Guest Talk Recap: Becoming Digital Citizens—Disability, ICTs, and Citizenship in Contemporary China
By Violet Nguyen, Class of 2028 On April 14 2026, the CSCC and its Digital Technology and Society Cluster hosted Dr. Yuanyuan Qu, Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Minzu University of China, for a thought-provoking book talk titled Becoming Digital Citizens: Disability, ICTs, and Citizenship in Contemporary China. Drawing on extensive empirical research, […]
Patents, Secrecy, and Financing Innovation in China and beyond: Insights from Prof. Yibai Yang’s Talk
Prof. Yibai Yang from University of Macau gave a talk on Patents, Secrecy, and Financing Innovation. The talk focuses on how patent protection, financial development, and innovation interact. The paper’s central argument is that the effect of patent protection depends crucially on the level of financial development: stronger patent rights are more likely to stimulate […]
Precarious Accumulation: Prof. Nellie Chu’s book on Migrant Bosses, Fast Fashion, and the Paradoxes of Entrepreneurship in Guangzhou
By Violet Nguyen, Class of 2028 In the global imagination, “Made in China” is often linked to cheap, fast, and sometimes counterfeit goods; and to the nameless workers who make them. But what about the people in between? The small-scale entrepreneurs who are neither wage workers nor secure capitalists, who run household workshops out of […]
Our Journey from DKU Classroom to National Service-Learning Forum: Community Engagement and Civic Contribution for Sustainable Development Goals
By Jiaojiao Zhao and Weisheng Zhang, Class of 2026 | Advised by Professor Luyao Zhang We are Jiaojiao Zhao and Weisheng Zhang, both Applied Mathematics and Computer Science majors from the Class of 2026 at Duke Kunshan University. During the Chinese Spring Festival for the Year of the Horse, by the recommendation of our mentor […]
Outdoor Cycling and Bee Story Tour
Event Overview On Sunday, March 22, DKU Cycling Club organized an outdoor cycling activity titled “Outdoor Cycling and Bee Story Tour” to combine physical exercise, local environmental observation, and nature learning. This activity provided participants with an opportunity to experience the natural environment in early spring off campus in Kunshan while also engaging in discussions […]
Insights from the Interdisciplinary Forum on Computational Social Science: A Student Co-Chair’s Perspective
By Zhonghan Dai, Class of 2028, Majoring in Applied Math and Computational Science The Interdisciplinary Forum on Computational Social Science, themed on “Gender, Robots, and Global Commons: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Ethics, Equity, and Socio-Technical Futures,” convened on March 8, 2025, at Duke Kunshan University. Co-hosted by the DKU Center for the Study of Contemporary China, […]
Rethinking Civil Society in China: Insights from Prof. Mujun Zhou’s New Book
On March 19, 2026, The Center for the Study of Contemporary China hosted Dr. Mujun Zhou from Zhejiang University for the very first public presentation of her newly published monograph The Death and Life of Chinese Civil Society (University of Michigan Press). Prof. Zhou, who completed the project over nearly twelve years after beginning it […]
DKU Kunqu Festival Explores the “Spaces and Voices of Kunqu”
The third Duke Kunshan University Kunqu Festival (March 6-7th) brought together performers, scholars, students, and community participants to explore this year’s theme, “Spaces and Voices of Kunqu.” Through a program of performances, singing gatherings, and scholarly discussion, the festival examined how Kunqu’s distinctive vocal tradition takes shape across different performance environments, academic contexts, and media […]
Wu Cultural Heritage at the Margins: Intermedial Representations of Suzhou Culture
March 6, 2025 | Library East Foyer, Duke Kunshan University Reporter: Kun Peng (Class of 2026) Photos by Kun Peng, Zhiping Huang (Class of 2026), Junyi Yu (Class of 2026) and Chi Zhang (Senior Program Coordinator for CSCC). In the afternoon of March 6, the Library East Foyer at Duke Kunshan University came alive with […]
Featured Student: Mingjiang Gao
Mingjiang Gao is a student from the Class of 2026 majoring in Arts and Media (Digital Culture and Communication) and a researcher in the CSCC Faculty–Student Collaborative Project “Queer Transnational Media Flow: Exploring Queer (In)Visibilities on Chinese Digital Platforms.” Guided by Prof. Fan Liang, the project examines how foreign queer media circulates on Chinese digital […]