Hong Kong on the Brink
with Jeffrey Wasserstrom
CAS Event
Wednesday, October 23 at 5:00PM
This talk will focus on patterns of protest and the tightening of political controls in Hong Kong. It will pay close attention to the 2014 Umbrella Movement but focus even more on the dramatic events of this year, including the candlelight vigil held on the 30th anniversary of the June 4th Massacre, Jeff Wasserstrom has been visiting Hong Kong regularly since 1987, and will draw on his work as a specialist in the history of anti-authoritarian movements in various parts of the world and his work on global cities of Asia. His talk will provide a preview of ideas he is exploring in his book Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink, forthcoming in the Columbia Global Reports series in February. The talk will be followed by a commentary and discussion moderated by CAS Director and Professor of Geography, Tim Oakes.
Jeffrey Wasserstrom is the Chancellor’s Professor of History, University of California Irvine. He holds a B.A. from UC Santa Cruz, an M.A. from Harvard and a PhD from Berkeley, and while a student also spent a year apiece at the University of London and Shanghai's Fudan University. A former editor of the Journal of Asian Studies, his most recent books are Eight Juxtapositions: China through Imperfect Analogies from Mark Twain to Manchukuo (Penguin 2016) and the co-authored third edition of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know ( Oxford 2018). In addition to writing for scholarly periodicals, he is a regular contributor to newspapers (including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal) and magazines (such as the Atlantic and TIME). He has spoken at literary festivals in Europe and Asia, consulted on documentary films about the Tiananmen protests and the Umbrella Movement, testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and also served as a keynote speaker at State Department-organized orientation sessions for China-bound Fulbright students and scholars.
This event is co-sponsored by the History Department and the International Affairs Program.
[video:https://youtu.be/0MxkGvJguJI]