Date and time: March 25, 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (reception to follow)

Location: MCB-102 

Presentations: 

Chinese Stand Up: The Forms of Laughter and Politics in Contemporary China

Shaoyu Tang

In this talk, I will be taking an experimental approach to introduce my thoughts and plans for the proposed dissertation project in a genre-bending way. The presentation will be based on my past four-year (2022-2026) preliminary research with Chinese mandarin-speaking stand-up comedians from the Southern China Bay area (Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai), Northeast China, and Los Angeles. With some vivid ethnographic vignettes, I will try to answer the following questions: Why study Chinese stand-up comedy, why now? What anthropological topics will this project join, and how? What broader contributions this project aspire to make to anthropology, and other related disciplines? How my “native” positionality, both as Chinese mainlander and stand-up practitioner, will be reflected and critically engaged.

Waiting for a New Heart

Joel Ferrall

Short Abstract: This presentation introduces an outline of questions into the stakes involved for patients waiting for a heart transplant. I am proposing a hospital ethnography into the experience of patients on the heart transplant waitlist. Critically ill, they are waiting for a death — either that of the donor or their own. These patients are maintained on a variety of medications and mechanical devices to support their failing heart until a new one is offered. Thus, they are confined to the hospital to wait. Life is structured in a new way within the hospital by new actors and technologies. Questions of agency and affect arise. Further, I want to work through a seemingly paradoxical temporal aspect of this waiting experience as both mundane routine and anxious proximity to death are held in tension.