Prof. Zhang Yu’s Invited Talks on Media/Technology Studies in U Chicago, Stanford, and Other Universities Across China
Research & Scholarly Activities
On October 9 2025, Prof. Yu Zhang from the Department of Chinese History and Culture was invited by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago to deliver a talk. A week later, she presented the same talk at the East Asian Humanities Workshop at Stanford University. The talk, titled Early Telephone, Efficiency, and Economism: A Wired New Urban Life by the Shanghai Telephone Company in the 1930s, explored the cultural and technological dimensions of telecommunication in modern China.
Prof. Zhang began by introducing her ongoing book project, tentatively titled Wiring the Hearts: A Sentimental Media History of the Telephone in China. This interdisciplinary work draws on cultural studies, the history of sentiments, and media/technology studies to construct a media history of the telephone in China, focusing on what she terms ‘telephonic sentiments.’ By examining the intersection of technology and human emotion, the project offers a fresh perspective on the cultural and social implications of telecommunication in modern Chinese history.
The second part of the talk examined the Shanghai Telephone Company’s automated telephone advertising campaign launched in 1931. Prof. Zhang discussed how corporate and public discourse at the time mythologised the telephone as a symbol of efficiency, convenient sociability, sentimental immediacy, and economic rationality.
Both events were well attended and sparked engaging discussions, reflecting strong interest in the historical and cultural dimensions of media and technology in East Asia.
Moreover, on 6 November, Prof. Zhang was invited by the Department of Creative Arts, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Hong Kong Metropolitan University to deliver a lecture (in Chinese) ‘The Initial Encounter between Electronic Media and Literature: Telephone Confessions in the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies Novellas.’ On 22 December, she delivered another invited lecture (in Chinese) for the School of Ethnology and Sociology, Guangxi Minzu University, entitled The Cult of Craftsmanship in Contemporary China: The Aesthetics of the Hand, ‘Craftsmanship’ as Method, and Documentary Representations.
