Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Professor Tao Goffe
Assistant Professor, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, FAS
Email:
tg69@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (May 8 - May 26)：

Professor Goffe’s research project, entitled, "Chiney Royal: Afro-Asian Intimacies in the Americas," connects the Atlantic and Pacific worlds through tracing the history of Chinese indenture in the Caribbean from the nineteenth century to the present. Professor Goffe’s work is in conversation with Global China Studies, and overseas Chinese literary theories would be greatly enhanced by research conducted in Shanghai. The work of Professor Tzu-Hui Celina Hung in literature is especially compelling in connection with Professor Goffe’s research. In Shanghai she plans to conduct interviews in Pudong, where there is a vibrant community of expatriate West Indians. 

Rita Chang
M.F.A. Candidate, Creative Writing Program, GSAS
Email:
rc804@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (April 27 - May 25)： 

In her fiction, Chang often explores cultural myths and modes of storytelling. Her thesis project in particular contains many metafictional elements, with references to Greek mythology, the Bible, and other works of the Western canon. Unfortunately, the canons of other regions, such as East Asia, have been harder to come by. The primary reason being that not all cultures prefer to disseminate their lore through written text. She plans to spend some time in Shanghai researching Chinese folklore and storytelling methods, something that will be of great value to her thesis. She is especially interested in attending performances at traditional storytelling halls and opera houses to study how narratives are constructed and presented in those contexts. Additionally, she will be visiting libraries in Shanghai to examine collections of both original and translated text, which will provide fodder for her own creative works.

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.