Unpacking the Global City Formation Process in Philadelphia and Shanghai: A Comparison of Least-Similar Cases

Richardson Dilworth, PhD

This work examines why some cities have globalized over the past few decades and others have not. In their comparison of Philadelphia and Shanghai, Dr. Dilworth (with Jerome Hobos, PhD)  investigates two cities not usually thought of as comparable in order to illustrate contrasting trajectories of what others have called “global city formation.” They are concerned not with arguing that Shanghai and Philadelphia are similar, but rather with the opposite contention: by using them as contrasting cases, they hope to illuminate the factors that promote successful claims to “global city” status. Philadelphia is the negative case – a city that has not become more like a global city over the past several decades – while Shanghai is the positive case. Substantively, then, the argument presented concerns how Shanghai mobilized resources to make a push toward re-globalizing since 1979, and Philadelphia did not.

The Gansu Survey of Children and Families

Jennifer Adams, PhD

Since 1998, Adams is a co-investigator on the Gansu Survey of Children and Families. The GSCF is a longitudinal, multi-level study of rural children's welfare outcomes, including education, health, and psycho-social development. The first wave (July 2000) included data on 2,000 children in 20 rural counties Follow-up waves were conducted in 2004, 2007, and 2009.  Project researchers are preparing for a fifth wave of data collection in 2015. Adams’ book-in-progress (with Emily Hannum) tells the story of this group of 2000 children growing up at the beginning of the 21st century in 100 villages in Gansu Province, located in China's poor interior region.  The book illuminates the complex ways that poverty shapes children's day-to-day lives and, ultimately, their trajectories as they transition to adulthood.

She shared some of this story during her February 2014 presentation, "Growing Up Poor: The Multifaceted Reach of Poverty into Youth's Lives and Schooling in Rural Northwest China" at the Global International Education Colloquium. (To view the presentation and discussion: (http://drexel.edu/soe/event-series/gec/2013-2014%20Events/).

The GSCF data are in process of being archived with ESRC and at ICPSR.  Please check the ICPSR website for details on availability.

Online Uyghur Social Activism and State Control on the Internet

Rebecca Clothey, PhD

Clothey is currently the principal investigator (with Emmanuel Koku) on a Drexel University Social Science Research Committee funded project exploring Uyghur use of online social media as a vehicle for social activism and cultural transmission. This research is an extension of Clothey’s on-going work related to Uyghur “Community Cultural Wealth” and community-based schools in Xinjiang, where most Uyghurs reside. 

See Clothey, R. (2014). “Community Cultural Wealth: Uyghurs, Social Networks, and Education” Drexel University Global Education Colloquium. http://drexel.edu/soe/event-series/gec/event-april/]. 

The imperial luohans of Zhongdu and the reassertion of Chan (Zen) Buddhist influence in north China

Derek Gilman, PhD

Gillman presented this paper from his recent research at the Oriental Ceramic Society meeting, held at Christie’s London, November 3rd, 2013. Painted and sculpted sets of sixteen or five hundred luohans appeared at the end of the Tang (618-906), becoming widespread during the Chinese renaissance when they are associated principally but not exclusively with the Chan and Tiantai schools of Buddhism.  In the northern half of China such sets were affiliated mostly with Chan.  An exceptional set of over-life-size luohans - nine of which survive in complete or fragmentary form - has stimulated debate for a century now about its original context.  Thermoluminescence signatures of the Boston, Penn and younger Metropolitan figures indicate a firing range of between 1000 and 1400 C.E.  A critical technical point concerns the pink lips on several heads, which give us a terminus post quem for the set: on each of these, the clear glaze used for the faces has run down over the upper lip and fired on top of a pale iron-red glaze, the latter being notably difficult to control when thinly applied.  This work argues that the liuli-glazed luohans were created for the Daqingshou temple from the same gleaming tilework that embellished the imperial city.  Their subtly life-like presence would have strongly emphasized the reassertion of Chan Buddhist influence in north China, supported at the highest level of the Jin state.