DR. JEFFREY WASSERSTROM will focus on recent events in Hong Kong, from the city’s response to COVID-19 to the imposition of a new National Security Law that was imposed on the metropolis by Beijing. It will expand on and update the arguments in the author’s most recent book, Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink, which took the story of protest and repression in the city up to October 2019. The speaker will draw on both his experiences on the ground in Hong Kong, including during a December 2019 visit that gave him a chance to watch last year’s last massive march, and his past work on social movements in Shanghai and other urban centers.

DR. JEFFREY WASSERSTROM is Chancellor Professor of History at University of California, Irvine. He also served as the editor of the Journal of Asian Studies from 2008-2018 and is the author of numerous publications including his most recent book, Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink (Columbia, 2020). He completed his Ph.D. in History at the University of California, Berkeley in 1989. His primary research interests relate to modern China with particular interest in connecting China’s past to its present and placing both into global perspective.