Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Collie’s area of focus is the narrative construction of contemporary mythology viewed through the lens of visual communication. His time in Shanghai would be part of a language and cultural immersion for his research project. Collie plans to use the Chinese language and culture as one of the case studies in his research. The core questions of the study include: how does a language tradition orient the individual and ultimately the community to itself and it’s surroundings? How does this orientation through language manifest itself visually in a culture’s ideology and artifacts? 

Hsieh’s research focuses on China’s adoption of UNESCO’s policies of intangible cultural heritage, since 2003, and asks how the ascendency of heritage policies has dramatically changed folklore arts and artists in the country. Her ethnographically informed project investigates this implementation of heritage policies by governmental agencies, how it has been incorporated into the state led urban developmental project, and being promoted as a measure for marketization in the post-socialist China. Hsieh’s research also sheds light on how heritage agencies attract commercial interest groups, including businessmen of the overseas Chinese communities, to create an international network of Chinese heritage. Hsieh’s research project provides a rich and complex picture of heritage implementation in China, interrogating how this process has transformed the face of folklore arts in the country culturally and economically.