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Upcoming Series

 

 

Postgraduate and Early Career Workshop Series

Autumn Term 2025

 

Encountering Modernity in Literature

 

Session 1: Literary Translation of Modernity [28 October 2025]

Between the Shiren and the Playwright: Misrepresenting Shakespeare in the Formation of Modern Chinese Drama

Anthony Zhang, Durham University

Observing Modernity: Sir Syed Ahmed’s Urdu Travel Writing as Method

Abdul Sabur Kidwai, King’s College London

 

Session 2: Modernity, Post-Coloniality, and Mythical Narratives [4 November 2025]

Global Modernity Through the Smokey Mirror: Survivals and Metamorphosis of A Trickster God

Alonzo Loza Baltazar, IIEstéticas/UNAM, Mexico

When Ulysses Meets Nedjma: A Dialogue Across Modernities

Omar Harem, Maghnia University Centre, Algeria

 

Session 3: Rediscovering Identity in the Modern World [18 November 2025]

‘Her Long Blanks and Darknesses of Abstraction Were Polish’, or: Where Are the Poles in Modernism?

Juliette Bretan, University of Cambridge

Reenchanting modernity: Love, Sufism, and Secularity

Çiğdem Buğdaycı, Boğaziçi University, Turkey

All sessions will be held online via Microsoft Teams at 14:00-15:30 UK time, and all are welcome to attend. Please email ccm@durham.ac.uk to request the link and the abstracts of the presentations. 
We will also be sending out our latest news and upcoming events through our mailing list. To join our mailing list, please sign up here: sign up for our mailing list

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Past Series

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Modernities in a Global Context Workshop Autumn Term Card

The Centre for Comparative Modernities is delighted to announce the term card for its 2024/25 Autumn term workshop series. Please note all sessions will be online on Zoom at 14:00 UK time. For access to the Zoom link please email ccm@durham.ac.uk.
Session 1: Technological and Ideological Modernities [15 October 2024]
Counting In, Counting Out: Practical and Ideological Considerations in the 1865 Census of Shanghai Foreign Settlements
Qingrou Zhao, University of Edinburgh
Technical Modernity and Future Figurations in Nineteenth-Century Colombia
Daniel Hernández Quiñones, Catholic University of Eichstätt (Germany)
Session 2: Ethnoreligious and Gender Modernities [29 October 2024]
Minoritarian Modernisms, Ethnic Abjections: Rum Theatre in 20th Century Istanbul
Christina Banalopoulou, University of Milan
Modernities, Gender, and Material Culture Through the Lens of Homemaking Practices Among Mobile Working Men in Northern India
Devika Bahadur, De Montford University
Session 3: Constructing Modernities [12 November 2024]
Surrealism from Paris to Shanghai 
Lauren Walden, Birmingham City University
Darwinism and Artificial Selection: Understanding Ecological Modernity of Post Darwinian era
Priyanka Guha Roy, Kazi Nazrul University (India)

 

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2023/24 Academic Year

Modernities in a Global Context Workshop Spring Term Card

All sessions will be at 1:00pm UK time online. For access to the Zoom link please email ccm@durham.ac.uk.

Session 1: Philosophical Modernities                                                             13 February 2024

Modernity as Secularized Gnosticism: Eric Voegelin’s Diagnosis of the Spiritual Decline of the West and Its Contemporary Reception

Fryderyk Kwiatkowski, University of Groningen

The Solitary Turn: Pathologies of Enlightened Modernity

Ingrid Schreiber, University of Oxford

 

Session 2: Media & Modernities                                                                     27 February 2024

Capturing the 'Grand Old Man of China': Revisiting Li Hung Chang’s Image through Photography and Early Films

Yixuan Li, New York University

Transformative Dramas and the Emergence of Secular Spaces in Kerala’s Cultural Sphere

Gowri Devi, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal

 

Session 3: Nations & Modernities                                                                      26 March 2024

The Draft History of Qing (清史稿 Qingshigao) - A Hybrid of Dynastic and ‘Modern’ History Writings

Yu Jiarui, Durham University

Analysing the Ancient Indian Nation-State: Parallels with the Modern Westphalian Model in the 21st Century

Aditi Basu, Independent Researcher

Modernization in the Southern Cone: National Identity Myths and Developmentalism in Argentina 1958-1962

Fernando Alejandro Remache-Vinueza, University of Bremen

 

 

Session 4: Transformational Modernities                                                           9 April 2024

The Sexuality of Modernity: A Case Study from Colonial Punjab

Nikita Arora, University of Oxford

Children of Modernity: Pre-modern and Modern Childhoods in Late Twentieth Century Kerala

Glincy Piyus, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal

 

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Announcing the first workshop in our Modernities in a Global Context Autumn Term Workshop Series

Please note all sessions will be online on Zoom at 13:00. 

 

Session 1: Morality & Modernities                                                  7 November 2023 (online)

The State of Contemporary Chinese Moral Education: The Search for a Pre-modern National Identity

Edwin Hao Chen Jiang, PhD Cambridge University

Abstract: Taking heed of anthropologist Bjorn Thomassen’s warning that the canonical conception of modernity that originated in post-Enlightenment Europe was never about the delineation of a singular historical trajectory, I defend in this paper a Weberian conception of modernity by demonstrating its utility in conceptualising contemporary moral and political education initiatives within the People’s Republic of China. Drawing on ethnographic observations of such educational initiatives in a Chinese high school, I argue that the Chinese Communist Party is actively promoting a Chinese identity amongst the youth that is characteristically pre-modern, in the sense that it is “found” and not “made.” While other primordialist or essentialist conceptions of identity in different ethnographic context —ones based on “blood,” “soil,” or even “cultural logics”—might seem to share this pre-modern direction of normative fit, I argue what is unique in the Chinese case today is its complete lack of a singular defining characteristic of Chineseness. By focussing on the “why” and “how” instead of the “what,” of “being Chinese,” I argue that although my informants did not identify and could not agree on any single putative trait that made someone Chinese, their pre-modern conception of their own natural identity was not weakened by this epistemic shortcoming in the slightest.

East Asian Interpretations of Universal Morality in Modernity

Jiannan Luo, Durham University

Abstract: Contemporary Chinese IR literature highlights the Chinese worldview that prioritises universal morality, transcending interests, rules, and cultures. This perspective draws extensively from ancient concepts, notably Tianxia. Similar commitments to universal morality is observable in other East Asian nations, exemplified by Korea's "Juchejeok IR" and Japan's Kyoto School. These arguments typically stress consensus and peaceful coexistence today, but the interpretations of universal morality exhibit variations across historical contexts. Japan's early 20th-century term "Hakkō ichiu", for instance, stirred controversy by perceiving universalism as a mandatory imposition of the state, which consequently intensified conflicts. This essay's objective is to present and compare how East Asian states interpret universal morality as an "Asian way" differently in response to encounters with the West. It contends that with the progressions of modernisation, East Asian states have shown diminishing interest in defining the uniqueness of ancient East Asian thoughts or its implications in realpolitik. Instead, they tend to regard East Asian perspectives through a lens of nostalgia, seeking philosophical narratives adapted to contemporary contexts. Meanwhile, the challenge of integrating universal morality with multilateralism remains a pressing concern.

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Modernities in a Global Context Workshop Term Card

Please note all sessions will be online on Zoom at 13:00.

 

Session 1: Morality & Modernities                                                   7 November 2023 (online)

The State of Contemporary Chinese Moral Education: The Search for a Pre-modern National Identity 

Edwin Hao Chen Jiang, PhD Cambridge University

East Asian Interpretations of Universal Morality in Modernity

Jiannan Luo, Durham University

 

Session 2: Post-War Modernities                                                    14 November 2023 (online)

Incomparable? Regionalist Post-War Modernism in Poland and Switzerland

Kaja Schelker, Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe & the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

“Su Zhong You Hao”: The Circulation of Soviet Modernity in Chinese Print Media

Huiyu Cara Zhao, Durham University

 

Session 3: Comparative Modernities                                               21 November 2023 (online)

Ritual and the Modern Art of Mourning - A Look at the Value of Mourning Rites in England and South Korea from 1830 to the Present

Dilara Scholz, Royal Holloway University of London

‘The cry is all for Prince Alfred’: The Vacant Hellenic Throne and the Election to it of Queen Victoria’s Second Son

Aidan Jones, King’s College London

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