-----Original Message-----
From: Emma Holland, Centre for East Asian Studies [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 17 April 2009 11:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: WUN Seminars -Forthcoming

Dear All, Please see details below of 2 forthcoming seminars next week that
may be of interest to you as part of the IAS/WUN Ideas and Universities
virtual seminar series.
thanks
Emma
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday 20th April at 2pm.
Professor Rui Yang from the University of Hong Kong will give a paper on
'Enter the Dragon? China's higher education returns to the world community:
the case of the Peking University personnel reforms'.


Abstract:
Peking University has been urged to achieve world-class level in the coming
decade. The university issued a plan to reform its faculty appointment and
promotion systems in 2004. The plan received strong responses and was hotly
debated. The debate touched on the fundamental issue: successful adaptation
of the European-American education system to China has not been matched
with continuity with the traditional Chinese spirit of higher learning.
After reviewing the historical achievements of Peking University, using the
event as an indicative case, and locating Peking University's contemporary
reforms in historical and international contexts with due regard for
cultural and social issues, the chapter captures China's experience as its
higher education institutions re-enter the world community.

The seminar will begin at 2.00 pm and will be held in the new
videoconferencing venue: LGF1 on the lower ground floor of Senate House,
Tyndall Avenue, University of Bristol

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
23 April 2009 : 9am to 10.30am

LGF1, Lower Ground Floor, Senate House , University of Bristol

Marriage Migration in Contemporary China, Dr Delia Davin, University of
Leeds


This talk is about marriage migration which has been an important form of
migration for women in contemporary China, accounting for between a quarter
and a third of all female migration.

Both uneven development and greatly improved communications have
contributed to the development of marriage migration as a significant
social phenomenon in post-reform China. Women may use marriage to escape
poverty-stricken home areas and to move up through the spatial hierarchy to
more prosperous areas. In other cases their families wish to take advantage
of the higher bride price prevalent in wealthier communities. Agents make
money by effecting introductions and moving women physically, sometimes
over thousands of miles.

While doubtless these marriages sometimes offer advantages to all the
individuals involved, they may leave the bride isolated and vulnerable in
her new community if things go wrong. Like 'mail-order' marriage migration
these arrangements offer potential benefits to poor women but the risks are
high.

At a societal level, marriage migration has negative demographic
implications for poorer areas which inevitably suffer a net loss of women
as the marriage market goes national. This is particularly serious because
China's surplus of men over women in the affected age-groups is generally
high.

Professor Delia Davin is Emeritus Professor of Chinese at the University of
Leeds. She received her PhD from the University of Leeds. Professor Davin
is the author of Internal Migration in Contemporary China (Macmillan 1999),
Woman-work: Women and the Party in Revolutionary China (Oxford, Clarendon
Press 1976), Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China (New
York: Pantheon and Toronto: Irwin 1987) and Mao Zedong (Stroud: Sutton
Publishing 1997). She is Collaborating Researcher for the UNRISD Project on
Globalization, Export-Oriented Employment for Women and Social Policy. Her
areas of interest are Social and Economic Development in China, Gender
Issues, and Rural-Urban Migration in China.



thanks,

Isobel Howe

Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) Development Manager

University of Bristol

Research & Enterprise Development

Senate House

Bristol BS8 1TH

Tel: +44 (0)117 95 46966

www.bristol.ac.uk/wun

----------------------




The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.