939 to 1946. Describing Chinese anti-colonialism and nationalism through a transnational conceptualization and an ethnographic approach, stories that occur “behind the scenes” enhance our ability to decode key words and reveal the complexities of concrete economic and political conflicts from multiple sources that involve migration, ethnicities, and capitalism. The class nature of Chinese anti-colonial internationalism that was forged during and after the Second World War was deeply embedded in the “liberal” discourses of freedom, democracy, equality, liberty, and women’s emancipation. It was also rooted in the mass politics of anti-capitalism, which was global in scope and fine-grained, local, and rooted in everyday life. The Chinese leftist geopolitical configuration of the “nations below the wind” and “the equator” enabled the perception of a proto-global South— South alliance as a world-historical force, with the dual goals of overturning unequal development and achieving an integrated path of anti-colonialism and national independence.

Read the full paper: Qian Zhu – Exile to the Equator: Chinese Anti-Colonialism and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, 1939–1946

Behind the Scenes with Qian Zhu

Could you tell us about your article and what inspired you to write it? Continue reading “Congratulations to Prof Qian Zhu on her new paper titled, “Exile to the Equator: Chinese Anti-Colonialism and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, 1939–1946””

Congratulations to Jesse Olsavsky on his new book “The Most Absolute Abolition Runaways: Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835–1861”

Jesse Olsavsky

Congratulations to Jesse Olsavsky, Assistant Professor of History and Co-Director of the Freedom Lab at the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University!

His new book, The Most Absolute Abolition, “tells the dramatic story of how vigilance committees organized the Underground Railroad and revolutionized the abolitionist movement. These groups, based primarily in northeastern cities, defended Black neighborhoods from police and slave catchers. As the urban wing of the Underground Railroad, they helped as many as ten thousand refugees, building an elaborate network of like-minded sympathizers across boundaries of nation, gender, race, and class.

Continue reading “Congratulations to Jesse Olsavsky on his new book “The Most Absolute Abolition Runaways: Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835–1861””

Congratulations to Prof Tyler Carter’s New Book Launch: “No Blame” – An Amorphous Digital Book of Poetry and Art

Tyler Carter

Congratulations to Professor Tyler Carter, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing at the Language and Culture Center at Duke Kunshan University!

No Blame, as Dr. Carter describes, is “an amorphous digital book of poetry and art, with text by [himself] and coding/artwork by Eric Goddard-Scovel. It consists of 64 pages, with 48 poems (i.e., 16 static original poems and 32 poems shuffled by algorithms partially derived from the casting of I Ching hexagrams) and 16 works of generative art.”

Generate your version of the book here:  https://www.noblamebook.com/ and read more about Dr. Carter’s book below:

Could you describe what I Ching refers to and how it inspired No Blame? What is the significance of the title? Continue reading “Congratulations to Prof Tyler Carter’s New Book Launch: “No Blame” – An Amorphous Digital Book of Poetry and Art”

Congratulations to Professor Zach Fredman on his first book “The Tormented Alliance: American Servicemen and the Occupation of China, 1941-1949”

Zach Fredman

Congratulations to Professor Zach Fredman on his first book, The Tormented Alliance: American Servicemen and the Occupation of China, 1941–1949 (UNC Press, 2022). This book examines the U.S. military presence in China during World War II and the Chinese Civil War.

Read more about his book below:

Could you tell us about your new book and what inspired you to write it?

Like a lot of writers, I wrote the book I wanted to read. More than 120,000 American servicemen deployed to China during World War II and the Chinese Civil War, making this military presence the largest encounter between Americans and Chinese that ever occurred in China. But nearly all of the scholarship and popular writing on wartime U.S.-China relations focused on senior military commanders or diplomats. I wanted to learn about these soldiers, the Chinese people they interacted with, and how their day-to-day engagements influenced the larger politics of the Sino-U.S. alliance.

Continue reading “Congratulations to Professor Zach Fredman on his first book “The Tormented Alliance: American Servicemen and the Occupation of China, 1941-1949””

Congratulations to Selina Lai-Henderson!

Selina Lai-Henderson, Assistant Professor of US Literature and History at DKU, has been named Chair of the International Committee at the flagship American Studies Association (ASA) starting 2022.She will be setting meeting  agendas in the committee on a range of affairs, from planning and moderating workshops for the annual ASA conference, to reviewing submissions for the Shelley Fisher Fishkin Award. Her primary goal during the two years in her position is to facilitate new conversations on transnational American Studies and to foster research collaborations among affiliates and global scholars in the field.

Continue reading “Congratulations to Selina Lai-Henderson!”

HRC Student Ege Duman Co-Authors Paper on Brain-Computer Interface

Ege Duman, a 2nd year DKU undergraduate recently published an open-peer commentary in the American Journal of Bioethics: Neuroscience entitled “The Continuity of BCI-Mediated and Conventional Action.” The article was written with Professor Daniel Lim, Co-Director of the Planetary Ethics and Artificial Intelligence Lab (PETAL).

This is the first paper published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal by a DKU undergraduate with a DKU professor. Continue reading “HRC Student Ege Duman Co-Authors Paper on Brain-Computer Interface”