Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As the fall semester gets underway, we are delighted to share some updates, upcoming events, and community news from the Center for Chinese Studies.

We begin our fall lecture series on October 9, with Professor Emily Wilcox, the Margaret Hamilton Professor of Chinese Studies at William & Mary, who will present Black Liberation on the Chinese Stage: Transnational Dialogue and Inter-Racial Solidarity in the 1964 Dance Drama Fires of Fury are Burning (Nuhuo zai ranshao). The following week, on October 16, Professor Iza Ding of Northwestern University will give a talk titled Authoritarian Teleology. On October 23, we welcome Professor Yixin Chen from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His lecture, Famine and Rebellion: The Counterrevolutionary Case of the Chinese People’s Life-Saving Army in the Western Stream Villages, 1959–1960, will be followed by a graduate student workshop on Friday, October 24. Those interested in the workshop are encouraged to contact us at ccs@berkeley.edu to RSVP.

Later this fall, we look forward to a book talk by Professor Peng Xu of Shanghai Tech University on The Courtesan's Memory, Voice, and Late Ming Drama. Full details will be available on the CCS events calendar soon. On November 13, Professor S.E. Kile from the University of Michigan will give a talk titled Sea and Sky as Media in Early Modern Chinese Fiction. We conclude our lecture series on December 4, with Professor Tristan Brown of MIT, who will speak on Crossing the Frozen Frontier: Ice, Climate, and Warfare on the Ming and Qing Northern Frontiers.

A highlight of this fall’s programming will be a conversation between composer Huang Ruo and Professor Mary Ann Smart of Berkeley’s Department of Music, focusing on San Francisco Opera’s world premiere of Huang Ruo’s The Monkey King. The event will be held on November 24, at the David Brower Center. Please check the CCS events calendar later this month for more details and online registration. This inaugural event is made possible through a generous new gift from CCS donors, Laura Young and Frank Wang.

In addition to our main lecture series, CCS is pleased to share courtesy announcements for several campus events taking place this semester. The art exhibition Both Sides Now 10 will be on view on campus from September 3 through September 30. Featuring artists such as Choi Sai Ho, Jake Elwes, Rachel Maclean, Lawrence Lek, Linda Chiu-han Lai, Ellen Pau, Heather Phillipson, Joseph Chen, Marianna Simnett, and Angela Su, this exhibition reflects on the evolving cultural landscapes and creative visions that have shaped the Both Sides Now series over the past decade.

On October 15, Professor Nan Da from Johns Hopkins University will present The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear. On November 7, Professor Lanlan Kuang of the University of Central Florida will give a lecture titled Staging Tianxia: The Silk Road and Dunhuang Expressive Arts. Later in the month, on November 21, Professor Johan Elverskog of Southern Methodist University will speak on Why Did the Uyghurs Become Buddhist?

In September, CCS plans to host three seminars for visiting scholars and graduate students in Chinese Studies to be in conversation. Those interested in attending can contact us at ccs@berkeley.edu for the schedule.

CCS will continue to organize activities for our visiting scholars throughout the semester, including a visit to Stanford’s East Asian Library and the Hoover Institution.

This past summer, 16 UC Berkeley undergraduates participated in the China Deep Dive: Global Young Leaders Program organized by Peking University. Their travel and study were made possible through the generous support of Kenny & Maria C. Chin Student Awards in International Relations. The program provided students with a valuable opportunity to engage deeply with Chinese language, culture and society.

We welcome Associate Professor Xiaobo Lü to Berkeley’s Department of Political Science. We also extend our warm congratulations to several CCS community members on their new appointments. Yifan Zheng has joined the Department of History at the University of Washington as an assistant professor. Sean Cronan has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Virginia. Wendy Wang has begun a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard’s Fairbank Center, and Matteo Cavelier Riccardi will be joining the TIAS Society of Fellows at Tsinghua University.

We are also happy to welcome new and returning members of the CCS staff team. Jiahe Mei rejoins us as the Graduate Student Liaison, and we are excited to have Helina Li and Elaine Zhu on board as our Undergraduate Student Liaisons for the 2025-26 academic year. 

We thank you for your continued interest and support, and we look forward to seeing you at CCS events this fall.

Yours,

Sophie Volpp

Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature

Chair, Center for Chinese Studies

Xiaojie Ma

Program Director, Center for Chinese Studies