CPU Newsletter

January 30, 2006

CPU EVENTS:

1. CPU State of the Union Watch Party (Tuesday, 01/31)

2. A CPU Panel: "A Rising China? Internal Impediments to China's Rise" (Thursday, 02/09)

CPU Co-sponsored Event:

3. Jewish-Indian Reception (Monday, 02/06)

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1. State of the Union Watch Party

Date: Tuesday, 01/31
Time: 8:45PM (The speech begins at 9PM.)
Location: Piano Lounge, Alfred Lerner Hall

Come watch the State of the Union with the CPU! The Democratic response will be given by the newly-sworn governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine.

Pizza and refreshments will be served. Seats will fill up quickly, so come early.

Co-sponsors: College Republicans and College Democrats

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2. A CPU Panel: A Rising China? Internal Impediments to China's Rise"

Date: Thursday, 02/09
Time: 8:00PM
Location: 517 Hamilton Hall

Featuring:

Thomas Bernstein,

co-author of "Taxation without Represenation in Rural China," Columbia professor of political science focusing on Chinese politics and rural China. Professor Bernstein serves on the editorial boards of China Quarterly and Comparative Politics. He is currently working on a forthcoming book, "Conflict and Cooperation between the Chinese Communist State and the Peasantry".

Tom Grunfeld,
SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at Empire State

College/SUNY focusing on the history of modern central Asia, author of "The Making of Modern Tibet," and former chair of the Columbia University Modern China seminar. Professor Grunfeld has traveled to China 15 times over the past thirty years, and been to Tibet on several occassions, as well as in Dharamsala, the seat of the Dalai Lama's administration and Nepal. He has also written extensively on the history of Tibet, China's policies towards ethnic minorities and threats to social stability from racial tensions.

Guobin Yang,
Professor Yang is completing a book manuscript on Struggles for a Chinese Civil Society in the Information Age. Articles related to this project include "The co-evolution of the Internet and Civil Society in China," Asian Survey (May/June, 2003), "The Internet and Civil Society in China: A Preliminary Assessment," Journal of Contemporary China (August 2003), "Environmental NGOs and Institutional Dynamics in China," The China Quarterly (March 2005), and "How Do Chinese Civic Associations Respond to the Internet?" The China Quarterly (forthcoming). In another project, Yang studies the origins and impact of the Cultural Revolution. Related articles include "The Liminal Effects of Social Movements: Red Guards and the Transformation of Identity," Sociological Forum (2000) and " China's Zhiqing Generation: Nostalgia, Identity, and Cultural Resistance in the 1990s," Modern China (July 2003).

Yang is the author of Dragon-Carving and the Literary Mind, 2 volumes (Library of Chinese Classics in English Translation . Beijing : Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2003), an annotated English translation of the 6 th-century classic of literary criticism Wenxin Diaolong. With Ming-Bao Yue, he guest-edited a special issue on "Collective Memories of the Cultural Revolution" for The China Review (Fall 2005). With Ching Kwan Lee, he edited a book titled Re-Envisioning the Chinese Revolution: The Politics and Poetics of Collective Memories in Reform China (under review).

Guobin Yang has received several prestigious awards and fellowships. Several of his articles won awards from the American Sociological Association, including one on the 1989 Chinese student movement (The Sociological Quarterly, 2000). In 2003, he received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "Writing and Research Grant." He was a Summer Faculty Fellow of Social Science Research Council (2001) and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. (2003-2004). Currently he serves on the editorial board of Sociological Perspectives. Guobin Yang has a Ph. D. in English Literature with a specialty in Literary Translation from Beijing Foreign Studies University (1993) and a second Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University (2000). Before joining the faculty in Barnard, he was an assistant professor of sociology in the University of Hawaii at Manoa (2000-2005).

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3. CPU Co-sponsored Event: Jewish-Indian Reception

Date: Monday, 02/06
Time: 6:30-8:30PM
Location: 102 Jerome Greene Hall, Columbia Law School, 116th and Amsterdam

Description: Did you know that Jews have lived in India for over 2000 years without any signs of Anti-Semitism? Did you know that annual bi-lateral trade between India and Israel reached $2.7 billion this past year? Interested in learning more about the historical, cultural, and political connections and similarities between Jewish and Indian Americans? Join us for a night of great speakers and amazing Indian and Israeli food (Kosher and Vegetarian of course). Keynote speakers will include the Indian Consul-General, the Israeli deputy-Consul General and Congressman Gary Ackerman. Additionally, Stanley Bergman (VP American Jewish Committee), Nissim Reuben (a Program Officer at the American Jewish Committee for international affairs and US-India-Israel relations), and Dr. Sampat Shivangi (the former VP of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origins) will be speaking as well.

Please RSVP as soon as possible to JewishIndianReception@gmail.com if you would like to attend.

If you have any questions relating to the event, please contact Ari Gardner at arigardner@gmail.com

Co-Sponsors: Lionpac, Club Zamana, South Asian Law Students Association, Office of the University Chaplain Co-Sponsorship Fund, Hillel, and the Columbia Political Union.

(To remove yourself from the CPU listserve, visit www.cupolitics.org. DO NOT reply to this email.)

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