With Dr. John Israel (Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia)
How to figure out what is going on in China? There is no substitute for reading official documents, following public media, getting to know individual Chinese, and following informed scholarship, analysis and commentary. However, any visitor equipped with some knowledge of the language or accompanied by a helpful local friend can learn quite a bit simply by walking down the street with eyes open.
Propaganda posters, a political art form inspired by the Soviet Union, enjoyed their halcyon age in China from 1949 through the 1980s. They loomed above streets and public squares, festooned bookstores, and decorated homes, offices, and commercial establishments.
In recent years, at least in some parts of China, streetside political art has seen a renaissance. John Israel’s richly illustrated presentation focuses upon Kunming, a city where he has lived for periods of time over the course of nearly four decades.
About the speaker:
John Israel, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1955) and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard (1957, 1963). His scholarly writing has focused upon students and higher education in 20th century China. His magnum opus is Lianda: A Chinese University in War and Revolution (1998). He has traveled, lived, and studied in Taiwan (1959-1962, 1985-1986) and the People’s Republic of China (since 1978).
After retiring from the UVa faculty in 2003, Professor Emeritus Israel taught American history to Chinese students at the Yunnan Nationalities University and Chinese history to American students through the Duke in China program in Kunming. On the 2010 spring voyage, he helped to launch Semester at Sea’s Tung program in Sino-US relations. He and Professor Tao Xie teamed up for the Tung program in spring 2013. His commentaries on contemporary China have been broadcast through the Voice of America’s Mandarin Language Service. A veteran of the anti-Vietnam-war movement, he has periodically conducted colloquia and seminars on Vietnamese history and the Vietnam War.
