The University of Sydney - China Studies Centre

Sydney China Distinguished Fellow Presents

Please join us for another two events presented by Professor Connery.

9 August | China & the Mutations of Neoliberalism: Thoughts on the Current Conjuncture

30 August | Grass Stage and the Fate of Social Theater in Xi Jinping’s China

 

A discussion of Shanghai-based Grass Stage, a social theater company and its evolution through and reaction to the varied political landscapes of China's last twenty years. The event will include an introduction to Grass Stage’s work, a performance by Zhao Chuan (subtitled) of his 20-minute monologue “Farewell to Today”, and a conversation between the presenters and with the audience.

About the speakers

Zhao Chuan lived in Sydney for ten years in the 1990s and has been based in Shanghai for over twenty years. His creative work spans theater, literature, film, and contemporary art. He is the co-founder and leader of Grass Stage, a social theater group founded in 2005. Zhao Chuan's theater works include "Home" (2022) , "Clam Island" (2021), which reflected the pandemic; "Youth in History" (2023) and the "Grass Mustard" series (2018-2019), which dealt with questions of youth; and the "Theater of Society Trilogy", a series of works about the predicament of the underclass, the history of the revolution, and the future of critical thought, including “World Factory” (2014), “Little Society “(2009) and “A Madman’s Tales” (2006), among others. He won the 2001 Unita Prize for New Novelists (Taiwan) for Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies (in Chinese), and has published more than a dozen books, including On Radical Art: the 80s Scene in Shanghai (2014), The Body At Stake: Experiments in Chinese Contemporary Art and Theatre (2013), Beyond the Stage: Zurich Sketches (2021) and No Theater Left Behind (2021).

Christopher Connery is Professor in the Literature department at the University of California Santa Cruz, where he teaches Cultural Studies, Chinese Studies, and courses in Marxist and neoliberal theory. He has also served recently as Visiting Professor in the graduate department of Cultural Studies at Shanghai University. His research has involved four areas: early imperial Chinese culture and history ( Empire of the Text: Writing and Authority in Early Imperial China ; contributions to the Columbia History of Chinese Literature) ; oceanic ideology and mythos in global capitalism (articles in boundary 2, Journal of Historical Geography, PMLA, Harvard Design Magazine, et al); the global 1960s (various anthologized articles, plus special issues of boundary 2 and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies); and contemporary Chinese culture, ideology, and politics (articles in Made in China, boundary 2, New Left Review, et al) . Since 2010 he has been involved as writer, performer, and political consultant in the Shanghai-based, Chinese-language social and experimental theater group Grass Stage, which has performed throughout China, as well as in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Macao, and North America.

This event is co-presented with the Theatre and Performance Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. As part of the Sydney China Distinguished Fellowship Program 2024, this event is co-hosted by the Discipline of Chinese Studies in the School of Languages and Cultures, the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. The fellowship is enabled by the acuity of vision and generosity of Mr James Lee, a University of Sydney alumnus now based in Hong Kong.