Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Janos Kun
PhD Candidate, Department of French, GSAS
Email:
jrk433@nyu.edu

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

Kun’s dissertation project focuses on the birth of French psychiatry, at the end of the 18th century. It undertakes the analysis of the philosophical background of early mental health expertise, namely the works of the Idologues (e.g. Cabanis) and the physician philosophers (e.g. La Mettrie, Pinel). The project is interdisciplinary: it follows the effects of the evolution of psychiatric thought in medicine, law and literature, from the era of the French Revolution to the July Monarchy (1830). Kun’s project is based on theoretical works, but his findings are adduced by archival documents found in the National Archives of France. Although Kun’s project is not connected to the NYU Shanghai site, he would use this opportunity to work on his dissertation and write in a new, inspiring environment.

Paula McDowell
Professor, Department of English, FAS
Email:
pm1201@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (May 4 - May 22)：

Professor McDowell is currently writing a book on the Canadian professor and media theorist Marshall McLuhan (d. 1980), who coined the phrase "the Global Village." While McLuhan's fame has diminished in North America since the late 1970s, it is growing in China: a recent article in the Canadian Journal of Social Science cites his book Understanding Media as "one of the 30 top most influential books in China for the past three decades." With 457 million potential Chinese "Netizens" (citizens with increased access to the internet) China is the place for Professor McDowell to be in order to gain new insight into the consequences of rapid media shift. Two of her former students, Porter Yelton and Samantha Fritsch, will be working at NYU Shanghai and they strongly encouraged Professor McDowell to come.

I-Yi Hsieh
PhD Candidate, Department of East Asian Studies, GSAS
Email:
iyh206@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (April 2 - April 30)：

Hsieh’s research focuses on China’s adoption of UNESCO’s policies of intangible cultural heritage, since 2003, and asks how the ascendency of heritage policies has dramatically changed folklore arts and artists in the country. Her ethnographically informed project investigates this implementation of heritage policies by governmental agencies, how it has been incorporated into the state led urban developmental project, and being promoted as a measure for marketization in the post-socialist China. Hsieh’s research also sheds light on how heritage agencies attract commercial interest groups, including businessmen of the overseas Chinese communities, to create an international network of Chinese heritage. Hsieh’s research project provides a rich and complex picture of heritage implementation in China, interrogating how this process has transformed the face of folklore arts in the country culturally and economically.

Yue Du
PhD Candidate, Department of History, FAS
Email:
yd514@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (February 29 - May 20)：

Du’s dissertation, Parenthood and the State in China, 1800-1949, discusses the changing relationship between state legitimacy and legal regulation of parent-child relations in China’s transitional period of the 19th and the early 20th century. Her research is based on both archival research and published documents such as newspapers, code books, and case books. After two summers of onsite research, Du has finished the majority of her archival research. While in Shanghai she plans to complete her research in the Municipal Archives and the Second Historical Archives of China (in Nanjing). 

Professor Ricardo Cardoso
Assistant Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, FAS
Email:
rc182@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (May 7 - May 25)： 

Professor Cardoso’s research takes place in Luanda, the capital of Angola, at the confluence of various global processes. Analyzing contemporary modes of city making in one of the largest oil economies in the African continent, Professor Cardoso’s inquiries take him to a variety of locations across the world. Given the relevance of its involvement in infrastructure and urban development all across the city, perhaps the most important of those locations has been China. At NYU Shanghai, Professor Cardoso will use the available resources, including connecting with faculty in Global China Studies and Social Sciences, in order to accomplish a number of research-related tasks. Not only will he expand his knowledge of Chinese urbanism, he will also use his time to analyze a few of the various approaches to city making being exported from China to Angola as well as some of the concrete geographical linkages currently being enacted by crude oil shipments going from Angola to China.