Thursday, April 25, 2024

1800-1900 Welcome dinner for all student presenters, Academic Building (AB) Executive Dining Room.

Friday, April 26, 2024

0830 Registration and Coffee,  AB Lobby

0900-1030 Opening Ceremony and Keynote Lecture: Chenshan Tian, AB1087

Chair: James Miller

The Confucian Philosophy of Family Feeling (qinqing 親情)

The seismic sea change in the geopolitical order of the world that has accelerated over the first two decades of the 21^st century requires nothing less than the reformulation of the world’s geopolitical order. The international anarchy of the zero-sum Westphalian model of a modern state system with sovereign and equal nation states each playing to win has proven woefully inadequate to resolving the complex human predicament of our time. The perceived isomorphism among family, state, and world in Confucian philosophy gives rise to an alternative conception of the political in which governance is firmly rooted in personal cultivation within the institution of family. In looking to Confucian philosophy as a possible resource for a new geopolitical order, I begin by joining Michael Walzer in common cause in his search for a universal minimalist morality that can provide a basis for a limited but important solidarity and for mutual critique among the world’s peoples and cultures.

1030 Coffee Break

1100-1230 Parallel Sessions

1A: Media and Law in Contemporary China, AB3103

Chair: Fan Liang

• Chengxi Yin 尹呈兮, DKU, Indirect State Intervention in Chinese Social Media: Online Social Media Platforms’ Role as Regulator
• Jingyi Xu 徐靖祎, BNU-HKBU United International College, Gamified Justice in Online Dispute Resolution: Engaging Users on China’s Food Delivery Platforms
• Yuxiang Lin 林宇翔, DKU, Hacktivism and the Reconfiguration of Rights and Power Relations in the Digital World

1B: Materials, Manufacturing, and Globalization, AB3101

Chair: Adrien Pouille

• Ziyu Qiu 邱子吁, DKU, Transporting Textiles to the Frontier: Textile Trade between Jiangnan and Xinjiang in the Qianlong era
• Haoyi Wei 魏昊怡, Wuhan University, The Story of Cigar: The Spread of Cuban Cigars in Modern China and Sino-Cuban Relations
• Emma Yun, DKU, Insights on Transitions in China’s Factory Culture and Mindset from the 1980s to Today

1C: Self, Voice, and Identity in Literature, AB3107

Chair: Yitzhak Lewis

• Maryana Malyushytska, DKU, A Journey to Happiness: Exploring the Dialectic of Self-Love and Narcissism in William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
• Yuzhi Ruan 阮钰智, BNU-HKBU United International College, “The Housekeeping Days of an Indian Mother”: Re-envisioning the Mother-Daughter Relationship in Zitkala-Ša’s Autobiography
• Solana Torres, DKU, A Close Reading of “A Woman Speaks”: Audre Lorde’s Poem as Creation of Female Voice

1D: Student Seminar with Roger Ames, AB1087

1230-1400 Lunch, Community Center (CCT) Cafeterias

1400-1530 Keynote Lecture: Ru Ye 叶茹, AB1087

Chair: Hwa Yeong Wang

Can Rational Beliefs Be Arbitrary?

Can there sometimes be multiple rational responses to the same body of evidence? An impermissivist says no, while a permissivist says yes. The former thinks that rationality is strict—it doesn’t allow any leeway in how we should respond to our evidence. The latter thinks that rationality is slack—people with the same evidence can rationally respond differently, due to differences in factors such as epistemic standards, background beliefs, practical stakes, ways of weighing theoretical virtues, etc. An important argument against permissivism is the so-called ‘arbitrariness argument,’ which says that permissivism leads to some unacceptable arbitrariness with regard to one’s beliefs. In this talk, I defend a new response to the argument: contrary to common conception, the arbitrariness resulting from permissivism is acceptable.

1530-1600 Coffee Break

1600-1730 Parallel Sessions

2A: Performativity in Chinese Art and Music, AB3103

Chair: Carlos Rojas

• Dongkun Lyu 吕东昆, DKU, Passive Autonomy: Exhibition Worker and Art Field in Constant Transition
• Ruiqi Yu 禹睿琪, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Unveiling the Mulan-like Situation: Cross Dressing and Gender Identity Construction in Chinese Yue Opera
• Mei Xing 邢美, Central Conservatory of Music, Reconstructing the “Nearby”: The Music Life of Youth in Beijing’s Rave Scene

2B: Global Politics, Power, and Empire, AB3101

Chair: Zach Fredman

• Arabela Iggesen Valenzuela, DKU, Colonized, Mortal, Baloch Bodies:The Impact of Neo-Colonialism on Premature Mortality in Balochistan
• Chillion Munyiri, DKU, Echoes of an Empire: How Colonial Legacies Continue to Define Contemporary Coffee Governance and Economic Outcomes in Kenya and Rwanda
• Muhammad Ajlal, DKU, To what Extent Have Social Media Made any Impact in Affecting the Israel-Hamas Conflict in terms of Political and Economic Issues?

2C: Literature in 20th Century China, AB3107

Chair: Qian Zhu

• Daniela Torres Medina, DKU, Scar Literature and Cultural Revolution: Class Teacher Observations and Policy Impact in Society
• Siyu Song 宋思语, University of Nottingham, Ningbo, Beyond “Good Wife Wise Mother”: Gender, Popular Literature, and Writing Woman’s Life in Manchuria, 1941-45
• Shuzhe Wang 王姝哲, DKU, From Icons to Critics: Gender Discourse of Iron Girls in China’s Socialist Transformation

2D: Student Seminar with Ru Ye 叶茹, AB1087

1730-1830 Launch Party and Celebration for The Shanghai Literary Review and Nexus Journal, Water Pavilion

1830-2000 Self-service dinner in campus cafeterias

2000-2130 Student Film Festival, IB Lecture Theater

Saturday, April 27, 2024

0900-1030 Keynote Lecture: Hao Tang 唐浩, AB1087

Chair: Nathan Hauthaler

Attention and Practical Knowledge

Practical knowledge, in the sense made famous by G. E. M. Anscombe, is “the knowledge that a man has of his intentional actions.” This knowledge is very ordinary, but philosophically it is not easy to understand. One illuminating approach is to see practical knowledge as a form of self-knowledge or self-consciousness. I offer an enrichment of this approach, by (1) exploiting Gilbert Ryle’s discussion of heeding (that is, paying attention), in particular paying attention to one’s own intentional action, and (2) constructing and applying a practical analogue of Kant’s apperceptive “I think.” Combining (1) and (2), I offer an argument for my main claim: paying attention to what one is doing is an exercise of practical self-consciousnes. It is how practical self-consciousness becomes concrete—or to use Kant’s terminology: how it gets “schematized.”

1030-1100 Coffee Break

1100-1230 Parallel Sessions

3A: Beliefs, Bodies, and Transcendence, AB3103

Chair: James Miller

• Chen Chen 陈辰, NYU Shanghai, Blood, Beliefs, and Bioethics: Navigating Controversies in Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Stance on Transfusions
• Dejia Zhang 张德嘉, Zhejiang University, Pricing the Consecration Rituals of Shibazi Bracelets: The Process and Meaning of Adding Value in Buddhism Items
• Qicheng Zhang 章骐成, Tongji University, On the Dual Dimensions of Immanence and Transcendence in Levinas’s Concept of “Home”
• Ziying Xu 徐子盈, Xiamen University, Defining Suffering: The Invisible Violence in the Globalization of Western Psychiatric Discourse

3B:  Fashion, Beauty, and the Male Gaze, AB3101

Chair: Hyun Jeong Ha

• Zhuoyuan Chen 陈卓远, DKU, Gendered Lens: Male Gaze in Anfu Road Street Photography
• Xinyue Yi 移馨月, Hong Kong University, Being a Voyeur While Being Gazed: Voyeurism and the Fluid Power Relationship between the Performer and the Viewer in The House with Ocean View and Bye Bye Disco
• Isabelle Zhang 张简童, DKU, Fashion’s Empowering Power: Counterhegemonic Fashion in the Spring-Summer 1997 Season
• Shanyi Yang 杨善一, Hong Kong University, “Is Barbie Feminist?” is a False Question

3C: Political Philosophy, AB3107

Chair: Lindsay Mahon Rathnam

• Javier Portilla, DKU, Fearlessness in a Society of Fearful People
• Yifan Bai 白一凡, Renmin University of China, On Acquired Natural Duty
• Xi Xiong 熊曦, Wuhan University, Why is Political Liberalism Insufficient for Feminist Causes?
• Yunru Chen 陈韵如, Chongqing University, Cicero’s Imitation and Modification of Plato in the Somnium Scipionis

3D: Student Seminar with Hao Tang 唐浩, AB1087

1230-1400 Lunch, Community Center Cafeterias

1400-1530 Keynote Lecture: Seth Jaffe, AB1087

Chair: Lindsay Mahon Rathnam

Peloponnesian Warnings? Thucydides for Citizens, Soldiers, and Statesmen

Working at the intersection of International Relations and Greek Thought, S.N. Jaffe draws on his original interpretation of Thucydides’s account of the causes of war to explore arguments surrounding the “inevitability” of conflict between America and China. Contrary to those who appropriate Thucydides as the first power transition theorist, Jaffe argues that the Thucydidean account in fact involves second image claims, which alter the meaning of the necessity (or “inevitability”) of conflict between rising powers and ruling ones. Thucydides is not advancing a social scientific law but rather showing citizens, soldiers, and statesmen how status quos can break down in ways that lead to dangerous conflicts of interests.

1530-1600 Coffee Break

1600-1730 Parallel Sessions

4A: Philosophy, Poetry, and Ecology, AB3103

Chair: James Miller

• Hao Gong 宫好, DKU, Communicating with the Soil: Reimagining the Nexus of Nature and Culture
• Jingwen Xu 许竞文, Sun Yat-sen University, An Analysis of Self-Realization of Deep Ecology in Seamus Heaney’s Poetry
• Dalia Guerrero Flores, DKU, Wisdom Without Frontiers: Classical Chinese Philosophy for Mexican Environmentalist Policies

4B: Gender in Digital East Asia, AB3101

Chair: Stephanie Anderson

• Vicky Yongkun Wu 吴泳锟, DKU, The Ornamental Personhood: A Reparative Reading of K-Pop Femininity
• Fenglin Ju 鞠丰璘, NYU Shanghai, Digital Intimacy and Intermedia Storytelling in Chinese Otome Games: A Case Study of Light and Night (2021)
• Yaqi Li 李亚琦, Jinan University, Mirror of the Future: AI in the Reconstruction of Asian Beauty and Identity
• Dongni Huang 黄冬妮, CUHK Shenzhen, From Boys’ Love to Gays’ Love: The Queer Relational Politics of Chinese Real-Person Slash (RPS) Fandoms

4C: Contemporary Chinese Culture and Discourse, AB 3107

Chair: Carlos Rojas

• Yueqi Dou 窦悦绮, DKU, Atypical Nianyefan: Negotiating Family Transformations in Contemporary China
• Renyuan Zhang 张人元, DKU, A Disappearing Discourse: Complex Conversations about the Shanghai Lockdown in the People’s Daily Weibo Matrix Posts of 2022
• Bin Cui 崔缤, CUHK Shenzhen, Prepare for Apocalypse in China: An Ethnography of Chinese Preppers

4D: Student Seminar with Seth Jaffe, AB1087

1800 Gala Dinner, AB Executive Dining Room

All attendees are invited to attend a Gala Dinner, in the executive dining room.
Prior registration is required.

2000 Music and Dancing, CCT Performance Cafe

1. • Brazilian Funk Dancers: Rhayssa Braz & Rie Tassa
   • Music: “Atenção” by Pedro Sampai
   • Tempest Trail
   •  SWANA
   • Ceci’s Girl Punk Band
   • DJs