Events

Talk synopsis TBA

Deborah Seligsohn, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Villanova University

Sponsored by the Center for the Contemporary Study of China

This presentation examines the spread of Chinese temples associated with the veneration of Ruan and Liang buddhas from Sihui County in Guangdong Province, China, through Southeast Asia to the Chinatown in Kolkata, India. Ruan Ziyu and Liang Cineng were followers of the sixth Chan patriarch Huineng (638–713) and are believed to have attained enlightenment and become buddhas during the Song dynasty (960-1279). In the thirteenth century temples dedicated to these two Chinese buddhas were established in the Sihui County.

Dr. Tharsen of University of Chicago will be Skyping in to talk about text mining premodern Chinese documents. The title of the talk is "Digital Humanities approaches to phonetic, semantic and syntactic pattern detection in premodern texts".

More information and full schedule can be found at w0rdlab.org, or by emailing Molly des Jardin at mollydes@upenn.edu.

Leading the global fin-tech market, Chinese fin-tech companies, such as Ant Financial and Tencent Finance are setting paradigms for business innovation and economic development. In the meantime, there has been widespread speculation about the Chinese government’s attitude towards the financial implications of digital technologies. On the one hand, fin-techs help to marketize the Chinese financial industries and rejuvenate the economy post 2008-crisis.

Why do tales about swindlers flourish at certain times and places? In China, the swindle story has experienced bursts of popularity during the late Ming, the early Republican era, the early Mao era, and during the last twenty years. And comparable works exist around the world. What, for example, do Zhang Yingyu’s Book of Swindles (Ming China, 1617), Richard King’s The New Cheats of London Exposed (Georgian England, 1792), and P.T.

Come celebrate the Mongolic lunar new year at Penn!

Regional Mongolian and Kalmyk communities will be joining the party and there will be delicous foods, as well as cultural performances of music and poetry!

Issues in Contemporary East Asia Colloquium Series

Talk abstract coming soon.

Kiyoteru Tsutsui is Director of the Center for Japanese Studies and the Donia Human Rights Center and Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan

Talk will explore how 13th century Southern Song historians tried to make sense of an earlier period of foreign rule in north China (Northern Wei) and how the rise of the Mongol Empire influenced the relevant discourse.Shao-yun Yang is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Denison University