Unlearning Boundaries of Discipline and Methodology: Dialogue among the Scholars of China Studies
January 17 | 2:00-4:30 p.m. | The Conference Room, The Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley ( 1995 University Avenue, 5th Floor IEAS Conference Room )
This workshop is designed to connect scholars with diverse cultural backgrounds and research expertise to discuss how cross-disciplinary exchanges may have re-oriented their research designs and complicated “China” and contemporary China studies, methodologically as well as theoretically. The idea of this workshop originates from the project of “Epistemologies for Thinking China” under the sponsor of the Research and Educational Center for China Studies and Cross Taiwan-Strait Relations at the National Taiwan University. One of the main themes of this project proposes that: through the individual intellectual history and dialogues among scholars, appreciation for the mutual constitution of China, China studies, and China scholars can inspire reflections on the nature of scholarship and contribute to construct critical thinking in the existing disciplines. We hereby propose this workshop for cross-disciplinary dialogue about China studies with the special concern about methodologies that can enable perspectives and platforms to move beyond the binaries of China vs. the West, humanities vs. social sciences, and self vs. other. The discussion is recommended to focus on the following three questions:
1.How has China as analytical category been constructed in the diverse disciplinary practices and through different approaches? What is the role of methodology in different fields of China studies?
2.What are the geo-cultural bases of China studies in different disciplines of humanities and social sciences? How do these bases that undergird different values influence research designs of China studies?
3.Will the cross-disciplinary dialogues reproduce or move beyond above-mentioned binaries either epistemologically or theoretically?
The Institute of East Asian Studies at the UC Berkeley is the location where scholars from diverse disciplines and cultural and geopolitical backgrounds affiliate. We will mainly invite scholars who are currently working within the research net of the IEAS to be the presenters and discussants of the workshop.
