Xinjiang: Pivot of Asia
Professor Michael Dillon (Professor of History and Affiliate of the Lau China Institute, King's College London), Dr Ildikó Bellér-Hann (Associate Professor, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen) and Tim Clissold (Senior Research Associate, China Centre Jesus College, and author of three books on China, including Mr China) will speak about Xinjiang: Pivot of Asia. Their lectures will be followed by a question and answer session.
Professor Michael Dillon is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society and a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and the Mongolia Society. He was founding Director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Durham. He was a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2009. Between 1988 and 2010 he carried out field research in Xinjiang and other Muslim regions of northwest China on many occasions, both independently and in conjunction with regional branches of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Additional academic visits included Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Taiwan. His most recent publications on Xinjiang include Xinjiang in the Twenty-first Century: Islam, Ethnicity and Resistance, Routledge, 2018 and ‘Religion, repression and traditional Uyghur culture in southern Xinjiang: Kashgar and Khotan’ Central Asian Affairs 2 (2015) 246-263. He is currently preparing a study of religion in Xinjiang for Routledge. For a list of Professor Dillon's recent publications and current projects see here.
Dr Ildikó Bellér-Hann is Associate Professor of Central Asian / Turkish Studies at the University of Copenhagen. After studying Turkish, Archaeology, and English at the Lórand Eötvös University in Budapest, she received her PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK (in Turkish) and her habilitation degree from the Humboldt University, Berlin (in Central Asian Studies). She has held positions at Newnham College, Cambridge, the University of Kent at Canterbury and the Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany. Her main interests span the histories and societies, historical anthropology, social support networks, kinship, and oral and literate traditions of the Turkic-speaking peoples of Xinjiang, Turkey, and Central Asia. For a full list of Dr Bellér-Hann's publications see here.
Tim Clissold graduated in Physics and Theoretical Physics from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1982. He has lived and worked in China for nearly thirty years and published three books on Chinese business, society, history and classical poetry. He is fluent in written and spoken Chinese and has travelled extensively into remote regions of China, including multiple trips to Xinjiang beginning in 1988. His most recent book, Cloud Chamber, will be published this year by the Commercial Press of China, China’s oldest publisher. For many years, he has specialised in cross cultural dispute resolution, developing and implementing practical solutions to intractable conflicts that have occurred between Western and Chinese organisations. For details of Tim Clissold's books see here.
This is one of the lectures in the on-going China Centre Seminar series, hosted by the China Centre, Jesus College. The lectures, given by eminent speakers, cover a broad range of topics and disciplines.
Booking
This is a virtual seminar. Attendance is free. Advance booking is required by emailing: china-centre@jesus.cam.ac.uk. Priority will be given to members of Jesus College and the University of Cambridge.
