East Asia Workshop: Politics, Economy and Society

October 6, 2019
by linzhuoli
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Oct. 7(Monday)|Zeyang Yu, “The Last Strike: Evaluating the Distortionary Effect of Career Incentives on Taxation in China”

EAST ASIA WORKSHOP: POLITICS, ECONOMY & SOCIETY Presents
“The Last Strike: Evaluating the Distortionary Effect of Career Incentives on Taxation in China”

Zeyang Yu

Department of Political Science, University of Chicago

Oct. 7th, Mon 4:30-6:00 pm
Tea Room, Social Science Research Building (2nd floor).
Refreshment will be provided
Abstract
This paper analyzes the distortionary effect of political career incentives on fiscal extraction. We argue that competitive promotion tournaments distort public officials’ career incentives, leading to excessive tax extraction efforts. We empirically estimate the magnitude of distortion by exploiting two institutional designs for political selection in China: the age threshold for promotion and regulated term limits. We find that a promotion tournament becomes more intense when prefectural party leaders enter their last promotion-eligible term (at 50-55 years old). Given fierce competition for career advancement, prefectural party leaders extract excessive fiscal revenue to demonstrate their competence, but they do not enhance economic performance or redistribution efforts.
Bio
Zeyang Yu is a third year PhD student at political science department. His research interests lie broadly in causal inference and their applications in empirical political economy.
 
* Subscribe  to our workshop mailing-list at: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/info/east-asia
* Abstract or description of each presentation will be posted on our website: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/eastasia
* Questions and comments can be addressed to the student coordinators Yuchen Yang: yucheny@uchicago.edu and Linzhuo Li:linzhuoli@uchicago.edu
*Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance please contact the student coordinators in advance. 
The East Asia Workshop is sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences

 

 

May 21, 2019
by ji
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May 29(Wednesday)| Hiroko Kumaki,”Samurais and Robots: Reassembling Histories After the Nuclear Accident in Fukushima, Japan”

EAST ASIA WORKSHOP: POLITICS, ECONOMY & SOCIETY

 

 “Samurais and Robots: Reassembling Histories After the Nuclear Accident in Fukushima, Japan”

 

Hiroko Kumaki

University of Chicago Anthropology, PhD Candidate

 

May 29, Wednesday 12:00-1:30 pm

Pick Lounge, 5828 South University Ave.

Light lunch will be provided

Abstract

The nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, has been told through the history of nuclear weapons development, Atoms for Peace, environmental pollution, as well as other nuclear and industrial disasters. Based on my ethnographic research, I shift gears and discuss the patchwork of histories emerging after the nuclear accident in the northeastern coast of Fukushima. I discuss how traditions of feudal times are reimagined and enacted, and how the experiences during imperial and postwar Japan have figured into local narratives, as residents try to make sense of the aftermath of the nuclear accident and negotiate their future trajectories. I situate these narratives in the context of local and governmental recovery efforts that are remaking the post-nuclear environment with, among other things, samurais and robots.

 

* Subscribe  to our workshop mailing-list at: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/info/east-asia

* Abstract or description of each presentation will be posted on our website: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/eastasia

* Questions and comments can be addressed to the student coordinators Jongyoon Baik: baikjongyoon@uchicago.edu and Ji Xue: jixue@uchicago.edu

*Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance please contact the student coordinators in advance.

The East Asia Workshop is sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.

May 8, 2019
by ji
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May 16(Thursday)|Yuen Yuen Ang, “China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption”

*Please note that this event will be on Thursday!

 

EAST ASIA WORKSHOP: POLITICS, ECONOMY & SOCIETY

 

 “China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption”

Yuen Yuen Ang

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Political Science

 

May 16, Thursday 12:00-1:30 pm

Pick Lounge, 5828 South University Ave.

Light lunch will be provided

Abstract

Why has China’s economy boomed despite rampant corruption? In China’s Gilded Age, I challenge the conventional wisdom that corruption necessarily hurts economic growth by unbundling corruption into qualitatively different types. Marshaling a range of new evidence within China and across countries, I show that China has effectively curtailed forms of corruption that directly inhibit entrepreneurial growth, even as elite exchanges of power and wealth–what I call access money–has exploded. Access money flows to elite officials who are corrupt, but, at the same time, fiercely motivated to promote growth, thus distinguishing China from archetypal predatory states.  The ongoing structural evolution in China parallels America’s Gilded Age in the late 19th century but with one key distinction—the absence of democratic checks.

About the Speaker

Yuen Yuen Ang is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 2018 she received the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship for a project that studies how new markets emerge in the absence of state capacity or good governance in the developing world. She is the author of How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), which won the Peter Katzenstein Prize in Political Economy, Viviana Zelizer Prize in Economic Sociology, and was named “Best of Books 2017” by Foreign Affairs. Her essay in Foreign Affairs’ issue on democratic backsliding, titled “Autocracy with Chinese Characteristics,” was named Best of Print 2018 by the magazine. She is an advisory board member of Cambridge University Press’ Elements Series on “The Politics of Growth,” and of Global Perspectives, a new interdisciplinary journal on markets and institutions, published by University of California Press. In addition to her scholarly work, she advises the United Nations and national governments in Asia on innovation strategies and China’s Belt-and-Road initiative. China’s Gilded Age is her second book, which will be published by Cambridge University Press.

  

 

* Subscribe  to our workshop mailing-list at: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/info/east-asia

* Abstract or description of each presentation will be posted on our website: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/eastasia

* Questions and comments can be addressed to the student coordinators Jongyoon Baik: baikjongyoon@uchicago.edu and Ji Xue: jixue@uchicago.edu

*Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance please contact the student coordinators in advance.

The East Asia Workshop is sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.

May 2, 2019
by ji
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May 8| Dingxin Zhao, “The Art of Asking ‘Why’ Questions: Illustrated by Research Questions in Chinese Studies.”

EAST ASIA WORKSHOP: POLITICS, ECONOMY & SOCIETY

 

“The Art of Asking ‘Why’ Questions: Illustrated by Research Questions in Chinese Studies. 

Dingxin Zhao

Max Palevsky Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago

 

May 8, Wed 12:00-1:30 pm

Pick Lounge, 5828 South University Ave.

Light lunch will be provided

Abstract

In this talk, I will argue for the importance of asking “why” questions aiming at achieving a causal explanation, the pitfalls that should be avoided in asking “why” questions, and limitations of this kind of questioning. The empirical examples of this talk are largely drawn from my own research as well as from my training of graduate students here at the UofC.

  

 

* Subscribe  to our workshop mailing-list at: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/info/east-asia

* Abstract or description of each presentation will be posted on our website: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/eastasia

* Questions and comments can be addressed to the student coordinators Jongyoon Baik: baikjongyoon@uchicago.edu and Ji Xue: jixue@uchicago.edu

*Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance please contact the student coordinators in advance.

The East Asia Workshop is sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.

April 23, 2019
by ji
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May 1| Yan Xu, “Experimenting with Entrepreneurship: Peripheral State Actors,Transnational Communities and the Rise of Venture Capital-Backed Startups in China” 

EAST ASIA WORKSHOP: POLITICS, ECONOMY & SOCIETY

 

 Experimenting with Entrepreneurship:

Peripheral State Actors,Transnational Communities and the Rise of Venture Capital-Backed Startups in China” 

Yan Xu

University of Chicago, Political Science

 

May 1, Wed 12:00-1:30 pm

Pick Lounge, 5828 South University Ave.

Light lunch will be provided

Abstract

Tech entrepreneurship and state capitalism are usually seen as incompatible, partly because they are based on different financial institutions. But in China, tech startups backed by venture capital (VC) are thriving in a state capitalist economy, in spite of antecedent institutions that were hostile to entrepreneurship and VC and the state’s persistent interest in the developmental state model of favoring large incumbent firms. This paper shows how state actors that are relatively peripheral in China’s industrial and financial policymaking introduced experimentation that provided space for entrepreneurship and VC. These policy experiments were originally limited in scope and achieved mixed outcomes: while tech entrepreneurship thrived, state-run VC firms mostly failed. But vibrant tech entrepreneurship attracted foreign and returnee venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, who brought in practices from Silicon Valley and elsewhere, utilized foreign capabilities and institutions to overcome local obstacles and bred some of China’s most successful startups. These developments eventually led to policy changes and reorientation—including the opening of the domestic stock market to entrepreneurial firms and the massive amount of state capital directed to VC—that have significantly reshaped the institutional environment for VC and entrepreneurship. This narrative demonstrates how public initiatives can foster private risk-taking and suggests that capitalism in China emerged not merely from below but through a multi-faceted process.

  

 

* Subscribe  to our workshop mailing-list at: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/info/east-asia

* Abstract or description of each presentation will be posted on our website: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/eastasia

* Questions and comments can be addressed to the student coordinators Jongyoon Baik: baikjongyoon@uchicago.edu and Ji Xue: jixue@uchicago.edu

*Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance please contact the student coordinators in advance.

The East Asia Workshop is sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.

April 16, 2019
by ji
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Fei Xiaotong Roundtable – Human Nature and Habits – Thursday, May 2, 2019

“Human Nature and Habits” Roundtable

Academic Exchange with Fei Xiaotong (Fei Hsiao-Tung)’s Followers

 

THURSDAY MAY 2, 2019 – 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm

1st Floor Lecture Hall 142, 1155 East 60th Street, Chicago IL 60637

The renowned Chinese sociologist and anthropologist Fei Xiaotong (Hsiao-Tung, 1910-2005)’s early works, Peasant Life in China (1939), From the Soil (1947/1993), Earthbound China (1945) and China’s Gentry (1945), are widely known at home and abroad. However, his many later works failed to be systematically introduced to the English-speaking world. For decades, Professor Fei’s disciples (PhD students or Postdoctoral researchers) have built on different aspects of his academic legacy and developed their own research expertise.

This roundtable will feature Professor Fei Xiaotong’s disciples and will provide an opportunity for them to introduce their own research, as well as seek comments and advice on, “Humanity and Habits,” a joint research project undertaken by the Institute of Art Anthropology of China Academy of Arts and the Hengyuanxiang Group launched in 2018. With the subject of this research project having been of great interest to Professor Fei, this roundtable will explore questions of where people’s habits and cultures come from, thereby understanding the future development of human civilization through the relationship between human beings and culture.

Although Professor Fei pioneered the methods of local people doing fieldwork in their own home environments, he made a large number of observations and travel notes during his studies and academic visits in the United Kingdom and the United States, which influenced his ideas about “cultural self-consciousness” in his later years in the context of globalization. His “sixteen characters” have methodological implications for promoting understanding and respecting the cultures and traditions of other countries on the basis of knowing one’s own culture.  Professor Fei also valued the method of comparing “self” with “other”, so the members of the research team have studied “humanity and habits” in China, Japan, India, Middle East, Europe and the United States. By following in Fei Xiaotong’s footsteps on visits to the United States and United Kingdom for academic exchanges between Chinese and non-Chinese scholars, this delegation hopes to deepen and widen existing research and participate in the construction of human knowledge on this and a wider range of topics.

Event sponsored by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies 

and the Council on Advanced Studies – East Asia Workshop: Politics, Economy and Society

 

Lunch will be provided to all guests

DELEGATION MEMBERS

Mr. Liu Qirui, President, Hengyuanxiang Corporation. Co-PI of the project ‘Human nature and habits’. Chairman, Presidium of China Federation of Industrial Economics (CFIE); Vice-President of China Trademark Association. He is known as the “first person of Chinese brands” and “a master of Chinese business”. In recent years he has been interested in ‘cultural assets’. He has published more than 10 papers, and is author of Brand and Culture (2015), co-author, Research on National Brands and National Soft Power(2014), co-author, Research on National Brand Strategy (2012). He is also Consultant Professor of Fudan University,Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and East China University.

Professor Fang Lili, Director, Institute of the Anthropology of Arts, China Academy of Arts; Director of the Institute of the Anthropology and Sociology of Arts, Southeast University; President, the China Association of the Anthropology of Arts; Co-PI of the project ‘Human nature and habits’. Her publications include Cultural Consciousness and Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2015), The Native Vision of Art Anthropology (2014), Art Anthropology (co-author,2013), Chinese Ceramic History (2 volumes, 2013), Tradition and Change – Fieldwork of New and Old Folk Kiln Industry in Jingdezhen (2000); co-editor and translator,Globalization and Cultural Self-Awareness, by Fei Xiaotong (in English) (2015).
Professor Wang Yanzhong, Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). Executive Director of the Chinese Sociological Association. His publications include Research on the Construction of a Well-off Society in an All-round Way in China (2018), China Social Security Development Report (2019, 2018, 2017, 2014, 2010, 2007, 2004 and 2001), Economic and Social Survey Report of China’s Ethnic Regions (co-editor, 2016, 2015, 2014), Annual Report on the Development of Ethnic in China (co-editor, 2015), Social Security Survey on Income Redistribution Effect in China (co-author, 2013), Research on China Labor Union Security Issues (2004), A Study on Relations between Infrastructure and Manufacturing Development (co-author, 2002), WTO and SME Development Strategy (2000).

Professor Liu Neng, Deputy Head of the Department of Sociology, Peking University. History publications include Village Administration in the Perspective of Hierarchy and Social Networks: A Case Study of Beizhen (North Twon) (2008). Public Welfare Project Evaluation: Teacher Training Programme in Hope-Project and Overall Performance Evaluation on Lucent Class (2004). Edited work: The Power of Joining Hands: Open Bidding Project Evaluation on China Red Cross Foundation 5.12 Disaster Relief (2012), China Minsheng (People’s Livelihood) Development Report (2012). Translator and publisher, Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, eds. Aldon D.Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller (2002).
Professor Zhao Xudong, Director of the Institute of Anthropology, Renmin University of China. His publications include Anthropology of Cultural Transformation (2018), On the Edge of the Indigenous and Foreign Lands: Self, Culture and the Other in Anthropological Researches (2011), Cultural Expression: Anthropological Vision (2009). Co-editor: WeChat Ethnography: Knowledge Production and Cultural Practice from the Media Age (2017), editor, Fei Xiaotong and the Study of Rural Society (2010), co-translator, Sociology (7th Edition), by Anthony Giddens et al., published in Chinese in 2015; Sociology Matters, by Richard T. Schaefer, published in Chinese in 2011; Popular Religion in China: The Imperial Metaphor, by Stephan Feuchtwang, published in Chinese in 2009.

Professor Ding Yuanzhu, Deputy Director of the Department of Social and Ecological Civilization, National Institute of Administration. His publications include Volunteer Service Index System Research (co-author, 2018), The Logic of Society (2017),  Basic Theory and Method of Community (2009), Society Building: Strategic Thinking and Basic Countermeasures (2008), The Century Seeking for a Good Society (2007), Management of Social Development (2006), Reconstruction of China’s Social Safety Net (2001), China 2010: Risk and Avoidance (co-author, 2005), Research on Volunteer Activities: Types, Evaluation and Management (co-author, 2001), Fei Xiaotong’s Academic History and Works Summary (co-author 1996). 
Professor Xu Ping, Culture and History Department, Central Party School. Vice-President of Chinese Society of World Ethno-National Studies. His publications include A Survey of Cultural Identity and National Identity in China’s Ethnic Autonomous Regions (co-author, 2018), Western Development and Stability and Development of Tibetan Farming and Pastoral Areas (co-author, 2012), Fei Xiaotong’s Biography (co-author, 2009), Cultural Adaptation and Change(2006), Tibetan Secrets – Going to the West of China (2001), Living in the Himalayas (1997), Yi Village Society (1993). 
Mr. Zhang Zhe, Deputy Secretary-General, Centre of Social Survey, Advisory Office, State Council, People’s Republican of China; The only grandson of Professor Fei Xiaotong (Fei Hsiao-Tung).

 
Professor Xiangqun Chang, Honorary Professor of University College London; President of Global China Institute, UK. She has published nearly 100 Chinese and English items, nearly three million words, includingOn Marxist Sociology (580,000 words; 2018; 460,000 words, 1992), Guanxi or Li shang wanglai? — Reciprocity, Social Support Networks, & Social Creativity in a Chinese Village (simplified Chinese version, 540,000 words, 2009; English and traditional Chinese versions, 2010); editor, Society Building — A China Model of Social Development (English edition, 2014; English new edition, Chinese new editions, 2014-18); co-editor, Fei Xiaotong Studies (three volumes, in English and Chinese with Feuchtwang et al., 2015-18).

April 5, 2019
by ji
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April 10 | William Hurst, “Ruling Before the Law: the Politics of Legal Regimes in China and Indonesia”

EAST ASIA WORKSHOP: POLITICS, ECONOMY & SOCIETY

 

“Ruling Before the Law: the Politics of Legal Regimes in China and Indonesia” 

William Hurst

Associate Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University

 

April 10, Wed 12:00-1:30 pm

Pick Lounge, 5828 South University Ave.

Light lunch will be provided

 

 

 

 

* Subscribe  to our workshop mailing-list at: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/info/east-asia

* Abstract or description of each presentation will be posted on our website: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/eastasia

* Questions and comments can be addressed to the student coordinators Jongyoon Baik: baikjongyoon@uchicago.edu and Ji Xue: jixue@uchicago.edu

*Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance please contact the student coordinators in advance.

The East Asia Workshop is sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.

 

April 1, 2019
by baikjongyoon
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Yeonju Lee | April 3, “Understanding the Causes of Inequality Perceptions”

EAST ASIA WORKSHOP: POLITICS, ECONOMY & SOCIETY

 

“Understanding the Causes of Inequality Perceptions” 

Yeonju Lee

Harvard University, Postdoctoral Fellow

 

April 3, Wed 12:00-1:30 pm

Pick Lounge, 5828 South University Ave.

Light lunch will be provided

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that perceptions of inequality have a meaningful effect on people’s political preferences such as support for redistribution. Although it is important to understand where these perceptions come from, we know little about the origins of individual inequality perceptions, especially across different countries. When and how do people perceive income inequality at the individual level? Given similar levels of actual income inequality, why do countries have varying levels of perceived inequality? This paper attempts to answer these questions in two parts: first, the paper tests the effect of potential short-term triggers of perceived inequality – factual information about inequality, a sense of injustice, visibility of inequality, media, and various demographic characteristics – using original survey and experiments conducted in Japan and Korea. I find that a sense of injustice is the strongest predictor of perceived inequality while factual information about inequality and visibility of inequality do not have any meaningful effect. Media has mixed impacts on individual inequality perceptions.  Second, the paper traces historical paths of the two countries to explain the persistence of “collective” inequality perceptions at the country level.

  

 

* Subscribe  to our workshop mailing-list at: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/info/east-asia

* Abstract or description of each presentation will be posted on our website: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/eastasia

* Questions and comments can be addressed to the student coordinators Jongyoon Baik: baikjongyoon@uchicago.edu and Ji Xue: jixue@uchicago.edu

*Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance please contact the student coordinators in advance.

This event is sponsored by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies

The East Asia Workshop is sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.

 

February 25, 2019
by ji
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March 6 | Yao Lu, “Migration and Political Development in China”

EAST ASIA WORKSHOP: POLITICS, ECONOMY & SOCIETY

 

“Migration and Political Development in China”

 

 

Yao Lu

Columbia University, Sociology Department

 

March 6, Wed 12:00-1:30 pm

Pick Lounge, 5828 South University Ave.

Pizza will be provided

 

 

Abstract

Massive rural-urban migration and growing collective resistance are two profound transformations in China. This study examines how migration shapes collective resistance in sending areas. Drawing on several data sources, I find that migration acts as a vehicle of political diffusion and spurs collective resistance in rural China. But the role of migration differs by the form and scale of collective action and is conditioned by local social institutions. The role of migration is discussed in the context of distinct institutional arrangements in China, which were originally engineered to disenfranchise rural-origin people but which instead have inadvertently politicized migrants and peasants alike.

 

About the Presenter

Yao Lu is Associate Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. Her research focuses on how migration intersects with social and political processes in China. Her current work examines how migration affects political development in rural and urban China, how feminization of migration reconfigures gender practices in rural areas, and how migration shapes family dynamics and the well-being of migrant children and left-behind children.

 

* Subscribe  to our workshop mailing-list at: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/info/east-asia

* Abstract or description of each presentation will be posted on our website: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/eastasia

* Questions and comments can be addressed to the student coordinators Jongyoon Baik: baikjongyoon@uchicago.edu and Ji Xue: jixue@uchicago.edu

*Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance please contact the student coordinators in advance.

The East Asia Workshop is sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.

February 20, 2019
by baikjongyoon
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Feb 27 | Chenli You, “Macroeconomic Stimulus and the Distorting Effects of Political Connections: Evidence from China”

 

EAST ASIA WORKSHOP: POLITICS, ECONOMY & SOCIETY

“Macroeconomic Stimulus and the Distorting Effects of Political Connections: Evidence from China”

 

Chenli You

UIC Economics PhD Candidate

 

Feb 27, Wed 12:00-1:30 pm

Pick Lounge, 5828 South University Ave.

Pizza will be provided

 

Abstract

The global financial crisis of 2008 hit the Chinese economy severely, and in response, China launched its “four trillion-yuan stimulus package” to support the economy. Since China has a mixed economy that is both centrally planned and market-based, and therefore political relations play a significant role in resource allocation, companies with close relationships to central and local government have been likely to benefit more from the stimulus package. This research uses a difference-in-difference analysis of publicly listed companies in China from 2003 to 2012, comparing politically connected and non-politically connected firms before and after 2008. The empirical results suggest that after the adoption of the stimulus package, politically connected firms had about 7.1% higher leverage, 9.3% higher receivables, and 6.6% lower sales compared to firms lacking those political connections, even though the levels of investment, cash stock, and profit among all of these firms were not significantly different. My findings, that politically connected firms received a disproportionate amount of support from the stimulus package through increased leverage but performed worse in liquidity management, suggest that the stimulus package allocated resources inefficiently.

 

* Subscribe  to our workshop mailing-list at: https://lists.uchicago.edu/web/info/east-asia

* Abstract or description of each presentation will be posted on our website: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/eastasia

* Questions and comments can be addressed to the student coordinators Jongyoon Baik: baikjongyoon@uchicago.edu and Ji Xue: jixue@uchicago.edu

*Persons with disabilities who believe they may need assistance please contact the student coordinators in advance.

The East Asia Workshop is sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.