Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Yuhang Zhu
PhD Candidate, Department of History, GSAS
Email:
yz4929@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (January 12 - May 18)： 

Yuhang’s project focuses on the politics of family and domesticity in China in the immediate aftermath of the War of Resistance Against Japan, 1945-1949. He explores the practical and theoretical problem of “homecoming,” that is, how the experiences of the people, who had been displaced by war and were trying to return home after the war, constituted a refocusing of the politics of the family on domestic life. During the eight-year long total war between China and Japan, an unprecedented number of men and women were forced to leave their homes in coastal China and to move inland as refugees. Family members were scattered and separated from each other across the battlefronts, with their properties, bodies and spirits subject to violence and dispossession. The post-1945 era witnessed not only the Chinese people’s joy at the national victory, but also the bittersweetness of homecoming engendered by the end of the war and the humanitarian redirection of the politics of family from national salvation to the restoration of a stable domestic life. Their wartime experiences, the scarcity of transportation and economic resources, the state’s policy of postwar takeover and resettlement, and the Civil War following the end of WWII all conditioned people’s homecoming journeys. Through the lens of the problem of family and domestic life, this project aims at renewing our understanding of the history of post-WWII China, where not only the Nationalists and the Communists engaged in the brutal Civil War, but also ordinary people endeavored to sustain and survive, and to envision a desired life and future after years of displacement and war against invasion.

Roslynn Ang
PhD Candidate, Department of East Asian Studies, GSAS
Email:
rta224@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (September 4- November 28)： 

Indigenous minorities practice precarious modes of sociality and culture, as expressions of culture have higher potential to be misrecognized, despite their dependence on state support. However, these expressions do generate alternate social worlds and new interpretations through their everyday practices. Ang’s dissertation problematizes structures of entrapment within narrow definitions of race and culture in contemporary settler-colonial Japan, and explores a sovereign form of social relations and performative expressions within non-professional Ainu performance groups in Sapporo, Hokkaido. The Ainu of Hokkaido were colonized by Japan in late 19th century, assimilated and became culturally and phenotypically similar to most Japanese today. How do these Ainu performance groups persist in practicing and performing their traditional culture, despite the generations of forced assimilation, discrimination, state control, lack of recognition and the commercialization of their traditions? What are the affects and effects of their ‘work’ in their everyday lives and during their performances? Ang explores the production of social and cultural ties in a community through music-making, dance moves, representations and embodied performance in both everyday lives and the stage. Due to the influx of China tour groups into Hokkaido, with regular visits to recreated Ainu village in Shiraoi and various performance sites, she intends to interview (in Mandarin Chinese) several major tour companies in Shanghai. An analysis of the communications behind the organization of these tours and audience reception of these performances will show the complex social networks behind these performances and representational shifts on the Ainu. Ang’s fellowship in Shanghai will be spent on these interviews and writing her dissertation.

Matyas Mervay
PhD Candidate, Department of History, GSAS
Email:
mm9047@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (September 2 - November 21)：

Combining Chinese, Hungarian, German, Dutch, English and Russian sources, Mervay’s project focuses on Central Europeans from the former territories of the Habsburg Empire who lived in China between 1915 and 1931. Careful examination of the ever-changing relationship between former refugee Central Europeans and the Chinese authorities will provide a better understanding of Chinese sovereignty in a period when central power was constantly contested both by internal and external forces. The application of the Beijing government’s initial policy to admit and intern the Austro-Hungarian refugee prisoners of war also sheds light on the rise of a new form of Chinese humanitarianism that sustained cooperation between Beijing and the Northeastern provinces. Thirdly, by focusing on municipal archives (e.g. police records), he will gain a better sense of how these refugees were perceived from the ground up. By examining this hitherto overlooked group, he intends to develop a new lens for exploring Chinese state and society in the Republican era. Three research questions aim to keep Mervay’s project on track as of the current stage of his dissertation proposal draft. First: What happens to stateless people in a semi-colonial context? Second, what happens when a state leaves behind its citizens in a foreign country? Finally: How do we connect this historic experience with the present? Does this instance represent an important precedent in the Sino-foreign encounter?

Brittney McFarlane
MS Candidate, Department of Technology, Culture and Society, Tandon
Email:
bam634@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (January 6 - February 6)：

This semester, McFarlane will be starting her thesis exploring games’ potential to positively impact behavior through narrative and playful learning. She is particularly interested in Shanghai because she is familiar with the variety of online ESL companies that leverage digital learning and remote classrooms for young students. While she won’t be focusing on English learning, she would like to know if there exists different views on gameful learning between people in the greater New York City area and in Shanghai. More broadly, she’d like to apply the foundational knowledge collected (via literature reviews and other secondary research) this semester, to pre-testing her finalized research question. She is interested in behavioral change, narrative, and games as they relate to holistic education, society, and culture. In the future, McFarlane would like to develop a framework that allows her to apply her  research findings on gameful learning to a broader, global community.

Minyuan Liu
Master of Arts Candidate, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, Steinhardt
Email:
ml4111@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (January 12 - February 13)：

Self-immolation is new to Tibet historically, religiously and politically, and since the first immolation in 2009, these horrific spectacles have captured worldwide attention with daunting images of living human beings setting themselves on fire, splashed around newspapers, magazines, TV and online space. Liu’s paper will examine the cultural, historical and political reasons behind the representation of these acts that are frequently covered by the western media and shared with the world audiences as a media spectacle. She is particularly fascinated by the stark contrast of media reports from the West and the Chinese State media. By comparing the two, Liu hopes to analyze the ideologies behind the two representations. By unpacking the media coverage by both the Western and the Chinese State media, she argues that dominant Western media have reproduced the spectacle of self-immolation in Tibet and controlled the narrative around it as well. Liu believes this has fostered an unbalanced and hegemonic discourse around the Tibetan self-immolation.