When:
Thursday, February 6, 2020 12:00 PM
-
2:00 PM
Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs
East Asia Program
present
Chinese Cities and City People During and After World War II
A Talk by
Kristin Stapleton, Professor, History Department, University
at Buffalo, SUNY
The
effects of World War II on Chinese cities were transformative. In addition to
horrendous devastation, the war years were marked by significant cultural
exchange, the reconfiguration of social hierarchies, and experiments in governance.
All of these phenomena shaped the subsequent establishment of the new Communist
regime in Chinese cities beginning in 1949. Drawing on a novel set in a wartime
provincial capital, Li Jieren’s Dance of the Heavenly Devils, this talk
explores the transformation of Chinese cities as a result of the war, with
particular emphasis on changes in the way families worked and lived in cities.
Kristin Stapleton is Professor of History at the
University at Buffalo, SUNY. A native of Michigan, she studied at the
University of Michigan, Harvard University, National Taiwan University, and
Sichuan University. Earlier this year, she completed a five-year term as editor
of the journal Twentieth-Century China,
and she has long served on the editorial board of the journal Education About Asia. Her research
interests include Chinese and comparative urban administration, the history of
Chinese family life, and humor in history. She is the author of Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform,
1895-1937 (Harvard Asia Center 2000) and Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Family (Stanford 2016).
Her current research concerns Chinese cities during WWII and Sino-Soviet
cooperation in designing and managing “socialist cities” in the 1950s. She is a
fellow in the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on
U.S.-China Relations and an avid tennis player.
Sponsored by Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, and East Asia Program
Contact Havva Karakas-Keles for more information: hkarakas@syr.edu