Arts and Humanities Commons^™

In Case You Missed It: China Dream, Christopher R. Hughes

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Liu Mingfu 刘明福, China Dream: The Great Power Thinking and Strategic Positioning of China in the Post-American Age (Zhongguo meng: hou meiguo shidai de daguo siwei zhanlue dingwei). (Beijing: Zhongguo youyi chuban gongsi, 2010).

China Dream, by Colonel Liu Mingfu, a professor at Beijing’s National Defense University, is the latest of several books to speculate on how China can displace the leadership of the United States after the global economic crisis. Understandably, Liu’s military background has led to conjecture over whether his views reflect the ambitions of the PLA or even China’s leaders. Yet China Dream is most interesting not …

Missing Footage At The Aas, Timothy Cheek

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Roundtable session at this year’s annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in Philadelphia was titled “Against Amnesia: History, Memory and the Role of Public Intellectuals in 21st Century China.” A mix of scholars from China and North America were scheduled to report and discuss, but at the last minute our featured speaker, Ms. Cui Weiping (崔卫平) of the Beijing Film Academy, could not attend. She was prevented from leaving China for the roundtable even though she had been specially invited by the AAS and had her passport, US visa, and air tickets in hand. She was …

Google Bus

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Amid uncertainty regarding Google’s future in China, on March 10, 2010, a line 319 bus near the East Gate of Beijing University is wrapped in an advertisement for the company. The URL on the back of the bus still works, though it’s now being routed through Hong Kong.

—Photo by Sara Kile

Sara Kile is a PhD candidate in premodern Chinese literature at Columbia University. She is currently in Nanjing conducting research for her dissertation, “Experimenting in the Limelight: Cultural Entrepreneurship in Early Qing China.”

April Roundtable: Genocide And Us National Interests Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“How Genocide Became a National Security Threat” by Michael Abramowitz & Lawrence Woocher. Foreign Policy. February 26, 2010.

A Tale Of Two Campaigns: A Comparative Assessment Of The Internet In French And Us Presidential Elections, Dylan Kissane

Dylan Kissane

French politicians, like those in democracies around the world, were enthralled by the success of Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 US Presidential elections. Part of that thrall sprung from the candidate’s embrace of internet campaigning and his use of Web 2.0 tools to communicate his ideas, raise campaign funds and break through to voters that might otherwise not be reached through traditional and mainstream media campaigning. In the wake of Obama’s win, speculation emerged that internet and Web 2.0 campaigning would soon become a key tool in French politics, particularly at the personality-driven and high-profile Presidential level. In …

Interview With Helen Shiller, Jacob Martin Lingan

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 50 minutes

Oral history interview of Helen Shiller by Jacob Martin Lingan

Ms. Shiller first outlines the path that led her to forming the Anti-Apartheid Ordinance, beginning with her work with the Minister of Information for ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) and a trip to Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and South Africa, which led to her interest in the latter. She recalls how, when she returned to Chicago, she was motivated to strengthen legislation against the Apartheid government. She describes the process they went through to force Chicago banks to divest from South Africa, which happened to coincide with Nelson Mandela’s …

Society’S Views And The Personal Status Code: A Discussion Of Tunisian Men And Women’S Roles In Marriage And Divorce, Alexandra Betgeorge

Global Studies Student Scholarship

This paper discusses the present characteristics of men and women’s expected roles in Tunisian society and family during and after marriage. The relationship between the Personal Status Code’s laws and Tunisian society’s general mentality were studied to see how they interacted to create men and women’s reputations and statuses before and after divorce. Four interviews were conducted with two categories of marriages considered: those with children and those without children. Each category was represented by a male and female divorcé living in the northern suburbs of Tunis, who were each asked to speak of their marriage and divorce process. Each …

Interview With Danny Davis, Terence Sims

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 67 minutes

Oral history interview of Danny Davis by Terence Sims

Dr. Davis begins by outlining his introduction into activism and politics, when he served as executive director for the Greater Lawndale Conservation Commission in 1968. He explains how his definition of apartheid, which he is still fighting against, encompasses the massive underrepresentation of Black Americans in U.S. government positions. He details his childhood in rural Arkansas, growing up with ten siblings on a farm. He recalls early figures in the Civil Rights Movement in Arkansas, like the Little Rock Nine and Martin Luther King, Jr. He explains how …

Why Terrorism? Whose Terror?, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author considers terrorism as a competitor for the legally constituted authority and power of governments.

Coming Distractions: China Watcher, Richard Baum

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the winter of 1994 I moved to Yokohama, Japan, to direct a semester-long U.C. Education Abroad Program (EAP) curriculum on Peace and Development Studies at Meiji Gakuin University. Because all electronic communications in Japan were controlled by the government’s telecomm monopoly, NHK, Internet access was extremely expensive, and my Compuserve subscription was costing me a small fortune —over US$250 each month — in connection charges. Since I was in more-or-less regular e-mail contact with a number of other China scholars in various countries, I decided to economize on my on-line connection charges by periodically sending group e-mailings to several …

Syrian/United States Relations: Explaining The Failure Of The Relationship And Suggestions On How To Repair It, Chris Chapman

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

"Syrian-American relations have deteriorated markedly in recent years. " ~Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Bushra Kanafani Hezbollah. Hamas. The Islamic Jihad. Rogue nation. The axis of evil. These are features commonly used by the United States government, Western media outlets, and the American people to describe the Republic of Syria. Syria is a major player in geopolitics and relevant to the stability of the Middle East. Its relationship with the United States, therefore, is of central importance in reaching the United States goal of peace in this warravaged region of the world. The erosion of normal diplomatic relations with Syria since …

Reading Round-Up: 2/12/10

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. China Beat team members Jeff Wasserstrom and Kate Merkel-Hess have a new piece at Foreign Policy discussing the recent joint report issued by the governments of China and Japan regarding the 1937-38 Rape of Nanking. In“Nanjing By the Numbers”, they argue that focusing on the continued controversy over the massacre’s death toll overlooks the greater significance of the report:

It would be too much to hope that any joint report over the causes and events of the Pacific War would reach accord on every issue. But as partisan as the debate on the Nanjing massacre has often seemed, a …

Religion And Manifestations Of Chinese Modernity, Paul Katz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One of the most frequent questions that scholars and writers hear is “I’m interested learning more about your field. What should I read?” Answering this query is surprisingly tricky, as often the books that specialists love the most are far beyond the introductory level that many general readers are seeking. China Beatwould like to help; below is the inaugural post in our new series, “Where to Begin.” In these essays, we’ll be asking authors to suggest a broad range of books that might make up a good beginning reading list for someone setting out to explore an unfamiliar topic. Here, …

Cross Talk

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“Wit, comic repartee, tongue-twisting speed and impressively lengthed sleeves are on display at a Peking University art society’s bi-termly xiangsheng (cross talk) performance. The audience behind me was, if sparse, in stitches throughout.”

— Alec Ash, Six

证婚人: A Memoir, Jacob Dreyer

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

While living in Shanghai last year, Jacob Dreyer found himself working as a 证婚人 [zhenghunren] in one of the city’s many wedding facilities. Translated as “wedding officiant,” “priest for weddings,” or “wedding witness,” zhenghunrenhas no real equivalent in the West. The role involves leading the wedding ceremony, but there is no need for a zhenghunren to be certified or authorized to perform weddings — which is one reason Dreyer was able to slip into the position so easily.

Shanghai, September 2009. It was the time of year when it was just beginning to be crisp. At a party at night, …

Upcoming Event: Ying Zhu On Google And China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Ying Zhu, Professor of Media Culture at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island, will be giving a talk on Friday, February 12 at Google’s Manhattan headquarters, beginning at noon. Although the event is not open to the public, a limited number of guest passes can be arranged; anyone interested in attending can contact her by e-mailing Ying.Zhu[at]csi.cuny.edu

Ying Zhu’s presentation, titled “Emerging Critical Masses and Shifting State-Society Relations in China,” will focus on Google’s recent tensions with China, as well as the adventures of Avatar in Chinese theaters, to explore the concept of China’s emerging “critical …

U.S.-China Relations: A Quick Q-And-A With Warren I. Cohen, Jeffrey Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

While trying to keep up with the latest twists and turns of U.S.-China relations, something I recently wrote about for Time magazine’s Asian edition, I learned that a new edition of a book on the topic that I’ve learned a lot from, and also assigned in a recent undergraduate class, is about to come out from Columbia University Press. The book is Warren I. Cohen’s America’s Response to China: A History of Sino-American Relations, and this will be its fifth edition. Given the current interest in interactions and tensions between Washington and Beijing, I decided to ask Cohen (whose name …

A Conversation On “Confucius” With Daniel A. Bell, Alec Ash

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The film Confucius premiered in Beijing last month, to a backdrop of controversyover Avatar being dropped from cinemas to make way for more patriotic fare. I saw the film last weekend with Chinese student friends, and we couldn’t hold back the occasional open snigger: in a word, Confucius is cornier than maize. It also raises interesting questions about the selective interpretation and political uses that modern China makes of its ancient Confucian tradition.

I put some of these questions to Daniel A. Bell, Professor of Philosophy at Tsinghua University, who has written widely on Confucianism (including pieces for The China …

Six Takes On Martin Jacques, Jeffrey Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I have a commentary that’s just appeared online at time.com (it’s in print as well in Time Asia’s February 8 issue), in which I focus on the distinction between what I call “Big China Books” (with “titles that cry out to be put in bold type”) and the quite different works that take a “worm’s eye” rather than “bird’s eye” view of the country, and which usually avoid predictive assertions. I state my preference for the latter genre, which I call forays into “scholarly reporting,” taking my cue fromAndrew Ross.

While I mention several books falling into each category, the …

Coming Distractions: Country Driving, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I made my initial foray into China studies in the fall of 2000, when I took a course called “Travelers in History.” Beginning with The Travels of Marco Polo, we moved forward through the centuries, reading a sampling of China-related travel narratives as well as works by historians looking back at those who had journeyed to and from China (such as The Question of Hu by Jonathan Spence and Peter Hopkirk’s Foreign Devils on the Silk Road). For the “modern” period, we read Paul Theroux’sRiding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China(1988). Although I thoroughly enjoyed Theroux’s book, and thought …

In Case You Missed Them: Books By Martin Jacques And Yasheng Huang, Howard French

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

During his first trip to China recently, Barack Obama was excoriated by pundits for his meekness on a host of issues, from Tibet to exchange rates to human rights. Newspaper commentary in the United States went on endlessly about the curtailment of American influence in an age where a fast-rising China has become this country’s main creditor. The event that supposedly crystallized all of this was the American-style town hall meeting the president had planned, but which the Chinese government appeared to control. In the end, Obama was limited to a stilted forum with an audience of carefully screened and …

Kibrisli Rumlarin Turk Kurtulus Savasi'ndaki Etkinlikleri (Greek Cypriots Turkish Liberation Events In War), Engin Berber

Center for Turkish Studies Occasional Paper Series

In this paper, Dr. Engin Berber discusses the history and politics of Cyprus.

The text of the paper is in Turkish.

Missing Mandalas: Development And Theoretical Gaps, Rosita Dellios

Rosita Dellios

The mandala is a fitting metaphor to act as a model for a more balanced conception of development, one that recognizes culture as central to human resource development. A globalising world can be understood as a unity, in which cultural and material divisions - as well as connections – are more readily discerned. The mandala exhibits three key attributes necessary for a more balanced world. They are the integrating elements of the relational, the educational and orientational – whereby cultural and ethical direction serves to bestow meaning in people’s lives. In the opposite direction, a disintegrating world scenario would feature …

Bolivia's Coca Headache: The Agroyungas Program, Inflation, Campesinos, Coca And Capitalism In Bolivia, John D. Roberts

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Bolivia in the 1980s was wracked by monetary inflation approaching levels of the German Weimar Republic. Immediately following this time of great financial crisis in Bolivia, the U.N. founded a project through the U.N.D.P. to encourage peasant farmers in Bolivia to switch from growing coca (the plant used manufacture cocaine) to growing other cash crops for market. This crop substitution and development program, called the Agroyungas Project, lasted from 1985 to 1991 and is the focus of this study. While many U.N. pundits and journalists considered the program’s initial small successes promising, it has been considered since its conclusion to …

Barb Rieffer-Flanagan On Muslims In Global Politics: Identities, Interests, And Human Rights. By Mahmood Monshipouri. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. 325pp., Barb Rieffer-Flanagan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Muslims in Global Politics: Identities, Interests, and Human Rights. By Mahmood Monshipouri. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. 325pp.

Happy Birthday To Us . . .

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On January 14, 2008, the very first China Beat post went online

Google + China: Q-And-A With Mara Hvistendahl

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Below is a short Q-and-A that Jeff Wasserstrom conducted with Hvistendahl via e-mail.

Exchanges: Reconciling Confucianism And Socialism?, Daniel A. Bell

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Today China Beat would like to introduce our new “Exchanges” feature, which we hope will become a regular item on the blog. The debate below, between Daniel A. Bell and Michael Walzer, was originally printed in the Winter 2010 issue of Dissent, and is reposted here with permission. We’d like to invite our readers to share their thoughts on this discussion, and will run a response from Daniel Bell in the coming weeks. Please send your comments and questions to thechinabeatgmail.com.

Photo: A World Of Ruins

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center organized a trip to teach English at a school built for the disaster victims of the big earthquake that shook Sichuan in 2008.

Night At The Museum, Kelly Hammond

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

When I was approached to help National Geographic with their ongoing exhibit of the Terra Cotta Warriors at their museum in Washington, D.C., I thought to myself: “Really? Me? But I work on Islam in late imperial China! I’m one of those scholars who mistakenly types Qing anytime I write about the Qin simply out of finger muscle memory! What could I possibly know about China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang?”