Asian Studies Program
James Leibold - Research Projects
Critical Han Studies
In April 2008 I co-organized (along with Tom Mullaney, Stanford University and Stéphane Gros, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) an international, multi-disciplinary conference on the category, meanings and boundaries of “Han” (Hanmin, Hanzu, Hanren, Han minzu) in China.
The Han, a colossal category of identity that encompasses ninety-two percent of the population of mainland China and ninety-eight percent of Taiwan, is often considered the largest ethnic group on earth. The first-ever Critical Han Studies Conference sought to examine the Han from a host of different vantage points (anthropology, history, sociology, lingustics, geography, archaeology, etc) and featured presentations by leading scholars and graduate students from Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.
Further information see www.hanstudies.org or download the paper abstracts (pdf - 320 KB).
Formation of Academic Disciplines in China
My research on the development of archaeology as an academic discipline in China and its intersections with modern notions of time, space and identity is a part of a larger research project looking at the formation of academic disciplines in modern China.
This three-year research project, initiated by Professor John Makeham at the Australian National University, seeks to:
- to understand and analyze how traditional forms of Chinese scholarship were adapted to new knowledge paradigms;
- to identify the role played by indigenous "grammars," or standards of rational justification, in shaping the formation of academic disciplines, and the concrete forms in which these grammars interacted with western paradigms and concepts;
- to demonstrate how indigenous grammars of knowledge construction, and their ongoing complex interaction with western paradigms, decisively influenced the formation and development of individual academic disciplines; and
- to examine the significance of the growing trend toward the indigenization (bentuhua) of knowledge systems and how it relates to broader contemporary concerns about the indigenization of knowledge in many social science and humanities disciplines.
The Project consists of seven disciplinary nodes: architecture, Chinese history, Chinese literature, Chinese philosophy, linguistics, religious studies, and sociology. Node membership is drawn from a network of researchers in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and North America.
For further information see http://academicdisciplines-china.anu.edu.au/
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