Overview

This symposium will bring networks of cultural exchange between China, Iberia, and Latin America into focus. Through the first quarter of the twenty-first century, China’s ties to the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world have become complex and multilayered, and while much scholarship has focused on economics and geopolitics, the cultural dimensions of this relationship have only begun to attract international attention. Yet artists and writers move increasingly between Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and translators and publishers are making more and more works available to new readers. Curators, gallerists, and other cultural mediators bring artworks and performances to international audiences. Meanwhile, across Spain and Latin America, the Chinese diaspora is increasingly visible, as a generation of creators comes of age and builds new networks and archives of belonging.

This event is the first in a two-part series of conferences on cultural relations between China and the Ibero-American world. The second conference, funded by an NYU Global Opportunity Grant, is scheduled to take place at NYU Madrid in June 2026. While the Madrid event will focus on China’s place in Spain and Latin America, the opening Shanghai symposium in 2025 will focus on the Hispanic presence in China’s historical and cultural world. Scholars of the colonial Philippines and imperial Chinese and Spanish intertwinement will bring a longer perspective on the cultural legacies of this relationship in the contemporary world, while literary scholars will discuss larger theoretical issues of the global circulation of texts. Practicing translators, curators and artists will examine the recent boom in translation from Spanish—with dozens of titles last year alone— along with the rise in collaborations between Chinese museums and institutions in Spain and Latin America.

Agenda

9am Registration and Greetings

9:30–10:45 Panel: China and the Transpacific Spanish Empire

11–12:15 Panel: Hispanophone and Sinophone Literary Worlds

12:15–1pm Catered lunch for symposium participants

1–2pm Keynote: Teng Wei, “Pablo Neruda and Socialist China”

2:15–3:30pm Panel: Culture & Language in the Academy

3:45–4:45pm Roundtable: International Circuits of Art

5pm–6pm Roundtable: Hispanic Literature in Chinese

6pm Reception and Presentation: Guía de Shanghai (Instituto Cervantes)

This event is a collaboration between Humanities, World Languages, and Global China Studies, with support from the Offices of the Provost and Dean of Arts and Sciences of NYU Shanghai.

Location & Details

Room S301, NYU Shanghai New Bund Campus

567 West Yangsi Road, Pudong New District, Shanghai, China 200124

Metro: Oriental Sports Center Station, Metro Lines 6/8/11 (Exit 3)

上海市 浦东新区 杨思西路567号 东方体育中心地铁站（6/8/11号线，3号出口）

Taxi Card