News​​

Announcements

Oct 6 2022
15:47

IZO Annual Report 2021/22

Our annual bilingual report for the academic year 2021/22 has just been published and is freely available for download.

The difficult situation at the time of the pandemic has not prevented the IZO from continuing research and activities - albeit virtually - and the Center can look back on an eventful year. The following pages will give you an insight into the activities of the center under the difficult conditions of the pandemic.

In the course of 2021-22, the first steps have been taken at IZO towards a hopefully 'post-pandemic' future. Teaching is largely face-to-face again, and events organized by IZO have gradually been transferred back into the 'real' world.

A first high point, as early as October, was a discussion of experts with the economist Barry Naughton on the present state of the Chinese economy. This event, which took place under the auspices of the guest professorship funded by the Deutsche Bank Stiftung in the summer of 2021, was held at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften in Bad Homburg. It was complemented by a meeting organized by the Early Career Researchers Network in which junior academics had an opportunity to speak to Professor Naughton and exchange their views on the future of Chinese and Asian Studies and on their own career perspectives.

Another major event in the year under review was the lecture on 'The Moral Duties of Art' with Yang Lian, the Chinese writer in exile and first laureate of the newly established IZO Fellowship (see below the poem he wrote in Frankfurt), and the writer Yan Geling. With an audience of 160 and the subsequent broadcasting of the video recording, this event reached an audience well beyond the boundaries of Frankfurt.

On the administrative level we have completely revised the IZO website, giving it a more modern appearance. It is now more up to date and highlights our research activities. Also, IZO has begun to significantly expand the sponsorship available to young researchers. We are pleased to announce that, in addition to the existing individual sponsorships, the newly created ECR Fund will offer up to 10.000 Euro per year to subsidise the independently organised activities of young researchers. This will also help to raise the profile of the University in the area of East Asia Studies.

In April 2022 another evaluation of IZO took place, the third since its inception. It is not yet known what the results and consequences will be. IZO continues to be committed to the study of the history of East Asia. In these turbulent times it also offers frameworks of reference and orientation in present-day East Asia. The most recent instance was a notable panel discussion in July of this year on Chinese-Russian relations in the context of the war in Ukraine.