Speaker Biographies

Saturday Politics Panel:
“Politics and Society in China”

Dr. Lei Guang
Associate Professor of Political Science, San Diego State University and Writer of “Guerrilla Workfare: Migrant Renovators, State Power and Informal Work in Urban China” (Confirmed)

Lei Guang is currently an Associate Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University. Dr. Guang’s interests in teaching and research include Chinese politics, peasant studies, international political economy, and development politics. He is the author of “Guerrilla Workfare: Migrant Renovators, State Power and Informal Work in Urban China,” an article exploring the perspective of Chinese rural migrants on work and their relations with each other and the Chinese Government in the 1990s. Dr. Guang was born in Tongcheng, Anhui. He majored in English and American Studies in his undergraduate and post-graduate studies in China. In 1995, he studied at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1999 and became a post doctoral fellow with the Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University from 2002 to 2003. In a recent article, Dr. Guang writes that “close contact and interaction between peasants and urban residents has not led to a dissolution of the rural-urban divide, but to its reconstitution as separate economic and cultural formations within city limits.” While growing up in China, Dr. Guang enjoyed small fame among his friends for his skill in ping pong and badminton. He currently resides in San Diego, California.

Professor Cheng Li
William R. Kenan Professor of Government and Chair of Asian Studies at Hamilton College, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution (Confirmed)

Cheng Li is currently the William R. Kenan Professor of Government and Chair of Asian Studies at Hamilton College. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Dr. Li teaches many courses concerning China’s current political, cultural, and social situations, including “Politics in China,” “China’s Cultural Revolution,” and “US-China Relations.” He was born and raised in Shanghai. Dr. Li was primarily self-educated during Mao Ze Dong’s Cultural Revolution. He later received his M.A. in Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in Political Science at Princeton University. Dr. Li is the author of several highly-acclaimed books on China’s current changing landscape, including China’s Leaders: The New Generation and Rediscovering China: Dynamics and Dilemmas of Reform (1997), which follows his experiences in interviewing political and business leaders as well as people from everyday walks of life. Dr. Li’s work has appeared in many publications including The China Quarterly, World Politics, The China Journal, and Critical Asian Studies. He is the recipient of several research grants from institutions including the Freeman Foundation, the Peter Lewis Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He also holds a number of prominent positions in U.S.-China relations including as a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and a member of the Academic Advisory Group of the Congressional U.S.-China Working Group. Professor Li resides in New York.

Dr. Wang Ping
Associate Professor of English at Macalester College and Author of Award-Winning Books Including Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China (Confirmed)

Wang Ping is currently an Associate Professor of English at Macalester College. Dr. Wang was born in Shanghai and grew up on a small island on the East China Sea. After spending three years farming in a mountain village, she overcame China’s grueling university entrance examinations and tested into Beijing University, one of China’s top universities. She went on to earn her B.A. in English Literature at Beijing University (1984), her M.A. in English Literature at Long Island University (1987), and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at New York University (1994 and 1999). Dr. Wang’s major publications include Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China and Foreign Devil. Of Flesh and Spirit was a 2001 Minnesota Book Award finalist and winner of the University of Colorado’s Eugene M. Kayden Book Award for “the best book in the humanities published by an American university press.” The Magic Whip was a 2004 finalist for the Minnesota Book Award and received an honorable mention for the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award. In her books, she is known for her insightful analysis of Chinese culture, particularly relating to women in Chinese society. She has been the winner of numerous awards including grants from institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Dr. Wang lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Moderator
Professor Dali Yang
Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago (Confirmed)

Dali Yang is currently a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His teaching and research interests include China’s political institutions and political economy. Dr. Yang graduated with an engineering degree from the University of Science and Technology in Beijing, and subsequently received his Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University with a specialization in international relations and comparative politics. He joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1993. He is a member of several professional associations including the American Political Science Association, the Association for Asian Studies, the University of Chicago Committee on International Relations (of which he is a former director), the National Committee on U.S.-China relations, the China Telecom Group (advisory board), and the China Roundtable of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (co-chair). He is part of the editorial board of a number of journals, including Asian Perspective, Journal of Contemporary China, and World Politics. Dr. Yang is also the author of many books and scholarly articles. Among his book titles are Remaking the Chinese Leviathan: Market Transition and the Politics of Governance in China, Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Famine, and Beyond Beijing: Liberalization and the Regions in China. In an article titled “Economic Transformation and its Political Discontents in China: Authoritarianism, Unequal Growth, and the Dilemmas of Political Development, ” Dr. Yang discusses the social and political implications of economic expansion in China. He writes that there are “consequences of China’s rapid growth, which include rising income inequality and growing social cleavages. Such inequality and the sharpening of social cleavages and class conflicts have major implications for China’s governance and political development.” Dr. Yang currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.