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Eucharist And Dragon Fighting As Resistance: Against Commodity Fetishism And Scientism, Jeffery Nicholas

Jeffery Nicholas

This paper examines two practices – the Roman Catholic Practice of Eucharist and the game Dungeons and Dragons – to show how social critique can be mounted from within a practice. It begins by relating Alasdair MacIntyre’s notion of tradition to his earlier analysis of ideology and to the notion of ideology in general. The paper then tackles two dominant forms of ideology – Commodity Fetishism and Scientism – and shows how both Eucharist and Dungeons and Dragons promote critical thinking to resist those ideologies. In the process, it denies the Althusserian-Foucauldian analysis of ideology as mere materiality and defends …

Five Stylish Recent Books

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As New Year’s is often a time of glitz and glamour (and last-minute holiday giving), we thought we would feature a few books that often include text with smart things to say, but would also be worth getting just for the pictures.

1. Lynn Pan’s Shanghai Style: Art and Design Between the Wars

An examination of the polyglot artistic influences in early twentieth century Shanghai, by one of the city’s acute observers.

2. Claire Roberts and Geremie R. Barme eds.,The Great Wall of China

This book features essays by many scholars about the varied history and uses of the Great …

Taiwan Top Five, Paul Katz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As we prepare to ring out 2008, here are a few thoughts about some of the leading stories that have shaped Taiwan during the past year:

1. Back and Blue: Ma Ying-jeou sweeps into office as Taiwan’s new president, winning a convincing majority of the popular vote based on a platform promising a more stable relationship with China, economic prosperity, and clean government. Cross-Straits tensions have declined markedly, while the opening of direct links should bring great benefits to the citizens of both China and Taiwan. At the same time, however, the economy remains in the doldrums (see #2) …

Rock Is Not Revolution, Part Ii, Chris Heselton

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One of the early rock musicians to make the jump to mainstream and become a household name was Xu Wei. His popularity is probably due to a style that some have called Chinese country or folk rock. This style does not have the explosive rage of heavy metal that many in the popular audience find hard to accept. Instead, he Xu Wei style is a more calm and relaxing melodic rock. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Xu Wei’s music is how similar it is to many of the romantic and nostalgic lyrical themes of pop music. Hometown (故乡, 2000), …

Zeng Jingyan Accepts Hu Jia’S Sakharov Prize

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In late October, the European Parliament announced that it would award this year’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Hu Jia, an activist for HIV/AIDS and the environment currently imprisoned in Beijing. Hu and his wife, Zeng Jingyan, have been adept at using new media to share their message of human rights activism with an international audience, making Hu Jia better known outside China than inside it.

The award ceremony was held December 17. China has continued to protest the award.

Zeng Jingyan, who remains under surveillance at the couple’s apartment, accepted the award via video, subsequently posted on …

Philosophical Tours Of China, From Dewey To Derrida, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Peter Zarrow’s piece last month on Bertrand Russell’s writing on and travels to China may have gotten some of our readers curious about the other two members of the triumverate of famous philosophers mentioned in the introduction to that post: the Indian poet and thinker Rabindranath Tagore and the American pragmatist and educational theorist John Dewey. What each of these two men thought about and did while in China could be well worth a posting. And perhaps in 2009 the blog will run such pieces, as it would be a very appropriate year to do so, at least in Dewey’s …

American Broadsides And Ephemera Series I, 1760-1990, Bill Sleeman

Bill Sleeman

Review of an electronic database of rare broadsides and ephemera from the colonial period through the end of the 19th Century.

Rock Is Not Revolution, Chris Heselton

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Rock is revolution! Rock is rebellion! Rock is democracy! Well, at least Axl Rose seems to think so with his new album Chinese Democracy. A rock legend singing to democracy in China seems almost poetically fitting. When people tend to think of China and rock music, it almost always comes back to democracy, more specifically, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Rock was the theme genre of the liberal, underground democratic movement. Ever since Cui Jian (崔健) played “I Have Nothing” (一无所有)—sometimes translated as “Nothing to My Name”—at the protest, rock music has been associated with democracy in China, and …

More Last Minute Gifts: Books From China Beat Contributors

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Many of our regular contributors have recent books out on China as well. We highly recommend the following as gifts for those many China non-experts in your life.

1. Factory Girls, Leslie T. Chang

For: The Worldly Progressive

Chang’s book, published this year to positive reviews (including this one at the New York Times by Howard French, where Factory Girlswas also recently named one of the Times‘ 100 notable books for 2008), follows the lives of young factory workers in Dongguang. Read an excerpt, published earlier at China Beat, here.

2. Socialism is Great!, Lijia Zhang

For: The Memoir Maven …

Divine Justice, Paul Katz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As China ascends to its place as a leading nation on the world stage, questions have arisen concerning the role of its legal system. As Joseph Kahn noted in a feature article entitled Deep Flaws, and Little Justice, in China’s Court System, “Justice in China is swift but not sure.” Many protests in China today center on the issue of justice, with one blogger responding to the January 2008 fatal beating by parapolice officials of a man trying to videotape a protest by lamenting “Where is justice? Where is the law? Aren’t there any rules in China?”

My newest book, …

Last Minute Gifts: China Books

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

So you’ve put off holiday shopping until now. If you’d like to share your love of China this year, here are a few recommendations for old classics and more recent releases for the recipients on your list. All these books are widely available and relatively affordable.

1. Fortress Besieged, by Qian Zhongshu

For: The Literature Lover

We’ve written about this 1947 novel at China Beat before. It is a classic of Chinese literature, but not particularly well known in the West, making it the perfect gift for a well-read friend or relative.

2. The Question of Hu, Jonathan Spence

For: …

Chinese In Laos, Caroline Finlay

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Chimes jingle on gold-painted stupas and teenagers strum guitars to the beat of passing tuk-tuks in Luang Prabang, Laos’ UNESCO World Heritage sight nestled on the Mekong. Sadly, a more obtrusive rhythm has hit the scene: the squawk of walkie-talkie phones. Like a large percentage of Lao’s motorbikes, clothes and electronics, the walkie-talkie phones are a Chinese import, strapped to the belts of the increasingly numerous Chinese tourists visiting Luang Prabang, famous for its now fragile serenity.

China has begun to re-establish ties with sparsely populated Laos, which has historically aligned with Indochina War ally Vietnam. The Chinese have made …

Selectivity In Imaging The First Emperor, K. E. Brashier

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The story of Qin may vaunt grandiose armies and new empires that encompass all under heaven, but it also extends to more humble images:

Li Si, [the chief minister of Qin], was a man of Shangcai in Chu. In his youth, when he was a minor clerk in the province, he noticed rats eating filth in the latrines of the clerks’ hostel; and if they approached a man or dog, they were generally scared of them. But when Si entered a granary, he observed that the rats in the granary were eating the stored-up grain, living underneath the main chamber …

China Celebrates Human Rights, Jeremy Paltiel

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Today, December 12, 2008 Xinhua reports that China’s President and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Hu Jintao sent a letter to a symposium held by the China Association for the Study of Human Rights to commemorate International Human Rights Day, the 60th Anniversary of the passage by the UN General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In his letter, Hu avers that since the founding of New China in 1949 China has made steady progress in the protection of human rights according to China’s “national situation” culminating in the solemn enshrinement of the principle …

Reclaiming Old Shanghai?

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A few weeks ago, it was reported that horseracing had returned to China for the first time since 1949. Though this time, the horses are running in Wuhan, horseracing in China was for a long time almost synonymous with Shanghai. In case that history is new to you, here are a few places to go for more on Shanghai’s racing history:

1. When news came earlier this year that the government might allow horseracing in Wuhan (and that spectators would be allowed to participate in a “lottery”—gambling remains illegal), Far Eastern Economic Review posted a short excerptfrom a 1983 book …

Tea And Sympathy: The United States And The Sudan Civil War, 1985-2005., Peter William Klein

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The specters of violence and economic insecurity have haunted the Sudan since its independence in 1956. The United States Congress has held numerous hearings on the Sudan's civil war and U.S. television news outlets have reported on the conflict since 1983. While attempting to engage the Sudan in a viable peace process, the U.S. Congress has been beset by ineffectual Cold War paradigms and an inability to understand the complexities of the Sudan civil war. U.S. television news programs, on the other hand, engaged in a process of oversimplification, using false dichotomies to reduce the conflict into easily digestible pieces. …

Kelly, Rita Helen Roberts (Fa 353), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 353. Paper: "Good Mothering through Breast Feeding: Observations of a Meeting of the La Leche League" written by Rita H. Kelly for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Jones, Rich (Fa 332), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 332. Paper: "Folklore and Media Project on the 'Daily News' Newspaper Articles" written by Rich Jones for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

A Postmodern Look At Modernism: A Review Article Of Books By Pera And López On Modernista Writers In Hispanic Literature, Richard A. Cardwell

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Miles, Claude D. (Fa 338), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 338. Paper: "[Folklore in 'Rolling Stone']," written by Claude D. Miles for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Hannah, James (Fa 330), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 330. Paper: "Folklore and Mass Media Class Project: Looking at Folklore in the Newspaper," written by James Hannah for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Reading Recommendations

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Gems on China often appear in unexpected places, and we were recently alerted to a handful worth looking into at the Literary Review of Canada. These three pieces review recent works in Chinese studies that touch on issues central to current discussions on the China blogosphere. We’ve included short excerpts below, but encourage you to make the leap to the longer versions.

The first is a review by Timothy Cheek, the author of a book on Mao that we flagged in one of our first posts last January, and a regular commentator on contemporary China, as here and here. In …

Medley, Joy (Fa 339), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 339. Paper: "The Power of the Press: Elements of Folklore Surrounding 'The Death of Floyd Collins'," written by Medley for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Logsdon, Pamela Ann (Fa 334), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 334. Paper: "A Traditional Christmas Holiday" written by Pamela Ann Logsdon for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Swinging Bridge - December 11, 2008, Alison Stratton

Student Newspapers & Magazines

No abstract provided.

Johnstad, Susan E. (Fa 331), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 331. Paper: "The Folklore of Weddings in Bride Magazines: Where Tradition Meets Media Convention" written by Johnstad for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Jarvis, Pat (Fa 333), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 333. Paper: "Collection of Advertisements from 'Rolling Stone' for Folklore and Media," written by Pat Jarvis for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Levenson, Al (Fa 335), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text paper (click on "Additional Files" below) for Folklife Archives Project 335. Paper: "Frog Life: A Brief Discussion and Analysis of the Folklife of the Flying Frog Farm," written by Al Levenson for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Charter 08: Five Links

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The biggest China news story of the moment is the issuance of Charter 08, a declaration that was created to mark the 60th anniversary of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is inspired in part by “Charter 77,” the famous Czech group, and the arrest and detention of some of its signatories. Here are five things to read to help put the document into context, or learn more about those being help because of it.

1) Charter 08 itself, translated into English by Perry Link, can be found here.

2) A sophisticated exploration of the events of 1989 …

From Iron Girls To Oriental Beauties, Hongmei Li

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In a piece I did for the Huffington Post on women and the Olympics, I provided a brief overview of the history of ideas about feminine beauty in China and their links to concepts of modernity. This post supplements it by looking at the shift in representations of women from celebrating iron girls to extolling Oriental beauties over the course of the still relatively short history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

During the three decades that followed the 1949 founding of the PRC, one goal promoted in official discourse was that of erasing gender differences and promoting gender …