2026 Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Student Conference in Modern Chinese Humanities

The application for the 2026 Graduate Student Conference in Modern Chinese Humanities is OPEN. Interested students from all institutions within the U.S. and abroad must complete the online application form below, which contains a description of the paper topic and its significance (up to 250 words) and a short bio (up to 100 words including current institutional affiliation). Please note that proposals should address primary sources and current scholarship related to their paper topic. Applicants are welcome to present papers associated with ongoing or projected dissertation research, but the papers need not be generated by thesis work. 

You can learn more about the purpose of this conference, and to see past conference programs on the main conference page.

Proposals/bios Due: November 7, 2025, 11:59 pm PT
Date of Acceptance Notification: Early January, 2026
Final Paper Submission Deadline (if accepted): Friday, March 27, 2026, 11:59 PM PT
Conference Date: April 10 -11, 2026

Please address all inquiries regarding logistics to Ms. Xiaojie Ma, Center for Chinese Studies, UC Berkeley (ccs [at] berkeley.edu). For technical issues with the application submission form, contact John Groschwitz (jgroschwitz [at] stanford.edu (jgroschwitz[at]stanford[dot]edu)). The conference schedule will be posted in early winter 2026.

Apply for the 2026 conference

Keynote Speaker:

Ying Qian, East Languages and Cultures, Columbia University

Alumni Keynote:

Julia Keblinska, Film & Screen Studies, University of Cambridge

Organizing Committee:

Weihong Bao, Associate Professor, Film and Media & East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Ziwei Chen, Graduate Student, Film and Media Studies, UC Berkeley
Andrew Jones, Louis B. Agassiz Professor of Chinese, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, U.C. Berkeley
Haiyan Lee, Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures & Comparative Literature, Stanford
Ban Wang, Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford
Shuwen Yang, Graduate Student, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford
Mayshu (Meixu) Zhan, Graduate Student, Modern Thought and Literature
Tianyue Zhang, Graduate Student, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley