East Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

Picturing A Storm Center In The Far East: Geopolitical Image And Representation Of Korea In Early American Newspaper Visuals, Jihyung Kim

Master's Projects and Capstones

This Capstone Project explores the image and representation of Korea in early modern American newspaper visuals during the period when Korea and the U.S. first began to engage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The American newspaper visuals, which interact with headlines, captions, and texts, are represented with specific patterns and features in close links to the newspaper's geopolitical discourse production, specifically the “Far Eastern Question,” which was produced by western powers and Japan. The visuals were intended to show Korea as a dangerous and uncivilized place, “a storm center in the Far East.” Such geopolitical ...

The Professional Struggles Of Contemporary Korean Women: Origins And Consequences Of The Glass Ceiling, Liat Miller

Master's Projects and Capstones

The status of women globally, though improved in recent decades, remains an unresolved issue. The labor market, in which women must contend with the glass ceiling phenomenon, is an indicative microcosmos of a larger issue—the persistence of discriminatory attitudes toward women. The case is even more profound in East Asian contexts, such as South Korea. The existing literature is limited and focuses on either specific aspects of the glass ceiling or particular industries in Korea. This paper explores the origins and interconnected causes of the glass ceiling in Korea, which include Confucian philosophy and values. Moreover, by analyzing testimonials ...

An Overview Of Life And Works Of Jami & His Perception Of Love, Leyla Hajimehditajer

Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Multidisciplinary Studies

Abd al-Rahman Jami (817/1414- 898/1492) is regarded as the last grand classical poet of Persian literature and a great Sufi of his time. Towards the end of his life, he compiled his Divan in which one can trace his life pattern that he has divide into three main phases. These include: 1) the period of his childhood and early phases of education, which is reported in Fātiḥah al-Shabāb; 2) his mid-life phase as elaborated in Wāsiṭah al-‘Aqd; and, 3) the last stage of his life, discussed in Khātimah al-Ḥayāt. In the latter, Jami tends to evaluate his ...

'Household Managers': Women's Employment In Japan, Elizabeth Gaver

MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference

Despite modern Japan’s evident economic success, persisting inequality between men and women is still apparent in the work field, furthered by societal expectations that drive women away from employment and overwork men. This presentation argues the causes of inequality for women in the work field, including societal expectations and the two-track system, as well as analyzes the effects on women’s lifestyle and careers, including the wage gap and prevalence of non-standard employment. Furthermore, this presentation argues the increasingly detrimental effects of employment inequality on Japanese society as a whole, such as the declining fertility rate. Lastly, this paper ...

Writing Gender In Early Modern Chinese Women's Tanci Fiction, Li Guo

Purdue University Press Book Previews

Women’s tanci, or “plucking rhymes,” are chantefable narratives written by upper-class educated women from seventeenth-century to early twentieth-century China. Writing Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women's Tanci Fiction offers a timely study on early modern Chinese women’s representations of gender, nation, and political activism in their tanci works before and after the Taiping Rebellion (1850 to 1864), as well as their depictions of warfare and social unrest.

Women tanci authors’ redefinition of female exemplarity within the Confucian orthodox discourses of virtue, talent, chastity, and political integrity could be bourgeoning expressions of female exceptionalism and could have foreshadowed ...

The Compressed Modernity Of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage In Taiwan: Digital Activism, Human Rights Discourse, And Intertwined Sexual, Political And National Identities, Jyun-Jie Yang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 2019, Taiwan became the first Asian country to officially legalize same-sex marriage. Remarkably, the Taiwanese queer movement achieved the goal of marriage equality in only 30 years, with the first tongzhi (同志) activist group organized in 1990. Compared to Euro-American social movements, Taiwanese tongzhi activism has experienced a “compressed modernity” (Chang, 1999, 2010a, 2010b), which accelerates cultural and social transformations. Although Taiwanese academia has been significantly influenced by queer studies as a form of western knowledge production, local scholars and activists created a new interpretation from “queer” to “tongzhi.” Entangled with complex political identifications in post-martial-law Taiwan, tongzhi activism ...

Biodiversity Monitoring And Volunteer Motivations: A Case Study On The Imagined Communities Of Citizen Scientists In Meinung, Taiwan, Serena May Calcagno

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Asia Pacific’s biodiversity is under threat. One significant step that can improve conservation is gathering data on what species exist in different areas over time, which can provide insight into ecosystem health. This is especially important in biodiversity hotspots, where high levels of endemism and anthropogenic risk overlap. Though it is one of the few places in the Pacific not classified as a biodiversity hotspot, Taiwan has an unusually high saturation in terms of biodiversity data points. Investigating the motives of biodiversity monitoring volunteerism is already a topic of growing scholarly interest, but relatively few studies have focused ...

A Comfort Women Redress Movement Without Comfort Women, Jenna Shin

Student Work

A 2020-2021 Williams Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Jenna Shin (Morse '21) for her essay submitted to the East Asian Studies Program, "A Comfort Women Redress Movement without Comfort Women” (Yukiko Koga, Associate Professor of Anthropology, advisor).

While the comfort women issue is often framed within contested relations between the victims and the perpetrators, such as South Korean survivors and/or South Korea’s relationship with Japan, Jenna Shin’s essay, “A Comfort Women Redress Movement without Comfort Women,” shifts her reader’s attention to the relationship between the surviving comfort women and their ...

Imperial Crossings: Chinese Indentured Migration To Sumatra's East Coast, 1865-1911, Gregory Jany

Student Work

A 2020-2021 Williams Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Gregory Jany (Jonathan Edwards, '21) for his essay submitted to the Department of History, “Imperial Crossings: Chinese Indentured Migration to Sumatra's East Coast, 1865-1911" (Denise Ho, Assistant Professor of History, advisor).

Gregory Jany’s thesis, “Imperial Crossings: Chinese Indentured Migration to Sumatra's East Coast, 1865-1911,” is elegantly written, deeply researched in multiple archives—British materials, Dutch archives, and Qing documents—and uses several languages beyond English: Bahasa Indonesia, Dutch, Chinese, and Classical Chinese. Grounded in the literatures of the late imperial China, the Chinese ...

The Treatment Of South Korean Women Has Changed Since Japan’S Military Comfort System Because Of Stronger Laws And More Diverse Support Groups, Arianna Daria Fiorentini

Senior Theses

During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), the Japanese government condoned the forced recruitment and transportation of approximately 200,000 Korean women to be sex slaves for the Japanese Army. Korean “comfort women” suffered greatly under the system and the issue was not known to the public until the early 1990s, when Korean feminist leaders helped 200 Korean “comfort women” survivors come forward and share their experiences. Historians and feminist scholars addressing the “comfort issue” have thoroughly described the comfort system, the conditions Korean “comfort women” faced, and how gender, patriarchy, colonialism, and class come into play in the system’s ...

Do You See What I See? Do You See Me? Disability In China: The Perceptions Of Wheelchair Users And Able Bodied Citizens, Michelle Fisher

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

This paper explores the state and perception of wheelchair users in China. My research outlines various disability models by which we can measure China’s level of effectiveness at providing access and services for its disabled population. In my analysis, I largely draw the conclusion that China is evolving out of a Charity state model into one which supports the rights of Chinese citizenry. There are many good laws in place in China, but they are not being enforced effectively at this point in time. There also seems to be a class division involved in the acceptance of educated ...

The Impact Of Religion On Chinese Government, Society, And Civilians, Liyan Tang

Master's Projects and Capstones

This research project analyzes the importance of religion in Chinese society from ancient to contemporary times and how the role of religion has changed throughout history. The Cultural Revolution had a major impact on the perception and use of religion in Chinese society, and the effects still exist in the present day. In order to explore how religion functions in these specific time periods, this research examines various secondary sources, which include scholarly articles and interpretations. Moreover, primary sources, which include official documents of the government and news articles, show how the Chinese government and the citizens have diverse points ...

Sattha, Money And Idols: Intersections Between Capitalist Commodification Of Thai K-Pop And Buddhist Fandoms, Pornpailin Meklalit

Master's Projects and Capstones

This study investigates the cultural, economic, and spiritual meanings, as well as the goals of activities carried out by both the K-pop fandom (specifically fans of EXO and NCT) and Buddhist devotees in Thailand—and their considerable degree of overlap. While Thai Buddhism is revered, K-pop fandom is stigmatized as an extreme, problematic form of behavior. This research builds parallels between these activities as forms of faith, which are mostly shaped by the same economic structures, with money as a medium that allows spiritual connection and comfort for fans. Moreover, travel and pilgrimages are physical and spiritual journeys that exist ...

Online Cultural Contention And China-Korea Relations: Interpreting Netizens’ Narratives On Social Media, Roselyn Wang

Master's Projects and Capstones

In this era of social media, popular narratives have increasingly important implications on domestic policy and bilateral relations. In part based on the video of making Kimchi published by a famous Chinese YouTuber, this study analyzes Chinese and Korean netizens’ opinions of each other by examining around one thousand social media posts, which offer a glimpse of the unique cultural confrontation between China and South Korea. By revealing the complexity of China-Korea relations through a social media lens, my analysis provides new insights into the implications of these popular narratives on China’s policymaking. Even as an authoritarian regime, the ...

Lights, Camera, Action! Defining The Idol In Contemporary Asia, Nathalie López Del Valle

Master's Projects and Capstones

Most of the academic literature analyzing K-Pop and J-Pop have focused on their historical development, marketing strategies and/or fandoms, typically forgetting about the figure at the center of it all: the idol. This paper addresses this research gap directly by asking: how does a person become an idol? Contrary to commonly held perceptions, idols frequently demonstrate that they are active in the process of their own production, meaning that the process of idol identity formulation is not a one-way process, as it would be in a factory. Rather, idols, producers, trainers, and the public all collaborate to create the ...

Placing God: Defining “Post-Christianity” For Contemporary Japanese Christians, Leryan Anthony Burrey

Master's Projects and Capstones

This work suggests that we consider a new, working definition of post-Christianity. This new paradigm is in response to Western Christian thought being too dominant a force that fails to take into enough account other global experiences— like those of Japanese Christians. These reflections are based on scholarly opinions claiming that Christianity is a “global culture,” and ultimately argues for more international inclusivity in Western Christian thought and institutions, especially regarding the Asia-Pacific. Moreover, this paper illuminates how iitoko dori allows Christian thought to peacefully coexist in Japan’s greater society. The research also explores specific Japanese cultural practices that ...

Mechanisms Of Biases And Cultural Literacy In International Language Education: One Such Story To Carry, Yukari Birkett

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Despite equity and inclusion initiatives, the English based colonial model has permeated the kindergarten to college systems, teaching/learning, theories and methods, the perception of second language acquisition, multiculturalism, and language education (Knowles et al., 2015; Macedo, 2019; Phillips & Abbot, 2011; Battiste, 2013). Additionally, cognitive neuroscientific discoveries of the complexity of language learning, emotional intelligence, and cultural literacy systematically failed to reach educators. Few studies have focused on what factors impact on cultural biases of foreign language learners, or what factors in learning facilitate the dismantling of durable biases. What are the hidden agendas for teaching and learning foreign languages? For Japanese ...

Cool Japan And The Hallyu Wave: The Effect Of Popular Culture Exports On National Image And Soft Power, Gillianne Lux

East Asian Studies Honors Papers

Japan used its export of pop culture in the post-war era not only to boost its economy but also as a means to improve its national image and project its soft power. Japanese pop culture exports emphasized a positive, non-threatening image of national culture. Though Japan’s pop culture export boom has been enormously successful, it has not been able to completely overcome its problematic past and erase historical tensions with Korea and other Asian nations. The pop culture boom has redefined Japan’s national image but not entirely. Contradictions between Japan’s curated image and actual reality, especially in ...

Final Master's Portfolio, Jonathan Correa

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Jonathan G. Correa's Master's Portfolio

Pandemic And Õen Consumption In Japan: Deliberate Buying To Aid The Seller, Kosuke Mizukoshi, Yuichiro Hidaka

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This dialogue contribution discusses whether it is possible to create favorable new social assistance under the market principles, based on the Ouen or Õen (aid) consumption in Japan. The meaning of consumption has changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Japan, aid consumption is increasing. This means helping local restaurants and producers by willfully and proactively buying and consuming their services and products. This is a favorable form of new social assistance and the result of strong marketing and market functions. The penetration of market forces may surpass pure altruistic behavior such as donations and gifts, by creating new market-linked ...