2007-2008 Grant and Scholarship Recipients

Principal Investigator

Kwang-Kyoon Yeo, East Asian Studies Center
Grant Amount: $5,000

Project Abstract

Since the 1990s as an emerging world power beyond the East Asian region, China has been one of the most speculated, researched, and analyzed topics in academia, mass media, and policy debates in the United States. However, the majority of studies and analyses on the topic have been framed within a simulacrum of China based on the imagined homogeneity of its history, people, and culture. This monolithic image, an awakened dragon to the call of the global capitalism, has shaped not only the studies of history, society, and culture of China, but also dominated the policy debates and public imagination of China in the United States. Considering the significance of policy makers’ perception on other countries in implementing foreign policies, this static image of China might hinder the development and implementation of more effective and accommodating strategies toward the most populous country on earth.

By convening scholars working on diverse local, linguistic, and cultural identities within China, this conference will highlight the heterogeneous and dynamic inner workings of China, and examine how the representation of the homogeneity of China as a nation is constructed, reproduced, and maintained both inside and outside China. Consisted of three panels focusing on regional, linguistic, and demographic diversity in China, this conference will expand a new understanding on the emerging world power as a heterogeneous nation-state constituted of various localities, diverse identities, and contesting visions in the past and present.

As an end product of the two-day conference at the Ohio State University from May 9 to 10 (2008), the organizers plan to publish an edited volume on “multicultural China: the past and present” based on the presentations, discussion, and follow-up communications.