JIANYING ZHA TO DISCUSS CHINA’S CHALLENGES

– Special to WEKY AM 1340 –

Transformation in Modern China

Berea College welcomes the public and campus community to this week’s convocation featuring Jianying Zha, who will discuss Transformation in Modern China, focusing on China’s 20th century struggle for modernity. Using personal stories and photographs relevant to her topic, Zha will focus on new trends in China’s pop culture (media, public debates, and censorship); tensions and contradictions in current politics and society; and questions about China’s future. The convocation will take place Thursday January 26, 2017, 3:00 p.m., in Phelps-Stokes Chapel. Woods Lecture.

Zha is a journalist born in Beijing. She attended Peking University and was educated in the West, Zha writes and publishes in both English and Chinese. In 1981, Zha left China to attend the University of South Carolina, where she obtained a master’s degree in English. Zha later received a second master’s degree in comparative literature from Columbia University. In 1987, she returned to China and worked briefly for the New York Times in the Beijing office before returning to the U.S. She is a published author of two nonfiction books in English, Tide Players and China Pop, and five books of fiction and nonfiction in Chinese. The book Tide Players first appeared in The New Yorker as a series of essays and in 2011 The Economist named Tide Players as one of the best books of that year.

The convocation events, which areprovided to both the campus and public communities, are a significant part of a student’s educational experience at Berea College. Visit https://www.berea.edu/convocations/ for the schedule of all convocations this academic year. All convocations are free and open to the public.