The Department of Languages served as a sponsor of the International Symposium on Comparative Intellectual History: Russia and China, a three-day event held in June at the Beijing Center of the University of Chicago in Beijing, China. Other sponsors included the Capital Normal University in Beijing and the University of Chicago. The conference featured plenary speakers from universities and other academic institutions across the United States and China. Jeff Love, Professor of German and Russian at Clemson, spoke at the opening and closing ceremonies and also gave a talk entitled “Alexandre Kojève and the Concept of Emptiness.” Michael Meng, Associate Professor of German History at Clemson, delivered a paper called “The Imperialism of Historie.” The University of Chicago Center in Beijing hosts regular conferences, lectures, seminars and other events on cultural topics.
