Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Tianyuan Deng
PhD Candidate, Institute of Fine Arts, GSAS
Email:
td1294@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (March 23 - May 2)：

Deng’s dissertation investigates the art historical connection between the Cultural Revolution and the 80s Avant-gardes in China. To this end, they will look at artworks, interviews, manifestos, magazines, journals, and domestic scholarship on site. As the site of the first national congress of the Communist Party, the city has ample sources for their research: the municipal and district archive, the recently opened Liu Haisu archive, and the archives at Long Museum. The majority of the materials belonging to the Revolution and the beginning of the reform era still reside inside the country, and the excavation of a primary archive is one of the biggest contributions that Deng’s dissertation aims to make.

Qin Wang
PhD Candidate, Department of Comparative Literature, GSAS
Email:
qw312@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (February 15 - May 9)：

Wang’s dissertation aims at exploring the problematic of individuality and the politics of individuation in 20th century Chinese literature. The New Sensualist School (新感觉派) in the 1990s particularly focuses on Shanghai as a theme of short stories, a place where things happen, and a locus for a peculiar understanding of individuality and modernity. Thus, an exploration of the New Sensualist School and problematic individuality will contribute to a reexamination of the history of modern Chinese literature, as well as situate the so-called modernist writings during that period with the realist writings in the May Fourth Movement (and its aftermath) in a new fashion. Wang intends to collect relevant materials at the Shanghai Library, the Fudan University Library, and the materials kept by the institute of the Shanghai Writers’ Association.

 

Li Chen
M.B.A. Candidate, Department of Economics, Stern
Email:
lc1803@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (March 29 - May 26)：

With a new wave of market-reform, China is opening up its media and entertainment market in recent years. Most notably, the Walt Disney Company entered the mainland China market with Shanghai Disneyland, a joint-venture between Disney and Shanghai government-owned enterprises. At virtually the same time, DreamWorks entered China with its joint-ventures with China Media Capital, a venture capital fund with significant state-backing and large SOE investments. New tourist-focused ventures would take additional demand for transportation systems in Shanghai. Chen’s research seeks to explore how these new tourist-focused ventures will impact the transportation and related industries’ SOE reform.

Jingyuan Mo
PhD Candidate, Department of Finance, Stern
Email:
jm3499@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (April 2 - May 4)： 

Mo is currently involved in two research projects with his advisor. The first one is on the Chinese bond market, in which they plan to obtain data from the China Foreign Exchange Trade System, located in the Pudong district in Shanghai. The second project is on Chinese business firm groups: the two plan to collaborate with the research team of a data provider company in Pudong, located very close to NYU Shanghai campus. Mo and his advisor hope that their research results on Chinese markets can promote better understanding and inform the development of important policy implications for the bond market in China, as well as its firm structure evolution and connectedness. Due to the scarcity of research papers on these topics of Chinese market, Mo believes that their pioneering work will form a solid foundation for future research on related topics. 

Aileen Christensen
PhD Candidate, Department of French, GSAS
Email:
aac505@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (Nov 2 - Dec 10)：

Christensen’s dissertation is about medieval fairy figures in nineteenth-century French novels. She is comparing medieval and nineteenth-century literary portrayals while examining fantasies about women and their roles in romantic relationships. Fairies are supposedly from the past and otherworldly places and they often represent an imaginary escape from society and reality. Everything about a fairy—her physical appearance, her living space, her connection to nature, her education—adds to her seductive role in love narratives. As her dissertation is based entirely on French literature, Christensen has no connection to the site in Shanghai, but she will prepare to write and use online reading materials while in residence.