Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (Sept 3 - Nov 30)：

Gill is studying fiction writing and working on her thesis: a novella about the parallel lives of one woman: with children in one section and without children in another. Gill is interested in studying in Shanghai, as she’d like to put her protagonist as far away from America as possible as a means to challenge her during an impending divorce, something devastating, bewildering, and rather exhilarating that she is currently facing after 15 years of marriage, and with no children. Gill believe’s China's distinctive culture, people, and topography would inspire her to enrich this novella with an authentic write what you know: a woman on a journey to discover life on the other side of a broken marriage "hnyn" in Chinese. China has a long, storied, and intriguing history of love and union, with roots in Confucianism and the lore of Nwa and Fu Xi.

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (September 2 - November 29)：

This research project explores pre- and in-service Mandarin teachers’ language ideologies regarding Chinese varieties and language use. In the Han Chinese context, there is a large and complex intersection of languages and cultures subsumed under the single linguistic umbrella of Chinese. However, Mandarin is often referred to as the Chinese language, while other varieties are called dialects or “fangyan”. Indeed, the potential role of Chinese varieties in Mandarin classes remains contested for educational stakeholders. In the current project, through a constructivist grounded theory approach, Cai has conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 pre- and in-service Mandarin teachers studying or working in the New York metropolitan area. The interviews are based on their perceptions and experiences towards language diversity, language use, and Mandarin teaching. The outcome will be a deeper and more nuanced understanding of Chinese varieties and the roles teachers can play in clarifying the sociocultural landscape of Chinese for their students and peers. She is planning to check relevant references and language policy documents at the library at NYU Shanghai. Cai would also like to discuss with professors and researchers the current issues of Chinese language variation and methods of qualitative data analysis. The NYU Shanghai setting is ideal for the study context as the Shanghainese variety is widely spoken side by side with Standard Mandarin.

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (January 6 - February 14)：

On June 1st, 1988, New York City-based, Chicago-born African-American artist Frederick J. Brown became the first Western artist to exhibit works of art in the Museum of the People’s Revolution (now the National Museum of China), the second Western artist to display works of art in People’s Republic of China, and the first artist of African descent to do so. Spanning a twenty-two year period, Brown’s retrospective exhibition included over one hundred abstract and figurative expressionist paintings exploring a breadth of themes including American history and interculturalism, Black American identity and culture, spirituality, cosmology, art historical canon, and memory. The research Brown will conduct examines Frederick J. Brown’s 1988 retrospective in Beijing, China, considering how Brown’s exhibition and artwork became a catalyst for China’s Avant-Garde Art Movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which broke away from state-sponsored social realism towards individualistic expression. Today, China stands as the world’s second-largest art market with Shanghai as the financial focal point. Using New York University’s GRI Shanghai center as a base of operations, he will investigate how the contemporary Chinese art market has developed out of an initial push for new modes of artistic expression that reflected the individual experience within the state, which began with Brown’s 1988 retrospective. In thinking of the faculty present at NYU’s Shanghai campus, the expertise Barbara Edelstein-Zhang, Maya Kramer, and Jian-Jun Zhang would be of great benefit to Brown’s research. Furthermore, the myriad resources on contemporary Chinese art available at NYU Shanghai’s library and art gallery, in tandem with the campus’s proximity to the Shanghai Art Museum and China Art Museum, make NYU Shanghai an ideal home location for his research. In addition to his stay at NYU Shanghai, during his four-week fellowship, he will be traveling to Beijing under the support of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in order to conduct interviews with artists present at Frederick J. Brown’s twenty-two-year retrospective, and visit the Central Academy of Fine Arts where Brown lectured prior to and during his 1988 retrospective. He will bring to light a critical moment when an African-American painter, sponsored by both the Chinese Communist Party and the United States government, opened the door of creative possibility for a new generation of Chinese artists, laying the foundation for the Chinese contemporary avant-garde while demonstrating the power of art to dissolve the perception of ideological, social, and political boundaries.

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (January 25 - February 23)：

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (January 15 - March 15)：

Ennes’ research focuses on Chinese investments in the energy sector in Latin America and the impact on China’s strategy to build a cleaner energy mix. In the pursuit of energy and raw materials, China has been building a strong relationship with Latin American and Caribbean countries in the past few years. These ties go beyond international commerce. There has been a change in the Chinese approach to Latin America: China is not only importing commodities to supply its rapidly growing economy, but also investing on extraction projects, with Chinese companies competing on oil and gas auctions, and acquiring local companies, as well as working with banks provide loans and financial support to these local corporations.