Hopkins-Nanjing Center Blog

Student blogger Amanda Walencewicz introduces some of the student groups active this semester in Nanjing.             Students have the opportunity to enrich their experience at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center (HNC) through extra-curricular interest groups, which range from the creative to the athletic to the thought-provoking. Here’s an introduction to just a few of this year’s groups. Philosophy Interest Group: Led by American Co-director Adam Webb and Professor Thomas Simon, the Philosophy Interest Group meets every Sunday evening to discuss engaging and sometimes controversial topics. Promoting the free exchange of ideas between students of different cultures, the group benefits from the freedom of academic expression that defines the HNC. So far, this year’s topics have included political violence, the sexual revolution, nationalism, and quarter-life crises. Moot Court Teams: The HNC fields four moot court teams—Jessup...

Amanda Walencewicz, Certificate '20, had an opportunity to speak with Professor Yang Liu, who teaches film at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center. This interview was conducted in Chinese and is presented here in translation.  First, can you introduce the course that you teach at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center? I teach the course “ Film, Society, and Culture in Contemporary China.” To explain it simply, using Chinese films from the 1990s and beyond as an object of study and a medium , we can observe Chinese society’s cultural issues, economic issues, and historical issues, including the development of consumer society, the trend of globalization and modernization, gender studies, research of popular culture, and many other issues. Besides that, we also focus on the contents of the Chinese films themselves, such as cinematic a esthetics, specific shooting styles, and the film industry. My hope is that through the course, students will better realize the interactions between film and s...

Cady Deck, Certificate ‘19 + Johns Hopkins SAIS MA ’20 shares her experience adjusting to the coursework at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.  Attending any graduate school involves adjusting to a learning curve, but the coursework at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center (HNC) presents a unique challenge. Before attending the HNC, I had never read a 20 page article in Chinese. It sounded daunting. Chinese coursework in undergrad and study abroad programs focused on reading short articles to understand every word and sentence structure. HNC classes are content-based rather than grammar or vocabulary-based. They require analytical skills and a broader understanding of concepts and their applicability to other related topics.  The first thing I had to do when I started reading was to let go of the idea that I would understand 100% of every article. Comprehending the general concepts of each article is more important than memorizing every new word. In the first couple of weeks, I read ar...