Second Annual University of Oxford China Humanities Graduate Conference

Engaging 'China': Perspectives from the Margins

Wednesday January 10th to Thursday January 11th, 2018

Dickson Poon China Centre Building, University of Oxford

Keynote Speakers: Peter Bol and Henrietta Harrison

CALL FOR PAPERS

Graduate students are invited to submit abstracts for the second annual University of Oxford China Humanities Graduate Conference, which takes the theme of ‘engagement’ in the Chinese context as its point of departure. We welcome papers that work with modern and pre-modern subject material and from all humanistic disciplines, including but not limited to history, literary and cultural studies, art, film and media studies, philosophy, human geography, anthropology, musicology and religion.

This conference asks applicants to critically assess through the lens of 'engagement' how the idea of 'China' as a geographical, cultural and national signifier is created. How is China engaging with neighbours close and far away? How does it attract the world and communities within? How do communities within and without engage with China? How does engagement inform the ways in which ‘China’ is conceived? Through this conference, we wish to highlight the ways, both past and present, in which ‘engagement’ is central to understanding ‘China’.

Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):

1. Circulation of philosophical and religious texts, ideas, and institutions

2. ‘China’ in cultural products, including literature, film, visual art, theatre, music, etc.

3. Cultural production of minorities within China and the Chinese diaspora

4. Subcultures in China

5. Exchanges of material culture

6. Linguistic exchange

7. Trade and the tributary system

8. Diplomacy, war, and peace

9. Tourism and migration to, from, and within China

10. Cross-border dimensions of environmental and health issues

11. Co-operation and conflict in science and technology

12. Methods and attitudes of scholarship in and about China