Scholarly Colloquia and Events

  • 10/3 Remembering Tiananmen Square Protests 25 Years On

    Jeffrey Wasserstrom (UC Irvine) and Chaohua Wang (Independent Scholar)

    Friday, October 3, 2PM

    HBL Class of 1947 Room

     

    Who remembers the iconic image of the lone man standing defiantly in front of army tanks in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989?

     

    In the 25 years since the demonstrations and movement for reforms, initiated by students and supported by many workers and even some government officials, the memory of this important moment seem to recede against the more prominent coverage of China’s meteoric material prosperity and economic growth. Social unrest at grassroots levels aimed at protesting the pollution of the environment and political corruption continues, in spite of the regime’s clear unease with challenges to its power.

    On Friday, October 3 at 2PM, in the Class of 1947 Room of the Homer Babbidge Library, the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is co-sponsoring Remembering Tiananmen with Jeffrey Wasserstrom of the University of California-Irvine, Department of History and Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies, and Chaohua Wang who is an Independent Scholar and a student activist at the time. This panel takes as a starting point the 20th anniversary of what most know as the Tiananmen Square Protests (or ’89 Democracy Movement) to consider the legacies of the movement and its aftermath.

    This event is free and open to the public. It is also one of a slate of events offered as a prequel to the New England Association for Asian Studies Conference on Saturday, October 4, 2014 co-hosted by AAASI and several departments and the Office of Global Affairs at the University of Connecticut-Storrs Campus. Additional Friday, October 3 events include Film Screenings in the Homer Babbidge Library’s Video Theater 2: 10AM / Gate of Heavenly Peace, directed by Richard Gordon and Carma Hinton; and 7PM / Chinatopia, directed by Evans Chan.

    For more information, contact: Ms. Fe Delos-Santos at fe.delos-santos@uconn.edu