Past Conferences

The Roles and Representations of Walls in the Reshaping of Chinese Modernity

An International Research Conference

October 20-23, 2005 - University at Buffalo

On October 20 though 23, 2005, over thirty scholars from China and North America converged on the University at Buffalo and Albright-Knox Art Galleries to examine the historical and aesthetic significance of the so-called Great Wall and many other Chinese boundaries, both physical and metaphorical, in their global contexts. This multidisciplinary research conference, titled "The Roles and Representations of Walls in the Reshaping of Chinese Modernity," focused on the changing functions and understandings of walls in China, especially since the inauguration of the policy of "reform" and "opening" in the People's Republic in the 1980s.

The conference had stimulated interaction among a wide range of disciplines and the inter-institutional cooperation of the UB Art Galleries, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, the Asian Studies Program, and a host of academic departments at the University at Buffalo.

At the opening, at 4:30 Thursday, October 20 in the Center for the Arts Screening Room, a keynote address was given by Professor Arthur Waldron, author of the influential The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth. Eight panels over the next three days addressed urban, cultural, and legal walls and will discuss their artistic, literary, and cinematic depictions. The conference concluded on October 23 at 3:00 p.m. at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery with a closing keynote address by Professor Minglu Gao, curator of an accompanying exhibition of contemporary Chinese art from the People's Republic of China , titled The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art.

The conference was co-sponsored by the University at Buffalo Art Galleries , Albright-Knox Art Gallery, WLS Spencer Foundation, Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, College of Arts and Sciences, Asian Studies Program, Department of History, Department of Art History, Department of Art, Julian Park Chair in Comparative Literature, Humanities Institute, and Mentholatum Company, Inc.

For further information, contact Asian Studies at (716) 645-3474.

 

Program

The Roles and Representations of Walls in the Reshaping of Chinese Modernity

A multidisciplinary, international research conference held in conjunction with The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art , an exhibition co-sponsored by the Millennium Museum in Beijing, the University at Buffalo Art Galleries, and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Held at the University at Buffalo and Albright-Knox Art Galleries
October 20-23, 2005

Organizing Committee:
Thomas Burkman, Asian Studies, University at Buffalo, Chief Organizer of the Conference
Roger Des Forges, History, University at Buffalo, Chair of the Conference
Minglu Gao, Art History, University of Pittsburgh, Curator of the Exhibition
Bingyi Huang, Art History, University at Buffalo, Film Curator
Liu Chiao-mei, History, Taiwan University, in charge of Interpreting and Translating Services
Haun Saussy, Comparative Literature, Yale University, Commentator at Large

Thursday, October 20, University at Buffalo Center for the Arts

4:30-5:00 UB Center for the Arts, Screening Room
Welcome by Satish Tripathi, Provost; Uday Sukhatme, Dean of College of Arts and Sciences; Sandra Olsen, Director of UB Art Galleries; and Douglas Dreishpoon, Senior Curator, Albright Knox Art Gallery

5:00-6:00 UB Center for the Arts, Screening Room
Opening Keynote Address: Arthur Waldron, History, University of Pennsylvania, "The Great Wall of China: An Author's Reflections after Fifteen Years"

5:00-7:30 UB Center for the Arts Art Gallery
Reception for the Public

7:00-7:15 CFA Atrium
Chen Qiulin Performance: "I Eat, I Consume, I am Happy"

8:00 Byblos Restaurant
Dinner for Conferees

Friday, October 21, University at Buffalo Center for the Arts

9:00-11:00 Screening Room
Session I. "City Walls in Time and Space, Ming through People's Republic." Chair: Roger Des Forges, History, UB
Roger Des Forges, History, UB, "Tales and Images of Three City Walls: Kaifeng, Guide, and Zhengzhou, Ming to Present"
Timothy Billings, History, Middlebury College, "The Great City of China: the 'Long Wall' in Early European Texts"

Break

Desmond Cheung, History, University of British Columbia, "Writing on Walls and Building Histories in China"
Niu Jianqiang, History, Henan University, "The Functions and Influence of Village Walls in Shanxi and Henan Provinces during the Late Ming and Late Qing"
Yue Zhang, Politics, Princeton University, "From Demolition to Restoration: The Story of the Old City Walls of Beijing , 1949-2005"

11:00-11:30 Screening Room
Public Questions and Answers

12:00-1:15 CFA Atrium
Lunch and Conferees' Discussion. Facilitator: Haun Saussy, Comparative Literature, Yale University

1:30-3:30 Screening Room
Session II. "Cultural Walls: Minorities, Diasporas, Westerners, and the World" Chair: Liu Chiao-mei, History, National Taiwan University
Magnus Fiskesjo, Anthropology, Cornell University, "Internalized Boundaries: Anti-Barbarian Walls Central to China"
Millie Chen, Art, UB, "Near Far: Dispersion, Relocation, Mobility"

Break

Liu Chiao-mei, History, National Taiwan University, "Writing on the Wall: Brice Marden's Chinese Works and Modernism"
Luo Xu, History, SUNY College at Cortland, "Bypass the Walls: Reconstructing World History in China since the 1980s"

3:30-4:00 Screening Room
Public Questions and Answers

4:00-5:00 Screening Room
Conferees' Discussion Facilitators: Haun Saussy, Comparative Literature, Yale University; and Rebecca French, Law, UB

5:30-6:45 Atrium Second Floor
Buffet Dinner for Conferees

7:00-8:45 Screening Room
Session III. "Artists and Art Critics Talk about Walls" Chair: Bingyi Huang, Art History, UB
Eugene Yuejin Wang, Art History, Harvard University, "The Spectral Head on the Wall: Zhang Dali's 'Graffiti' in Beijing"
Chen Qiulin, Artist, Beijing, "Farewell My Concubine, on the Three Gorges Dam"
Xu Hong, National Art Museum, Beijing, "Feminist Art in China Today"

Break

Shui Tianzhong, Art Critic, Beijing, "'Nationalism' in Chinese Aesthetics Today"
Bingyi Huang, Art History, UB, "Self-referentiality and Yang Fudong's Estranged Paradise"

8:45-9:45 Screening Room
Public and Conferees' Discussion. Facilitators: Haun Saussy, Comparative Literature, Yale University; and Kuiyi Shen, Art History, University of California at San Diego

Saturday, October 22, University at Buffalo Anderson Art Gallery

9:00-11:00 Museum Studies Room
Session IV. "Laws and/as Walls" Chair: Shubha Ghosh, Law, UB
Tahirih Lee, Law, Florida State University, "A Maze of Jurisdictional Walls: The Legal Systems of Republican-Era Shanghai"
Shubha Ghosh, Law School, UB, "Walls, Boundaries, and the Global Public Domain"
Junhao Hong, Communication, UB, "Realizing the Four Modernizations with a New 'Great Wall:' The 'Big Fire Wall' and China 's Control of the Internet"

Break

Qiang Fang, History, UB, "The Evolution of the Complaint System in China, 1979 to the present"
Margaret Y. K. Woo, Law, Northeastern University, "Borders without Walls: Emerging Rights Consciousness in China"

11:00-11:30 Museum Studies Room
Public Questions and Answers

11:30-1:15 Arts and Education Room
Lunch and Conferees' Discussion. Facilitators: Haun Saussy, Comparative Literature, Yale University; and Claude Welch, Political Science, UB

2:00-4:00, Museum Studies Room
Session V. "Literary and Cinematic Representations of Walls" Chair: Tsan Huang, Linguistics, UB
Jonathan Stalling, English, UB, "Breaking Down the Wall between Self and Other in Daoist Poetics"
Xiaoping Lin, Art, Queen's College, City University of New York, "Wang Chao's Anyang Orphan: A Troubled Socialist State, a Broken Traditional Family"

Break

Ming Fang Zheng, Chinese Literature, University of British Columbia, "The City Wall in Jia Pingwa's Three Novels of the 1990s"
Keyang Tang, Harvard Design School, "Anne Frank's House vs. Chang'an's Maze Wall: A New Perspective on Chinese Spatial Perceptions"

4:00-4:30 Public Questions and Answers

4:30-5:30 Museum Studies Room
Conferees' Discussion. Facilitator: Haun Saussy, Comparative Literature, Yale University

6:30 Anderson Gallery

Dinner

Sunday, October 23 Albright-Knox Art Gallery

9:00-11:00 Clifton Hall
Session VI. "Boundaries in Motion: Family, Society, Nation, and World" Chair: Thomas Burkman, Asian Studies, UB
Xiao Hu, Architecture, University at Nebraska, "Boundaries and Openings: Spatial Strategies in Chinese Families"
Hu Cheng, History, Nanjing University, "The Image of the 'Dirty' Chinese: Different Discourses in China and Outside"
Richard Lee, Medical, UB, "Pathogen Traffic: Walls and Apertures"

Break

Adam Cathcart, History, Hiram College, "Building Barriers: Icons of Ascendance and Exclusion in Early Maoist Political Cartoons, 1949-1951"

11:00-11:30 Clifton Hall
Conferees' Discussion. Facilitator: Haun Saussy, Comparative Literature, Yale University

11:30-12:30 Clifton Hall
Lunch for Conferees

12:30-2:00 Clifton Hall
Session VII. "Reflections on Contemporary Art and the Reshaping of Chinese Modernity" Chair: Douglas Dreischpoon, Senior Curator, Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Kuiyi Shen, Art History, University of California San Diego, "Institutional Critique and After--Some Issues in the Art of Twenty-First-Century China"
Julia Andrews, Art History, Ohio State University, "Black and White, In and Out"

2:00-3:00 Break to view the Exhibition

3:00-4:00 Auditorium
Closing Keynote Address: Minglu Gao, Art History, University of Pittsburgh, "The Wall: Shaping Modernity in Contemporary Chinese Art"
The Organizers of the Conference will meet in the evening to discuss the publication of the proceedings and the editing of a conference volume

Conference Sponsors:

Albright-Knox Art Gallery
UB Art Galleries
UB Department of Art
UB Department of Art History
UB College of Arts and Sciences
UB Asian Studies Program
UB Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy
UB Department of History
UB Humanities Institute
UB Julian Park Chair in Comparative Literature
The Mentholatum Company, Inc.
WLS Spencer Foundation

 

Please address any questions you may have to Professors Minglu Gao (Art History) (mgao@buffalo.edu), Roger V. Des Forges (History) (rvd@buffalo.edu), and/or Thomas W. Burkman (Asian Studies) (burkman@buffalo.edu).

Some Goals of the Conference and Some Issues to be Addressed (MS Word format)

Driving directions and information about parking on UB's North Campus can be found here.