Penn State Greater Allegheny provides students with presentations from local, national and international distinguished speakers. These guests share their viewpoints and have open discussions with students on China and Democracy.
Spring 2020 speaker schedule:
Ruth Mostern
Title: "Yu's Traces: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Environmental History"
Event:
Thursday, February 6th, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Dr. Ruth Mostern is Associate Professor of History and Director of the World History Center at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern: The Spatial Organization of the Song State (960-1276) (Harvard 2011) and the forthcoming Yu’s Traces: The Ecological and Imperial Worlds of the Yellow River (Yale 2020). She is also the principal investigator of the World Historical Gazetteer digital infrastructure project.
Mary Collins
Title: Art Workshop "Making Paper"
Event:
Monday, February 10th, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Frable 310
Mary Collins - Canceled
Title: Art Workshop "Making Paper"
Event:
Monday, February 17th, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Frable 310
Benno Weiner
Title: "Hong Kong, Xinjiang,Tibet and the Afterlives of Empire in Contemporary China"
Event:
Thursday, February 19th, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Dr. Benno Weiner (Ph.D. Columbia University, 2012) is assistant professor of Chinese history at Carnegie Mellon University. His research revolves around China’s contested and possibly incomplete transition from empire to nation-state and in particular the processes and problematics of twentieth-century state and nation building within China’s ethnic minority regions. His first book, The Chinese Revolution on the Tibet Frontier will be published by Cornell University Press in June 2020. He is also co-editor (with Robert Barnett and Françoise Robin) of the multi-authored volume Conflicting Memories: Tibetan History under Mao Retold (Brill, forthcoming).
Wayne CF Yeung, PSU PhD Candidate, Film Critic, and Public Intellectual
Title: "Writing at the Time of Protests: Contemporary Hong Kong Literature and Social Movements"
Event:
Thursday, March 5th, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Wayne CF Yeung holds a BA and MPhil in Comparative Literature from the University of Hong Kong and is currently a third year PhD student at Penn State in Comparative Literature and Asian Studies. His dissertation project focuses on Sinophone and Francophone literature. In particular, he examines how national canons are repurposed by peripheral communities to enact collectivity that does not align with the model of nation-state democracy. Broader research interests include the connection between literature, the arts and social movements. He presented in various major conferences, including ACLA and MLA. Outside the academia, he is also a film critic and social commentator regularly publishing in various major print and digital media in Hong Kong.
Mary Collins
Title: Art Workshop "Chinese Painting with Ink"
Event:
Monday, March 23rd, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Frable 310
Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as guóhuà, meaning "national" or "native painting". Traditional painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black ink or colored pigments; oils are not used. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made are paper and silk. The finished work can be mounted on scrolls, such as hanging scrolls or handscrolls. Traditional painting can also be done on album sheets, walls, lacquerware, folding screens, and other media.
Representative Summer Lee
Title: Democracy in Action
Event:
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Summer Lee was elected to the House in 2018. She grew up in the North Braddock and Rankin neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, and currently lives in Swissvale.
A graduate of Woodland Hills High School, she went on to study and graduate from the Pennsylvania State University and Howard University School of Law, where she specialized in civil rights and constitutional law.
While at Howard, Lee was an intern with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and a student attorney in the Howard University School of Law Civil Rights Clinic, representing and assisting indigent clients with civil rights complaints.
After graduating law school, Lee was a dedicated organizer, activist and advocate for social justice in her local community. Her legislative priorities include criminal justice reform; education, health care and energy policy reforms; a progressive tax structure for Pennsylvania and a $15 minimum wage for all workers.
She is the first black woman elected to the state House of Representatives from western Pennsylvania.
Mary Collins, Artist
Title: Paper Making Workshop
Event:
Monday, April 6th, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Room 310 Frable
Paper is made by pressing moist fibers and drying them into flexible sheets. It is most commonly crafted from cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses. It is ordinarily used for printing, writing, and wrapping. Before the invention of paper, people wrote on leather, stone, clay, papyrus, bone, bamboo, and even silk. Paper, as we know it today, was invented in China in 105 AD during the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD). Papermaking of that time used mulberry and other stem (or bast) fibers along with fishnets, old rags and hemp waste. More primitive methods of papermaking were used before that time, but Han Dynasty Chinese court official Cai Lun improved the method. Paper was used for wrapping even then, as well as for toilet paper, as bags for tea, and for money.
Mimi Jong
Title: An Erhu Performance
Event:
Thursday, April 9th, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Mimi has been performing the erhu, an ancient Chinese two-string fiddle, since age eleven. She co-founded performing groups “Jasmine Dynasty,” “AppalAsia,” and “Silk Sound.” Her passion is to create new overlapping musical frontiers. She was music program director for “Silk Screen Arts and Cultural Organization” and board president/founding member of “HarmoniZing.”
Mary Collins, Artist
Title: Seed Bomb Making Workshop
Event:
Thursday, April 13th, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Frable 310
Seed balls, simply put, are a method for distributing seeds by encasing them in a mixture of clay and compost. This protects the seeds by preventing them from drying out in the sun, getting eaten by birds, or from blowing away. Seed balls are scattered directly on the ground, not planted. Seed balls are useful for seeding dry, thin and compacted soils and for reclaiming derelict ground (which is why they are often used in "guerilla gardening". Seed balls are particularly useful in dry and arid areas where rainfall is highly unpredictable.
Darrell Moore, Instructor
Title: Tai Chi Workshop
Event:
Monday, April 20th, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Tai chi, short for T'ai chi ch'üan or Tàijí quán, is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for both its defense training, its health benefits and meditation. The term taiji is a Chinese cosmological concept for the flux of yin and yang, and 'quan' means fist. So, etymologically, Taijiquan is a fist system based on the dynamic relationship between polarities (Yin and Yang). Though originally conceived as a martial art, it is also typically practiced for a variety of other personal reasons: competitive wrestling in the format of pushing hands (tui shou), demonstration competitions and achieving greater longevity. As a result, a multitude of training forms exist, both traditional and modern, which correspond to those aims with differing emphasis. Some training forms of tai chi are especially known for being practiced with relatively slow movements.
Today, tai chi has spread worldwide. Most modern styles of tai chi trace their development to at least one of the five traditional schools: Chen, Yang, Wu (Hao), Wu and Sun. All of the former, in turn, trace their historical origins to Chen Village.
Darrell Moore, Instructor
Title: Tai Chi Workshop
Event:
Tuesday, April 28th, 2020
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Tai chi, short for T'ai chi ch'üan or Tàijí quán, is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for both its defense training, its health benefits and meditation. The term taiji is a Chinese cosmological concept for the flux of yin and yang, and 'quan' means fist. So, etymologically, Taijiquan is a fist system based on the dynamic relationship between polarities (Yin and Yang). Though originally conceived as a martial art, it is also typically practiced for a variety of other personal reasons: competitive wrestling in the format of pushing hands (tui shou), demonstration competitions and achieving greater longevity. As a result, a multitude of training forms exist, both traditional and modern, which correspond to those aims with differing emphasis. Some training forms of tai chi are especially known for being practiced with relatively slow movements.
Today, tai chi has spread worldwide. Most modern styles of tai chi trace their development to at least one of the five traditional schools: Chen, Yang, Wu (Hao), Wu and Sun. All of the former, in turn, trace their historical origins to Chen Village.
Fall 2019 speaker schedule:
Doug Guthrie
TITLE: “Doing Business in China in the Era of Trump and Xi.”
EVENT:
Monday, September 9, 2019
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Doug Guthrie holds an A.B. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations (concentration in Chinese Literature) from the University of Chicago, and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in organizational sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. He has published widely on economic reform in China, leadership, and corporate social responsibility.
Dr. Irene Wolf
Title: “Teaching Philosophy in China and the US – Comparative Reflections”
Event:
Monday, October 21, 2019
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Mary Collins
Art Workshop: "Chinese Style Gesture Painting Using Ink"
Event:
Monday, November 4, 2019
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as guóhuà, meaning "national" or "native painting". Traditional painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black ink or colored pigments; oils are not used. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made are paper and silk. The finished work can be mounted on scrolls, such as hanging scrolls or handscrolls. Traditional painting can also be done on album sheets, walls, lacquerware, folding screens, and other media.
Wendi Miller
Title: "Democracy and Transgender Rights"
Event:
Thursday, November 14, 2019
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Wendi Miller holds a BFA in sculpture from Carnegie Mellon University. She married and had a son in 1982. In 1994 she underwent gender reassignment surgery. She worked with an ad hoc committee of the Pittsburgh Human Rights Commission to protect transgender and gender variant persons from discrimination in housing and employment. The law created now extends to include Allegheny County, and has been adopted by other cities and counties in the US.
Mary Collins
Title: "Chinese Style Gesture Painting Using Ink," Art Workshop
Event:
Monday, November 18, 2019
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Frable 310
Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as guóhuà, meaning "national" or "native painting".Traditional painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black ink or colored pigments; oils are not used. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made are paper and silk. The finished work can be mounted on scrolls, such as hanging scrolls or handscrolls. Traditional painting can also be done on album sheets, walls, lacquerware, folding screens, and other media.
Nico Slate
TITLE: “The Borders of Democracy: China, India, and the United States”.
Monday, December 2, 2019
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Ostermayer Room, SCC
Nico Slate is Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of four books: Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India(Harvard University Press, 2012), The Prism of Race: W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and the Colored World of Cedric Dover (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Gandhi’s Search for the Perfect Diet: Eating with the World in Mind (University of Washington Press, forthcoming in 2019), and Lord Cornwallis Is Dead: The Struggle for Democracy in the United States and India (Harvard University Press, forthcoming in 2019). Born in Los Angeles and raised in California’s Mojave Desert, Dr. Slate earned degrees from Stanford University and from Oxford University before completing his Ph.D. in History at Harvard University.
Mary Collins
Title: "Chinese Style Gesture Painting Using Ink - A Workshop with Artist Mary Collins"
Event: Thursday, December 12th, 2019
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Frable 310
Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as guóhuà, meaning "national" or "native painting". Traditional painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black ink or colored pigments; oils are not used. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made are paper and silk. The finished work can be mounted on scrolls, such as hanging scrolls or handscrolls. Traditional painting can also be done on album sheets, walls, lacquerware, folding screens, and other media.