« All Events
Organization: HISTORY & POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENTEvent Locator: 2023-AARGDQ
Worcester State University's History & Political Science department welcome guest speaker Dr. Ling Zhang who will introduce part of her new book, 108 Meters in a talk titled, "Seventy Meters Below Is My Home: Geotrauma and Earthly Memories of East China".
The Xin’an river valley in east China historically sustained an affluent society with a dense human population. When a major dam was installed in the river in the mid-twentieth century, the valley experienced a dramatic transformation. The transformation was first and foremost geological. Following that was the changes to the physical, socioeconomic, and emotional relationships between people and the land that went under water. Seventy years have gone by. Mourning of the lost land has passed on across three generations. It has evolved into diverse forms and prompted different actions. The various earthly memories those men and women have made and continue making, as my oral history and ethnography reveal, are reshaping that watery world, especially in the new historical context of environmental degradation, resource shortage, and climate change.
