Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

Dear students and colleagues,

We cordially invite you to join lecture #4 of the BCCN Online Lecture Series 2022/23 "China – The New Science Superpower?":

Practices as the Criterion of Truth: Ruptures and Continuities of Scientific Knowledge Discourses in 20th Century

Speaker: Marc Matten, Friedrich-Alexander Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg

Online via Zoom. Please register for the event here: https://zoom.us/j/99516596246?pwd=b0Y3akFwN3FEejRZUTFGZ3ZQNWg2UT09 

By looking at the formation of the public discourse of science and technology in the Mao-era this talk will highlight how the empowerment of workers and farmers in socialist China helped to shape a distinct vision of science and technology that was supposed to realize the goal of fast modernization with limited financial, human, and material resources. The strategy of the Communist Party-state to accommodate Western and local, "modern" and "traditional" knowledges in the fields of agricultural mechanization, steel production, and Chinese veterinary medicine brought forth new technologies. They were a result of the continuity of scientific thinking across the historical divides of 1949 and 1978.

Marc Andre Matten is the Professor for Contemporary Chinese History at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU). His research interests include, the history of knowledge transfers between Europe and China in the 20th century and the historiography of global history in contemporary China. His most recent publications are Knowledge Production in Mao-Era China—Learning from the Masses (Lexington, 2021, together with Rui Kunze), Moving Knowledge—The Soviet Union and China in the Twentieth Century (special issue of Comparativ, 2019, together with Julia Obertreis), as well as Imagining a Postnational World—Hegemony and Space in Modern China (Brill, 2016).


Spread the word and register for more lectures in this series on our BCCN-website

Dear students and colleagues,

In China, protests against the government and its strict Corona policy continue. What's more, they have now spread to smaller towns as well. 

We have therefore prepared an online BCCN roundtable at short notice to discuss the situation with experts. 

Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2022

14:00-15:30 CET

Online via Zoom (registration required)

https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Atde-gqDktGNQ7F8-KpA-qWXN7bihDBxAz

Participating are: 

Anna Lisa Ahlers (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)

Daniel Fuchs (Humboldt University of Berlin)

Christoph Steinhardt (University of Vienna)

The discussion will be moderated by Genia Kostka (Freie Universität Berlin).

Spread the word and check for more events on our BCCN-website.