Lectures & Symposia
Contemporary Arts and Culture | Renwen Society
Exhibition-Related Programs | Corporate Programs

Lectures

The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage

This investigative journalism takes readers behind the headlines they’re seeing about made-in-China product recalls, environmental pollution, and exploitation of poor villagers and explains the system that fosters these problems.

Alexandra Harney has been a reporter and editor at the Financial Times since 1998 and was the FT’s South China correspondent from 2003-6.

Tuesday, April 22 ~ 6:30-8 PM
$10 member / $15 non-member

From Cathay to khita’i: The Development of "chinoiserie" in Mongol Iran

This illustrated lecture gives an overview of khita’i—an apparently Chinese or far eastern-inspired aesthetic revealed in the form of motifs such as lotuses, peonies, scrolling cloud bands, fantastical creatures like dragons and simurghs, as an artistic phenomenon generated by the Mongol connections between China and Greater Iran and its development in the Iranian world.

Ladan Akbarnia is Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art at the Brooklyn Museum.

Tuesday, May 6 ~ 6:30-8 PM
$10 member and Brooklyn Museum member
$15 non-member

The Man Who Loved China: Joseph Needham and the Making of a Masterpiece

In the mid 20th century, English scientist—turned China scholar Joseph Needham questioned why the nation that had invented so much and had enjoyed 5,000 years of continuous civilization had failed to prosper? He came to believe that China, weakened in the recent past by invasions, warlords, and corruption, would eventually rise again to world prominence. The first volume of his masterpiece Science and Civilization in China came out in 1954. By the time he died he had produced 17 volumes on China.
Followed by a book signing and reception.

Simon Winchester is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of this historical biography of Joseph Needham.

Tuesday, May 20 ~ 6:30-8:30 PM
$10 member / $12 non-member
$10 students/seniors with ID

*Held at Asia Society (725 Park Avenue @ 70th Street).
For tickets call 212 517-ASIA or on line at www.asiasociety.org

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Lectures & Symposia
Contemporary Arts and Culture | Renwen Society
Exhibition-Related Programs | Corporate Programs