Stephen Owen, as the esteemed James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, is known for his work on Chinese literature as well as for his probing and masterful comparative studies. Owen's specialty is the Tang Dynasty (618-906 A.D.), the age of the great lyric poets, Wang Wei and Du Fu. But his scholarly reach extends to all periods of Chinese literature and into other literatures as well. Owen’s interest in Chinese literature took root when he began to explore the Baltimore public library as an adolescent. "I became enamored of books of poetry and especially of Chinese poetry in translation, and I have been ever since. I wrote poetry when I was younger, but then I discovered that I was better at writing prose, particularly literary criticism," he said. Since then, Owen has also made his mark as a translator, and has been described as “the most important person in the study of Chinese literature in the West."
Peter K. Bol is a Harvard College Professor and the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. His research focuses on intellectual, social, and cultural change in China, and he led Harvard’s university-wide effort to establish support for geospatial analysis in teaching and research. In 2005 he was named the first director of the Center for Geographic Analysis. He also directs the China Historical Geographic Information Systems project, a collaboration between Harvard and Fudan University in Shanghai to create a GIS for 2000 years of Chinese history. He has lectured widely in the China, Taiwan, and Japan, as well as in the United States and has authored many books and articles on intellectual and cultural history. Bol was also named a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow, an award that recognizes tenured faculty members for distinguished accomplishment in the fields of literature, history, or art.
Zhang Jun is officially ranked as China’s national Top-class Performer. Regarded as the Prince of Kunqu Opera, Zhang plays the “Hsiao Sheng” (young-man) role in the 600-year-old Chinese Kunqu Opera, the “Mother of Chinese Operas,” which blends poetic eloquence, musical refinement, and dramatics. Zhang has acted in many leading roles in famous Kunqu plays and also played the leading role in Tan Dun’s opera Marco Polo, which was nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award. Apart from his achievements in the performing art field, Zhang also has been committed to popularizing and promoting the art of Kunqu worldwide. Reaching out to new audiences, Zhang has done many cross-over works with artists in different fields including Academy Award winner Tan Dun, Chinese-American pop singer Leehom Wang and Belgian Pianist Jean-Francois Maljean, among others. Zhang has also been appointed as the ambassador of China’s charity program Hope Project and of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Zhang published his biography I am Hsiao Sheng in the summer of 2008.
Trevor Simon is a private investor and art collector with an investment banking background. Mr. Simon has a undergraduate degree in Management and Systems Science from the City University Business School and has been invited as a Guest Lecturer to the strategy modules of the MBA courses at UOP-Wharton and NYU-Stern business schools. Since the mid 1990’s, Mr. Simon has assembled and advised on a dual collection of Chinese and American modern and contemporary art around a range of principal themes looking primarily at the relationship between art, finance, and spirituality / personal development. Evoking a deeply personal narrative, the Simon and BTC collections include works of a range of Chinese and American artists. A number of works have been gifted to European and US museums, and a separate sale program has set multiple world auction records for various artists.
Xue Xinran was a radio journalist in China before moving to London where she wrote her best-selling book The Good Women of China (2002), a collection of stories drawn from hundreds of interviews conducted during her time as a presenter on her program ‘Words on the Night Breeze’. It has now been translated into over 30 languages. She is also the author of Sky Burial; What the Chinese Don't Eat; Miss Chopsticks and China Witness: Voices From a Silent Generation, a collection of stories from the grandparents of modern China. Her new book, Message From an Unknown Chinese Mother, is a collection of heartbreaking stories from Chinese mothers who have lost or had to abandon children. In 2004 Xinran set up the charity ‘The Mothers’ Bridge of Love’ (MBL) which reaches out to Chinese children in all corners of the world by creating a bridge of understanding between China and the West and between adoptive and birth culture.
Niu Hongwei (Rose Niu) a member of the Naxi ethnic group, is the leader of a growing group of pioneers who are working to protect China's over-stressed environment. She trained as a veterinarian in Kunming, Yunnan's capital and received a Ford Foundation scholarship to study natural resource management and planning in Bangkok from 1992-1996. Her ambitious Yunnan Great Rivers Project seeks to protect one of the world’s last wild places in Southwestern China, where four of Asia's great rivers, including the Yangtze and the Mekong, pass through. She aims to protect the environment and improve the living standards for the region's people, including decreasing pollution, protecting plants and animals from extinction, and raising incomes. Through five-year plans to promoting backcountry tourism, Niu is doing her best to preserve one of China's remaining pieces of heaven.
Wang Xiaohui is an artist-photographer and has also worked as a writer and film director. Wang's photography and films have received international recognition. Her work was presented in numerous exhibitions held in international museums and galleries. Additionally she published 30 books with well-known publishers such as Fischer, Braus, and Prestel. Her autobiographical book "My Visual Diary – 15 Years in Germany", won important Chinese Book Prizes such as the "Shanghai Excellent Book Award", the National Award for Literature (Bingxin National Literature Award) and the National Female Literature Award. Since 2001 Wang lectured at Nankai University and currently she is a professor at Tongji University in Shanghai. Here in 2003 she founded the institute "Wang Xiaohui's Art Workshop" and in 2006 the "International Media Art Center". For the 2010 Shanghai World Expo she is responsible for the conception of the Chinese pavilion: the world culture museum.
Sun Yan is Professor of Political Science at City University of New York. She received her BA from Nanjing Univ., MA from Beijing School of Foreign Affairs, and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. She has written several articles on China's ethnic relations for the New York Times online, including "A Sichuan Family and Tibet's Future," "My Han Relatives' View from Xinjiang," and "Millennia of Multiethnic Contradictions." She is also the author of two professional books and many professional articles, and is completing a book on ethnic relations in China.
