Shanghai city panorama

Shanghai at Dusk, 2019

Image courtesy of Harrison Hochman

Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Student Conference in Modern Chinese Humanities

The application for the 2023 Modern Chinese Humanities Conference is OPEN. Please click on the link below for application instructions. 

2024 application instructions

Initiated in 2010, the annual Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Student Conference in Modern Chinese Humanities brings together current graduate students from across the U.S. and around the world to present innovative research on any aspect of modern Chinese cultural production in the humanistic disciplines.

The conference provides a window into current research in Chinese studies, and serves as a platform for fostering interaction among budding scholars of geographically disparate institutions, facilitating their exchange of ideas and interests. Specifically, the organizing committee hopes that this conference will encourage interdisciplinary scholarship within and between literary and cultural studies, cultural history, art history, film and media studies, musicology and sound studies, as well as the interpretative social sciences.

Applications are due in the fall of each year for the conference taking place the following spring. Currently-enrolled graduate students at any institution are encouraged to apply. Accepted presenters will generally not be allowed to present a second time at subsequent conferences.  Papers will be selected by a joint faculty-student committee of China specialists at the two institutions. Local faculty and graduate students will serve as discussants for the selected papers. Applicants are encouraged to present papers associated with ongoing or projected dissertation research.

Conference registration is free. Presenters will be provided with shared lodging, Friday dinner, and Saturday lunch. Partial travel assistance available for students who cannot find other funding.

Each year the conference also features a keynote address from a prominent Chinese studies scholar and alumni scholar, chosen by the student organizing committee.

The 2024 Conference Program will be posted after final selections.

Past Student Organizers

  • 2023--Maciej Kurzynski, Ting Zheng (Stanford); Kelly Fan, Mason Hinsdale (U.C. Berkeley)
  • 2022--Jiahe Mei, Matteo Riccardi (U.C. Berkeley); Aaron Gilkison, Juliet Tempest (Stanford)
  • 2019--David Hazard, Maciej Kurzynski (Stanford); Yvonne Lin, Wan-ting Wang (U.C. Berkeley)
  • 2018--Annie Malcolm, Xiaoyu Xia (U.C. Berkeley); Melissa Hosek, Shan Huang (Stanford)
  • 2017--Mei Li Inouye, Jessica Chen (Stanford); Keru Cai, Jianqing Chen (U.C. Berkeley)
  • 2016--Xiangjun Feng, Linda Zhang (U.C. Berkeley); Gina Tam, Eunyeong Kim (Stanford)
  • 2015--Hangping Xu, Koji Hirata (Stanford); Caleb Ford, Laurence Coderre (U.C. Berkeley)
  • 2014--Julia Keblinska, Larissa Pitts (U.C. Berkeley); Eldon Pei, Renren Yang (Stanford)
  • 2013--Christine Ho, Yvon Wang (Stanford); Lawrence Zi-qiao Yang, Paulina Hartono (U.C. Berkeley)
  • 2012--Peiting Li, Evelyn Shih (U.C. Berkeley); Lauren Eidel Parker, Anna Pawlowski (Stanford)
  • 2011--Fang Xie, Chenshu Zhou (Stanford); Laurence Coderre, Menghsin Cindy Horng (U.C. Berkeley)
  • 2010--Jeannette Ng, Liu Xiao (U.C. Berkeley); Adrian Thieret, Zhang Yu (Stanford)