Date and Time: Wednesday 25 June 2025, 5:30–7:00 pm
Location: Auditorium, Australian Centre on China in the World Building ,
ANU College of Asia & the Pacific
The Australian National University
188 Fellows Lane
Acton, ACT, 2600 Australia
In the nearly 75 years that the People’s Republic of China has been in existence, the field of contemporary China studies in the United States has developed and evolved through six distinguishable ‘generations’ of scholarship. The evolving social science scholarly analyses of contemporary China have paralleled the changes in the PRC itself over time, but they have also reflected paradigmatic changes in scholarly disciplines in the United States. Other stimuli which have also impacted the field include domestic politics in America and shifts in US-China relations. This CIW Annual Lecture traces the evolution of the field and it concludes that while the field is generally very healthy, diverse, and enjoys great breadth and depth of knowledge, it faces significant new challenges for source material and research in Xi Jinping’s China.
Speaker: Professor David Shambaugh
