The panel discussion, AI and the Future of Reading, brought together faculty members from Interactive Media Arts, Economics, History, and EAP to explore how Artificial Intelligence is transforming our interaction with digital storytelling, historical research, academic and leisure reading.
Panel members illuminated the shortcomings of AI reading summaries and what’s lost when we sacrifice personal interpretation and the reading process for efficiency. In response, they proposed ways to shift from using AI to outsource critical cognitive reading skills to using AI to augment and expand our reading experience and comprehension.
Panelists sparked a lively conversation on the irreplaceable value of human engagement with reading, shared the worthwhileness of cultivating pleasure in things that are effortful, and posed intriguing questions about what counts as reading.
The event was well-received, with an engaging exchange of ideas that left 73 attendees with new perspectives on AI's role in the future of reading.
This past weekend, twenty one members of the NYU Shanghai community traveled to Yungu Farm, a permaculture community in the rural Jinshan District of Shanghai.
Over the course of the day, participants toured the farm and learned about permaculture design practices, the individuals who make up Yungu Farm’s diverse community, and the ways that Yungu Farm promotes symbiotic growth that nurtures both people and the land.
Through group discussions, participants explored the themes of gratitude and reciprocity in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Participants put these practices into action through farmwork, a mindful eating meditation, and a shared vegetarian lunch.
This event was a collaboration between NYUSH Reads and the Office for Community-Engaged Learning that aimed to bring people into nature, foster community, and share wisdom about how we can practice gratitude and reciprocity with the world around us.
This past week, NYU Shanghai’s urban rooftop garden was the setting for collaboration and dance inspired by Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, bringing together 15 participants. Co-hosted by NYU Shanghai Reads and the NYU Shanghai Dance Program, the event offered a unique opportunity for community members to engage in movement and nature within the beautiful space curated by the NYU Shanghai Garden Committee. Led by Yuting Zhao, Assistant Arts Professor of Dance, participants enjoyed a series of improv games inspired by Braiding Sweetgrass, fostering connections with both the plant life in the rooftop garden and each other. The interactive and relaxed atmosphere encouraged attendees to explore creative dance, regardless of prior experience, and make new friends along the way. The event highlighted the synergy between dance, movement, and literature, inviting participants to (re)connect with nature, their peers, and their own bodies. Selected chapters from Braiding Sweetgrass were recommended to deepen participants’ experience. The gathering celebrated creativity, community, and the natural world.
While they crafted their sachets, the participants engaged in discussions around the themes of mindfulness, gift giving/receiving, the impact of plants and nature in their day-to-day lives, and conversations that were inspired by the Indigenous perspective in Braiding Sweetgrass. The workshop highlighted the themes of appreciation for the gifts provided by nature featured in Braiding Sweetgrass, in a practical hands-on approach using the selected Chinese herbs.
The event was a relaxing experience that enabled more than a dozen attendees to come together and explore the intersection of nature, culture, and creativity. With the presence of calming music playing in the background, they were not only able to connect with fellow peers but also left with a beautifully scented sachet— heading to tackle the rest of their midterms with a souvenir-lasting calm.
On Friday, participants gathered for presentations from Sirie Peng (‘27), Antonia Chen (‘28), and Yirui Chen (‘28). Co-hosted by NYU Shanghai Reads and the Center for Student Belonging for Ally Week, this event sought to explore the importance of promoting indigenous voices and how we can extend our allyship to non-human species and consider species justice.
Inspired by their EAP and PoH courses—that have been integrating Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants into their syllabus—the students’ presentations span the topics of animal cognition, representations of human and non-human relationships in art, and a comparative analysis of flood narratives that questions bias in anthropology.
18 participants were present to reflect on our relationships with the Earth and the narratives and mythologies that inform them.
Thursday evening’s NYU Shanghai Reads event “Co-Creation with an Animate World” brought together 55 participants to learn from Dr. Rachel Sweeney, Head of Schumacher College Programmes and Programme Lead for MA Movement Mind Ecology, about ecological entanglements and interspecies communication.
Throughout her talk, Dr. Sweeney drew from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants, other contemporary sources, and ancient mythology to explore the transformative role of language, storytelling, and kinship in deepening our relationship with the earth. Dr. Sweeney implored the audience to consider the role of holistic interdisciplinary education in encouraging active citational kinship, imagining resilient futures and supporting students in co-creating new mythologies. She shared her current work at Schumacher College and introduced the ethos and pedagogy of the school’s transformative education and head-heart-hand learning practices.
After the talk, participants enjoyed a dinner reception from the plant-based food restaurant Duli and had the chance to win generous gifts of fresh produce from Yungu Permaculture Farm. Co-hosted by Global China Studies, this event was part of Inclusive Ecology Collective’s “Think-and-Act” series. Funding for the event was provided by a Green Event grant from the NYU Sustainability Office and event funding from NYU Shanghai Global China Studies.
For NYU Shanghai Read’s last event of the semester “Healing Through Nature,” participants gathered at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) for a night of playback theater inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants and centered around fruits and vegetables and the relationships, emotions and memories we tie to them.
Playback Theatre (还原剧) troupe members Yi Ren, Tang Bao, Rachel, Alex, and Xiang brought audience members’ personal stories of nature’s healing properties to life on stage. Five audience members offered their stories and received the gift of having their story interpreted and reflected back to them. The five stories—“Conversations over pickled carrots,” “Mud at home,” “It all started from that strawberry,” “Everything will be fine,” and “Potatoes, Potatoes”—not only explored the uncensorable nature of flavor, demonstrations of care through food, the pride of growing something yourself, and nature’s reminder that life continues, but also revealed the intricate care and tension woven into our relationships with family members and the strangers we connect with through these experiences. These personal narratives offered heartfelt reflections on the complex bonds that food helps nurture, bridging distances and fostering understanding.
A Q&A session followed the performance, inviting the audience and troupe members to discuss the intimacy and trust required for Playback Theater, the challenges of playing in a non-native language, the collective healing that storytelling provides, and the transformative power of being heard.
This event was a collaboration between the Teaching Advancement Grant project led by Professor Yanyue Yuan (Assistant Arts Professor of Interactive Media+Business) and NYU Shanghai Reads, with venue support provided by the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). A total of 34 participants—including students, faculty, staff, and external guests—came together for this impactful and heartfelt gathering.
Mud may be messy, but as Dr. Erica Mukherjee demonstrated at the first NYU Shanghai Reads event of the semester, it also holds the key to understanding eco-anxiety, resilience, and the power of the unknown. On Tuesday, February 25, 15 community members joined Dr. Mukherjee for the first NYU Shanghai Reads event of the semester. Drawing from her lived experiences and expertise as an environmental historian, Dr. Mukherjee guided the participants through a collective reflection on eco-anxiety by focusing on mud.
In this creative and reflective space, participants played with clay, which, like mud, is messy, malleable, and often resistant to our artistic intentions. If our climate fear and anxiety stem from uncertainty, mud offers a powerful metaphor and a tactile reminder of how we can become more comfortable with the unknown.
Dr. Mukherjee read an excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants chapter “A Mother’s Work,” and shared three case studies: the Sundarbans in British Colonial India, the mysteries of Manchester’s peat bogs coupled with Seamus Heaney’s bog poetry, and her own personal hiking experiences. From these stories, Dr. Mukherjee re-cast mud as an anti-imperial force, a dangerous preserver of bog butter and human bodies alike, a porous gateway between Earth and the supernatural, and—perhaps most simply—a resistor to our hiking plans.
Mud invites us to embrace possibilities beyond ourselves and reminds us to find strength in uncertainty and impermanence as we face a world of climate change. “Mud is the Answer: How to Live in a Changing Climate?” is the first of a three-part faculty salon series for Spring 2025.
In her faculty salon, “Left/Right, Daaḵ/Éeḵ: Wayfinding Our Way to a New Ethnolinguistic Map,” Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow for Global Perspectives on Society (GPS) Dr. Sofia Lago explored language revival through the lens of wayfinding and orientation.
Drawing from the chapter “Learning the Grammar of Animacy” in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Dr. Lago discussed language revival and led interactive navigation activities to explore cardinal and non-cardinal directions. Through a case study of the Tlingit language, participants examined how non-cardinal directions—unlike body-relative, ego-centric terms like “left” and “right”—are rooted in land and topographical context.
The salon was well received by 10 attendees, who gained new perspectives on what it means to have a “good sense of direction,” the connection between language and landscape, and the significance of Indigenous orientation systems in the context of climate change.
“Left/Right, Daaḵ/Éeḵ: Wayfinding Our Way to a New Ethnolinguistic Map” is the second event in our three-part faculty salon series. Join us on March 26 for “Pocahontas, Kimmerer, and the ‘Pristine Myth.’”
Dr. Jennifer Egloff, Assistant Professor of History and Undergraduate Coordinator for the Writing Program, led an engaging session with 11 attendees exploring how Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants and other forms of popular media shape public perceptions of Indigenous history. The discussion examined how the book blends cultural storytelling and ecological reflection, but also raised questions about some of its historical claims and how they align—or conflict—with scholarly research.
Egloff used the 1995 Disney film Pocahontas and the song Colors of the Wind to further explore how the “Pristine Myth”—the idea that Indigenous peoples lived in perfect harmony with nature before European contact—continues to circulate in popular culture. Participants considered how both the book and the film contribute to broader cultural narratives that can obscure historical complexity.
The session invited critical discussion about the responsibilities of authors, filmmakers, and scholars in shaping collective memory. Should creative works be expected to meet the same standards as historical scholarship, or are they doing something else entirely? The conversation moved in multiple directions, and many attendees stayed afterward to continue reflecting on the challenges of representing Indigenous history in ways that are both meaningful and accurate.
An exciting collaboration between NYU Shanghai Reads and the Chinese Language Program, brought forth a series of events centered on the shifting landscapes of Chinese dialects and the broader implications of language loss. The events were inspired by the chapter “Learning the Grammar of Animacy” from Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plant, and drew from the chapter’s notion that language is more than words, but is also a house for culture, knowledge, and relationships.
A Conversation on Chinese Dialects and Language Loss:
On Wednesday, April 16th, 33 participants gathered for an intimate and thought-provoking conversation with two presentations and a panel discussion that dived into the history and personal reflections of Chinese dialects and language loss.
Xin Zou opened the event by challenging normative understandings of modern Chinese language reform. Her presentation unpacked the complex history behind the selection of a unified national language in China, emphasizing that the common dichotomy between Mandarin as empowered and dialects as marginalized is overly simplistic. By revisiting how and why the Beijing dialect was chosen as the foundation for the "common language," she offered a more balanced perspective on the linguistic, political, and practical considerations behind the national language movement.
Ka Lee Wong followed with a presentation on how communities resist language standardization. She highlighted a 1979 language reform in Singapore as a powerful case study, where the government’s abrupt switch to Mandarin as the sole officially recognized Chinese language led to a ban of other Chinese dialects spoken on public broadcast overnight. The dubbing of The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber—a beloved Cantonese TV show—into Mandarin sparked widespread opposition, revealing the cultural resistance and emotional ties people maintain to their native dialects.
The panel discussion included Xin Zou, Ka Lee Wong, Ying Song, Yanny Liang, Bonnie Chang, and much inspiration and guidance from Beilei Gu, who shared personal memories of places, loved ones, and moments tied to their dialects. They shared how dialects preserve aspects of identity, enable unique cultural expression—such as humor, food, and ways of seeing the world—and connect them to their communities. Participants collectively expressed both their anxieties about the fading presence of dialects and their hopes for revitalization and preservation.
The event fostered a shared space of vulnerability, cultural memory, and resilience, underscoring the importance of linguistic diversity in shaping personal and collective identities, and ways we can nurture linguistic diversity in multilingual spaces like NYU Shanghai.
Special Chinese Conversation Night on Chinese Dialects:
The following day, 47 participants gathered for a vibrant and engaging Chinese Conversation Night focused on the rich diversity of Chinese dialects. Attendees joined one of several dialect groups based on their interests, including Shanghainese, Shandong dialect, Cantonese, and Guizhou dialect. Each group was led by a facilitator with specialized knowledge of the dialect.
Facilitators introduced participants to key linguistic features—such as pronunciation, tones, characters, and everyday expressions—that distinguish each dialect from Mandarin. Beyond language practice, the groups dove into thoughtful discussions on broader cultural themes, such as the global decline of regional dialects, the impact of dialects on personal and cultural identity, and strategies for preserving these vital elements of linguistic heritage.
Conversations flowed naturally in both Chinese and English, allowing participants of all proficiency levels to engage meaningfully. The event served not only as a language exchange but as a reminder of the importance of preserving linguistic diversity and cultural heritage.