– Overview

This second annual symposium brings together undergraduates and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows researching at NYU Shanghai, whose work examines and expands the ever-changing intellectual boundaries of academic scholarship on China, Asia and the broader world. Inaugurating this two-day event, Patrick Manning (Professor Emeritus of History, University of Pittsburgh) will deliver a special keynote address on “Three Eras of Asian Migration: Pleistocene, Holocene, and Anthropocene.” The research of these young scholars represents some of the newest and most dynamic directions in the fields of anthropology, art history, history, literature and film studies.

– Keynote Address

Title: “Three Eras of Asian Migration: Pleistocene, Holocene, and Anthropocene“

Speaker: Patrick Manning | Andrew W. Mellon Professor of World History, Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh

Date & Time: Thursday, April 18, 2019  | 17:30-19:00

Venue: Room 1504, NYU Shanghai

The four sections of this 40-minute talk are to review Asian migration and identify issues for research. First, it traces early migrations, resettlement, and agriculture in the Pleistocene (plus early Holocene) era of climate instability, up to 2000 BCE. Second, it chronicles migrations in the late Holocene era of climate stability, the era of Asian empires and expansion of societies up to 1800 CE. Third, it addresses the return to climate instability in the Anthropocene (since 1800), a time of economic divergence, population growth, and urbanization. The concluding section emphasizes the varying effects of migration in five major Asian regions, to open discussion on the possibilities for relevant and feasible research projects.

* This event is co-sponsored by Global Perspectives on Society.