Humanities Center at Wayne State University awarded the CHCI-CCKF 2019 Summer Institute Grant
The Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (CCKF) collaborated to support an annual summer institute on the topic of "Chinese Studies and Global Humanities." More than simply a traditional conference, the summer institutes are opportunities to foster unique collective projects, international collaboration, and interdisciplinary work centered on humanistic approaches to scholarship. This year, the CHCI-CCKF committee selected a proposal by Prof. Haiyong Liu and the Wayne State University's Humanities Center on the theme of "space in two cities" that captures the opportunities the Summer Institutes grant seeks to support.
At the heart of their proposal is an exploration of the similarities between Shenyang and Detroit as they moved from being cities with vibrant industrial production into periods of demographic and economic decline only to experience resurgence in the 21st century. Through the examination of the dialogues and activities related to space in Shenyang and Detroit, the institute will explore how spaces have and can be named, recreated, abandoned, revived, or repurposed to meet changing national and global trends.
The two-week long institute will feature paper presentations by scholars from around the world, film and documentary screenings, and multiple dialogues via Skype between Detroit and Shenyang residents. More information will be provided as it becomes available.
These summer institutes are a collaboration between the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. The collaboration was initially funded with a $105,000 grant from the CCKF and $45,000 from CHCI for three summer institutes beginning in 2016. The renewed collaboration, funded with a US$105,000 grant from the CCKF and US$45,000 from the CHCI, will support one Summer Institute each year for three years beginning in 2019. Thus, US$50,000 total ($35,000 from CCKF and $15,000 from CHCI) is available to support each of the three Summer Institutes.
The previous three-year cycle featured the 2018 Summer Institute on the theme of "Chinese Migratory Realities" awarded to the Kule Institute for Advanced Study and the Calgary Institute, the 2017 Summer Institute “Grasping Water: Rivers and Human Systems in China, Africa, and North America,” awarded to the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota (documented in the journal Open Water), and the 2016 Summer Institute “China in a Global World War Two,” awarded to the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH) at Cambridge University (and documented on their website).