HICCS 2025

This bilingual panel explores the dynamic interplay between folk religion and cultural adaptation across different communities in East Asia.

Jingyang Zhao
Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Lecturer

Title:
Ancestor Myths and Witchcraft Traditions: Folk Religion As A Strategy Of Cultural Adaption For She People In Eastern Fujian
Abstract:
Pan Hu worship （盘瓠崇拜）and Lvshan Taoism（闾山道法） are of great significance for She people（畲） in Eastern Fujian, by examining local historical documents, and fieldwork data, this paper argues, to hide, or to emphasize the memories of the saga of Pan Hu, which are two opposite cultural orientations of She people，may coexisted in eastern Fujian. In fact, integrating into the society and escaping from that are both strategies of cultural adaption. In the process of She people’s settling down and localization，while resolving the political conflicts of the power and right，they make their identity intensified as the descendants of Pan Hu. At the same time，Lvshan Taoism helps to strengthen She people’s awareness of ethnic boundary by an organic integration of ancestor myths，witchcraft traditions and local Taoism. It also motivates She wizards to take part in more social life activities for they are given title of ritual specialists in a traditional naming system.

Bartosz Czerwinski
Taipei National University of the Arts, Ph.D Student

Title:
The practice of temple isolation (坐禁) in Penghu folk religion: case study of Yu Sheng temple in Baikeng village.

Abstract:
During late Ming and early Qing dynasties, inhabitants of Mainland China provinces of Fujian and Guangdong were migrating in waves to the tiny archipelago of Penghu, situated near the south-western coast of the Taiwan island. Along with their wealth and families, they brought religious customs that turned out to be a foundation for Taiwanese folk beliefs as we know them today. Originating in Penghu, zuojin (坐禁）is probably the most mystical ritual practice in Taiwanese folk religion system commonly referred to as Faism (法教). A rite of passage which was to foster spirit mediums, and high priest is now a nearly non-existent curiosity practiced only by the most devoted Faist priests and their temples. Selected among Penghu’s most talented and bright young minds (usually boys aged 8 to 13), aspiring priests were subjected to the period of forty-nine day in-temple isolation, where under strict vegetarian diet and on purpose sleep deprivation, they were learning about advanced Taoist arts including writing and usage of talismanic scripts (符令）, and ritual hand gestures (手印). Although zuojin used to be a common practice among temples of Penghu and southern Taiwan, during last several decades it started to slowly disappear from country’s spiritual life. The gradual disappearance of zuojin has been regarded as an outcome of globalization, rapidly lowering birth rate in the Republic of China, and growing education standards in the country. Nowadays the practice is nearly non-existent.

Through qualitative interviews and analysis of written materials obtained during field research, I aim to introduce the practice of zuojin through the lens of Yu Sheng temple situated in the Baikeng village of Penghu, which was one of the last places to ever organize the ritual in its full forty-nine day form. My main guide to the spiritual world of Penghu islands was Xu Tianfu (許天富), a long-time head priest of the Yu Sheng temple who supervised the ritual himself, and is now regarded as one of the last remaining final authorities on the Faist ritualistic practices of Penghu archipelago.

Yu Tong Zheng
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Ph.D Candidate

题目：
「新東北文學」中的「出馬仙」民俗信仰書寫研究

摘要：
「出馬」作為一種動物修煉而成的仙，在深受薩滿教傳統影響的中國東北文化中長期受到尊崇。其中以「胡黃白柳灰」五種動物仙最為常見，通過修煉百年後來到凡塵積累功德，以求能成為正修仙神，在民間通常與治療疾病相關聯。「出馬仙信仰」作為東北文化的重要組成部分，在東北文學的百年歷程中不乏與之相關的文學創作。本文通過分析自20世紀抗戰時期「東北流亡作家群」的寫作至近年來備受矚目的「新東北作家群」中的「出馬仙信仰」與跳神儀式，嘗試釐清「出馬仙信仰」在東北文學中的書寫路徑發生的諸種轉變。進而以「東北文藝復興三傑」之一的作家鄭執及其代表作《仙癥》為例，揭示出馬信仰與東北民俗儀式在這批當代青年作家筆下具有更為複雜的象徵意涵。他們既渴望脫離父輩建立的象徵秩序，卻又無法逃離。故而出馬仙信仰和跳神民俗活動作為東北文化象徵體系的核心，在1990年代的東北下崗潮背景之下逐漸脫離原本昏昧迷信的象徵涵義，一方面蘊藏對父輩失敗的反思與逃離，另一方面暗藏作家對東北土地的懷舊與鄉愁。此外，在對東北文學中的出馬仙信仰進行縱向歷史梳理的同時，對比「新南方文學」中關於巫術與疾病的書寫，指出當代地方文學可能存在的民俗寫作轉向

This panel explores pivotal moments and strategies in Chinese political and diplomatic history, from the 1911 “Luanzhou Armed Remonstrance” to ancient tributary systems and evolving China-U.S. relations through historical and future lenses.

Yi Luo
Northwest University, Associate Professor

Title:
Abortive Military Dictatorship: A New Explanation for the 1911 “Luanzhou Armed Remonstrance”

Abstract:
During the 1911 Revolution, some northern army officers used force to request the Qing dynasty to adopt constitutional reforms, an event known as the “Luanzhou Armed Remonstrance”. The key figures leading this mutiny were Zhang Shaozeng, Wu Luzhen, and Lan Tianwei, all graduates of the Japanese Military Academy and renowned as the “Three Military Stars”. Faced with imminent military pressure, the Qing dynasty had to immediately implement constitutional reforms and set up a British-style constitutional monarchy. However, the “Three Military Stars” did not withdraw their troops. Instead, they actively planned a military advance on Beijing, but ultimately met with failure. Unlike previous interpretations, the “Luanzhou Armed Remonstrance” was neither a constitutionalist armed petition nor an anti-Manchu revolutionary uprising disguised as “loyalty to the emperor”, but rather an unsuccessful attempt by a group of modern military personnel with nationalist ideas to establish a military dictatorship through force.

Xiaoyu Meng
Shanghai International Studies University, Ph.D Candidate

Title:
Threat cognition, aim for order and maintenance strategy of ancient Chinese tributary order

Abstract:
The tributary order formed in ancient East Asia, although spanning thousands of years, was often disrupted and challenged. In ancient China, as a suzerain state, there were motives to adopt appropriate strategies to maintain the tributary order in terms of moral responsibility and interest protection. However, history shows that under the same situation, rulers would adopt different maintaining strategies, like war, compellence, sanction, huai-jou (to cherish and to soften), and appeasement. So this paper focuses on exploring what factors affect the choice of maintaining strategies and what is the logic behind it, hoping to enrich the theoretical content of traditional Chinese foreign policy, further clarify the behavior logic of ancient China in foreign relations and its impact on contemporary Chinese diplomacy. Most of the existing studies on the maintenance of tributary order explain why the tributary order can continue for thousands of years, and why actors were willing to join the tributary order. Some studies related to specific maintaining strategies are also faced with many problems such as vague concepts and not detailed classification of types, so that the explanatory power is insufficient. Through the sorting and comparative analysis of cases of order maintenance between the Ming and Qing dynasties and typical tributary states, this article finds that the threat perception faced by ancient Chinese rulers towards the tributary order and their aim of the tributary order influenced the choice of maintenance strategies. Under the guidance of the principle of ritual(li) , they worked hard to balance the costs and benefits of order, achieving a balance between compliance with ritual and pragmatism.

Leigh-Wai Doo
Foundations for Islands of Harmony, Chair of Board of Directors

Title:
China – US: Different Perspectives in the Context of the Times. SUN Yat-Sen and Hawaii’s Sen Yet YOUNG in 3 phases: 100 years past, today, and 25 years forward.

Abstract:
Hawaii’s Sen Yet YOUNG is an American celebrated in China. He or the Rosamond Biplane which he designed and built a century ago is pictured in over 30 locations across China, including Taiwan, but there is no recognition of him in America. Why? (Photo of Honolulu star bulletin article of that caption). Might Hawaii’s Sen Yet YOUNG be a new channel building world peace between America and China? What does the context of the changing times tell us in three phases?

This panel investigates the experiences and challenges of Chinese migrants globally, addressing responses to racism in Canada, language ideologies among first-generation immigrants, the dynamics of new Chinese migration to Thailand, and issues of citizenship and inequality in contemporary China.

Weiguo Zhang
University of Toronto, Associate Professor

Title:
Responding to Racism by Chinese Immigrants in Canada

Abstract:
We seek to explore the responses of individual Chinese immigrants to racism and consider the structural and cultural factors that shape these responses. Our study utilizes thematic analysis of nine focus group discussions involving 48 participants, encompassing individuals of varying genders and age groups in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, conducted between December 2021 and January 2022. Our findings reveal that (a) responses to racism among participants ranged from doing nothing to employing strategies such as avoidance, withdrawal, seeking assistance, reporting incidents, educating perpetrators, or directly confronting perpetrators; (b) contrary to stereotypes depicting Chinese immigrants as passive and non-confrontational, some individuals displayed direct, active, and assertive responses to instances of racism, albeit rarely resorting to violence. We contend that the resistance of Chinese immigrants to racism is nuanced and contextualized, shaped by a blend of cultural influences from both their home and host societies, while also constrained by their marginalized status and limited power within a systemically racist host society.

Fang Xu
University of California Berkeley, Continuing Lecturer

Title:
"You need to speak better English than Americans!”: First-generation Chinese immigrants’ language ideologies from a trans-sectional perspective

Abstract:
This paper is part of a larger California-based project examining non-native English speaking, first-generation immigrants’ language practices, language attitudes, and language ideologies, all with an eye towards the notion, “be American, speak English.” This paper focuses on 170 cases of first-generation immigrants from Asian countries and regions who speak a variant of Chinese language astheir mother tongue. The interviews were collected through an undergraduate sociolinguistics course between 2017 and 2022. Through a trans-sectional lens, this study aims to show the complexity of their translanguaging experience, and how embodied raciolinguistic ideology persistently sets them apart from identifying as American. In examining such a phenomenon among transnational, multilingual subjects, a trans-sectional approach not only embraces the multitude and palimpsests of the subjects’ opinions and experiences, also frees researchers from our own monoglot ideology. For non-white and non-native English speaker Chinese immigrants, they do not “look American,” but in their mind, they can try to sound American, i.e. speak English with an American accent, to seek and acquire acceptance. Their legal status, educational level, professional career, financial capacity or lifestyle notwithstanding, they are aware that they can never truly belong, when in their own minds, being American means being white and possessing the “correct” linguistic capital to be recognized as a native speaker – native speaker as “a static, monolithic, and privileged inner-circle norm against which all others are evaluated” (Aneja 2016, pp. 361). According to the trans-sectional indexicality, first-generation immigrants’ experiences tell a story of constant negotiation, struggle, and reconciliation to the fact that individual agency can only achieve so much when Americanness is mostly misconceptualized and internalized as a racio-ethnic category in U.S. society. (Refer to the speaker's profile page for full abstract)

Siripetch Trisanawadee
Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University, Assistant Professor

Title:
The New Chinese Migrants in Thailand

Abstract:
Concerns about the political and economic situation in China are the driving reason behind the current surge of Chinese migration to Thailand, which is the subject of this inquiry. This increase in Chinese migration to Thailand has been observed in recent years. According to the conclusions of the study, 45.71 percent of Chinese business owners who were surveyed had already left China or were making plans to leave the country. This information was derived from the survey information. Concerns about the country's weak rule of law and the absence of clear business regulations were cited as the grounds for their withdrawal from the country. Furthermore, 42.86 percent of the respondents expressed high levels of anxiety, while 35.71 percent exhibited moderate levels of concern [1].
The hunger for better economic opportunities overseas and the demand for Chinese workers to staff overseas companies by the Chinese government are two of the most major factors that are driving this migration. There are a number of other factors that are also driving this movement. Additionally, domestic job opportunities have become less appealing as a consequence of the increasing competition and the declining starting income for Chinese graduates [1]. Also, the
competition has increased. (Refer to the speaker's profile page for full abstract)

Alexsia Chan
Hamilton College, Associate Professor of Government

Title:
Pliable Citizenship and Migrant Inequality in the Xi Jinping Era

Abstract:
Why has urban public service provision for migrant workers remained uneven and devolved to local governments in China? This is especially puzzling given that this has continued at the same time Xi Jinping has centralized authority in many other policy areas, both domestic and foreign. His administration has ushered in an anti-corruption campaign, Belt and Road Initiative projects, and a greater commitment to improving the quality of life of Chinese citizens. But while he has poured resources in the first two, the last remains left to local governments to formulate and implement policies for outsiders living and working in their cities.
I argue that public service provision for migrants remains patchy and devolved to local government control because inequality serves the state. There has been more continuity than change between administrations in this particular governance issue. Local authorities enact social control through the contingent delivery of social services, and these practices have continued apace under Xi because they work well enough to support other state goals, namely economic development and social stability. It allows the central government to claim commitments to increasing equality while municipal governments can maintain a labor force for whom they do not have to provide the full set of services. However, decentralized benefits are not designed to improve the overall welfare of a group of people defined by their movement and mobility. (Refer to the speaker's profile page for full abstract)

This panel explores cultural and spatial dynamics across borders, examining the "Burma Road" in China's Muslim Northwest, strategies and styles of youth films in the multimedia era, creative collaborations in China-Europe film co-production, and migration's impact on the cosmology of home.

Peng Hai
University of Pittsburg, Assistant Professor

Title:
"Burma Road” in the Muslim Northwest: Centering Borderlands in Kukan

Abstract:
Reemerging as a high-profile patriotic education film at the Chongqing Three Gorges Museum, Kukan: the Battle Cry of China (1941), thanks to a long sequence of air raids descending on China’s war-time capital Chongqing, has greeted the Chinese public since 2015 as the latest documentary evidence of Japanese WWII atrocities after the publications of Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking (1991) and The Diaries of John Rabe (1997). The air raids footage, well over ten minutes long, has since animated much popular and academic discussion in China. The Academy award winning documentary has also engendered intense interest in Li Ling-ai, the “technical advisor” of the film, an under-credited creative force behind the film according to Asian Americanist filmmaker Robin lung. However, the “film proper,” in which at least two thirds are set in China’s southwestern and northwestern borderlands, has received no attention in English language reviews. This article focuses its analysis on the images of those borderlands and their indigenous inhabitants. A proper treatment of the bulk of the documentary’s content, I argue, brings to light little-known facts of border-crossings in the China Theater of WWII. These border-crossings, from Burma to Yunnan, Guangxi to Chongqing, Sichuan to Gansu, eastern Qinghai to the Tibetan Plateau, and extradigetically, northwestern China to Soviet Central Asia, foreground the critical role traditionally non-Sinitic parts of China played in sustaining the Chongqing-based Kuomintang regime in the Pacific War years. Aside from providing rare documentary footages on the well-told story of the “Burma Road,” images of the “Asiatic melting pot” of Gansu and Qinghai underline the heretofore unknown history of China’s northwestern Muslim transporters and road builders, who were a sine qua non force in ensuring critical supplies from the Soviet Union could reach Chongqing’s ill-equipped army via the tortuous Qilian mountains and treacherous Yellow River by mule caravans and goat-skin rafters.

Ying Xiao
University of Florida, Associate Professor

题目：
融媒体时代青春片的类型策略、视听风格与跨时空想象

摘要：
作为一种重要的题材类型，中国式青春片自1990年代第六代导演以青春成长为载体的艺术电影到21世纪新媒介时代以IP电影的商业模式迅速崛起历经了一系列的嬗变。文章通过分析青春片的叙事结构、类型元素、和文化症候对21世纪融媒体时代中国电影的青春化、数字化和微转向进行解读，并探讨其类型发展流变过程中与当代中国科技、媒介、社会转型之间的关联。这一类型的融合、拓展及媒介间性也很好的体现在青春片的视听风格上，尤其是对流行音乐类型及音乐能动性的运用上。本文首次聚焦青春片的电影音乐，通过文本细读及对视听风格的剖析，并采纳“娱乐产业乌托邦”、“异托邦”和“无托邦”等概念的比照框架对中国式青春片的类型特征及融媒体时代复杂而多变的影视文化生态网络提出归纳性的阐释和进一步的理论思考。

Mei Yang
University of San Diego, Associate Professor

Title:
Migration, Space, and the Cosmology of Home: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract:
Embarking from The Wandering Earth (2019), China’s first interstellar blockbuster, in which actions of the main characters are prompted by their wish to go home, this paper surveys the homecoming narratives observed in contemporary Chinese films, both commercial hits and art house films. These films include Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin (2013), Zhang Yang’s Shower (1999), Getting Home (2007), Yung-Shing Teng’s Return Ticket (2011) and commercial hits such as Lost on Journey (2010). I also extend beyond Chinese features and examine how the desire for home is represented against the background of transnational economic flow and cross-border labor movements in recent films. In the South Korean drama Way Back Home (2013), Australian film Lion (2016), Taiwanese semi-autobiographical American Girl (2021), and Hollywood productions such as Nomadland (2020) and Tár (2022), migration, social mobility, and the pursuit of freedom become jumbled and in the end all eerily resemble dislocation. To confront that reality, films either affirm the validity of homecoming or refute it with a more resolute exile. These films posit one question that lies at the center of my inquiry, namely, where is home, then?

I highlight two Chinese filmmakers, Li Ruijun, and Bi Gan, whose answers through the river scenes in their films are revelatory. Li’s River Road (2014) and Return to Dust (2022) tell of marginalized individuals searching for, returning

This panel delves into narratives and environments shaping contemporary China, from the moral underpinnings of small business owners in Yiwu and the construction of matchmaking narratives to the role of age-friendly neighborhoods in protecting older adults.

Zhou Yi
Department of Sociology, Fudan University, Professor

Title:
Bitterness Narrative: The Moral Foundation of Small Business Owners in Yiwu, China

Abstract:
Many small business owners in China attribute their success to their “bitter experiences,” yet there has been limited research investigating the nature and the moral foundation of this “bitterness narrative.” Based on oral history interviews with 123 Yiwu merchants, this study finds several facts about their bitterness narratives. First, the triple traumas of hunger, responsibility, and identity experienced during the decade of the Cultural Revolution, when the village collective economy collapsed, turned the narrative of “exchanging feathers for sugar” into a bitter one. Second, the bitterness narrative went through four stages of change: the “bitterness” of disembedding from the village collective economy and venturing alone as a peddler, the “bitterness” of seeking relationships and re-embedding in kinship networks, the “bitterness” of cutting off kinship networks when the business was about to expand, and the “half bitterness” of the accelerated kinship severance laid with the joy of returning to the institutional security provided by the government. The four bitterness narratives were all centered on relationship embedding or disembedding, so the nature of the bitterness was the relational structure. Third, their bitterness narratives were impacted by the ethical-moral concepts in the surrounding environment. Small business owners proactively aligned themselves with the dominant moral values, which contributed to their economic success. What they emphasized was not only Chinese traditional values such as “the affinity between suffering and success” and “the loyalty to the authority” but also neo-liberal values that people should be free in a globalized market. Focusing on the moral-cultural factors of these small business owners’ structural and economic behavior underlying their bitterness narratives, this study echoes the Strong Cultural Program that calls for the cultural accounts of the structure and the structural accounts of the culture.

Shichao Du
Fudan University, Assistant Professor

Title:
The Process of Narrative Persuasion: The Making of Matchmaking in China

Abstract:
The matchmaking market in China is a public space where parents with unmarried adult children congregate and scout for potential sons- or daughters-in-law. Although the practice of matchmaking is drawing more and more international and intellectual attention, less is known about how this public practice of mate selection is legitimized and gets its prevalence. This study frames the matchmaking practice as a process of narrative persuasion where parents strategically replace their children’s individualized narrative of marriage with their public narrative. Drawing on interview data, this study qualitatively examines this narrative persuasion process. Results show that parents and professional matchmakers problematize the individualized narrative and then leverage the cultural tool of filial piety, with economic incentives attached, to reconnect their children’s mate selection behavior to the public narrative. As a result, young adults are successfully persuaded to participate in matchmaking activities. The findings imply that matchmaking in China is not only a marital practice but also an intergeneration process full of cultural strategies.

Chunyu Wang
Chongqing University, Associate Professor

Title:
Can living in an age-friendly neighborhood environment protect older adults from falls in China?

Abstract:
Falls pose a significant threat to the health and well-being of older adults, particularly in China, where fall-related injuries are alarmingly prevalent. Based on a Longitudinal survey in China, the study examines the relationship between the quality of age-friendliness of neighborhood environment and the occurrence of falls among older adults. The study employed a complementary log-log regression model to explore this association. The results revealed a non-linear relationship between the age-friendliness of neighborhoods and fall risks. Improving age-friendliness reduces falls when low, but risks increase slightly once a certain threshold is reached. This highlights the need for a balanced approach to creating age-friendly environments. The study also reveals that the protective effect is stronger in urban areas and for older adults living alone, emphasizing the importance of targeted interventions for these vulnerable groups. The study underscores the need for a comprehensive approach to fall prevention, incorporating both environmental modifications and targeted interventions for vulnerable populations. Fostering age-friendly neighborhoods can create safer and more supportive environments for older adults, ultimately improving their quality of life and reducing the burden of fall-related injuries.

This panel examines the interplay between media, culture, and storytelling in China, exploring the global localization of Genshin Impact, avant-garde animation in 1980s China, digital reading practices of infinite fictions, and the portrayal of capitalists in socialist-era Chinese TV series.

Tianyi Xu
Fudan University, Masters Student

Title:
Born-Translated Chinese Videogame Genshin Impact and its Glocalization

Abstract:
This paper uses Genshin Impact, developed by Chinese game company miHoYo (HoYoverse), as a case study to connect translation theories with game studies, re-examining translation practices in contemporary Sinophone digital media. Genshin Impact has embedded translation into the game production process, enabling players worldwide to access the latest content simultaneously, altering the inherent sequence between original and translated texts to achieve a “born-translated” state. Additionally, unlike traditional localization strategies in the game industry, Genshin Impact demonstrates a path described as “glocalization” through multicultural creation and translation, providing an equal space for world cultures to showcase themselves and challenging the notion that there are dominant and subordinate cultures. The paper concludes that Genshin Impact should not be seen as a machine for cultural export but rather as one of the possibilities for future world literature. The game belongs not only to China but also to the entire world, and its born-translated characteristic and glocalization strategy welcomes players of different races and languages, allowing them to enter its world as a foreign place and engage in a detached mode of cultural experience.

Yan Zhong
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Lecturer in Chinese

题目：
钟泉艺术动画——80年代新中国文艺复兴背景下的先锋派动画

摘要：
在1992年于夏威夷国际电影节上，美国动画家大卫艾力克向美国观众正式介绍了七部中国艺术动画电影，其中两部是艺术动画代表人物钟泉的剪纸动画片《牛冤》与水墨动画片《雁阵》。
1978年中国改革开放以后出现了10年的文艺繁荣。在胡耀邦的文艺路线指导下，在改革开放后中国电影界的经济红利推动下，一种独特的国有经济支持下的文化创新活动在中国出现。当时国务院（现中共中央）电影局的经济支持下，在国务院文化部的宽松政策默许下，中国文化解出现了前所未有的繁荣，人们称之为“新中国文艺复兴的十年”。
长春电影制片厂美术分厂在这一波的文化红利中脱颖而出，在上海美术片的支援协作下，开始利用中央政府的政治经济政策，在厂长、导演钟泉的带领下生产了大批具有人文批判精神与艺术创新精神，而忽略市场需求的先蓬派艺术动画片。从1986年《象虎》、1987年的《鹰》（提名中国电影金鸡奖）、1989年的《牛冤》（获得华表奖）、1990年的《雁阵》（获得中国电影金鸡奖）等无不显示出艺术表现形式的创新与政治思维模式上的深刻反思。
在短暂的政治开放与经济红利双重加持下的动画片创新思潮迅速崛起也快速消。失然以动画家钟泉为代表的艺术院校背景的团队在21世纪迅速占领了中国动画教育产业。
他们充满人文情怀与艺术创新的制作形式成为中国动画教育的主流，在这种先锋派人文艺术动画教育的影响下，千禧一代的中国动画人开始在动画甚至电子游戏领域逐渐创造出令世界瞩目的艺术奇迹。

Chengxi Yin
Duke Kunshan University, Undergraduate Student

Title:
Gaining Pleasure in Infinite Game Worlds: Digital Reading Practices of Infinite Fiction in China

Abstract:
Infinite fiction is a popular genre of Chinese online literature characterized by protagonists navigating through various survival games in distinct small worlds with horror elements. This study examines the audiences’ fascination with this popular media by focusing on their evaluations and motivations for reading this genre. Drawing on audience research, this study challenges the textual determinism model that assumes a fixed meaning in media texts. The study combines both textual analysis of 11 infinite fiction novels with thematic analysis of in-depth semi-structured interviews with 24 readers. This analysis highlights the active role of readers in their discerning criteria and preferences for evaluating satisfactory and unsatisfactory infinite fiction, as well as their active immersion, recognition, and engagement of media texts. Moreover, the findings also expand on Ang’s (1991b) argument in Watching Dallas, demonstrating that despite differences in media and content, audience perceptions and engagement with popular media share notable similarities. By examining infinite fiction through an audience-based perspective, the study provides insights into the evolving dynamics of digital reading practices in contemporary China.

Zhaoxi Liu
Department of Communication, Trinity University, Associate Professor and Carlos Augustus de Lozano Professor of Journalism

Title:
Portraying Capitalists in Socialist China: Investor Characters in Chinese TV Series

Abstract:
Chinese TV shows frequently featuring capitalists and their agents is self-contradictory in a perceived socialist country with a Communist goal of eliminating capitalism. Such a problematic is resolved, this analysis shows, via the work of ideology that is unique to the Chinese context. A close examination of the portrayal of capitalists in a few popular Chinese TV series reveals that these capitalists are not greedy, selfish, and cheating investors portrayed in American movies. Instead, the Chinese investors are socially responsible, honorable, and nationalist noble men. Such a particular construct of investors is shaped by Confucianism and nationalism, the dominant ideologies in today’s China. This analysis demonstrates how ideology shapes popular culture representation within specific context.

This bilingual panel explores diverse expressions of thought, aesthetics, and political philosophy in ancient China

Yurong Ma
Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Ph.D Student

题目：
論莊子「庖丁解牛」的美學意蘊與古代書論道技觀

摘要：
關於莊子在「庖丁解牛」中所蘊含的「技進於道」的美學觀點，以往討論得比較多的，是以哲學的角度闡釋道與技的觀念。但是，從《莊子》庖丁解牛為典型的一系列技藝寓言故事與藝術的關係角度考慮，更值得注意的，應當是其與古代書論道技觀的內在關係。通過具體地考察「庖丁解牛」等寓言的美學意蘊，可以發現「道不離技」「技不離道」「技進於道」三者間相互依存、相互作用、相互制約，進而闡明技藝訓練、法度規矩、精神修養、「道」的境界與「技進於道」這一命題間的密切關係。因莊子道技觀的影響，古代書家要達到審美創造的最高境界，就離不開對高超技藝的掌握，進一步來說需要規矩和法度為基礎。同時，技藝訓練本身並不能作為目的，任何入道境的書家技藝已實現內部的自我超越。

Atichat Khamphuang (江曉強）
National Tsinghua University, Ph.D Candidate

题目：
天的哲學與《春秋》學之結合—— 試論《春秋繁露》政治形而上與治國實踐指引

摘要：
作為西漢時期的重要儒學家，董仲舒在政治思想上的貢獻及其對天、人與治理之間關係的願景廣為人知。本文旨在探討《春秋繁露》中天的觀念與《春秋》解讀之間的互動及其相互關係，這兩者構成了董仲舒哲學的核心結構之一。在為政治目的重構儒學的過程中，董仲舒綜合了先秦以來的天的概念和信仰，並將其整合為宇宙原則，以提供道德指引和合法化專制統治。他強調天人之間的和諧、道德責任以及統治者遵循古代聖王美德的作用。通過基於《公羊傳》對《春秋》歷史事實的分析，他推導出道德範式，並倡導德政。

Erica Brindley
Penn State University, Professor

Title:
Resonance thought and theories of sagely attunement in Early China

Abstract:
Much ink has been spilled describing the Five Phases cosmological system and its underlying ganying theory of resonance in Chinese thought and science. The theorist Zou Yan is considered to have proposed Five Phases thought in the 3rd c. BCE, and it rose to dominance as an all-encompassing explanation of human relationship to the cosmos during the Han. I push this timeline earlier, however, and show that resonance thought – as a logic or way of thinking about the causal relationships between objects – can be apprehended long before Zou Yan. Resonance thought, along with a “sagely attunement” model that might be understood as a specific sub-category of it, began to emerge sometime in the 4th century BCE, around the time that naturalistic cosmologies were articulated to rival competing versions of theistic, or deity-based cosmologies.
This talk examines two such models of sagely attunement: a more Confucian model outlined in the excavated Guodian manuscript, “Five Conducts,” and a Daoist model found in the “Heng Xian” (“The Primordial State of Constancy”) bamboo manuscript. I show how these varying models actually share a fundamentally similar stance that encourages sagely bodies to activate underlying resonant harmonies and responses in the world.

Weiyi Li
Renmin University of China, Masters Student

题目：
北魏元恂案历史叙事生成

摘要：
孝文帝所立第一任太子元恂杀人出逃案，是孝文帝统治期间发生的最为重要的政治事件之一。受正史记载影响，学界长期将元恂案置于代汉矛盾和宫廷斗争的经典叙事视角之下观察，从而忽略了该案本身记载中存在的诸多可疑细节。无论是与此案高度相关的高照容之死，还是事变当日元恂行动的细节，都显示出历史事实本身与传统的经典叙事之间存在难以弥合的裂痕。通过摘取、排列史书中保留下来的带有明确时间标识的原始材料，元恂案在北魏国史中的叙事建立过程可以被复原和建构。被广泛接受的正统元恂案叙事，是在北魏官方意志的参与下，为维护宣武帝即位合法性和正统性而建立起来的。