Digital Commons Network^™

The Flex Voice In The Soundtracks For The Nintendo Game Boy, Matthew Dineiro

Theses and Dissertations

The Nintendo Game Boy had a sound chip which allowed for only three pitched voices and one unpitched percussive voice. These limitations affected the music that was written for this video game system. Of the three pitched voices, one voice typically performs the melody, and one voice typically is the bass and harmonic foundation. This thesis analyzes the third voice, typically in the middle of the musical texture, and the various functions that it can hold. As is discussed, the middle voice sometimes pairs in harmony with the melody or the bass. In other cases, however, it forms a musical …

Understanding Karaoke’S Popularity In America, Aki Camargo

Capstones

In 2021, the karaoke bar industry generated over 1 billion dollars in revenue in the U.S., surpassing other nighttime staples like comedy clubs. What makes singing other people’s songs on stage so hot? Aki Camargo finds that karaoke bars plays a unique role in mainstream American culture.

Japanese Society Since Wwii, Seiji Shirane

Open Educational Resources

This course examines Japanese society in the aftermath of World War II. How did postwar Japan's changing relations with the US and its Asian neighbors impact Japanese society? Topics include the US Occupation, Japan's Cold War alliances, high economic growth, the 1960s student protests, postwar pacifism and the Self-Defense Force, women and US military bases, discrimination against Korean minorities, the rise of "Cool Japan," and the "people's emperor."

Varieties Of Transnational Life: Brazilian Nikkeis’ Changing Cross-Border Ties With Two Homelands, Hiroyuki Shibata

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the varieties of Brazilian Nikkei’s – Japanese emigrants to Brazil and their descendants – transnational lives throughout a century of their migration history. I propose an interactive process approach to migrant transnationalism to understand the divergence of Brazilian Nikkeis’ transnational lives between their two homelands, Japan and Brazil. First, I focus on the four macro-institutional contexts: 1) positions and development patterns of sending and receiving states within the international state system; the infrastructural power of states, more concretely 2) the diasporic bureaucracy of sending states and 3) the incorporative power of receiving states; and 4) the mobilizing …

Stranger’S Window, Nation’S Mirror, Kyoko Hamaguchi

Theses and Dissertations

In this text, I consider my identity as a Japanese immigrant in the United States during a global pandemic and its impact on my understanding of home as a liminal space. In particular, I discuss notions of home in relation to my work as an artist including two works that utilize the home-sharing platform Airbnb and three works that deal with the dichotomy of inside and outside.

Orientalism In Hispanic Literatures, Araceli Tinajero

Open Educational Resources

This course will examine Hispanic (including Brazilian) literary and cultural representations pertaining to China, India, Korea, and Japan. Students will read novels, short stories, poems, essays, and chronicles of prominent writers of the Hispanic world in order to have a deeper understanding of the “East/West” divide conceptualized as Orientalism. Students will be exposed to films, music, and visual representations so they can have a better understanding of the historical, geographic, and transnational connections between the Hispanic world and the Far East.

Extreme Heat And Vulnerability In Japan Demographic And Spatial Analyses Of Heatstroke, Wataru Gima

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This master’s thesis attempts to discover demographic and spatial disparities in heatstroke deaths in Japan. The first part of analyses was conducted by demographic methods, which utilizes heatstroke deaths data classified under the ICD-10 code from 1995 to 2017. I found that males had more deaths than females during the study period and that the elderly population of both genders had significantly higher number of deaths. In addition, the study examined the probability of surviving and life expectancy among the elderly population when eliminating heatstroke deaths, improvement in these two variables was observed however remained small, as the number of …

The Effect Of Outward Foreign Direct Investment On Exports In Japan During The Lost Decade, 1985-2005, Alexandros Ladas

Dissertations and Theses

This study will utilize an OLS analysis of the panel data coming from various databases such as the World Bank, Federal Reserve and etc. to determine if there exists a significant correlation between the exports of Japan and its foreign direct investment (FDI) in the period of 1985-2005 with nearby trading partners of which include the countries of ASEAN, China and South Korea. In addition, a selection of supplemental factors will be used to determine if they also possess any significance with exports. These factors include: the exchange rate of the Japanese yen with the currency of the trading partner …

Dear Diary : Musings From An Invisible Mixie, Sarah C. Creagen

Theses and Dissertations

This is a paper for mixed-race queers; visible, invisible, and maybe still deciding where they fall in the spectrum.

One Endless Dance: Tanaka Min's Experimental Practice, John (Zack) Fuller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work is the first in-depth study of the work of avant-garde Japanese dancer/choreographer Tanaka Min, and focuses on his extensive innovations in the fields of improvised dance, training, and choreographic method. These interrelated aspects of his experimental practice are intimately concerned with the relation between space and the body, employ collaborative methods, and are strongly influenced by the life and work of Hijikata Tatsumi (widely to considered to be the founder of the butô movement). They are also deeply informed by his choice to live his daily life as an organic vegetable farmer, a choice that I argue constitutes …

The Hermeneutics Of International Trade Conflicts: U.S. Punitive Trade Policy Towards China And Japan, Barry F. Murdaco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes punitive trade conflicts between the U.S. and two trading partners: China and Japan. Punitive trade conflicts can be defined as trade wars between two states, retaliatory tariffs, or other forms of conflict, e.g. preventing the acquisition of foreign assets or sanctions for an undervalued exchange rate. I will examine several trade conflicts between the U.S. and Japan in the 1980s and several trade conflicts between the U.S. and China from 2001 to the present. This study is situated within a larger debate concerning the resolution of four theoretical "puzzles" in political science. The first concerns the dispute …

"Language Preference And Cognitive Availability Of Sexual Identity In Gay Japanese Bilinguals: An Analysis Of Habitual Use Of Linguistic Categories", Sebastian Cordoba

Dissertations and Theses

Sexuality is a very private matter in Japan. Japan’s cultural mores and concepts of family unity have led to very conservative attitudes toward homosexuality. For instance, gay people generally fear disgracing their families, and this fear might prevent them from revealing their sexual identity to others, and so keeping it secret. Thus, homosexuality in Japan is a highly controversial topic. Being gay in Japan is not as tolerated as it is in some Western cultures (McLelland, 2000). Homosexuality is an issue that is not acknowledged by mainstream Japanese society – it is taboo and not spoken about publicly. The present …

Japanese Women's Fight For Equal Rights: Feminism And The Us Occupation Of Japan, 1945 - 1952, Jessica Pena

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Geisha On Fire, Beimeng Fu

Capstones

Masae Satouchi is not an average Japanese woman. When she lived in Shiga Prefecture, a country town an hour away from Kyoto, her ex-boyfriends were uncomfortable with her eccentricity. She liked to wear colorful clothes, they didn’t. “I was too colorful to live in Japan,” she says. Japan is, of course, a modern, industrialized nation. The society, however, is famously conservative and does not allow for much unique self-expression. The situation is particularly difficult for Japanese women. Japan ranks 105 out of 136 in global gender gap index. Most women their quit jobs after having their first child.

Strangers In Their Own Lands: A Story Of Japanese Brazilians, Ken Aragaki

Capstones

Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan. Since the first dispatch of Japanese immigrants in 1908, more than 240,000 people moved from Japan to Brazil between the early 1900s and the 1970s. Many of them settled outside the city of São Paulo and started working as coffee farmers under unfamiliar and harsh conditions. Today, according to some estimates, more than 1.6 million people of Japanese descent live in Brazil.

As Japan became the world’s economic power, it sought foreign workers to fill its booming labor market. The government turned to Japanese Brazilians and started granting them …

Please Read, Joseph W. Anthony-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This is a semi-fictional story told through a series of fake found documents. It describes my work and thoughts through metaphor. Machines have the potential to gain self-consciousness through accumulation of errors. Creativity can be confused with randomly generated variety. The acceptance of chaos and loss of control can provide a path to enlightenment.

Land Of The Aging Sun : The Impact Of Population Decline On Japanese Economic Performance, Edson H. Flores

Student Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Indian Aesthetic In Ninth-Century Japan; A Study Of Foreignness In Early Japanese Esoteric Buddhist Art, Alison Badassano

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Japan's Changing Security Policy, Shalni Ramchandani

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.