Professor Shih-Diing Liu, Senior Research Fellow at the IAS and recipient of the 2023 IAS Excellence Publication Scheme, has been selected as a Visiting Research Scholar by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.
During his time at Harvard, Professor Liu will be working on a book project that focuses on the intersection of Affect and Gender, building on research insights from his IAS-sponsored book, Affective Spaces: The Cultural Politics of Emotion in China (2024, Edinburgh University Press, co-authored with Wei Shi). The book introduces the concept of “affective spaces” to explore how emotion shapes contemporary Chinese society and public culture.
At Harvard, Professor Liu will continue to explore the role of emotions in Chinese gender culture. He finds that although gender roles are often laden with emotional expectations, the emotional dimensions of gender have been largely overlooked in gender studies. Current scholarly discussions often miss the emotionality inherent in gender dynamics. Professor Liu’s research aims to address this gap by examining how emotions provide new ways to understand Chinese gender and society. His study will analyze how gender is constructed and performed in popular culture and new media environments. By drawing on the concept of emotion, the research will outline the affective turn within Chinese gender culture, focusing on representations and practices mediated by popular culture and social media. Arguing that gender increasingly constitutes an “archive of feelings,” this research demonstrates that Chinese gender culture is not merely characterized by passivity and homogenization but is instead a contested terrain where conflicting desires and aspirations are expressed.
Additionally, Professor Liu will undertake another book project at Harvard on the emotional dynamics of AI.
The photos were taken during Professor Liu’s presentation at the Harvard-Yenching Institute in May 2024.