The Seventh Annual American Studies Network Conference

The United States in Crisis: Financial or Cultural?

November 5-7, 2010, Wuxi, China

The Opening Keynote Panel, on the theme of The US in Crisis? included Frank Lavin, Chairman of Asia Pacific Public Affairs for Edelman; Wu Xinbo, Professor and Deputy Director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University; Bob Kapp, former president of the US-China Business Council, and was chaired by Beijing Foreign Studies University Professor Mei Renyi.

This year’s ASN conference had four significant breakthroughs:

• The participation of international American Studies scholars, including representatives from South Korea and Vietnam;
• The participation of a Taiwanese delegation;
• The participation and presentations of more than twenty graduate students in a paper competition (see below to download the winning papers); and
• A keynote panel on religion, which featured two Chinese and two American scholars of religion in the US. The panel was chaired by Liu Peng, Senior Fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and one of China’s most well-known scholars of American religion. Presenters included Laura Wexler, a scholar of American Studies, Photography, and Gender at Yale University; Diane Obenchain, who taught in China for more than ten years and is a scholar of Religion at Calvin College; and Tu Yichao, a young scholar at Fudan University who recently completed two years of study at Georgetown University and the Yale Divinity School.

Another highlight of the conference was US Department of State Special Advisor Carola McGiffert‘s presentation on the “100,000 Strong” Initiative and USCET’s announcement of the first four schools to be receiving grants under the new USCET Student Leaders Exchange Program, which is the first program to be launched under the initiative. USCET will be providing funds for travel grants to students from the University of North Alabama, the University of Arkansas, San Francisco State University, and Boston University who study abroad in China.  The “100,000 Strong” Initiative is a national effort designed to increase dramatically the number, and diversify the composition, of American students studying in China. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially launched the initiative in May 2010 in Beijing. The Initiative relies fully on private-sector philanthropic support to direct funds to existing U.S.-China educational exchange programs that are seeking to expand their programs.

USCET congratulates Zeng Liwen and Zhao Gengcheng of Beijing Foreign Studies University and Hu Wenhan of the Luoyang PLA University of Foreign Languages, the winners of the 2010 Graduate Paper Presentation Competition.  Please download PDFs of their winning papers below:

USCET thanks The Henry Luce Foundation and the Ford Foundation for their support of this conference.

第七届美国研究联络会会议

“危机中的美国：金融还是文化”

2010年11月5-7日，无锡

江南大学

 开幕演讲的主题是“危机中的美国”。演讲嘉宾国包括Edelman亚太事务主席Frank Lavin、复旦大学美国研究中心副主任吴心伯、中美贸易委员会前主席Bob Kapp以及北京外国语大学梅仁毅教授。

今年的ASN会议会有四个重大突破：

1. 国际美国问题研究学者的加入，包括来自韩国和越南的代表

2. 台湾代表团的加入

3. 超过20名研究生参与到论文比赛并进行论文演示

4. 关于宗教的主题研讨会，分别有两名来自中国和两名来自美国的宗教学者共同探讨。研讨会由中国社科院高级研究员、中国知名美国宗教研究专家刘澎主持。演讲者包括耶鲁大学美国研究，摄影和性别学者Laura Wexler、Calvin College宗教学者，在中国教课超过10年的Diane Obenchain以及来自复旦大学，曾在两年内在乔治城大学和耶鲁神学院完成学业的年轻学者涂怡超。

会议的另外一个亮点是美国国务院特别顾问Carola McGiffert的演讲“十万人”计划和USCET宣布第一批-四所学校将接受USCET学生领袖交流计划的资助，这是“十万人”计划下的第一个项目。USCET将为在中国留学的北阿拉巴马大学、阿肯色大学、旧金山州立大学和波士顿大学的学生提供旅费补助。“十万人”留学计划是一项全国性的项目，旨在大幅增加在华美国留学生的数量，并构成其多样性。美国国务卿希拉里克林顿2010年5月在北京正式启动了这个计划。该计划将完全依靠私人部门的慈善支持，将资金直接投入现有的正在需求扩展的中美教育交流项目。

USCET恭喜北京外国语大学的Zeng Liwen同学和Zhao Gengcheng同学以及洛阳解放军外国语学院的Hu Wenhan同学获得2010年研究生论文竞赛的冠军。