Remaking Taiwan During Democratization: Society and the State
Date: 1/5 (Fri)
Time: 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Venue: Conference Room 1, South Wing, General Building, NCCU
Speaker: Prof. Thomas B. Gold(Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Executive Director of the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies (IUP), Founding Director of the Berkeley China Initiative, Chair of the Center for Chinese Studies.)
About the Speaker: Professor Gold got interested in China as an undergraduate at Oberlin College. He then received a Masters in Regional Studies-East Asia and a PhD in Sociology, both from Harvard University. While at Harvard he was among the first group of American exchange students to study in China, spending a year at Fudan University from February 1979-February 1980. He also worked part-time for many years as a Chinese language escort-interpreter for the Sate Department.
Prof Gold’s research focuses on many aspects of the societies of East Asia, primarily mainland China and Taiwan. In the largest sense, he examines the process of the emergence of the increasingly empowered and autonomous individual and a private sphere in societies which have combined traditional and modern forms of authoritarian rule. He explores this from many angles: youth and the life course; personal relations (guanxi, social capital), private business and entrepreneurship, popular culture, non-governmental organizations, and civil society.
Prof Gold is a strong advocate of public sociology and has served on the boards of many civic organizations. He sits on the boards of The National Committee on U.S.- China Relations, the Asia Society of Northern California, and East Bay College Fund. He is an adviser to Strait Talk and East-West Coalition, programs at universities in Japan and Singapore. He received the Chancellor’s Award for Civic Engagement in 2010.
