Will China Ever Have Its Own Barack Obama? Some Reflections on the African and Arab Diaspora in Guangzhou
Speaker: Prof. Gordon Mathews (Department of Anthropology)
| Date: | 17 April 2015 (Fri) |
| Time: | 4:00pm |
| Venue: | G24, Arts and Humanities Hub, Fung King Hey Building, CUHK |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Guangzhou is today the most multi-cultural city in China, not least because of its large African and Arab populations. Unlike most Europeans and Japanese, some Arabs and Africans seek to stay in the city and make it their home, marrying Chinese and having children. But can they ever fully accepted, not as foreigners but as legitimate residents of China? In this talk, based on research conducted along with Lin Dan and Yang Yang in 2012-2014, the speaker explored the relations between these Africans and Arabs and the Chinese residents of Guangzhou, looked at such areas as legal/illegal residence status, low-end globalization in its Guangzhou manifestations, business relations and trust between Africans/Arabs and Chinese, romantic relations between Africans/Arabs and Chinese, and religious belief and its complications. The speaker did not answer the rhetorical question of the title, but he offered arguments for and against the prospect of a multicultural and global future China. |
On the ancient texts collated by Wang Niansun(1744-1832)
Speaker: Prof. Cheung Kam Siu (Department of Chinese Language & Literature)
| Date: | 27 March 2015 (Fri) |
| Time: | 4:00pm |
| Venue: | G24, Arts and Humanities Hub, Fung King Hey Building, CUHK |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Wang Niansun was a Qing scholar distinguished for his studies in textual criticism and semantics, whose researches on pre-Qin, Qin and Han ancient texts have been widely acknowledged and applied by scholars to this day. Some of his views of collating ancient texts even coincide with the executed texts of the pre-Qin, Qin and Han Dynasty, which shows that his insights are outstanding. Present research into the great scholar’s studies has been hampered, however, since such valuable materials can be accessed only by gleaning through Guangya shuzheng (《廣雅疏證》) and Dushu Zazhi (《讀書雜志》). In this talk, the speaker introduced several ancient texts collated by Wang Niansun that are now scattered around libraries of rare books in China and Taiwan. The significance of these newly-discovered materials of the study of Wang’s theory of textual criticism and semantics was also discussed. |
For those who would like to review the video archive of the talk, please contact the Faculty Office at 3943 7107.