LECTURE

Wang Gungwu Video

On the special occasion of this Tang Prize Lecture, Professor Wang Gungwu will reflect on one of the conference’s themes “Memory” by drawing on his memoirs in his: Home is Not Here and Home is Where We Are. This lecture will take us through the unexpected turns and wondrous meanders of a unique life fashioned by homes newly found and constructed across many continents. As major events are shaping the history of China, Southeast Asia and the world, this journey is a self-reflection on one’s identity and one that finds resonances through the infinite voices and feelings of belonging of the Chinese diaspora. Professor’s Wang’s lecture will be followed by a conversation with AAS President Jean Oi, who will help him “unpick and explain” the echoes that reverberate from the “grand and even intimidating universe” that is the past.

LECTURE

JEAN OI

JEAN OI is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a Senior Fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She directs the China Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at FSI and is the founding Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University. In March 2022 she was elected Vice President of the Association for Asian Studies, taking office as President in March 2023. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan. Oi has published extensively on political economy and reform in China. Recent publications include Zouping Revisited: Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County, co-edited with Steven Goldstein (2018); Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, coedited with Tom Fingar (2020); “Firms as Revenue Safety Net: Political Connections and Returns to the Chinese State,” co-authored (China Quarterly 2022), and “China’s Local Government Debt: The Grand Bargain,” co-authored in The China Journal 2022). Her new research focuses on China’s Belt and Road Initiative.