Skip to main content.
Bard
  • Bard College Logo
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    • Programs and Divisions
    • Structure of the Curriculum
    • Courses
    • Requirements
    • Academic Calendar
    • College Catalogue
    • Faculty
    • Bard Abroad
    • Libraries
    • Dual-Degree Programs
    • Bard Conservatory of Music
    • Other Study Opportunities
    • Graduate Programs
    • Early Colleges
  • Admission sub-menuAdmission
    • Applying
    • Financial Aid
    • Tuition + Payment
    • Campus Tours
    • Meet Our Students + Alumni/ae
    • For Families / Familias
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Contact Us
  • Campus Life sub-menuCampus Life
    Living on Campus:
    • Housing + Dining
    • Campus Services + Resources
    • Campus Activities
    • New Students
    • Visiting + Transportation
    • Athletics + Recreation
    • Montgomery Place Campus
  • Civic Engagement sub-menuCivic Engagement
    Bard CCE
    • Engaged Learning
    • Student Leadership
    • Grow Your Network
    • About CCE
    • Our Partners
    • Get Involved
  • Newsroom sub-menuNews + Events
    • Newsroom
    • Events Calendar
    • Press Releases
    • Office of Communications
    • Commencement Weekend
    • Alumni/ae Reunion
    • Fisher Center + SummerScape
    • Athletic Events
  • About Bard sub-menuAbout
      About Bard:
    • Bard History
    • Campus Tours
    • Mission Statement
    • Love of Learning
    • Visiting Bard
    • Employment
    • Support Bard
    • Open Society University Network
    • Bard Abroad
    • The Bard Network
    • Inclusive Excellence
    • Sustainability
    • Title IX and Nondiscrimination
    • Inside Bard
    • Dean of the College
  • Giving
  • Search
Kebab Menu: June 2025
Information For:
  • Faculty + Staff
  • Alumni/ae
  • Families
  • Students
Giving to Bard
Quick Links
  • Apply to Bard
  • Employment
  • Travel to Bard
  • Bard Campus Map

Join the Conversation
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram
Read about us on Threads
Watch us on You Tube

Bard Press Releases

News Menu
  • Newsroom
  • Events Calendar
  • News Archive
  • Press Releases
  • special sub-menuSpecial Events
    • Commencement + Reunion
    • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
    • Fisher Center
    • Bard Summerscape
    • Bard Athletics
  • Home

BARD IN CHINA TO HOST LECTURE ON APRIL 11 ABOUT LIFE IN A CHINESE FACTORY CITY

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.— On Tuesday, April 11, Bard in China hosts a lecture on development in Lishui, a small city in Zhejiang province in China. Peter Hessler, an award-winning American writer based in China, will present “Boomtown: Life in a Chinese Factory City.” The lecture is presented by Bard in China and Bard’s Asian Studies Program, with support from the Freeman Undergraduate Asian Studies Initiative. The lecture is free and open to the public and takes place at 7 p.m. in room 115 of the Olin Language Center on the Bard College campus. Zhejiang has always been one of the centers of entrepreneurial growth in China. In his lecture, Hessler will talk about an ongoing project he is doing for National Geographic, tracking development in Lishui. His work focuses in part on one factory, watching two entrepreneurs set up a plant, design the space, test the machinery, hire workers, and start production. He will also talk about other local issues, like the dam that is being built to power some of this growth and the people who are being resettled into new cities. He will examine cultural elements as well, such as like the traveling opera and acrobat troupes that set up their tents outside the plants, providing entertainment to factory workers who don’t have many leisure activities. Hessler is the author of River Town: Two Years on the Yangzi, an acclaimed account of teaching English in a college in the area of the Three Gorges Dam. His new novel, Oracle Bones, will be published at the end of April. A native of Columbia, Missouri, Hessler studied English literature at Princeton and Oxford before going to China as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996. His two-year experience of teaching English in Fuling, a town on the Yangtze, inspired River Town. After finishing his Peace Corps tour in 1998, Hessler wrote freelance pieces for Atlantic Monthly and the New York Times before returning to China in 1999 as a Beijing-based freelance writer. There he wrote for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, South China Morning Post, and Hong Kong Standard, among other newspapers, before moving on to magazine work for National Geographic and the New Yorker. He continues to follow the lives of people whose homes have been lost to the Three Gorges project as well as writing on many other topics. He has B.A. degrees from Princeton and Oxford universities. For more information about the lecture and screening, please call 845-758-7388 or e-mail [email protected]. # # # (03.22.06)

Website: https://inside.bard.edu/academic/programs/bardinchina

This event was last updated on 04-13-2006

Back to Top

Bard Press Contact:
Darren O'Sullivan
845-758-7649
[email protected]
Recent Press Releases:
  • Bard College Receives a 2025 Capacity Building Grant from Wake Forest University’s Educating Character Initiative
  • US-China Music Institute Awarded Grant from Cyrus Tang Foundation
  • Bard College Launches New Online Platform in Partnership with JustAir to Give Public Access to Real-Time Hudson Valley Air Quality Information
  • Three Bard College Graduates Win 2025 Fulbright Awards
Bard College
30 Campus Road, PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
Phone: 845-758-6822
Admission Email: [email protected]
Information For
Prospective Students
Current Employees
Alumni/ae 
Families

©2025 Bard College
Quick Links
Employment
Travel to Bard
Search
Support Bard
Bard IT Policies + Security
Bard has a long history of creating inclusive environments for all races, creeds, ethnicities, and genders. We will continue to monitor and adhere to all Federal and New York State laws and guidance.
Like us on Facebook
Follow Us on Instagram
Threads
Bluesky
YouTube