LUCC News, June 2024
The June 2024 edition of LUCC's newsletter is out.
You can receive our newsletter via the mailing list - just send an email to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
It’s summer term, and after a fascinating set of lunch talks from LUCC Fellows and Visiting Scholars over the past few weeks, we are looking forward to the PhD seminar series in June and July, featuring China-focused researchers in Sociology, Education, Law (see right). Please see the Events page for all the details – and lunch will be served so please let us know you’re coming!
On June 4, Dr Xiaodan Qiu (above) shared her research on relationship between Confucianism and the birth of modern Chinese literature. And on May 28, Dr Yingnian Tao presented her work on the ubiquitous phenomenon of interruption in UK current affairs television, focusing on two fascinating interviews with Hong Kong figures with contrasting political views (below).
On June 10, LUCC PhD Fellow Zi Quan’s art research show, Transfer the Ink opened at The Storey. The exhibition features 20 pieces of Zi’s artwork and an extraordinary 20-metre co-created artwork from 26 Lancaster citizens, including University students and staff, guided by Zi’s 1-to-1 instruction. The spectacular exhibition of ink painting is open until 7pm on Saturday, 15 June, so if you haven’t seen it yet, do get down to The Storey — right near the train station — before Saturday.
Read on for the latest from LUCC’s people, new research and public engagement.
PhD Seminars
26 June 2024
Kaydence Sun
(PhD researcher in Sociology, LU)
Time: 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Place: Bowland Nth SR 03
Refreshments provided.
Please register to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
19 July 2024
Children's 'Magic Bag':
Varieties of Children's Caring Performances as They Encounter Others Who Are in Distress
Xiao Zhang
(PhD researcher in Education Research, LU)
Time: 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Place: Bowland Nth SR 13
Refreshments provided.
Please register to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
21 July 2024
Imagined Feminism: Popular Feminism in Chinese Media Culture
Lily Wu
(PhD researcher in Sociology, LU)
Time: 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Place: Bowland Nth SR 03
Refreshments provided.
Please register to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
26 July 2024
Promoting the Free Flow of Land in China’s Market: Zeng Jian Gua Gou Policy and Its Improvement
Shu Zhang
(PhD researcher in Law, LU)
Time: 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Place: Bowland Nth SR 03
Refreshments provided.
Please register to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
Interdisciplinary Roundtable
Sino-Foreign Research Collaboration: Navigating the Security Minefield
Time: Michaelmas 2024
Place: TBA - register interest at china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
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People
LUCC is delighted to welcome Run Li join us as a new Doctoral Fellow.
Run LI
Run Li is a PhD student in Linguistics at Lancaster University, with research interests in Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Studies, Gender and Sexuality — especially topics on Chinese masculinity and online misogyny, social media studies and health communication. A warm welcome to LUCC, Run!
Profiles of all LUCC’s fellows are available at our People page.
New Research
Occurrence, spatiotemporal distribution and risks of
macrolide antibiotics in the Weihe River and its tributaries,
North-central China - Andrew Sweetman
The presence of antibiotics as emerging micropollutants in the aquatic environment has been raising health concerns for a number of years. Macrolides (MLs) are a large class of widely-used antibiotics, but there is a lack of information on their distribution and risks in surface waters across the central and western regions of China. To clearly describe the pollution characteristics and risks of MLs in Weihe River (the largest tributary of the Yellow River), Professor Andy Sweetman and colleagues conducted analysis of 5 typical MLs in 50 water samples collected over three seasons during 2021–2022. The results revealed that the area showed comparable ML concentrations with other regions worldwide. However, the ML concentrations were much lower than those in the river during 2016 from a previous study. Furthermore, concentrations exhibited significant seasonal variation, with highest concentrations in the winter. Along the main stream of the Weihe River, the sampling sites close to the wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and livestock farms exhibited higher concentrations of MLs, indicating the significant contribution from WWTPs and animal husbandry to the emission of MLs. The results of this study will be of importance towards the goal of understanding the presence of these emerging contaminants in surface waters and any required risk reduction measures.
Soil’s Hidden Power: The Stable Soil Organic Carbon Pool Controls the Burden of Persistent Organic Pollutants in Background Soils
- Kevin C. Jones
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) tend to accumulate in cold regions by cold condensation and global distillation. Professor Kevin Jones and colleagues investigated POP accumulation in soils of the Tibetan Plateau and Antarctic and Arctic regions. The results pointed to the proposition that the stable soil carbon pools are key controlling factors affecting the ultimate global distribution of POPs, so that the dynamic cycling of soil carbon acts to counteract the cold-trapping effects.
Balancing Refinement and Manliness: A Beauty Formula for Men’s Social and Professional Success - Derek Hird
This article discusses the difficult balancing act between refinement and manliness that male beauty vloggers seek to perform, in the context of shifting ideals of masculinity in China’s modern history. It examines several techniques that male beauty vloggers promote as a non-feminising aesthetics, which enable young men to gain social prestige and professional advancement, without being labelled sissies or damaging their heteronormative masculinity in any way. The vloggers’ strategy resonates with attempts in the male cosmetics industry starting in the Republican era to create new masculine ideals that enhance men’s social, sexual and professional appeal, while enabling them to continue to enjoy the benefits of a conventionally acceptable masculinity. At all times, women’s impact on re-shaping male ideals has been significant. The article highlights the argument from both men and women that refined and manly makeup offers the ordinary Chinese man a productive, quick and affordable way to gaining an edge in a highly competitive world. Hybrid and flexible masculinities and the heterosexual matrix provide the main conceptual frameworks for the study.
Constructing ambivalent masculinity and constant femininity in interracial families: Media representations of African-Chinese marriage on Xiaohongshu - Run Li
Interracial marriage has increasingly gained visibility on Chinese social media platforms, especially African-Chinese marriage which has been popularly represented, sparking heated discussions publically. However, although several studies have touched upon interracial marriage with analyses through political and geographical lenses, few studies investigated the media representations and mediated comments towards African-Chinese marriage in China as it has become a hot topic on Chinese social media platforms recently. To fill this niche, this study explores how African-Chinese marriage is represented on Chinese social media through mediated public comments, and what ideological implication of represented subjectivity of male and female in African-Chinese marriage. Through feminist critical discourse analysis and intersectional perspective, it found that ambivalent masculinity and constant femininity are constructed in African-Chinese marriage through comments where Chinese males are predominantly represented as positive figures, while African men are greatly dehumanised and criticised. As for women, although public attitudes are distinctive towards Chinese and African women, they, sharing the collective identity of females, are restricted in the traditional conception of gender dichotomy. Finally, the social contextualisation of such representations and potential ideological implications will be generally discussed.
Public Opinion and Geoeconomics
- Andrew Chubb
Based primarily on the case of China, Andrew Chubb contributed a chapter to the new Oxford Handbook of Geoeconomics.The chapter argues multifaceted relationships between domestic public opinion and geoeconomics are an increasingly salient feature of world politics. This chapter first details four common roles of public opinion in geoeconomics: (1) supporting and incentivizing economic statecraft; (2) implementing economic statecraft; (3) initiating economic punishments against foreign targets; and (4) responding to foreign economic statecraft. The second section provides an overview of recent research on public attitudes toward economic statecraft in both sending states (seeking to utilize economic statecraft) and receiving countries (targeted by such measures). The third section explores the further research needed to understand the role of public in geoeconomic competition in an era of unprecedented cross-border interaction.
Outreach & Engagement
Derek Hird is contributing to the translation of the book Platinum Bible of the Public Toilet, which is the first English-language collection of short stories by Cui Zi’en, China’s most famous and controversial queer filmmaker, writer, scholar, and LGBTQ rights activist. Drawing on his own experiences growing up in socialist and postsocialist China, Cui presents ten queer coming-of-age stories of young boys and men as they explore their sexuality and desires. From a surreal fairytale depicting a ragtag crew of neighborhood boys in the throes of sexual awakening to a chronicle of the gender-bending and homoerotic entanglements of university students to romantic love triangle erotica to a story that examines teacher-student love and the norms of sex and age, Cui centers queer sexuality as a core part of human experience. Richly imaginative and vividly written, Platinum Bible of the Public Toilet portrays the emergence of queer cultures in postsocialist China while foregrounding the commitments to one’s erotic and passionate attractions even as they lead to cultural transgressions. This volume includes a preface by and an interview with the author. It can be viewed at: https://www.dukeupress.edu/platinum-bible-of-the-public-toilet
Andrew Chubb also offered comments to Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE on the South and East China Sea maritime disputes, Dutch investigative news service Follow the Money on the EU elections, and the policy proposal for a Transnational Rights Protection Office was mentioned in a hearing of the House of Lords Communications nad Digital Committee in May.
Culture & Community
'Transfer from the Ink - From Landscape to the Cosmos'
- an exhibition by Zi Quan
10 June 2024, 6:30 pm to 15 June 2023, 7:00 pm
The Storey Institute, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster
Open to all and registration is not required, just turn up
This exhibition by Zi Quan, a postgraduate researcher at Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts, and LUCC Doctoral Fellow, is sponsored by Lancaster University Confucius Institute’s China Engagement Fund and Decolonising Lancaster University funding.
The exhibition features 20 pieces of Zi’s artwork and an extraordinary 20-metre co-created artwork from 26 Lancaster citizens, including University students and staff, guided by Zi’s 1-to-1 instruction.
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Chinese Language and Culture Summer School 2024
(6-11 years old)
The sessions include some Chinese Mandarin language learning as well as Chinese arts and crafts for a great day of fun.
Time: Monday 29 July 2024, 9:30am to Friday 9 August 2024, 3:30pm
Venue: Lancaster University Confucius Institute (The Roundhouse)
Registration: Cost to attend - booking required
Ticket Price: The cost is £10 per child per day.
For more information: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/confucius-institute/events/chinese-language-and-culture-summer-school-ages-6-11/
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