On the afternoon of April 27, 2023, the Institute for International and Area Studies (IIAS) of Tsinghua University hosted the second lecture of the “Knowledge Production in Global Area Studies” lecture series. Themed “Discipline a Discipline: A Practitioner’s Perspective on Area Studies and Knowledge Production in China,” the lecture was delivered by Zhang Xin, Associate Research Fellow at the School of Politics and International Relations, East China Normal University. Present at the lecture were IIAS faculty members and doctoral students, and scholars and students from Northwest University, China University of Political Science, Zhejiang University, etc.
From a practitioner’s perspective, the lecturer looked at the push to make “area studies” an independent discipline in China and include it in the framework of the national knowledge system, and examined how to embed it in China’s political and economic system and endow it with the characteristics of “area studies.” As such, he took a close look at the construction of the discipline of area studies and knowledge production in China. He also expounded on how China told its stories to the world in area studies, the national knowledge system and knowledge production, and shared his views on the development of the discipline and the goals of talent development.
During the Q&A session, the lecturer gave detailed answers to a number of questions raised by the online audience, such as the knowledge production characteristics and organizational models of area studies organizations in China and the impact of area development on foreign language disciplines.
Zhang Xin is Associate Research Fellow of the School of Politics and International Relations and Deputy Director of the Center for Russian Studies, East China Normal University. He holds a PhD in political science from University of California, Los Angeles, and previously worked at Reed College and Fudan University. His research interests span political economy, political sociology, geopolitics and Russian and Eurasian studies. His recent publications include “ ‘Big Triangle’ No More? Role expectation and Mutual Reassurance Between China and Russia in the Shifting US-China-Russia Relations” (forthcoming in Asian Perspective), “The Russia-Ukraine War as Conflict Between Empires” (Beijing Culture Review, 2022) and “Theorizing China-World Integration: Sociospatial Reconfigurations and the Modern Silk Roads” (Review of International Political Economy, 2022). He is on the editorial board of Russian Studies, a council member of the Chinese Association for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies and an anonymous reviewer of Cambridge Journal of International Affairs, Geopolitics, Foreign Policy Analysis, etc. In 2023, he worked as a resident research fellow at the Academy of International Affairs NRW in Germany.
Text editor: Wang Qin
Proofreader: Eurasian studies group
Typography editor: Cheng Yao
