The following UCLA experts are available to speak to journalists on topics related to Chinese history, culture, politics and human rights issues before and during the Olympic Games.

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Baum, professor of political science and a member of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies, is an expert on Chinese politics. In recent articles and media commentaries, he has addressed the Chinese government's increased pressure on human rights activists and tightened censorship of the media in the lead-up to the Olympic Games. Baum is the author or editor of eight books and numerous articles on Chinese politics. His latest book, "China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom," will be published in early 2009. [Full bio]

 

Phone: 011-33-961-41-32-37 (home) | 011-33-642-33-10-28 (cell)

E-mail: rdb1@polisci.ucla.edu 

 

Cameron D. Campbell, professor of sociology and a member of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies, is available to address topics of population, family, health, inequality and education in China. He is the co-author of "Fate and Fortune in Rural China," about population in 18th- and 19th-century northeast China, and is currrently working on a study surveying the changes in family and kinship ties in northeast China from the 17th century to the present. [Full bio]

 

Phone: 310-928-1616

E-mail: camcam@ucla.edu

 

King-Kok Cheung, professor of English and Asian American studies, will be in Beijing this summer and can comment firsthand on the impact of the Olympics on the everyday lives of Chinese citizens. She is the director of the University of California Study Center in Beijing, which administers the university's education abroad program in China. Cheung's research focuses on Asian American literature and other American ethnic literatures. [Full bio]

 

Phone: 011-86-13-91028-7354 (Beijing)

E-mail: kkcheung@pku.edu.cn

 

C. Cindy Fan, professor of geography and Asian American studies and a member of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies, is available to address issues of population, labor migrants, gender, economic development and politics in China. She is co-editor of two major journals, Regional Studies and Eurasian Geography and Economics, and author of "China on the Move: Migration, the State, and the Household." One of the most-cited China geographers, Fan is currently researching rural migrants who straddle the city and countryside. [Full bio]

 

Phone: 310-825-3821

E-mail: fan@geog.ucla.edu

 

Andrea Goldman, professor of history, specializes in the cultural and social history of early modern and modern China, with a particular emphasis on urban history, performance, the politics of aesthetics, and gender studies. Her current book project, "The Staging of Urban Culture in Beijing, 1770–1900," uses opera as a lens to examine court and city dynamics during the Qing dynasty. Goldman toured Taiwan with a semi-professional xiangsheng (Chinese comedy) troupe and apprenticed with a professional xiangsheng master in Beijing. [Full bio]

 

Phone: 310-825-3368

E-mail: goldman@history.ucla.edu

 

Michael Heim, professor of Slavic languages and literature, is an authority on learning foreign languages and is currently learning Mandarin. He is available to discuss the process and challenges of learning Chinese. A translator of major authors, including Günter Grass and Milan Kundera, Heim is proficient in 10 languages. [Full bio]

(Heim will be in Shanghai from July 20 to Aug. 23 and is best reached by e-mail during that time.)

 

Phone: 310-825-7894

E-mail: heim@humnet.ucla.edu

 

Russell C. Leong, adjunct professor of English and Asian American studies, is available to discuss contemporary Chinese American issues and U.S.–China relations. He is the editor of Amerasia Journal, an interdisciplinary national publication focused on Asian American studies. An award-winning poet and short fiction writer and a recipient of the American Book Award, Leong was born in San Francisco and has lived and taught in the U.S., Taiwan and Hong Kong. [Full bio]

 

Phone: 310-206-2892

E-mail: rleong@ucla.edu

 

Nancy Levine, professor of anthropology and a member of the UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies, focuses on kinship, social change and gender and has conducted extensive research in Tibet and Central Asia. [Full bio]

 

E-mail: nelevine@anthro.ucla.edu

 

Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, can discuss Chinese and Chinese American labor issues. Wong, who previously worked as staff attorney for the Service Employees International Union Local 660, has conducted extensive research on immigrant workers in Los Angeles and recently published a book of interviews with Asian American union organizers. [Full bio]

 

Phone: 310-794-5983 

E-mail: kentwong@ucla.edu

 

Min Zhou, professor of sociology and founding chair of the UCLA Department of Asian American Studies, can comment on the Olympics' impact on China and Chinese Americans. Zhou has researched immigration, immigrant adaptation, education and Asian Americans, among other topics. She is the author of "Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave" and "The Transformation of Chinese America." [Full bio]

 

Phone: 310-825-3532 

E-mail: mzhou@soc.ucla.edu