The Legal Infrastructure for Physical Artificial Intelligence in China
2026-03-09 13:00 - 14:30 (America/New_York)
This talk offers a comprehensive account of how law serves as a critical layer of infrastructure supporting China's development of physical AI—systems embedded in and operating in the physical world. The discussion expands on Angela Huyue Zhang's paper, The Sixth Layer: The Legal Infrastructure for Physical Artificial Intelligence in China. Zhang is currently conducting research on the regulation of artificial intelligence.
Read her recently published article The Sixth Layer: The Legal Infrastructure for Physical Artificial Intelligence in China here.
SPEAKER

Angela Huyue Zhang
Professor of Law, USC Gould School of Law

Widely recognized as a leading authority on Chinese tech regulation, she has written extensively on this topic. Her first book, Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the Rise of China Challenges Global Regulation, was named one of the Best Political Economy Books of the Year by ProMarket in 2021. Her second book, High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy, released in March 2024, has been covered in The New York Times, Bloomberg, Wire China, MIT Tech Review and many other international news outlets. Read more

Shifting Boundaries of State and Civil Society in India and China
2026-03-12 09:00 - 10:00
We are pleased to invite you to a thought-provoking discussion that explores how boundaries between state and civil society have been historically drawn, reshaped, and reimagined in India and China from their founding days to the present moment.
This panel will explore how civil society emerged alongside state power in India and China, the role of non-state actors in welfare and governance, and how aspirations for democracy are expressed and contested in both countries. The discussion will analyze the shifting boundaries of power, accountability, and civic action, offering fresh insights into the future of democratization in Asia.
MODERATOR

Nidhi Srinivas
Professor of Management, The New School

Nidhi Srinivas's research centers on social innovation and postcolonial studies, mobilizing critical theory to study a variety of topics, including management history, international development, mutual aid, ecological politics and civic design. Read more
SPEAKERS

Ajay Gudavarthy
Associate Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Ajay Gudavarthy has authored and edited several books on Indian politics, including India after Modi: Populism and the Right (Bloomsbury, Delhi, 2018), and Secular Sectarianism: Limits of Subaltern Politics (Edited, Sage, 2019). Gudavarthy has served as Visiting Fellow/Faculty in universities in India and abroad, including the University of Calcutta, Gottingen University and Tubingen University, Germany. Read more

Carolyn L. Hsu
Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology, Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity, Colgate University

Carolyn Hsu's research interests include Chinese civil society, citizenship, NGOs, social movements and activism, the social credit system, social entrepreneurship, morality and values. She is part of the research group that conducts the Civic Participation in China Survey, which has been tracking changes in the relationship between citizens and the state in China since 2018, including new forms of activism and mobilization. Read more

Competing for the Global South: India-China Competitive Cooperation in a Multipolar World
2026-09-10 12:30 - 13:45 | Wolff Conference Room, Room 1103 11th Floor, 6 East 16th Street New York, NY10003
In the context of Global South narratives and practices, the India-China relationship can best be characterized as competitive cooperation. Driven by both strategic calculations and pragmatic considerations, the two countries compete for strategic space and political influence while simultaneously cooperating in areas where their interests overlap. Understanding this complex relationship requires examining how India and China engage in debates over Global South identity, pursue different development paths and working patterns with the North, and participate in the construction of new institutional mechanisms. That’s why their interaction demonstrates “uncoordinated coordination” in certain issue areas despite differences in their responses to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the more recent U.S.-Israel-Iran confrontation. Ultimately, their competitive cooperation relationship over divergent strategic interests, competing national priorities, and different interpretations of global order are helping the Global South, as a loosely connected community of nations, develop shared understanding, build collective strength, and explore its own path of development and global engagement.

SPEAKER

Chao XIE

Associate Professor

Institute of International Studies

Fudan University, China

XIE Chao is Associate Professor at the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University and Associate Editor-in-Chief of Quarterly Journal of International Politics. He earned his PhD in International Relations from Tsinghua University in 2018. He served as Visiting Scholar at Harvard-Yenching Institute (2025-2026), and Visiting Faculty Scholar at O.P. Jindal Global University, Haryana, India (2018-2020). He was Bangalore Fellow (The Takshashila Institution, July 2019), Raisina Young Fellow (Observer Research Foundation, January 2020) and Kautilya Fellow (India Foundation, January 2020). He also held visiting scholar positions at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2014 and 2015, and University of Oxford from 2013 to 2014. He published two books and dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles. His research interests span the politics and foreign policies of South Asia and the Global South more broadly, with a particular focus on India. His broader scholarly interests also encompass great power relations and international relations theories.

Annual India China Day
2026-10-01 17:00 - 19:00 | Starr Foundation Hall, University Center, UL102, 63 Fifth Ave, New York City, New York, 10003
Starr Foundation Student Fellowship is a funding opportunity for selected students of The New School to pursue their own research projects.

India China Day is a celebration of our student fellows and the broader community—an invitation for students, faculty, and staff to come together, enjoy authentic Indian and Chinese food, make new friends, exchange ideas, and learn about the fascinating research our Starr student fellows are pursuing.

This year’s six student fellows include three PhD students, two MA candidates, and one BFA student from across the New School for Social Research and the Parsons School of Design. Their projects span a fascinating range of topics—from exploring the production of eri silk in Assam, India, to examining people’s theater in post-martial-law Taiwan and investigating women’s participation in the global hair industry. Together, their projects reflect the diverse interests, perspectives, and expertise of our student community.

Come celebrate our fellows, discover their research, share a meal, and find inspiration for your own research ideas.

SPEAKERS

Arimbi Alessandra

PhD student in Public and Urban Policy at the New School for Social Research

The Unfolding In Three Acts: Act I: ancestry/lineage as method—migratory afterlives; Act II: inherited forgetting/remembrance in the absence/presence of archives; Act III: fragments of memory—tradition, mysticism/superstition, and collective life

The Unfolding In Three Acts traces how lineage, collective care, and everyday belief persist under conditions of migration and archival absence. “Act I: ancestry/lineage as method—migratory afterlives” takes a family history marked by fragmentation across centuries as an entry point. “Act II: inherited forgetting/remembrance in the absence and presence of archives” examines how remembrance operates between absence and presence, asking what forms of knowledge persist when written records fall silent. “Act III: fragments of memory—tradition, mysticism/ superstition, and collective life” approaches rituals, cooperation and belief as epistemic practices organizing obligation and care.

Uttamasha Dutta

PhD student in Anthropology at The New School for Social Research

Ordinary Silk: Eri, Exchange, and Everyday LifeThrough two phases of ethnographic fieldwork across Nagaon, Morigaon, and Karbi Anglong districts in India, this project follows what eri silk sets in motion, what circulates, what obligations it sustains, and what sustainability looks like as lived practice rather than brand. The project provides ethnographic grounding for the following questions: When does eri enter global markets? Which practices of production become legible as ethical? Which remain invisible, and how?

Qiyi Huang

MA student in Liberal Studies at The New School for Social Research

Bodies of the People: People’s Theater and Political Subjectivity in Post-Martial Law Taiwan

The project examines people’s theater in post-martial law Taiwan as a site where “the people” as a political subject takes shape. Drawing on critical theory and political aesthetics, it investigates how documentary drama and Theatre of the Oppressed do not merely represent an already-existing people, but actively constitute—through embodied participation, collective rehearsal, and theatrical encounter—the imaginaries and bodily presence through which communities come to recognize themselves as historical actors.

Hoyeon Lee

PhD candidate in Public and Urban Policy at The New School for Social Research.

Programming Workers? Algorithmic Control and the Institutionalization of Autonomy in Kerala’s Collective Landscape

The project explores how algorithmic management operates as an informal labor market institution in Kerala, India. While digital platforms promise autonomy and flexibility, they often introduce new forms of discipline that reshape worker subjectivity and social relations. This study investigates how algorithmic control functions within Kerala’s distinctive institutional context, where strong traditions of collective organization coexist with high levels of education and persistent youth unemployment.

Keertana Panyam

BFA student in Design History and Practice at the Parsons School of Design

Intergenerational Indian Women’s Perspectives on the Human Hair Trade The project examines the question: What does it mean to “ethically source” full, long, and healthy hair for the global hair industry? How often do women in India participate in this industry and willingly give up decades’ worth of hair? What does “willingness” entail for these women and their circumstances? This qualitative research centers social and gender-justice methods for conducting multigenerational familial interviews among women living in peripheral southern India’s epicenters of unprocessed human hair smuggling.

Yu Pei

MA student in Anthropology at The New School for Social Research

Dancing on the Ruins: Raving Bodies, Psychological Landscape, and Future Imagination in Contemporary China

The project examines underground rave scenes in contemporary China as a form of endurance and its embedded ethics of escape amid widespread feelings of hopelessness and future rejection. Situating rave within broader affective conditions among Chinese youth, this project explores how rave constitutes an experimental response to various psychological tensions in everyday life, and to the collapse of future imagination under the disillusioned promise of a path to success.

China’s dual-track approach to reforms: implications for social insurance
2026-10-22 17:00 - 18:30 | Wolff Conference Room, Room 1103, 11th Floor 6 East 16th Street, New York, NY 10003
Like China’s broader market-oriented reforms, its social insurance system has followed a dual-track model since its inception. While this approach has reduced political resistance and relieved fiscal pressure on the government in the short term, it has left fundamental long-term liabilities unresolved and contributed to greater fragmentation and inequality within the system. More importantly, stricter enforcement of mandatory social-insurance contributions can significantly raise employers’ labor costs, potentially dampening private investment and exacerbating financial pressures across the system as a whole.

SPEAKER

Cheryl Long

Professor of Economics, Xiamen University
