Global Academic Fellows’ Scholarship Presentations 2016

The third annual scholarship presentation by NYU Shanghai’s Global Academic Fellows took place on Thursday, May 5.

During the event, five of the Writing Fellows presented their research and read excerpts from their writing.

Paying tribute to their contribution to the university, faculty coordinator Dan Keane described NYU Shanghai’s Global Academic Fellows as “the glue that keeps us together” and spoke of his pride in the essays they had produced.

In addition to tutoring students in the Academic Resource Center all year, Olivia Bergen, Diana Lee, Brigitta Schuchert, Jamie Nadel and Chang Zhao spent their fellowship researching and writing about subjects ranging from creative nonfiction to gender and politics in China and an anthropological look at Shanghai's alleyways.

Here, you can hear about their projects in their own words:

Olivia Bergen

Olivia Bergen holds a BA in Political Science from NYU Abu Dhabi, with a concentration in Mandarin Chinese. During her fellowship at NYU Shanghai she studied political ambition among young Chinese women.

Mentor: Pierre Landry.

“While China has historically promoted women's equality, women make up a very small proportion of political leaders from the local to the national level. This year, I explored the factors that contribute to this gender gap, including laws and institutions, social expectations, and education. I designed a survey to investigate young people’s interest in careers in government and public service (political ambition) along with its predictive factors such as civic literacy and engagement. I hope to find out if there are gendered differences in political ambition that might predict continued underrepresentation of women in Chinese politics.”

Where next: Olivia will be expanding her research next year during a master's degree in China Studies at Peking University.

James Nadel

James Nadel has a BA in History from the University of Michigan. For his thesis paper, James traveled to Spain to research museums there dedicated to the history and culture of medieval Sephardic Jews. During his fellowship at NYU Shanghai, he studied Shanghai's recent revival of its Jewish history.

Mentor: Lena Scheen

“My project centered on the recent actions by the Shanghai city government to preserve and memorialize the city's former Jewish population. Specifically, I investigated the ‘The White Horse Inn,’ a Jewish cafe established in the late 1930s. The cafe was torn down by the local government in 2009, only to be reconstructed and re-opened last September to celebrate the 70th year anniversary of the end of World War II. What caused this program of historical conservation? In what ways might the city's Jewish history be useful for the local government? These are the questions my essay hinged on, as I delved into Shanghai's historical memory.”

Where next: Jamie has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in Turkey.

Diana Lee

Diana Lee graduated from Bowdoin College with honors in History and a minor in Government and Legal Studies. Prior to joining NYU Shanghai, Diana was a Richard J. Roth Journalism Fellow in the Majority Press Office of the NY State Senate. During her Global Academic Fellowship at NYU Shanghai she has written an essay on identity, language, and her own family's complicated relationship with Shanghai.

Mentor: Dan Keane

“My creative nonfiction project explores my identity as an American-born Chinese, or ABC, in the context of my Chinese-American ancestry. I learned last Fall that my great-grandfather was born and educated in the United States and moved to Beijing in his twenties. The similarities between his journey to China and mine were eerily similar. Like me, he did not speak Mandarin very well, and he hired a Chinese tutor who became his wife. Inspired by my great-grandfather's life, I reflect on how culture, ethnicity, and appearance shape our identities. Ultimately, I hope my writing will shed light on the stories we tell ourselves in order to understand who we are. ”

Where next: Diana will be attending Yale Law School in the Fall.

Brigitta Schuchert

Brigitta Schuchert studied religion at Bryn Mawr College, spending her junior year abroad with the School of International Training (SIT) in the Balkans. During her fellowship in Shanghai, she has written a series of essays on her research into conflict resolution in the Balkans and reflections on her experience there.

Mentor: Amy Goldman

“My scholarship project is a work of creative non-fiction that attempts to re-explore some of the limitations of my senior thesis by approaching my thesis topic through a new genre of writing. I spent the spring semester of my junior year studying abroad in Belgrade, Serbia, as well as parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I wrote my senior thesis on the city Mostar, in Bosnia. Prior to writing my senior thesis, however, I had never visited that city. I eventually traveled to Mostar, after graduating college, and since have been looking for ways to revisit my previous writing on the city. The scholarship project was an opportunity to do that through the lens of creative non-fiction and travel writing. In this project I write about Mostar, as well as Belgrade, Jerusalem, and a few other places.” During the presentation, Brigitta read from her essay about the people she met playing field hockey in Belgrade, and what these interactions taught her about conflict, cross-cultural understanding and herself.

Where next: Brigitta will be returning to NYU Shanghai in Fall for a second year.

Chang Zhao

Chang Zhao was born and raised in Shanghai, and graduated in Anthropology with honors and distinction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May 2015. During her fellowship at NYU Shanghai she analyzed the structure of communities in Shanghai's shikumen lane houses.

Mentor: Lena Scheen.

“My research aims to examine the collective identities in the Shanghai Shikumen Houses. The Shikumen House is important to Shanghai culture for its distinctive architectural features and vibrant community life in the alleyways. In the past, most of the residents living in Shikumen houses were from Shanghai, but now Shikumen houses have become a primary source of housing for migrant workers because they provide cheap rent close to downtown employers. During my fieldwork at a Shikumen community, I observed a “wax and wane” of the collective identities among different groups of residents. Hearing their stories may help us understand how to integrate people from different backgrounds.”

Where next: Chang will be returning to NYU Shanghai in Fall for a second year.

Shanghai Global Academic Fellows (GAFs) provide academic support services and enrichment for the students at NYU Shanghai. They work closely with faculty, and they tutor, teach, and collaborate with different university departments to spearhead projects and initiatives that enrich the student academic experience and university community at large. GAFs also have the opportunity to work on their own writing and research projects over the course of the academic year.

Find out more about the Global Academic Fellowship program and the Academic Resource Center.