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A N N O U N C E M E N T S
processes of development and change
and what effects this can create on devel-
opment policy and practice within China
and beyond.
Topics under this broad conference
theme may include the following:
1 Exploring theoretical and methodo-
logical approaches to understanding
urban-rural relations and interactions,
as well as their policy implications for
urban-rural integration in China;
2 Historical experiences of agricultural
and rural development in China and
beyond;
3 Examining and comparing the differ-
ences and similarities of agricultural
and rural development, industrialisa-
tion and urbanisation processes, and
the dynamics of urban-rural interac-
tions in the Chinese Mainland, Tai-
wan and Hong Kong, and the rest of
the world and mutual lessons to be
learned;
4 Charting and comparing the various
aspects in respect of the complexities,
diversity and dynamics of the urban-
rural ‘divide’ or ’integration’ across
time and space in China drawing on
empirical evidence;
5 Exploring the theoretical, methodologi-
cal, empirical and policy relevance of
a risk perspective on agricultural and
rural development or urban-rural inte-
gration;
6 Globalisation and its impact on local
processes in China’s agricultural and
rural development;
7 Examining the institutional and social
contexts where urban-rural differences
have been sustained, reproduced or
reshaped in respect of resources and
their (re)distribution, rights and enti-
tlements, fiscal reforms, policies and
practice; kinship, family, marriage and
gender relations;
8 Livelihoods, rural-urban and rural-rural
migration and linkages, rural entrepre-
neurship, social capital, and social net-
works and connections in China.
When addressing the above topics,
you may wish to discuss their specific
aspects, for example, the market (of
commodities, labour, credit and finance,
property rights, ownership,), the state
(e.g. democratisation, civil society, gov-
ernance, fiscal systems), society (e.g.
poverty, inequality, social exclusion/inclu-
sion, social support mechanisms, com-
munity organisation and participation),
culture (e.g. changing values, norms and
social practices, consumerism, discourse
and power, shifting identifies), technol-
ogy (e.g. emerging forms of agriculture,
including hi-tech farming, agro-indus-
tries, agro-businesses, skills develop-
ment, scale, investment, extension and
innovation, as well as commercial inte-
gration), environment (e.g. environmen-
tal degradation and the impact on farm-
ing practices, ecologically sustainable
farming and diversified management,
organic agriculture and green products),
social risk (e.g., its social context and
public policy relevance, risk regulation
and management regimes, and percep-
tions of and responses to societal and
environmental risks), and the impact of
climate change.
“Rock-Paper-Scissors:
Dynamics of Modernity
in China”
4th International Sinology
Forum:
5-7 February 2009, Lisbon / 12-14 Febru-
ary 2009, Oporto
Call for papers
The Portuguese Institute of Sinology
is currently organising its 4th Interna-
tional Sinology Forum, to be held in
2009 from 5 to 7 February in Lisbon and
from 12 to 14 February in Oporto, on the
topic “Rock-Paper-Scissors: Dynamics
of Modernity in China”. For this pur-
pose it is inviting specialists on China,
and in particular researchers, scholars
and postgraduate students, to apply for
participation. The4th International Sinol-
ogy Forum, like in past editions, will be
following a multidisciplinary approach
and will be looking forward to congregat-
ing a wide range of analyses from a vari-
ety of perspectives. It shall be interested
especially in developing, subject to the
general focus, the following themes:
1 Modernities: historical analyses.
2 Dynamics in philosophical thought and
the idea of modern philosophy.
3 Political thought in modern China.
4 The reinvention of Chinese religions
and new religions. €
5 The institutionalisation of Traditional
Chinese Medicine (TCM), and intercul-
tural perspectives of TCM: an alterna-
tive modernity?
6 Expressions of modernity in Chinese
language and literature.
7 Dynamics of modernity in the devel-
opment of science and technology in
China.€
8 Notions of modernity in the Chinese
Diaspora.€
9 Dynamics of artistic creation: visual
modernity in China. €
10 Pragmatism and constructions of
modernity in China.
11 The new Chinese economic model and
its effects.
12 New models of internal and external
politics in the PRC.
13 Spaces of modernity and identity repre-
sentations.
The Portuguese Institute of Sinology asks
all those wishing to participate to send
an abstract of their proposed paper and
a short Curriculum Vitae of no more than
one page to ipsinologia@gmail.com by
31 May 2008. The abstracts of proposed
papers should not exceed 500 words and
will be analysed by an international com-
mittee of experts. The Portuguese Insti-
tute of Sinology will notify applicants of
its final decision by 31 July 2008. Pan-
elists will be offered a three-night stay in
Lisbon or Oporto, depending on where
they will be presenting their papers, and
some of the papers will possibly be cho-
sen for later publication in the Journal of
Chinese Studies of the Portuguese Insti-
tute of Sinology, the Revista de Estudos
Chineses
Law, land tenure and
reform in Indonesia
Seminar, book launches,
workshops, film
26-29 August 2008
Van Vollenhoven Institute
Faculty of Law, Leiden University
Leiden, Netherlands
The Van Vollenhoven Institute will organ-
ise a week of activities to highlight and
discuss the study of legal systems in
changing political contexts, and issues of
law and governance in 21st century Indo-
nesia in particular.
The first seminar, on 26 August, will
address the characteristics of the Indo-
nesian legal system and the question
whether studying Dutch law is still helpful
to Indonesian legal scholars who engage
in further developing Indonesian rule of
law.
The second seminar, on 27 August,
focuses on land rights, land conflict, and
dispute resolution. When the Suharto
regime fell in 1998 hopes were high that
democratisation and reform would bring
justice in matters concerning land ten-
ure. Researchers from the KNAW funded
INDIRA program will present a selection
of main findings of the research they
conducted in both urban and rural areas.
A key note speaker from Indonesia will
comment on these findings and reflect
on land law and justice in the second
democratic decennium.
Honouring the work of the Leiden schol-
ar Van Vollenhoven, the workshop on 28
August focuses on adat law. It revolves
around the question whether and if yes,
how the deployment of customary law in
Indonesia and other developing coun-
tries can benefit indigenous peoples. The
evening programme is a film screening
of a recent Indonesian film comedy (with
English subtitles) showing issues of land
disputes and customary law in a modern
urban setting.
On Friday 29, researchers, policy mak-
ers, and activists will discuss issues of
urban land management in the big cities
in Indonesia.
The seminars and workshops, in co-
operation with the International Institute
for Asian Studies (IIAS), will include the
launching books on law and politics in
Indonesia.
For more information and updates as well
as for registering: www.vvi.leidenuniv.nl/
and click on “events”
International Conference:
Ritual Dynamics and the
Science of Ritual
29 September - 2 October 2008
Heidelberg, Germany
Collaborative Research Center 619 high-
lights the relationship between ritual
studies and ritual dynamics and breaks
new ground in the research.
The Collaborative Research Center 619
“Dynamics of Ritual” (SFB 619) at Hei-
delberg University is holding an interna-
tional conference “Ritual Dynamics and
the Science of Ritual” from 29 September
till 2 October 2008. Experts from around
the world have been invited to Heidel-
berg to discuss their current findings and
present them to a wider audience. With
this conference, SFB 619 aims to con-
solidate and expand its interdisciplinary
approach.
As an interdisciplinary facility founded
in 2002, SFB 619 is the largest research
centre worldwide dedicated solely to the
subject of rituals, the ways they change
and their inner dynamics. The center per-
forms pure research with the aim of devel-
oping theories with cross-cultural validity,
and presenting explanatory models for
the socio-cultural significance of ritual
action, as for instance in the legitimisa-
tion of power or creation of identity, cri-
sis therapy, or the maintenance of order.
At present, nineteen projects are being
conducted by over 90 researchers from
the fields of Anthropology of South Asia,
Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern History,
Assyriology, Classical and Modern Indol-
ogy, Comparative Religion, Egyptology,
the History of East Asian Art, the History
of South Asia, Islamic Studies, Medical
Psychology, Musicology, and Theology.
SFB 619 Spokesman Axel Michaels is
Professor of Classical Indology and Man-
aging Director of the Excellence Cluster
“Asia and Europe” (www.vjc.uni-hd.de).
So alongside such interests as creating
theories with an interdisciplinary per-
spective, Asia will also constitute a major
regional focus of the conference. The
range here extends from Hindu monar-
chies of southern India from the early
Middle Ages to the Colonial era, and
from historical to contemporary China
and Japan. Asia specialists such as Johan-
nes Bronkhorst (Lausanne), Jan Heester-
man (Leiden), Hermann Kulke (Kiel),
Alexis Sanderson (Oxford), Frederick M.
Smith (Iowa), and Frits Staal (Berkeley),
together with renowned specialists from
the world of ritual research, such as Ron-
ald Grimes (Nijmegen/Ontario), Bruce
Kapferer (Bergen), and James Laidlaw
(Cambridge), have agreed to participate
in the conference.
The interdisciplinary teamwork will first
be focused on twenty-one panels lasting
in some cases several days. Around 250
experts will give brief talks in these pan-
els on their findings and put them up for
discussion. In order to underscore the
social relevance of ritual research and
heed its educational remit from the uni-
versity, the Dynamics of Ritual Collabora-
tive Research Center also wishes to com-
municate the topics of its research over
and beyond the academic framework,
particularly through its accompanying
programme.
The official period for registration began
on 15 February 2008. All those interested
can find the relevant information at www.
rituals-2008.com and sign up for the
conference newsletter. Please also note
the SFB 619 website www.ritualdynamik.
uni-hd.de.
Chinese to English literary
translation
CELTIX PROJECT
A project to develop a comprehensive
database on Chinese to English Literary
Translation (CELTIX) has been launched
by Research Centre for Translation at The
Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)
with the support of the Asia Pacific Cen-
tre. Cooperating partners include among
others the CUHK University Library Sys-
tem, the Foreign Languages Press in Bei-
jing and the Centre for Chinese Studies,
National Central Library, in Taipei.
The database will be searchable in Eng-
lish and Chinese (characters and Hanyu
Pinyin); fields include author and transla-
tor, source and translation titles, author
and translator’s dates and gender, and
bibliographical data on source and trans-
lation publication; it will cover English
translation publication world-wide of tra-
ditional, modern and contemporary Chi-
nese literature from China’s mainland,
Hong Kong and Taiwan; and access will
be free of charge.
Users will include English-speaking
teachers and students of Chinese as a
foreign language; Chinese speakers learn-
ing English; scholars in Chinese Studies,
Translation Studies and Cultural Studies;
Chinese-English translators, publishers
and scholars; and general readers of Chi-
nese literature in English translation.
Preparations are underway for a pilot to
demonstrate the project’s feasibility prior
to full-scale operation by the end of 2008.
Interested parties who would like to con-
tribute as partner institutions or individ-
uals are welcome to contact the project
coordinator, Bonnie S. McDougall, or
project manager, Audrey J. Heijns, at the
Research Centre for Translation (email:
rct@cuhk.edu.hk).
http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg
Books from
INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES
30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Pasir Panjang, Singapore 119614
Tel: 65 6870 2447 Fax: 65 6775 6259 E-mail: pubsunit@iseas.edu.sg
Religious DiveRsity in singapoRe
Lai Ah Eng, editor
978-981-230-753-8
Soft cover US$49.90
978-981-230-754-5
Hard cover US$69.90
voices of islam in southeast asia
a contemporary sourcebook
Greg Fealy and Virginia Hooker, eds.
978-981-230-367-7
Soft cover US$32.90
978-981-230-368-4
Hard cover US$54.90
inDonesian muslim intelligentsia
anD poweR
Yudi Latif
978-981-230-471-1
Soft cover US$49.90
978-981-230-472-8
Hard cover US$69.90
inDonesian syaRiah
Defining a national school of
islamic law
M Barry Hooker
978-981-230-801-6
Soft cover US$21.90
978-981-230-802-3
Hard cover US$39.90
shaRi’a anD constitutional
RefoRm in inDonesia
Nadirsyah Hosen
978-981-230-399-8
Soft cover US$24.90
978-981-230-402-5
Hard cover US$34.90
[ a d v e r t i s e m e n t ]