Kiang Lecture
UCI Center for Asian Studies
Radical Machines: Chinese in the Digital Age
Thursday · May 25 · 2023
The event will begin with a 4 PM reception followed by the lecture at 5 PM.
Beckman Center
100 Academy, Irvine, CA 92617
(FREE PARKING)
Registration
https://forms.gle/1FVy4c5eQsJMtzcZ9
For over 70 years, Chinese script has been a driving force in shaping the digital age and pushing it beyond familiar alphabetic ecologies. Western-designed screens, printers, keyboards, character encoding schemes, and more have all been forced to adapt to accommodate the intricacies of the world's one major non-alphabetic writing system. Despite China's position today as a global leader in technology, however, these ecologies of Chinese computing have long remained uncharted territories--until now. Join Stanford historian Thomas S. Mullaney on a tour of Chinese in the digital age.
Speaker
Thomas Mullaney
Stanford University
Thomas S. Mullaney is Professor of History and Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, by courtesy. He is also the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress, and a Guggenheim Fellow. He is the author or lead editor of 7 books, including The Chinese Typewriter (winner of the Fairbank prize), Your Computer is on Fire, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China, and the forthcoming The Chinese Computer—the first comprehensive history of Chinese-language computing.
His writings have appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies, Technology & Culture, Aeon, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy, and his work has been featured in the LA Times, The Atlantic, the BBC, and in invited lectures at Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and more. He holds a PhD from Columbia University.
About the Kiang Lecture Series
The Wan-Lin Kiang Endowed Lecture Series was established in 2003 by Mrs. Assumpta Kiang in memory of her husband, Wan-Lin Kiang, a noted international scholar, political advisor and businessman. The series annually brings to campus a noted scholar on relevant topics related to China.
About the Center for Asian Studies
The center is comprised of more than 40 interdisciplinary UCI faculty members who study China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, and Southeast Asia and enhance the study of the many countries and cultures of Asia. The center provides a forum for discussions across geographic and disciplinary boundaries both on campus and within the community.