Applications are invited for a full-time scholarship available in the School of Languages and International Studies. The scholarship is tenable for up to 3 years for a PhD (via MPhil route) [subject to satisfactory progress] and is open to international applicants only. UK/EU applicants are not eligible to apply. The scholarship will provide £15000 towards the cost of the International tuition fee over 3 years.
With China’s leaders calling for ‘innovations to enhance the international competitiveness and influence of Chinese culture’, and the US voicing fears of losing a global information war, a competition between China and the West for economic and political authority is starting to emerge, finding expression in a contest for cultural representation.
This research initiative will aim to work within the frame of debates on Western representations of China and on China’s efforts to counter misconceptions of the negative impact of its rise, analysing these new cultural contestations in the context of the changing global power dynamics. From a broad overview of Western and Chinese cultural representations of China, as it has emerged from subordination after 1949 to rise as an international power in the world today, the research will focus especially on such representations in Western and Chinese film/TV output since the 1990s. Highlighting particular case studies, the work will explore continuities/discontinuities in Orientalist reassertion and Chinese responses.

Application Deadline: 13 May 2011

Further Scholarship Information and Application