See main event page on The Confucius Institute website HERE!

Friday, February 9, 2018

10 am to 2:30 pm

Michigan Room, Michigan League

 

Sponsored by the Confucius Institute and Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, the conference will examine the historical and contemporary connections between Chinese food in America. The participants will discuss various issues surrounding food practices and traditions in China and in America including cookeries, culinary traditions, and more.

Discussants:  
Yong Chen, Professor of History, UC Irvine
Yan Liang, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, Great Valley State University
Carolyn Phillips, Blogger, writer, and chef @MadameHuang
Edward Q. Wang, Professor of History, Rowan University

Moderators: 
Miranda Brown, Professor of Chinese Studies, U-M
Joseph Lam, Professor of Musicology, U-M

Schedule: 
10 AM -12 PM Panel Discussion 1
12 PM – 1 PM Lunch Break (Lunch RSVP for the public audience here.)
1-2:30 PM Panel Discussion 2
2:30 – 4 PM Panel Discussion 3 (closed door session)

Presenter bios: 

Miranda Brown: Miranda Brown is Professor of Chinese Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. She has taught there since 2002, after receiving her PhD in History from U.C. Berkeley. A historian of imperial China by training, she is the author of the The Politics of Mourning in Early China (State University of New York Press, 2007) and The Art of Medicine in Early China: The Ancient and Medieval Origins of a Modern Archive (Cambridge University Press, 2015), as well as more than a dozen published articles. Her current research and teaching focus on the history of Chinese food.

Yong Chen:Yong Chen received his Ph.D. degree from Cornell University. He is professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, where he also serves as Associate Dean for Curriculum and Student Services in the School of Humanities.  He is author of Chop Suey, USA: The Rise of Chinese Food in America (Columbia University Press, 2014); Chinese San Francisco 1850-1943: A Transpacific Community (Stanford, 2000); and The Chinese in San Francisco (Peking University Press, 2009). He is also co-editor of New Perspectives on American History (Hebei People’s Publishing House, 2010). His research on diverse topics such as Chinese American history, U.S. ethnic food, and higher education has been published in various leading academic journals and has received much public attention in the United States and China. He is a main contributor to Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites for the National Park Service, authorized and funded by the U.S. Congress. He has been frequently interviewed by various media organizations (such as Radio France Internationale, ETTV, Sing Tao DailyCorreio Braziliense, National Public and KPCC) in four languages, discussing issues ranging from food, race and immigration in the U.S. to Sino-American relations.

Yan Liang is an associate professor of Chinese language and literature at Grand Valley State University. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2008. Her research interests include late imperial Chinese literature, vernacular fiction and storytelling, Chinese food culture, and Chinese popular culture. Her recent publications focus on the narrative functions of food in late imperial Chinese novels.

Carolyn Phillips: Nominated twice for a James Beard Award, Carolyn Phillips is a food writer, scholar, and artist. She is the author of All Under Heaven (McSweeney’s + Ten Speed) and The Dim Sum Field Guide (Ten Speed). Her work has appeared in most major publications and collections, including Lucky Peach, Saveur, Vice Munchies, Gastronomica, and Best Food Writing 2015. Carolyn and her husband were cultural consultants on the third Ghostbusters movie. She was a professional Mandarin interpreter in the federal and state courts for over a decade, lived in Taiwan for eight years, and married into a Chinese family almost 40 years ago.

Qingjia Edward Wang: Q. Edward Wang, author of Chopsticks: A Cultural and Culinary History, is a professor of history and coordinator of Asian Studies at Rowan University. A cultural and intellectual historian, his other publications include A Global History of Modern Historiography and Inventing China through History: The May Fourth Approach to Historiography. He is editor of Chinese Studies in History (Routledge) and board member of the International Commission for the History and Theory of Historiography.