学术活动发布与订制系统

Professor Emeritus Colin Mackerras AO, FAHA first visited China in 1964, teaching at Beijing Foreign Languages Institute (now Beijing Foreign Studies University) for two years, and since then has revisited China over 60 times and has taught at BFSU frequently. He began his association with Griffith University in 1974 as Foundation Professor in Modern Asian Studies. He was active in promoting Asian studies and China studies. He has published and taught widely on China, both in Australia and China itself.

He was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1999 and in the same year was given an Australia-China Council Award for ‘outstanding contributions and achievements by individuals from Australia and China’ in the area of culture in Australia-China relations. In 2003 he was awarded a Centenary Medal by the Governor-General of Australia. In June 2007 he was appointed as an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia. The citation reads: ‘For service to Asian studies and international relations; particularly in the field of Chinese society, culture and language’. In 2012 he was given an award for ‘outstanding contribution and service to the Australia-China relationship’ by Griffith University and Beijing Foreign Studies University.

His many research areas include Chinese modern history, theatre, ethnic minorities, past and present, Western images of China and Australia-China relations, and he has written widely on all of these. His many authored books include The Rise of the Peking Opera, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972;China’s Minorities: Integration and Modernization in the Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1994, China’s Minority Cultures: Identities and Integration Since 1912, Longman Australia, Melbourne, St Martin’s Press, New York, 1995, China’s Ethnic Minorities and Globalisation, Routledge Curzon, 2003; China in Transformation, 1900-1949, 2nd Edition, Pearson Education, 2008; and China in My Eyes, Western Images of the People’s Republic of China, Renmin University Press, Beijing, 2013. In addition he has edited numerous books and written many refereed journal articles and book chapters.

The talk will try to be very up-to-date, mainly the last half-decade or so. It will include a discussion of aims and some brief background material on Australia-China relations over the last couple of years. After some discussion of the source of images, such as the Internet, survey material and newspapers, the talk will take up Western and especially Australian images of China’s economic and strategic rise, as well as social and cultural changes. There will be some comment on specific events, notably the Beijing Olympic Games of 2008. The overall argument is that images have improved significantly but not nearly as much as realities might warrant; the main reason for this is that images are affected not only realities but also by politics in the West, including Australia.