REGISTER for Zoom: https://www.humanities.uci.edu/events/mandarin-hegemony-and-its-discontents-history-chinese-nationalism-through-lens-dialects 

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Comments by:

Angelina Chin, Pomona College
Katherine Chu, Cal State Dominguez Hills
Jerry Won Lee, UC Irvine

About the talk:
Mandarin, the national language of the PRC and Taiwan, is often taken to be the sole "Chinese language," representative of Chinese national and ethnic identity. But with dozens, if not hundreds, of other Chinese languages spoken in China and outside of it, how did Mandarin become so hegemonic? This talk will discuss how Mandarin became not only the national language, but the only language representative of Chinese identity within and outside of China, while also considering the simultaneous pushback by speakers of other Chinese languages against it.

About the speaker:
Gina Anne Tam is an associate professor of modern Chinese history at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She is the author of Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860-1960, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. Her new research considers the role of women and gender in the history of grassroots protests in Hong Kong. She is currently a Public Intellectual Fellow through the National Council on US-China Relations.