I first came to the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in 2008, after a few years of teaching at Harvard. I was originally expecting that I would stay a year or two as an opportunity to reconnect with China. I found the potential and unique environment very appealing, however, and have now been based here for over a decade.
Based on your perspective as a faculty member for over ten years, what sets the Hopkins-Nanjing Center apart from other institutions?
The bilingual character is obviously one of its unusual strengths, as well as the opportunity it gives for open discussion about many important issues involving today’s China and its relation with the rest of the world. Despite the vicissitudes of the last three decades, it remains a unique institution and represents the best of what happens when Chinese and international students and faculty can interact in a shared and dynamic space.
What current research are you working on? How has living and teaching at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center impacted your research?
Most of the last few years I was teaching mainly one semester each year, and away the rest of the time, so the perspective I gained from moving between China and other parts of the world was stimulating. I suppose one way I differ from most previous American Co-Directors is that I have never considered myself a China specialist as such, even though my interests have included China. I have done quite a lot of work on globalization and political theory, for example. My main project at the moment is finishing up my fourth book, on future global constitutional arrangements suited to preserving liberty and pluralism in a cosmopolitan world order.
What has been the most rewarding moment in your time at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center? The biggest challenge?
Some of the special fora we have had over the years on burning issues of the day have been so lively, with such wide ranges of viewpoint, that it makes one realize just how special the Hopkins-Nanjing Center is. As far as challenges, teaching social theory in both Chinese and English in a bilingual class undoubtedly stretches the mind the first time one does it, but it is an experience that I could not imagine having anywhere else.
One of the courses you’ve taught at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, Politics of Rural Development, has included an annual field trip to the Chinese countryside, and recently more Hopkins-Nanjing Center courses have included fieldwork. What benefits do students gain from going outside the classroom?
Even in a community of less than two hundred people, it can be quite easy to get into a bubble. The trips off campus, especially when they involve mixed Chinese and international students, remind us all that there is a vast and complex Chinese society out there worth engaging firsthand. Whether in villages or courtrooms or power plants or border areas, China is probably more accessible to international students now than it has been for a very long time. It has also been a great opportunity for many Chinese students. Chinese universities tend to put less emphasis on experiential learning, and with urbanization and prosperity, a surprising number of Chinese students have often felt quite distant from what happens on the ground in other areas and layers of society.
What’s your favorite place in Nanjing?
One of my regular habits in the city is going for hotpot about once a week. Outside the city, some of my most memorable experiences over the last ten years have been drives along country roads.
Do you have any advice you would like to share with incoming students?
Academically, I think that whatever one’s level of Chinese, the first few weeks often prove challenging when dealing with the volume of reading material, the accents and pace of some professors, and writing essays in another language. Nearly everyone tells me by November or December they have noticed huge progress, however. Socially, each cohort is different, but making a real effort to build circles of informal interaction across the two halves of the program goes a long way to setting the tone for the year.
What do you hope to accomplish as the American Co-Director? What are you looking forward to in your new role?
I have become very familiar with how the Hopkins-Nanjing Center works over the last few years, so while there are some adjustments, I think I have the advantage of being able to get up to speed quickly. We have been working within the model that originated when the Hopkins-Nanjing Center was founded in 1986, which gives us a solid foundation, and there is much that we do very well. At the same time, the world and our environment have changed. What it means to understand China and America and the relationship of both to the rest of the world is quite different now from three decades ago. China is much less isolated, and has a huge footprint in places like Africa, for example. Globalization is also breaking down many barriers, so interacting in a common space does not mean simply engaging in dialogue between fundamentally different people in their own compartmentalized societies. There is also an expanding and promising universe of students and scholars out there, both in China and around the world, who I am sure will have new reasons to want to come to the Hopkins-Nanjing Center as we move forward in our next decades. I look forward to engaging with them and engaging with diverse themes of excellence that the Hopkins-Nanjing Center is uniquely situated to cultivate as a point of contact between Anglophone and Sinophone academe.