Serena Zhaohe Zhang | Harvard Kennedy School (original) (raw)

Drafts by Serena Zhaohe Zhang

News brief of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 4th

The markets: 1) failures of “monopoly”, companies such as Facebook are dominaBng the global socia... more The markets: 1) failures of “monopoly”, companies such as Facebook are dominaBng the global social media industry and the controls the algorithms that roughly 37% of global populaBon are using today, but there is no major global social media compeBtor that can leverage the AI frameworks Facebook uses. 2) Asymmetric informa=on: most of the decisions about tracking users’ personalized data and using it for profits are made by a small group of engineers, or someBmes by machine learning alone that most internet users are unaware of.
The government: 1) inadequate regula=on: government regulaBons can not keep up with the rapid development of AI

Through outlining the historical theoretical debates regarding solidarity and 1 individualism, I ... more Through outlining the historical theoretical debates regarding solidarity and
1
individualism, I intend to shed light on questions such as where lies the boundary between communal solidarity and individualistic rights/freedom? How is collective solidarity connected with individuals, and what does the interdependence between collectivity and individuals indicate for collective interventions and individual autonomy in the empirical contexts?

I always tend to believe that cognition precedes recognition, our cognition of ourselves can fund... more I always tend to believe that cognition precedes recognition, our cognition of ourselves can fundamentally determine how we project ourselves to and interact with the external world. Without a firmly established self, we can not exert steadfastness and resoluteness over our existence, we will fail to recognize and become ourselves, we will be deprived of our authenticity and free will. This predicates that I am primarily an individualist thinker, I align with Nietzsche, Sartre and Beauvoir because I want to believe the constitution of a self is a process of constant construction, creation and self-overcoming, self-transcendence, despite the social configurations preceding our existence.
In this paper, I demonstrate the three stages of the development of my self-consciousness, from a Nietzschean view of “Superman”, to Beauvoir and Ponty’s social being, to Daoist harmonious being. I want to answer the following questions: what it means to become a self, what it means to express self to others, what it means to live in harmony with self and others. Overall, I think to become a self means to understand oneself in relation to the world thoroughly, and put that authentic understanding of the self into actions, while trying to attain harmony with others.

Chinatown Seniors as The Community’s Living History The story of Chinatown is a story of a uniqu... more Chinatown Seniors as The Community’s Living History
The story of Chinatown is a story of a unique immigrant neighborhood: defined by a group of people bound together geographically, culturally, linguistically and economically during hostile times, flourishing into a vibrant, resilient community. This neighborhood continues to play an important role in the well-being of low-income, elderly Chinese-only speaking residents. As new residential and commercial buildings are under development, long time residents are being displaced. The lived experiences of these socioeconomically disadvantaged Chinese residents who have lived through Chinatown’s transformation are not known to the general public. To fill in this gap, we utilize virtual storytelling of individual narratives of these senior residents. This is accomplished by documenting the living conditions, well-being, and the access to cultural and linguistic services and goods of the elderly Chinese individuals.

This project aims to apply haptic technology to GPS which is connected to and will give tactile... more This project aims to apply haptic technology to GPS which is connected to and will give tactile warning to the driver’s steering wheel, as an addition to the original visual and auditory warning inherent in traditional GPS devices. We will collaborate with car manufacturers so that the software coordination of GPS and the steering wheel will be achieved.

Researchers have found devices such as traditional mobile phones and GPS could cause issues with safety as they require the driver’s visual attention due to their verbal content or startling effect, deviating the driver from focusing on the road. (Strayer and Drews, 2007; Benedetto et al., 2012) This raises the question of how we can convey information to the driver without adding cognitive burdens to them.

In this essay, I am going to address the political documentary The Edge of Democracy which tells ... more In this essay, I am going to address the political documentary The Edge of Democracy which tells the story of the rise and fall of two consecutive Brazilian presidents--President Lula and Dilma Rousseff, as well as the socio-economic crisis that escalated Brazil’s domestic political unrest under the backdrop of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street Movement. The topic in question here is how the mass social movements are mobilized during the impeachment and accusation against President Lula and Dilma’s corruption issues. Considering President Lula and Dilma were once very popular as their approval rating shows, but what dramatic changes or political maneuvers in Brazil’s democracy could have degraded the original people’s warrior to people’s prisoner, and polarized the nation’s public into irreconcilable groups that violently confront each other? What factors can account for these dramatic changes, and what roles does media play? Also, does the public opinion effects undermine Brazil’s democracy, is this replacement of government some kind of coup or symbol of a declined democracy as Petra Costa described?

Zhaohe Zhang, 2021

This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of China’s soft power, and aims to provide a... more This paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of China’s soft power, and aims to provide a sketch of the status quo of China’s soft power while offering some critical suggestions for how China could adapt its soft power approaches. It should be noted that although soft power is discussed as an independent concept here, it cannot be separated from hard power, and the different receptions of China’s soft power around the world should be put into their historical and economic contexts.

Zhaohe Zhang, 2021

Eliminating Alienation--The Marxist Transition from Capitalism to Communism

Zhaohe Zhang, 2021

This essay addresses the geopolitical issues that India faces particularly concerning China and t... more This essay addresses the geopolitical issues that India faces particularly concerning China and the US, from a technology and trade perspective.

During the last three decades of the twentieth century, the Western democratization around the wo... more During the last three decades of the twentieth century, the Western democratization around the world and the rival formulations of social organizations strived to come up with superior explanatory power for social changes, it was a moment when literary, cultural, and political theories were often aligned together in the English literary studies (Sinfield 5). As a result of this interdisciplinary tendency of theorizing, American new historicism and British cultural materialism both influenced feminist Shakespeare criticism from the 1980s. New his- toricists try to historicize Shakespeare’s text under its historical context and focus on state power to contain the texts, cultural materialists focus on class struggles and political appro- priations of Shakespeare’s plays (Novy 9). In this paper, I will mainly discuss some of the key theoretical interactions between cultural materialist, new historicist and feminist theories to deepen the understanding and representation of Shakespeare’s women characters.

In this research, I mainly want to understand the multifaceted dimensions of vlogging careers on ... more In this research, I mainly want to understand the multifaceted dimensions of vlogging careers on social media.The emergence of vlogging as freelance cultural career has important indications in contemporary people’s lives, it can imply the situations of our economy, labour market, media industry, spiritual life, participatory culture and social changes brought by new technologies such as the internet.However, the internet’s dramatic effects of gathering attention and generating profits are still quite puzzling to modern people.

To contribute to our understanding in that regard, I want my research to mainly answer two questions: 1)What are the common background characteristics of successful vloggers ? 2) What effects a vlogging career can have on both vloggers’ and followers’ lives. I believe by researching more carefully about my topic, we can have a better understanding of the larger social variables influencing and influenced by the vlogging industry, the possibilities and limitations of the social media Utopia that claims—anyone can possibly make profits by following one’s passion and creating “passionate videos”.

In this paper, I will mainly discuss the radical view of feminism in international relations and ... more In this paper, I will mainly discuss the radical view of feminism in international relations and I will examine two aspects of this set of perspective.First, the gendered power and the patriarchal oppressions in human societies. Second, the connections between masculinity, rationality and violence, and how feminist perspectives can contribute to the theoretical studies of peace and non-violence activities.

I will also relate these feminist perspectives to women’s practices of peace advocacy historically to examine how feminist approaches have changed the international politic landscape in the past, what it indicates and how it can potentially influence international relations in the future.The two main women’s advocacy group I want to focus in this paper are Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom(WILPF) and Women Strike for Peace(WSP).

I also conclude that two of the most important perspectives of feminist IR are:1)Recognizing the existence of gendered power and the pervasive patriarchal oppressions in all forms of social and political institutions across human societies. 2)Questioning masculinity and rationality in their validity of bringing international peace instead of violence, while using non-violence and intelligent compassion for peace movements and making more informed political decisions.

Papers by Serena Zhaohe Zhang

Patterns, 2021

Highlights d Appyters turn Jupyter Notebooks into full-stack web-based applications d The Appyter... more Highlights d Appyters turn Jupyter Notebooks into full-stack web-based applications d The Appyters Catalog serves over 75 Appyters d Appyters provide a way to parameterize and generalize Jupyter Notebooks d Appyter reports have permanent URLs that can be shared and published

Patterns, 2021

As AI algorithms proved to be problematic in the recent cases of major internet companies such a... more As AI algorithms proved to be problematic in the recent cases of major internet companies such as Facebook, researches had shown Facebook’s algorithms to be polarizing, instigating violence and creating mental health problems for teenagers. Not only can AI become polarizing, it might also enlarge wealth inequalities. As Barocas & Selbst (2016) pointed out, AI’s data mining is always a form of statistical discrimination...because the very point of data mining is to provide a rational basis upon which to distinguish between individuals and to reliably confer to the individual the qualities possessed bye those who seem statistically similar. Moreover, according to Hilbert’s research (2016), there is a strong correlation between income level and bandwidths globally, those with higher income often have more representations in their digital footprints because they have more bandwidths. In a word, our world will not be equally connected even if everyone has access to mobile phones and the internet, data analytics might even exacerbate inequalities and prejudices unless AI designers intentionally input “inclusion” factors into their algorithm making process.

News brief of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 4th

Zhaohe Zhang, 2021

Eliminating Alienation--The Marxist Transition from Capitalism to Communism

Zhaohe Zhang, 2021

Patterns, 2021

On 1st October, the National Day of People’s Republic of China, a protest staged by Hong Kong stu... more On 1st October, the National Day of People’s Republic of China, a protest staged by Hong Kong students broke out in front of the UBC AMS student Nest at around 3pm. I was present at the event which lasted for about three hours. The activists while shouting out “Come on, Hong Kongers!” “Free HK!” “Satisfy the five demands!”, were also drawing umbrellas on the ground with chalks. The event was later joined by other passer-by UBC students in support of the protestors’ demand for democracy and freedom.

In my analysis, I wish to introduce readers to Smith's systematic approach to understanding huma... more In my analysis, I wish to introduce readers to Smith's systematic approach to understanding human conditions, the forming of humans’ individual identities and societal associations, as well as his notions of justice reflected in different social and commercial aspects. This essay shows that Smith’s theorization of individual virtues is connected with other parts of his political-economic thinking, and his ideal system of political economy is one of “natural liberty” as a higher priority than “justice” or “equality”. Even though moral benevolence still plays an important role in Smith’s thinking, it falls into the realm of private virtue and charity.