Self-Promotion Saturday: Upcoming Events

There will be three China Beat contributors participating in an upcoming conference at the University of Southern California. On January 30, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Susan Brownell, and Kate Merkel-Hess will all be speaking at the USC Center for Public Diplomacy’s conference, “The 2008 Beijing Olympics: Public Diplomacy Triumph or Public Relations Spectacle?” In part, our participation at USC is an outgrowth of the things we have been writing at China Beat this year, as well as the content of our forthcoming volume, China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance.

There are a lot of China-related events in Southern California these days. As proof, the USC conference will be held on the same day as a fascinating-looking event across town, enormously relevant to the “What Should Obama be Reading” feature that we’ve been running (and makes some of us wish we could be in two places at once). Also on January 30, the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies will be holding “Two Systems, One World: US-China Relations under the Obama Administration.” (Since none of us will be able to make it, please get in touch if you are attending and would be willing to blog about the proceedings for China Beat.)

The USC conference will be the first of several opportunities we’ll have this spring to talk about and promote China in 2008. Though we’ll mention these again when they get closer, there will be a number of the volume’s contributors on hand at the annual Association for Asian Studies meeting, one co-editor (Jeff Wasserstrom) will be speaking in March in Shanghai and Hong Kong, while another co-editor (Kate Merkel-Hess) and contributor Susan Brownell will be participating in the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville. In case you forget to mark your calendars, have no fear…we’ll mention it again!