Chinese Historians

In the increasingly interconnected world of academia, effective networking and outreach have become crucial for career advancement, collaboration, and impactful research. However, the geographically scattered nature of academic work and the intense focus on research and teaching can sometimes hinder the development of these essential skills. Organized by the Chinese Historians in the United States (CHUS), this online workshop aims to address these challenges and provide practical strategies for academic networking and outreach.

Our three speakers, who have rich and diverse experiences in academic networking, will discuss how outreach activities can increase scholars’ visibility and influence in their field, strategies for opening new academic opportunities, and effective ways to make academic work known to a broader audience. Join us to learn how to overcome the challenges of academic isolation and develop the social skills crucial for a thriving academic career. 

Sincerely,

Dr. Yi Ren

Our speakers: 

Linshan Jiang is a Visiting Assistant Professor of East Asian history and culture at Colby College. She was a Postdoctoral Associate of Chinese Studies at Duke University. She received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she also obtained a Ph.D. emphasis in Translation Studies. Her research interests include modern and contemporary literature, film, and popular culture in mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan; trauma and memory studies; gender and sexuality studies; queer studies; as well as comparative literature and translation studies. Her primary research project focuses on female writers’ war experiences and memories of the Asia-Pacific War, entitled Women Writing War Memories. Her second research project explores how queerness is performed in Sinophone queer cultural productions. She has published articles about gender studies and queer studies in literature and culture as well as translations of scholarly and popular works in Chinese and English. She has been making a podcast named Gleaners with her friends for more than ten years and she is also a host of the East Asian Studies channel for the New Books Network.

Yuan Gao, who is also known as Kevin, earned his PhD in Chinese language and literature at Washington University in St. Louis. In Fall, he will join the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at WashU as a lecturer. His interdisciplinary research spans literature, film and media studies, environmental humanities, and queer studies. Based on his dissertation, he’s working on a book manuscript, tentatively entitled Corporeal Technology: Hydraulic Engineering and the Media of Labor in China, 1952-1993. This book situates mass politics in the history of water management to reconsider the working human masses as a technological force, rather than a class-based political category. Yuan Gao has published in both academic journals and popular media platforms to discuss Chinese-language cinema, reality shows, and gender and sexuality. Prior to joining the EALC faculty, he was a fellow at the Center for the Humanities at WashU.

Dr. Jinghong Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is interested in the social and cultural history of modern China, the history of medicine, and Science and Technology Studies. She is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Down to the Roots: The History of Dentistry and Oral Hygiene in Modern China, which is the very first historical monograph that examines the development of dentistry in China from the late imperial era to contemporary times. Her research has been supported by the Association for Asian Studies, the D. Kim Foundations, the Social Science Research Council, the University of California, and others. 

The CHUS board is seeking proposals of FULLY ORGANIZED roundtables or paper panels for the 2025 AHA.  CHUS will be offering the following two kinds of sponsorships at the AHA, and each type has a different submission procedure, deadline, and AHA- and CHUS-membership (or CHUS conference registration fee) requirement. Below are the details:

1. Co-sponsorship of a session with the AHA program committee:

Definition: A session that CHUS co-sponsors with the AHA must be first vetted by the CHUS Board and then submitted to the AHA Program Committee. It will be evaluated by the AHA Program Committee like a regular AHA session, but having a CHUS co-sponsorship will enhance its likelihood of being accepted by the AHA Program Committee.

Membership requirements: AHA membership is required of all US-BASED historians participating in a session with CHUS-AHA co-sponsorship. (This also means that NON-US based historians or scholars from disciplines other than history are exempted from the AHA membership requirement).  In addition, the organizer and at least 2/3 of the paper presenters (or speakers if roundtable) of a CHUS-AHA co-sponsored session must be active CHUS members.

CHUS membership or CHUS conference registration fee requirement: so long as the proposed session fulfills the CHUS membership percentage requirement specified above, the non-CHUS members in the session do not need to become CHUS members or pay a CHUS conference registration fee, although they are highly encouraged to join CHUS for the membership benefits it offers.

Proposal submission procedure and deadlines for co-sponsored sessions:

If you are interested in proposing a session for AHA-CHUS co-sponsorship, please 1) submit your session proposal to Qiong Zhang (at zhangq@wfu.edu) for vetting by the CHUS BOARD no later than Saturday Feb 10, 2024, and then 2) submit your finalized session proposal directly to the AHA program committee by its deadline of Thursday February 15, 2024 at: https://www.historians.org/annual-meeting/proposals/call-for-proposals

AGAIN: for a session proposed for an AHA and CHUS co-sponsorship, you are responsible for submitting your own session proposal to the AHA Program Committee, just like any other regular AHA session proposal.  PLEASE prepare your proposal based on the requirements laid out in the instructions at the above AHA portal. While filling out the AHA online session proposal submission form at this website, please indicate that your session will be co-sponsored by CHUS; there is a line near the beginning of the proposal form asking for this information.  Doing so would greatly enhance the chance of your proposal being accepted by the AHA, as the committee will know that there is already a substantial audience for your session.

If your session has been approved by the CHUS Board for co-sponsorship but not accepted by the AHA Program Committee, your session will be automatically converted into a CHUS solo-sponsored session.  

• CHUS solo-sponsorship:

Definition: A session sponsored by CHUS alone is counted as part of the AHA affiliate program. It is primarily vetted by the CHUS Board and secondarily by the AHA Program Committee. Only a short session abstract (90 words of text plus a weblink) will be carried in the AHA online program; visitors to the AHA program page for your session will be able to follow the weblink to find your full program description on our CHUS conference website.

AHA Membership and Conference Registration Fee requirements: AHA membership is NOT required if you only participate in a CHUS solo-sponsored session whether or not you are a US-based historian.  However, all participants in a session taking place at the premise of the AHA, including all CHUS solo-sponsored sessions, are required to register for the AHA meetings and pay the registration fee.

CHUS membership or CHUS conference registration fee requirements:

In theory, active CHUS membership is required of all non-student paper presenters or roundtable participants in sessions with solo CHUS sponsorship, but non-CHUS members are also very welcome to participate in such sessions provided that they pay a CHUS conference registration fee of $40 to help CHUS cover the expenses it pays to the AHA for the use of the conference room and other associated AHA services and to the conference hosting hotels for A/V rentals.  This requirement must be met by mid-May (the exact deadline will be announced in the CHUS Board’s letter of session acceptance issued in early May).  (This CHUS Conference fee is NOT to be confused with the AHA Conference Registration Fee; the latter is charged to all participants in all sessions taking place at the AHA. 

To avoid any confusion on this issue, please allow me to highlight two points here again: 1) students presentingin a CHUS solo-sponsored session are exempted from this active CHUS membership (or CHUS Conference fee) requirement, though they are highly encouraged to join CHUS for the wide-ranging membership benefits it offers, especially to those at the early stage of their careers;  2) Those serving on CHUS solo-sponsored sessions only as Chair and/or Discussants are also exempted from this membership or registration fee requirement.

Information on how to join CHUS and the variety of benefits that a CHUS membership offers may be found here: http://www.chinesehistorians.org/membership/

What to include in a proposal for a CHUS solo-sponsored session and when and how to submit it:

What to include on your CHUS solo-sponsored session proposal:

1. Name and contact information of the session organizer
2. The title of the proposed session
3. A short session abstract of up to 90 words
4. A longer (200-300 word) session abstract
5. For paper panels: please also provide the titles and names of presenters of individual papers and a 200-300-word abstract for each paper;
6. Names, current institutional affiliations (if none, please use “independent scholar”), and email addresses of all individuals on the session, including chair, discussant, and all roundtable participants or paper presenters.

When and how to submit your session proposal:

Please email your session proposals to Qiong Zhang (at zhangq@wfu.edu) for vetting by the CHUS Board no later than Sunday April 21, 2024. The CHUS Board will announce its decision in early May.

Guidelines for ALL session proposals with either type of sponsorship:

1. Session Format: Proposed sessions can follow either of two formats:
2. A paper panel, generally consisting of three or four presenters, a chair, and a discussant.  It is recommended that sessions with four presenters go without a discussant to make adequate room for interaction with the audience.  While presenters may also chair the same panel in which they present, they should NOT be both a presenter and a discussant in the same panel.
3. A roundtable, consisting of a chair and 3-6 participants. The chair in a roundtable may also serve as a participant. Structurally, a roundtable should be sufficiently different from a paper session, in that it should devote at least half of the session time to conversations among participants and between the participants and the audience. 
4. Regarding possibilities of participation in multiple roles in a session and/or in more than one session:  1) CHUS has a rule limiting the purely service roles (i.e., serving only as chair and/or discussant) to no more than one session per person.  If you chair a session in which you also present a paper, that does not count as a “purely service role”.  2) CHUS rules do not allow a participant to both present a paper and serve as a discussant in the same panel; it is perfectly fine if you chair a session in which you are a presenter/speaker or a discussant. 3) Currently CHUS does not have a rule limiting how many sessions in which you may present a paper (in a paper panel) and/or serve as a speaker (in a roundtable). If we are beginning to have too many individuals presenting in more than two sessions, impacting the diversity of the CHUS program as a whole, the CHUS Board may consider implementing a rule.

CHUS POLICIES regarding NO SHOW for all participants accepted into the finalized CHUS program:

It is paramount that our panelists uphold the academic integrity and professional standards of CHUS. Please be reminded that CHUS does not have the technical resources to hold a session via teleconferencing at the AHA, so only individuals who are able to participate in the AHA onsite should be included in a proposed session. Once a panel has been accepted into our AHA program, which will be finalized by mid-May, all individuals, members and non-members alike, who participate in it as panelists, discussants, or chairs must fulfill their obligations as stated in the proposal and attend the conference. In the event that an illness or other emergencies prevents a panel participant from attending the meeting, the absentee must inform their panel organizers and the CHUS conference coordinator (Qiong Zhang, zhangq@wfu.edu) of their situations at the earliest possible time andmake arrangements for a co-panelist or some other conference attendee to deliver their papers or comments or chair their panels on their behalf. Failure to do so will result in a 3-year suspension from CHUS-organized AHA panels.

CHUS Marketplace (a Google Doc) for those looking to organize a session or join one that is being formed: [NOTE: the link to this Google Doc has been redacted from this newsletter to protect the private information shared by members on this document. Please contact me at zhangq@wfu.edu if you need the link. Thank you!]

While we can only accept proposals of fully formed sessions, we have set up the above Marketplace to facilitate information exchange among our members/friends looking for co-panelists. If you are interested in organizing a CHUS-sponsored or co-sponsored session for the 2025 AHA in New York and are looking for more panelists, a chair, or a discussant; if you have a paper to present and are looking to join a suitable panel: please check out this MARKETPLACE Google Doc!  CHUS members who are available to serve as a chair or discussant are also welcome to enter your names on the Google Doc! 

Please be aware, though, that this is just a Marketplace: it facilitates you finding each other, but CHUS will NOT pair you up and organize sessions for you.  It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to follow up with potential co-panelists you find on this Google Doc, develop your session proposals, and meet the respective session proposal deadlines stated above.

Thank you all for your kind attention. If you need clarifications or have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.  Otherwise, I look forward to receiving your session proposals for the CHUS-AHA co-sponsorship by Saturday February 10, 2024 or for CHUS solo-sponsorship by Sunday April 21, 2024.

Wishing you all a pleasant spring semester,

Zhang Qiong, on behalf of the CHUS Board, 2024-2026

CHUS #9. Zhou Enlai: His Life, Thought, and Legacies (Rountdatble)
Sunday, January 5, 2025: 3:30 PM-5:00 PM
New York Hilton, East Room

Session Organizer: Patrick Fuliang Shan, Grand Valley State University

Chair(s):
Patrick Fuliang Shan, Grand Valley State University

Panel:

• Mark Selden, Cornell University
• Hanchao Lu, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Xiaobing Li, University of Central Oklahoma
• Dan Du, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• Patrick Fuliang Shan, Grand Valley State University

Session Description

The publication of Chen Jian’s Zhou Enlai: A Life (Harvard University, 2024) offers an opportunity for scholarly reflections on Zhou Enlai’s (1898-1976) life and thought as well as the role he played in shaping the Chinese Communist Revolution and the early history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).  A prominent historical figure of modern China, Zhou was a key leader of the Chinese Communist Party and, after the founding of the PRC, served as its premier for twenty-seven years. In a number of ways, he could be regarded as an architect of China’s administrative apparatus and a designer of China’s relationship to the world. He was praised by President Nixon as “the greatest statesman of our era.” Nevertheless, not a single comprehensive biography of Zhou Enlai has ever been published in English until now. Chen Jian, Professor emeritus of Cornell University and author of The China challenge in the twenty-first century: implications for U.S. foreign policy (United States Institute of Peace, 1998), China’s road to the Korean War: the making of the Sino-American confrontation (Columbia University Press, 1994), and Mao’s China and the Cold War (UNC Chapel-Hill, 2001), among his other works, presents in this biography a nuanced portrait of Zhou as a revolutionary, a diplomat, and a political leader by utilizing archival sources inside and outside China.

This biography, in a sense, monitors the history of twentieth century China. When young, Zhou received a classical education and spent his time in Japan and France. Being driven by his aspiration for China’s modernization, he embraced communism as a tool of national salvation. After 1949, Zhou assisted Mao Zedong to govern China. As Chen demonstrates, Zhou was not a totally committed Maoist. Zhou’s exceptional political moves, bureaucratic skills, and centrist approaches enabled him to diminish the damage caused by Mao’s extreme policies. Without a doubt, this book helps us understand the historical evolution of modern China. This roundtable will centrally engage Chen’s biography of Zhou, as each panelist will offer his/her comments on the book — its features, its scope, and its scholarly contributions –and take it as a new point of departure to explore Zhou’s work, thought, and legacies from a particular angle. The speakers will then invite questions and comments from the audience.

Speakers’ Abstracts

Mark Selden, Cornell University

Mark Selden, the author of The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (Harvard, 1971), has studied the Chinese Revolution for decades. For this roundtable, he will focus on the tie between Zhou Enlai and the Chinese Revolution by using Chen Jian’s book and other sources. In particular, he will assess Zhou Enlai’s significant role in modern China, especially the revolution throughout the 20^th century.

Hanchao Lu, Georgia Institute of Technology

Hanchao Lu is the author of many books on Shanghai, the largest city of China. For this roundtable, he will use Chen Jian’s book and other sources to discuss Zhou Enlai’s relationship with Shanghai. He will show unique episodes of Zhou Enlai’s tie with Shanghai, intending to highlight the relationship between this important historical figure and a major Chinese city.  

Xiaobing Li, University of Central Oklahoma

Xiaobing Li authored many books on China’s army and navy. For this roundtable, he will utilize Chen Jian’s book as a new point of departure to demonstrate the deep tie between Zhou Enlai as one of the national leaders and China’s military establishment. He will also interpret Zhou’s role in the development of Chinese fighting forces and China’s military modernization during the Maoist era.

Dan Du, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Dan Du is a specialist on the history of US-China trade relations. For this roundtable, she will demonstrate Zhou Enlai’s promotion of the bilateral ties between the United States and China. She will use Chen Jian’s book and other sources to unveil the indispensable role of Zhou Enlai in the normalization of US-China relations through mutual understanding between the two peoples, although the diplomatic tie was finally established in 1979, roughly three years after Zhou Enlai passed away.

Patrick Fuliang Shan, Grand Valley State University

Zhou Enlai has been acclaimed as “a great modern Confucian.” Yet, he was a loyal member of the Communist Party and served as a prominent communist leader. This naturally raises a serious question about Zhou’s faith in communism and his tie with traditional Chinese culture. By utilizing Chen Jian’s book, Shan will discuss the tie between Zhou Enlai and Chinese culture, as well as his relationship with the communist ideology.