WHAT: “Historian James Carter on Champions Day in Shanghai and other Ends of Eras,” in conversation with Jeremiah Jenne, followed by Q&A — a RASBJ online event

WHEN: November 24, Wednesday, 7:00-8:00 PM Beijing Time (online)

HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT: This online event is free and exclusively for members of RASBJ and RAS branches.  If you know someone who wants to join the RASBJ to attend this talk, please ask them to sign up at https://rasbj.org/membership/ at least 48 hours before the event. All members have been sent an invitation to signup for this event.

MORE ABOUT THE EVENT: What does it feel like to be living at the end of an era? How do we know if we have stayed somewhere just a little too long? On November 12, 1941, Shanghai gathered at the famous Shanghai Race Club to watch the best horses and the most celebrated jockeys in China compete in the Champions Day Races. Chinese and foreign racing fans placed bets and cheered the winners. Elsewhere in the city, a different crowd was celebrating a new city center, built as a Chinese challenge to the foreign domination of the city. In the midst of all of the activity, thousands of mourners attended the funeral of Liza Hardoon, one of the wealthiest women in Asia and one of the last connections to the days when Shanghai was just emerging as a global center of trade. Looming over it all was the calendar, ticking down to the entry of the United States into World War II and a dramatic escalation of the conflict which had engulfed China for nearly six years. In his book Champions Day, published just last year, James Carter, Professor of History at St. Joseph’s University, captured the excitement and the uncertainty of an era ending. Professor Carter joins moderator Jeremiah Jenne and the RASBJ for a conversation about the last days of Old Shanghai and the ends of eras, old and new.  

MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER:  James Carter is Professor of History at Saint Joseph’s University and a Fellow of the National Committee on US-China Relations. He is the author of Creating a Chinese Harbin: Nationalism in a Chinese City, 1916-1932 (Cornell University Press, 2002); Heart of the Buddha, Heart of China: The Life of Tanxu, a Twentieth-Century Monk (Oxford University Press, 2014) and most recently, Champions Day: The End of Old Shanghai (W.W. Norton, 2020). Professor Carter also writes a weekly column for Sup China focusing on significant events in Chinese history.

MORE ABOUT THE MODERATOR: Jeremiah is a writer and historian based in Beijing since 2002. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, and taught Late Imperial and Modern Chinese History for over 15 years. Jeremiah is the proprietor of Beijing by Foot, which organizes historic walking tours of Beijing’s most famous sites and less-traveled byways. Along with David Moser, Jeremiah is also the co-host of the podcast Barbarians at the Gate.