Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (May 27 - July 26) :

Zhenhuan Lei has three ongoing research projects on Chinese politics. The first one is about why Chinese cities have strong interests in building grand subway systems even if mayors cannot finish building subways in their terms; for which he argues that there is a political incentive behind it. In his second project, he finds that township governments in China used fiscal transfers to influence village officials but hurt villagers' welfare. Finally, he has a third project discussing how city mayors' political connections can help firms in their cities get listed in the Chinese stock market. Given the research focus of these projects are all China, Lei believes NYU Shanghai to be the best place to further his research projects. He knows Professor Eric Hundman at NYU Shanghai, who also studies Chinese politics. Professor Hundman, along with other scholars in leading universities in Shanghai, can give feedback to Lei on how to improve these research projects.

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (June 24 - July 26) :

Yujing Chen’s research project will be carried out as an exploration of how China’s economic, political and urban transformations informed the subjects of Chinese cinema; and how this filmography in turn documented and interpreted the transformation of China’s cultural identity. A rising world super power, China—a historically agricultural civilization—has started to identify primarily with the city. Shanghai was not only China’s first modernized city, but also the pioneer of Chinese cinematic practice. Though Shanghai’s prosperity has long been criticized as a residual of Western imperialism and culture appropriation, Chen believes that the city’s cultural identity, especially in its cinematic representation, is an organic fusion of the indigenous and the foreign which continues to inform and influence China’s modern identity at large. In his research, he hopes to trace Shanghai’s history along side the evolution of Chinese cinema. Considering those themes side by side, he will attempt to map a genealogy of Chinese cultural identity and try to induce what its current representation in cinema should be in this globalized world.

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (June 16 - July 7) :

William Godel researches comparative politics, social media, and methods in political science. He has extensive experience in China and speaking Chinese (3.5 years) and is interested in researching Chinese social media use. In particular, how Chinese social media and internet culture differs-- or is similar to-- Western paradigms. His dissertation also researches state formation, and he would like to research China's historical experience in state formation and identify it with contemporary Chinese administrative capacity. 

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (May 27 - June 21) :

The Shanghai No. 3 Girl's High School is a historic and gothic treasure of Asia. Founded in 1892 by Methodist missionaries, the regal school now serves as a hallowed institution for China's daughters to receive a well-rounded education. Nancy Huang’s book, "Favorite Daughter," focuses on the school before the Cultural Revolution, back when it was the McTyeire Academy, and the determined young women who studied there. When Huang was younger, she lived in Shanghai and attended one of the three elite international schools in the city, and as a result is deeply familiar with life abroad, expat culture, Western-style schools in Asia, and the emotional realities of diaspora. As a Chinese-American woman, her youth in Shanghai was intimately connected to her upbringing in America. She recognizes that stories of diaspora aren't linear; they are circular, because there is always a return journey back to the Old Country through food, memory, or culture. In this way, Shanghai is a site of return and revival for her, and an essential component to this novel. Studies have repeatedly shown that countries with imbalanced sex ratios lead to women attending school at decreasing rates. In a country that is overwhelmingly male, Huang’s novel will draw real-world connections to the past and future. Confucius once said that an educated woman is a worthless woman, and China's culture is still intensely patriarchal; so following the lives and coded resistances of these young women is revelatory for her. In Shanghai, Huang will be operating under the legacy of writers like Jules Verne, Jenny Zhang, Lu Xun, Eileen Chang, and Isabel Sun, and she is dedicated to shining a light on a period when being a Chinese woman meant being cultivated to suffer.

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (May 27 - July 5) :

Cheng Qiu’s PhD research project is about the political ecology and discourse of China’s agri-food systems transition. Historically, China practiced agroecological farming, in accordance with Taoist culture that values the intricate relationships in and between humans and nature. In only a few decades, China has evolved to a chemically intensive, commercially-oriented, and more industrialized agrifood system; resulting in serious environmental, social and health issues. In response to these challenges, bottom-up sustainable food movements have burgeoned in China in the recent decade, especially in affluent urban areas. In Shanghai, urban agriculture and composting initiatives sprouted in recent years, with the potential to repair the metabolic rift and re-embrace the traditional culture that values a harmonious human-nature relationship. Lu plans to conduct ethnography research in Shanghai on its urban agriculture and composting ventures to explore the discourse of the transition.