Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (March 23 - May 2)：

Deng’s dissertation investigates the art historical connection between the Cultural Revolution and the 80s Avant-gardes in China. To this end, they will look at artworks, interviews, manifestos, magazines, journals, and domestic scholarship on site. As the site of the first national congress of the Communist Party, the city has ample sources for their research: the municipal and district archive, the recently opened Liu Haisu archive, and the archives at Long Museum. The majority of the materials belonging to the Revolution and the beginning of the reform era still reside inside the country, and the excavation of a primary archive is one of the biggest contributions that Deng’s dissertation aims to make.

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (March 30 - May 22)：

Bullon’s research focuses on how various definitions of sustainable development compete at the global level, particularly at the United Nations. She focuses on how activists use technology, and in particular social media tools, to advocate for their interpretation of the concept. For her project to be complete and not biased towards a Western understanding of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘civil society’, she hopes to better understand the Chinese perspective and context, such as the notion of ecological civilization and the nexus between the state and social media in China. Bullon looks forward to meeting the NYU Shanghai faculty working on themes related to sustainable development.

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (May 4 - May 22)：

Professor McDowell is currently writing a book on the Canadian professor and media theorist Marshall McLuhan (d. 1980), who coined the phrase "the Global Village." While McLuhan's fame has diminished in North America since the late 1970s, it is growing in China: a recent article in the Canadian Journal of Social Science cites his book Understanding Media as "one of the 30 top most influential books in China for the past three decades." With 457 million potential Chinese "Netizens" (citizens with increased access to the internet) China is the place for Professor McDowell to be in order to gain new insight into the consequences of rapid media shift. Two of her former students, Porter Yelton and Samantha Fritsch, will be working at NYU Shanghai and they strongly encouraged Professor McDowell to come.