News and Announcements
Professor Mae Ngai gave a lecture on The Chinese Question at History Books, a program for NYC public school teachers, sponsored by the NYC Dept. of Education Social Studies Dept and its Asian American- Pacific Islander curriculum program, on Dec 12, 2022, at Immigrant Social Services in Chinatown.
An essay with the above-mentioned title was published this month as:
Chapter 13 for the Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights, Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas eds,, Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, Hoboken N.J., pp. 195-209, 2023; also available online as of November 2022, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/9781119753926.ch13.
Summary: A human rights approach to language means that we focus on the people, on the language community, and their dignity. Practices of the past, but even of today, make clear that the eradication of Indigenous languages is not a ‘natural phenomenon’, but mostly a result of systemic discrimination. This chapter approaches linguistic human rights from an international law point of view, specifically, two aspects: (a) linguistic human rights as part of the broader category of cultural human rights; and (b) how the lens of time impacts on LHRs and what international law has to say about the issues that arise. The human rights approach and the concept of continuing violations of human rights undergird this essay.
Excerpt from the article:
“Two ‘grand masters’ of Asian American Studies have produced provocative recent books. Mae Ngai’s The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics (W.W. Norton) takes the well-known story of Chinese gold miners in 19th-century California and expands it to incorporate global movements of people and capital from California to Cape Town. Ngai’s inclusion of the voices of Chinese gold miners is groundbreaking.”
Read the full article here.
Catherine Fennell’s current project about public housing in the Midwest has received a faculty grant from the Office of the Provost. Her work examines how the social and material legacies of 20th-century urbanism shape the politics of social difference, collective obligation, and utopian imagination in the contemporary U.S. In this article on Columbia News, Fennell discusses her work along with how she came to be an urban anthropologist, and advice for anyone contemplating the same path.
Professor Mae Ngai is featured in the PBS Series The Bigger Picture (with Vincent Brown) on Alfred Stieglitz’s 1907 photo, “The Steerage.”
Professor Mae Ngai spoke in conversation with poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong at Rutgers-Newark, “Responding to Anti-Asian Hate: Politics, Organizing, and Education” on September 28th, 2022 and delivered the Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture at Boston University on September 29, 2022.
“The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics,” a book written by Professor Mae Ngai, is on Cundhill’s 2022 shortlist.
The Chinese Question chronicles how a feverish alchemy of race and money brought Chinese to the West and reshaped the nineteenth-century world ― from Europe’s subjugation of China to the rise of the international gold standard and the invention of racist, anti-Chinese stereotypes that linger to this day.
Read more here
Professor Mae Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies, Professor of History, and Co-Director of CSER, was quoted on China Initiative’s new article “After the China Initiative: Seeking Accountability.” She said the China Initiative was a “despicable and blatant case of racial profiling by the Trump DOJ, intended to inflame anti-China sentiment, both protectionist and nativist.”
Read more here
CeMeCA supports a series of applied research projects that tackle some of the region’s most pressing challenges, including state violence within and across borders, corruption, and forced migration, its consequences, and its criminalization.
Read more here
MA student Ashley Wells has been selected for the Campbell Award, given by the alumni association to students who have demonstrated exceptional leadership on campus.
Jennifer Lee elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the Class III “Social and Behavioral Sciences” Section 6 “Sociology, Demography, and Geography”
CSER’s Professor Frances Negron-Muntaner recently published with Public Books. In this piece, she considers Steven Spielberg’s attempt to infuse “authentic” Puerto Rican culture into his 2021 reboot of West Side Story.
In honor of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, Columbia News reached out to five faculty members to find out why Columbia needs to center its research and curricula on AAPI issues, why representation in an institution like Columbia matters, and how our whole society benefits from understanding the Asian American Pacific Islander experience.
Marie Myung-Ok Lee wrote an article for Oprah Daily, celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a selection of ten books.
The Mapping Historical NewYork Digital atlas has won two prizes from the annual competition of the the Cartographic and Geographic Information Society of the Smithsonian institution: best in digital/ interactive map and tied for Best in Show. Winners include Project faculty Gergely Baics (Barnard), Rebecca Kobrin and Mae Ngai (History), Laura Kurgan and Leah Meisterlin (GSAPP), project staff Wright Kennedy and Dan Miller, and Stamen Design.
CSER’s Co-Director Mae Ngai’s Wins Bancroft Prize – considered one of the most prestigious in the field of American history. Her book “The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics,” published by W.W. Norton, was praised by the jury as “an extraordinary book” that “brilliantly shows us how much of the white Anglo-American world came to view the Chinese as a racially unassimilable and threatening people.
The Bancroft, which includes an award of $10,000, was established in 1948 by the trustees of Columbia University, with a bequest from the historian Frederic Bancroft. Books are evaluated for “the scope, significance, depth of research, and richness of interpretation.”
Mae Ngai’s The Chinese Question is a finalist for the LA Times book award in History. Ngai also gave virtual book talks at the Chinese American Museum on Feb. 17 and at Stanford University on Feb. 23, and the annual Neil Gotanda Lecture at Berkeley Law on Feb. 24.
