Breaking Bad-Style Crimes in China

/in , ,

Both the American TV series “Breaking Bad” and the real Chinese criminal case of Zhengbo Zhang feature a key scenario: professionals using their chemistry expertise to manufacture and sell controlled psychotropic substances. This presentation explores four critical issues:

1. Should controlled psychotropic medications automatically be classified the same as illegal drugs?

2. How should we legally classify the abuse of new psychotropic substances that aren’t yet on controlled substance lists?

3. When it comes to new drug precursors, how do we address criminals who evade regulations by slightly modifying the chemical structure of controlled substances to create unregulated substances?

4. How can we address the clinical needs of Chinese patients who require access to foreign-approved medications containing controlled psychotropic substances?

Ostasien Aktuell – Bridging Worlds: How Civil Society Moves India & China Forward

/in , ,

The talk will introduce the vibrant civil society in India and China by looking on their individual achievements and challenges. Ms Rentke will illustrate her analysis with real-live examples from grassroot initiatives in areas like community development, climate change and social inclusion and give insights about her working experience in India and China. Thus, the public talk will provide opportunities for students to learn about possible career paths, depending on the specific disciplinary backgrounds, too. Everyone is welcome!

Ostasien Aktuell – Between Brussels, Washington and Beijing: Italy’s China policy in a changing international landscape

/in , ,

n March 2019, during Xi Jinping’s visit to Rome, Italy joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by signing an ad-hoc Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China. Less than five years later, in December 2023, the current Italian government announced the termination of the MoU, thus bringing the country out of the BRI. This decision did not mark a major discontinuity in Italy’s China policy, though, as Rome continued to invest on its relationship with Beijing. Most notably, this was demonstrated in 2024, when Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella visited China few months one after the other. What explains the apparently contradictory trajectory of Italy’s China policy? What are the constraints posed on subsequent Italian governments by a changing international landscape? And, more specifically, how is Rome coping with the growing USChina rivalry and with an increasingly tense EU-China relationship?

Sinophone Filmmaking: 现成品 (ReadyMade, 2009) , 78 mins.

/in ,

Mao Zedong died in 1976, but his impersonators are alive and well. This film documents the lives of two people who resemble Mao and assume Mao roles. Peng Tian is a villager from Mao’s home province of Hunan who walks into the Beijing Film Academy one day in full Mao dress to study film acting. Chen Yan is a housewife from Sichuan province, whose mother realized she looked like Mao. The documentary was directed by Zhang Bingjian.

Lifeworlds on two sides of the Taiwan Straits—Cinematic narratives 

In a cooperation between the Taiwan Studies Program, the Worldmaking Project and the Center for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS), we are offering a series of films this semester from Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China, depicting complex and conflicted sinophone realities and illustrating different ways of worldmaking, as

—prescribed in the form of “main melodies” by the powers that be, on one side of the Taiwan Straits: we unravel grandiose political narratives of revolution and revival, between dystopia and utopia.  

—described as reflections of the everyday, on the other side of the Taiwan Straits: we are given glimpses of “cotidian lives” among the petty, the poor, the marginalized, uncovering their function as heterotopia.  

As these films depict multiple “worlds within worlds”, from the point of view of those above, those below and those in between—from gangster boss, to ardent believer, from the young boy playing truant, to an old housewife, dressed to kill, they draw our attention to different types of subjectivities, vulnerabilities, desires and aspirations as effects of  everchanging biopolitics in the sinophone world. 

Film Schedule

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman is a comedy-drama directed by Ang Lee 李安. The film uses food as a metaphor for family, tradition, and change, capturing unspoken tensions between generations.

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Directed by  Huang Jianxin et. al., this film shows how China, marked by political disunity embarks on a new rode lead by a handful of individuals, including Mao Zedong, Li Dazhao and Zhou Enlai, who, following the 1911 Revolution, envision a unified nation, and found a Party.

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Directed by Hsiao Ya-Chuan蕭雅全 and produced by  Hou Hsiao-hsien侯孝賢, this award-winning film is a family drama about an 11-year-old boy who befriends his landlord and learns from him how to survive in a rapidly changing world (and many things his own poor father would never be able to teach him).

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Another retelling of founding a party, directed by Huang Jianxin whose aim it is here, to depict the spiritual world of Chinese Communists in the founding days of the party, their aspirations and their passions.

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Cape No. 7  is a romantic comedy-drama directed by Wei Te-Sheng  魏德聖 and explores cross-cultural connections and life in a small town. Upon its 2008 release, the film became a cultural phenomenon, breaking domestic box-office records and sparking renewed interest in local cinema. 

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Directed by Hsu Hsiao-ming 徐小明 and produced by Hou Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢 the film is a landmark Taiwanese gangster film, it captures the restlessness of youth against the backdrop of Taiwan’s rapid modernization and the growing divide between rural and urban life.

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Chairman Buddha is a documentary directed by Tang Louyi. It follows those who believe that Mao Zedong has been reincarnated as a Buddha.

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Mao Zedong died in 1976, but his impersonators are alive and well. This film documents the lives of two people who resemble Mao and assume Mao roles. Peng Tian is a villager from Mao’s home province of Hunan who walks into the Beijing Film Academy one day in full Mao dress to study film acting. Chen Yan is a housewife from Sichuan province, whose mother realized she looked like Mao. The documentary was directed by Zhang Bingjian.

SINOPHONE FILMMAKING 2025/26: Utopia—Dystopia—Heterotopia

/in ,

Lifeworlds on two sides of the Taiwan Straits—Cinematic narratives 

In a cooperation between the Taiwan Studies Program, the Worldmaking Project and the Center for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS), we are offering a series of films this semester from Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China, depicting complex and conflicted sinophone realities and illustrating different ways of worldmaking, as

—prescribed in the form of “main melodies” by the powers that be, on one side of the Taiwan Straits: we unravel grandiose political narratives of revolution and revival, between dystopia and utopia.  

—described as reflections of the everyday, on the other side of the Taiwan Straits: we are given glimpses of “cotidian lives” among the petty, the poor, the marginalized, uncovering their function as heterotopia.  

As these films depict multiple “worlds within worlds”, from the point of view of those above, those below and those in between—from gangster boss, to ardent believer, from the young boy playing truant, to an old housewife, dressed to kill, they draw our attention to different types of subjectivities, vulnerabilities, desires and aspirations as effects of  everchanging biopolitics in the sinophone world. 

Film Schedule

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman is a comedy-drama directed by Ang Lee 李安. The film uses food as a metaphor for family, tradition, and change, capturing unspoken tensions between generations.

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Directed by  Huang Jianxin et. al., this film shows how China, marked by political disunity embarks on a new rode lead by a handful of individuals, including Mao Zedong, Li Dazhao and Zhou Enlai, who, following the 1911 Revolution, envision a unified nation, and found a Party.

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Directed by Hsiao Ya-Chuan蕭雅全 and produced by  Hou Hsiao-hsien侯孝賢, this award-winning film is a family drama about an 11-year-old boy who befriends his landlord and learns from him how to survive in a rapidly changing world (and many things his own poor father would never be able to teach him).

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Another retelling of founding a party, directed by Huang Jianxin whose aim it is here, to depict the spiritual world of Chinese Communists in the founding days of the party, their aspirations and their passions.

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Cape No. 7  is a romantic comedy-drama directed by Wei Te-Sheng  魏德聖 and explores cross-cultural connections and life in a small town. Upon its 2008 release, the film became a cultural phenomenon, breaking domestic box-office records and sparking renewed interest in local cinema. 

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Directed by Hsu Hsiao-ming 徐小明 and produced by Hou Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢 the film is a landmark Taiwanese gangster film, it captures the restlessness of youth against the backdrop of Taiwan’s rapid modernization and the growing divide between rural and urban life.

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Chairman Buddha is a documentary directed by Tang Louyi. It follows those who believe that Mao Zedong has been reincarnated as a Buddha.

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Mao Zedong died in 1976, but his impersonators are alive and well. This film documents the lives of two people who resemble Mao and assume Mao roles. Peng Tian is a villager from Mao’s home province of Hunan who walks into the Beijing Film Academy one day in full Mao dress to study film acting. Chen Yan is a housewife from Sichuan province, whose mother realized she looked like Mao. The documentary was directed by Zhang Bingjian.

Sinophone Filmmaking: Chairman Buddha (2016)

/in ,

Chairman Buddha is a documentary directed by Tang Louyi. It follows those who believe that Mao Zedong has been reincarnated as a Buddha.

Lifeworlds on two sides of the Taiwan Straits—Cinematic narratives 

In a cooperation between the Taiwan Studies Program, the Worldmaking Project and the Center for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS), we are offering a series of films this semester from Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China, depicting complex and conflicted sinophone realities and illustrating different ways of worldmaking, as

—prescribed in the form of “main melodies” by the powers that be, on one side of the Taiwan Straits: we unravel grandiose political narratives of revolution and revival, between dystopia and utopia.  

—described as reflections of the everyday, on the other side of the Taiwan Straits: we are given glimpses of “cotidian lives” among the petty, the poor, the marginalized, uncovering their function as heterotopia.  

As these films depict multiple “worlds within worlds”, from the point of view of those above, those below and those in between—from gangster boss, to ardent believer, from the young boy playing truant, to an old housewife, dressed to kill, they draw our attention to different types of subjectivities, vulnerabilities, desires and aspirations as effects of  everchanging biopolitics in the sinophone world. 

Film Schedule

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman is a comedy-drama directed by Ang Lee 李安. The film uses food as a metaphor for family, tradition, and change, capturing unspoken tensions between generations.

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Directed by  Huang Jianxin et. al., this film shows how China, marked by political disunity embarks on a new rode lead by a handful of individuals, including Mao Zedong, Li Dazhao and Zhou Enlai, who, following the 1911 Revolution, envision a unified nation, and found a Party.

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Directed by Hsiao Ya-Chuan蕭雅全 and produced by  Hou Hsiao-hsien侯孝賢, this award-winning film is a family drama about an 11-year-old boy who befriends his landlord and learns from him how to survive in a rapidly changing world (and many things his own poor father would never be able to teach him).

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Another retelling of founding a party, directed by Huang Jianxin whose aim it is here, to depict the spiritual world of Chinese Communists in the founding days of the party, their aspirations and their passions.

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Cape No. 7  is a romantic comedy-drama directed by Wei Te-Sheng  魏德聖 and explores cross-cultural connections and life in a small town. Upon its 2008 release, the film became a cultural phenomenon, breaking domestic box-office records and sparking renewed interest in local cinema. 

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Directed by Hsu Hsiao-ming 徐小明 and produced by Hou Hsiao-hsien 侯孝賢 the film is a landmark Taiwanese gangster film, it captures the restlessness of youth against the backdrop of Taiwan’s rapid modernization and the growing divide between rural and urban life.

Venue: CATS Auditorium 

Chairman Buddha is a documentary directed by Tang Louyi. It follows those who believe that Mao Zedong has been reincarnated as a Buddha.

Venue: CATS Auditorium

Mao Zedong died in 1976, but his impersonators are alive and well. This film documents the lives of two people who resemble Mao and assume Mao roles. Peng Tian is a villager from Mao’s home province of Hunan who walks into the Beijing Film Academy one day in full Mao dress to study film acting. Chen Yan is a housewife from Sichuan province, whose mother realized she looked like Mao. The documentary was directed by Zhang Bingjian.