Friday, March 8th, 2019 |  12:00 - 1:30 p.m. | GPS 3106 (Ground level conference room)

Railroads and the Transformation of China: Moving People, Goods, and Ideas

Presenter: Elisabeth Köll, William Payden Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Notre Dame

Abstract: Based on her new book, Elisabeth Köll discusses the development of railroads as business and administrative institutions in China from the late nineteenth century to the reform period of the post-Mao years. Exploring the role of railroads as institutions with social, economic, cultural, and political functions, her talk addresses questions of how and to what extent railroads affected China’s development throughout the twentieth century, and conversely, how this trajectory left an imprint on the railroad itself as a bureaucratic and economic system. Taking the continuing bureaucratic presence and economic significance of the railroad system in contemporary China as point of departure, Köll's historical analysis traces the origins of the system over time and identifies historical continuities and disruptions.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674368170

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CRW provides a forum for the presentation of original research by China scholars from around the country in social science and humanities, sponsored by the Fudan-UC Center on Contemporary China. To view archive and upcoming workshops list, visit: http://fudan-uc.ucsd.edu/events/workshops.html