April 2008 – China Initiative Month

Recognizing the importance of China to the economic and political future of Wisconsin and the United States, the Division of International Studies is introducing a UW-Madison China Initiative designed to promote global competence and to advance internationalization with respect to China.

To celebrate the inauguration of the Initiative we present to you a month of activities that are bringing various aspects of Chinese culture, politics and business to Madison.

April 3-6 th Wisconsin Film Festival Series

Undercurrents: Recent Films from China

For locations and tickets please visit www.wifilmfest.org

April 4th East Asian Languages and Literature Department Visiting Scholars Series

Traditional Narration and Literary treatment: Centering on the Narration on the Chinese Cultural Revolution and American Jewish consciousness novels after the Holocaust

Lixin WANG, Professor and Associate Dean of College of Literature at Nankai University, Tianjin, China

2:30-3:30pm, Location TBA

April 9th, Center for East Asian Studies Brown Bag Lecture Series

Chancellor Wiley discusses his recent trip to China

Chancellor Wiley of University of Wisconsin-Madison recently returned from an 11-day trip to China, South Korea and Japan, during which he visited Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo. As the chief executive officer of this distinguished public university in the United States, what is his vision of the future collaboration with Chinese institutions? How can UW distinguish itself from other top American universities? Recently, Ning Ma, a recent graduate from UW law school and Xing Zong, a rising fifth year Ph.D. student from Duke University took an exclusive interview with Chancellor Wiley.

Read the full story at People’s Daily Online.

UW Fulbrighter to study in China

By Karen Faster, La Follette School

La Follette School student Allison Quatrini is off to China for 14 months, thanks to a Fulbright scholarship.

The international public affairs scholar also won the Critical Language Enhancement Award, a new part of the Fulbright program to increase the number of Americans learning needed languages. It is affiliated with the National Security Language Initiative.

“My language program is in Harbin in Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China,” says Quatrini, who is from Downers Grove, Illinois. “I’ll be taking two introductory courses, one in newspaper reading and another in classical Chinese.”

“The program lets me select the topic of my one-on-one tutorial, so I’ll be learning about the contemporary applications of Confucian philosophy,” she adds.

After spending almost four months in Harbin, Quatrini will head for Beijing, where she will commence research at Peking University’s Chinese Local Government and Local Administration Research Center.

The Fulbright program administered by the Institute of International Education sends more than 1,000 students and professionals abroad every year. For the 2006-07 school year, 15 University of Wisconsin-Madison students received Fulbrights.