The UK-China Arts and Humanities Forum took place on 5 October 2023. The event was co-hosted by Oxford Global Exchanges Society, University of Oxford, with the kind support of the University of Oxford China Centre.
The conference consisted of 15 presentations on the following sessions: ‘New Approaches to Cultural Research and Artistic Practice’, ‘Cultural HeritageDissemination and Inheritance’, and ‘Sociology of Art,Culture, and Literature in Time and Space’.
Speakers in the conference came from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, DalianUniversity of Technology, Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths,University of London, and the University of Oxford.
Yuhong Liu is the Deputy Director of theInstitute of Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Associate Professor, tenure-track Research Fellow, and President of the Calligraphy and PaintingAssociation of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His main research fields cover the studies of cultural relics museums, local chronicles, theory of painting and calligraphy art, and comparison of Chinese and foreign literature and culture. His calligraphy works have been presented to many international heads of states.He has published papers entitled The Life Aesthetics of Cultural China -- Also on the Comparison Study of Chinese and Japanese Cultures, The HumanisticApproach of “InterdisciplinarySubjects”from Calligraphy and Literature and Art Studies -- A Case Study of Su Shi’s Calligraphy Thought, From Su Shi to Huang Tingjian: Analysis of IncorporatingSpiritual Qualities of Zen into Calligraphy in the Song Dynasty, and Romantic LyricAesthetics of the SongDynasty. He has published monographs The Formation and Development of ChineseLocal Chronicles, and Introduction to Local Chronicles Museums, presided over the exhibition projects of “LocalChronicles of China” and “Charming China”, founded and edited The Study of Chinese Local Chronicles Museums, and chief edited the Comparative Study of Chinese andJapanese Myths and Legends, Illustration of China, and other books.
Gary Clough is the Head of Programme for the Graduate Diploma in Art and Design at the Royal College of Art, London. With over thirty years of educational development and delivery experience in Higher and Further Education, in both UK and International education systems, these experiences have driven and informed Clough’s commitment to inclusivity and cultural diversity and its essential place within art education. Clough is a practicing artist with an interdisciplinary approach spanning drawing, embroidery, sculpture, animation and site-specific installation. A graduate of Fine Art Sculpture from the University for the Creative Arts (1989) and the Royal College of Art (MA Sculpture, 1993; MPhil Sculpture and Animation, 2003). He has and continues to exhibit across the UK, Europe, US and China, from Tate St Ives to The Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing. His research focuses on the importance of drawing in the recording and responding through sketchbooks and journals.
Aidong Shi is the Director, Department of Folk Literary Studies and ResearchFellow at the Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and serves as the director of the Folk Literature Division and theSecretary-General of the China Folklore Society. His main research directions include story study, rumor study, and academic history of folklore. He is the author ofThe Rule of Storytelling, The Adaptive Story Mechanics, Invention of Chinese Dragon, Reflections on Disciplining Folkloristics inModern China, etc.
Wenhui Hu is Professor of the School ofArchitecture and Fine Art at the Dalian University of Technology. Dr Hu is also the Director of the Research Center for HistoricalBuildings and Block Reuse at the Dalian University of Technology.
Jian Tang is a Professor at the School of Architecture and Fine Art, Dalian University of Technology. Dr Tang’s main research fields are urban and rural architecture, socio-cultural studies, and their interdisciplinary fields. Dr Tang’s research mainly focuses on the construction of urban living environment and the promotion of urban social efficiency, as well as the evolution of urban and rural architecture and culture.
Dr Anke Hein is an anthropological archaeologist focusing on pre-historic and early historic China. Her main research interest lies with questions of inter-cultural contact (especially in terms of technology) and human-environment interaction. Geographically she focuses on the so-called border regions of China (esp. the eastern rim of the Tibetan Plateau), which have been zones of interactions since early prehistoric times.She is also an expert in ceramic analysis focusing on low-fired wares using scientific and ethnographic methods of research. Besides archaeological research, Dr Hein is also very interested in the history and practice of archaeology itself, working on issues such as 'who owns the past' and the connection between archaeologists, cultural heritage specialists, museum curators, local populations, and the general public.
Ying Wang is the Director of theDepartment of Early-Modern Literary Studies, Professor and tenure-track Research Fellow of Institute of Literature at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, master’s supervisor of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Secretary General of Chinese and Foreign Biographical Literary Studies Association, and Deputy Secretary General of Chinese Society for Aesthetics. Dr Wang was a visiting scholar at University of Cambridge and University of Oxford. She published over 60 papers in the journals of China, the UK, USA and etc, such as Space and Culture (SSCI, Sage Publications Ltd.). She published 6 monographs Medieval Chinese Autobiographical Writing: The Self-Written Epitaph (Berlin,2017), Fashioning the ElusiveSelf:Autobiography in China and the West (co-authored, Cambridge,2015), A study of the Song Dynasty Autobiographical Literature from the Perspective of Chinese and Western Narrative (Beijing,2022), and etc. in China, the UK and Germany. Dr Wang was awarded the first “Young Elites Award” of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (2021). Her main fields of research are Literary and Cultural Studies, Life Writing Studies.
Xiaocheng Gao, Doctor of Letters, Associate Professor of Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and master's supervisor. He graduated from the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2014 and studied under Dr. Jiang Yin (now at South ChinaNormal University). His main research field is the theory of ancient Chinese poetry and the thoughts of the pre-Qin scholars. He has a relatively in-depth study of the poetry creation theory of the Tang Dynasty and the thinkers of the Warring States period, Zhuang Zi and Mencius. His works include "Commentaryon Zhuangzi", and representative papers include "Reexamination of Mencius' ethical concept of" benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and intelligence "," On the theory of "object to object ratio"in the late Tang Dynasty and its significance in the process of poetic imagery"," The relationship between song character and poetic meaning in theTang Dynasty - centered on poetic materials "," The guidance of "high meaning leads to high style" on the direction of medieval poetry creation - Analysis of Wang Changling's "Essay", etc.
Elisabeth Hsu started as a University Lecturer in Medical Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Oxford in 2001. This was in order to set up its Medical Anthropology MSc and MPhil courses, on which she has been teaching ever since. She obtained Recognition of Distinction as Reader in Social Anthropology in 2006 and as Professor in Anthropology in2010. Hsu's research contributes to the fields of medical anthropology and ethnobotany; language and text critical studies; and the history of science, technology and medicine in China and beyond. It concerns Chinese medicine, and East Asian and traditional and pre-modern medicines more generally; the transmission of knowledge and practice; body and personhood; treatment modalities and their efficaciousness; pulse diagnosis; touch, pain, feelings and affect, cognition and emotions, and sensory experience.
Guo (Tina) Fei is the Professor and Vice Dean of the College of Architecture and Art at the Dalian University of Technology. His main research interests include urban climate hazard assessment and planning, architecture and urban form, ecological and healthy architecture, and the study of built environment theory and technology.
Zhonggang Zhang is the Director,Department of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau Literary Studies in the Institute of Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His main research directions are modern and contemporary Chinese literature, literature and culture in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao, and overseas sinology and Chinese literature.
Victoria D. Alexander (AB, Princeton; AM, PhD, Stanford) is Professor of Sociology and Arts Management. She joined Goldsmiths in September 2015 as the Programme Convenor of the BA (Hons) in Arts Management. She moved to Goldsmiths from the sociology department at the University of Surrey, where she taught sociology of arts and cultural organisations, and previously taught sociology of culture and organisational behaviour at Harvard University. Her research has been in the intersection of sociology of the arts, visual culture, sociology of organisations, and sociology of culture – all areas directly relevant to Arts Management. She has studied the funding of art museums, cultural policy in comparative perspective, sociology of the arts, neighbourhoods, and visual culture. Current interdisciplinary work covers aesthetic fields, user-generated reviews of cultural attractions, and arts policy. She is Goldsmiths' lead on the EU-Funded UNCHARTED project (https://uncharted-culture.eu)
Bio: Gary Clough is the Head of Programme for the Graduate Diploma in Art and Design at the Royal College of Art, London. With over thirty years of educational development and delivery experience in Higher and Further Education, in both UK and International education systems, these experiences have driven and informed Clough’s commitment to inclusivity and cultural diversity and its essential place within art education. Clough is a practicing artist with an interdisciplinary approach spanning drawing, embroidery, sculpture, animation and site-specific installation. A graduate of Fine Art Sculpture from the University for the Creative Arts (1989) and the Royal College of Art (MA Sculpture, 1993; MPhil Sculpture and Animation, 2003). He has and continues to exhibit across the UK, Europe, US and China, from Tate St Ives to The Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing. His research focuses on the importance of drawing in the recording and responding through sketchbooks and journals.
Yang Geng is an Associate Professor at the Dalian University of Technology, School of Architecture and Fine Arts. Dr. Geng’s main research directions are visual anthropology, new media art theory, Chinese contemporary art and image hermeneutics.
Jun Chen is Vice Director, Department of Ancient Chinese Literary Studies and Research Fellow of Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing. Born in Henan Province, Dr Chen received his B.A. in Chinese literature at Peking University (1999), M.A. in Chinese studies at the National University of Singapore (2002), and Ph.D. in Chinese literature at Peking University (2006). He was a Visiting Scholar of the University of Washington (2008-2009). His research focuses on Han and Six Dynasties literature, with special interests in the court culture and the early Chinese eremitic tradition. He has published two monographs: The Social Evolution of the Later Han Dynasty and the Development of Its Literature (Beijing: Chinese Social Sciences Press, 2012) and Embellishing the Imperial Order: The Formation of the Hanshu and Its Circulation in Medieval China (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2020). He also published many articles in the journals such as Literary Heritage, Literary Review, and Studies on Sinology, which include “‘Two Capitals Rhapsody’ and the Political Trend of the Later Han Dynasty”, “Changes in the Geographic Distribution of Scholars in the Later Han Dynasty and the Shift of Literary Styles and Features”, and “The Rise and Fall of Hongdumen School and Its Historical Revelation.”