Hai Ren 任海) is a Professor of East Asian Studies and Anthropology, an affiliated faculty in Gender and Women’s Studies, and Social, Cultural Critical Theory at the University of Arizona. He is also a Bayu Scholar Distinguished Professor in the Department of Sculpture at Sichuan Fine Arts Institution in Chongqing, a top-ranking sculpture program in China. He received his BA in History and Archeology from Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, and a MA in Museum Studies and a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Washington in Seattle. His current research interests include socially engaged art, public history, object-oriented anthropology, urban studies, comparative media and technology, public humanities and digital humanities, popular culture, and critical theory. He has written two books on social and cultural transformations of contemporary China:Neoliberalism and Culture in China and Hong Kong: The Countdown of Time(Routledge, 2010) and a sequel The Middle Class in Neoliberal China: Governing Risk, Life-Building, and Themed Spaces(Routledge, 2013) He edited Neo-Liberal Governmentality: Technologies of the Self Governmental Conduct, a special issue of the journal Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge10 Spring 2005) and co-edited New Media Subversion, a special issue of the journal Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures7 Spring 2010) and the anthology Global Futures in East Asia: Youth, Nation, and the New Economy in Uncertain Times(Stanford University Press, 2013) He is currently completing a book manuscript entitled The City as a Creative Object.