Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Hsu’s project seeks to finalize post-production work of his thesis film and will continue to shoot his long term documentary project about the historical path of Taiwanese people working in China. Taiwanese people were allowed to work in China in the early 90's and it has drastically changed Taiwanese and Chinese relationship in many aspects. Hsu plans to examine the “filmmakers' life,” how Taiwanese filmmaker immigrants have found their way settling down in China, and their thoughts on the future of Taiwanese cinema.

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.

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.