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

This lecture is the first of a total of seven lectures in the BCCN Lecture Series, Winter Term 2021/22

The talk is concerned with the role of social media in Chinese protest events. It introduces the concept of “semi-virtual protests”, protests that take place simultaneously in the physical world and on the Internet. In conventional street protests, the main protest activities consist of mobilisation and physical activities such as striking, rioting and demonstrating. In semi-virtual protests, these activities are merely the first stage of an event that continues to unfold online. Protesters use images and narratives produced during the street protest to create social media posts, which they ask other users to share widely. Their aim is to attract the attention of higher-level governments who, the protesters hope, will intervene on their behalf. With physical protests in China being subjected to severe restrictions, the online component of a protest event has arguably become more important than the physical action that underlies it. After introducing the concept of semi-virtual protests, the talk will first feature a visual analysis of recent protest events recorded on Chinese social media. Using all posts from more than 100.000 social media accounts that have posted about at least one protest event, the talk will then identify the main actors in semi-virtual protests.

Christian Göbel is professor of modern China studies at the University of Vienna and the principal investigator of the ERC-funded project “The microfoundations of authoritarian responsiveness: E-Participation, Social Unrest and Public Policy in China”.

Dear Colleagues and Students,

You are warmly invited to attend an upcoming livestreamed event on 6 October (details in the attached).

Prof. Ownby, who runs the excellent “Reading the China Dream” website, will talk about “The Changing Intellectual Landscape in China.” Professor Xiang Biao and Ian Johnson will offer their comments on the talk. All three scholars are leading international experts on contemporary Chinese social, political and religious thought and this promises to be a very thought-provoking event.

For more details please click on the poster below:

The Berlin Contemporary China Network and HU Seminar of East-Asian Studies cordially invite you to join the discussion of Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro´s book China Goes Green.

For more details please visit BCCN

To register for the discussion go to:

https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5wtfu-urz8oE9Kc2QQ7yWa-IeLbj0cXJ58F

Einladung zum Gastvortrag von Drs. Fresco Sam-Sin

"Communicating Cityscapes"

am 8. Juni 2021 um 14:15 Uhr (über Zoom)

Abstract
The city speaks to us, in many ways and in many languages. A city, however complex, is an object; a thing that talks. Objects are material expressions of human experience. The city is shaped by many different kinds of makers, from government to passerbys. Also, the fact that the city is something that we shape to share, and live in with others, makes it into an object that communicates crucial information about how and why we live together. During this lecture, Fresco Sam-Sin will guide us through a myriad of cityscapes, discussing them in their own right as well as within the context of the city they are part of. The lecture starts in the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Über den Sprecher: Fresco Sam-Sin studierte Sinologie und Mandschu an der Universität Leiden und der Minzu University of China in Peking. Er ist Dozent für Mandschu an der Universität Leiden und Initiator verschiedener Projekte zur digitalen Dokumentation materieller Kultur, u. a. Manc.hu und thingsthattalk.net.

Den Link zur Zoom-Sitzung erhalten Sie auf Anfrage an henning.kloeter@hu-berlin.de.