Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Negotiating Colonialism And Chineseness: Museums, Tours, And Heritage Preservation In Pearl River Delta, Macau, And Hong Kong, Wing-Kai To

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

The history of Hong Kong, Macau, and the Pearl River Delta in connecting China with the world through European colonialism and globalization is a well-documented story. Yet the recent designations of the Historic Centre of Macau in 2005 and the Kaiping "diaolou" (fortified watched towers and mansions) in 2007 as World Cultural Heritage sites have further placed two Chinese outposts of western influence and overseas emigration into sharper focus. With the return of Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese sovereignty at the turn of the last century along with cultural change in the Pearl River Delta, museums, tourism, and heritage …

Maneuvering Modernity: Family Law As A Battle Field In Colonial Taiwan (1895-1945), Yun-Ru Chen

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

Twenty five years after launching its own legal modernization in response to Western imperialism, Japan imposed a modern legal system upon its first colony, Taiwan. In accordance with the “respecting old custom” colonial policy, the Japanese created a system called Taiwanese customary law, a mixture of imperial Chinese laws, local customs and European legal concepts, and gradually implemented its newly adopted European-style Meiji Civil Code (1898). However, even since the late 1910s when the colonial policy changed into “full-flag assimilation,” family law remained an exception to the transplantation of Japanese laws. That did not, however, mean that family law was …

Artful Networking: Art Collecting And Cultural Positioning In Early Qing China - The Case Of Gao Shiqi (1645-1704), Amy Huang

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

In this paper I analyze Gao Shiqi’s高士奇 (1645-1704) collecting practices in the context of early Qing politics. This paper argues that art collecting was used as an effective networking tool and played an significant part in defining Gao Shiqi’s cultural status in the court during the Kangxi reign (r. 1661-1722).

Gao Shiqi rose to prominence as Kangxi Emperor’s favorite courtier despite not having a jinshi degree. Because of his inferior background, Gao Shiqi was under pressure to assert his status within the circle of cultural elite—art collecting was his solution. Analysis of his private art inventory indicates that Gao had …

Absent Presence: Li Yu’S Drama Wanli Yuan And Early Qing Sartorial Politics, Guojun Wang

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

Li Yu’s 李玉 Wanli yuan 萬里圓 (Thousand-li Reunion) is one of the few dramas in the early Qing period that directly addresses the topic of the Ming-Qing transition. Although Wanli yuan was never published in its entirety during the Qing Dynasty, its popular scenes circulated widely on stage, resulting in a series of “performance editions.” Oriented toward stage performance, most of Li Yu’s plays include detailed costume instruction. By contrast, almost none of the extant editions of Wanli yuan includes any costume instruction. Despite this absence, the dialogues and stage directions of the extant performance editions show that different scenes …

The East India Company's 1835 Currency Reform, Ian Barrow

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

This paper examines the East India Company’s 1835 currency reform. The measure created, for the first time, a unified currency within the Company’s Indian territories. Moreover, it stopped the longstanding practices of minting rupees in the Mughal Emperor’s name and solely in Persian, and instead introduced coins that featured the bust of the British King along with the Company’s name and the denomination written in English. Because coins are among the most evident ways states express their sense of self and power, the political effect of the reform was to underscore the decades-long process whereby the Company phased out Mughal …

Searching In The Dark - Han Learning And The Controversy Of 1799 Metropolitan Exam, Shiu On Chu

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

This paper investigates the introduction of Han Learning (hanxue 漢學) in Qing civil examinations from an institutional perspective. Focusing on the controversy over the 1799 metropolitan examination, I argue that hanxue was resisted not only by the intellectual orthodoxy Cheng-Zhu learning, but also a concept of “proper advancement” (zhengtu 正途) from examination.

The 1799 metropolitan examination was often seen as a triumph of Han Learning because the chief examiners Zhu Gui (朱珪1731-1806) and Ruan Yuan (阮元1764-1849), who were famous patrons of Han scholarship, awarded degrees to a number of established Han scholars. Contemporaries attributed this high rate of …

The Emergence Of Singlehood In The 20th And Early 21st Century: Hong Kong, Japan, And Taiwan, Joanna Kang

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

In East Asia, Confucian philosophy is the dominant value system, especially its prominent doctrine of filial piety. Filial piety is a requirement of life, and being filial is an essential approach to acquire public recognition as an individual with integrity. The most unfilial and unforgivable behavior is being unmarried or sonless.[1] However, there are more and more Asian women who are immersed in this social milieu yet are choosing to embrace their singlehood. The liberation of Asian women is one of the momentous outcomes of Western modernization. This is also a trans-cultural trend that spans nations, societies, and ideologies. What …

Violence At A Purim Ball, Francesca Bregoli

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The texts presented here address an incident of violence at a Purim ball 1753, in Livorno.

Exorcism And Violence: Contexts Internal And External, Yohanan Petrovsky-Stern

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation discusses projections of violence and social values in a mystical text from eastern Europe.

The Murder Of A Travel Companion. Violence, Gender And Living Conditions Of Servants In 18th Century Prussia, Noa Sophie Kohler

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Jews are often portrayed as non-violent and therefore as powerless victims. Highlighting and examining cases of Jews as violent perpetrators not only refutes this stigmatization of Jews, it also reveals much about day to day life, about personal and social conflicts both within Jewish society and in encounters with the Christian society.

Discussed here sections of a legal document from the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin Dahlem cover a court case against the Jewish servant, Samuel Saul, who was suspected of having murdered the Jewish maid Zierle in Prussia in 1791.

A Jewish Perspective On The Execution Of 'Jew Süss': 4 February 1738, Yair Mintzker

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

“The Story of the Passing of Joseph Süss, of Blessed Memory,” which appears here in full in English for the first time, is an extraordinary document. It concerns the arrest of Joseph Süsskind Oppenheimer in March 1737, his 11-month incarceration, his encounter with two Jews in prison and his execution the following day.

Oppenheimer, who already during his imprisonment began to be known derisively as “Jew Süss,” was born in Heidelberg to a middle-class Jewish family, probably in 1698. Starting in the third decade of the 18th century, Oppenheimer served as a court Jew to several German princes. In 1732 …

Big Blows On A Small Stage: Records Of Violence In Jewish Communal Registers, Altona 1765-1776, Elisheva Carlebach

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The incidents of interpersonal violence discussed here were recorded in semi-private registers kept by communal scribes across a period of approximately a decade during the second half of the eighteenth century in the Ashkenazic community of Altona. The Ashkenazic “triple” community, AHW, whose center was Altona, then under the Danish crown, is richly represented by surviving internal and archival records for the early modern period.

The questions explored address the meaning of this level of physical violence and the means by which it was addressed. Was violence tolerated as a way of keeping disputes within the community? How did it …

Jewish Violence In Polish Laws And Courts, Jerzy Mazur

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation looks at violence in law and in courts in late medieval Poland.

La Mala Sangre: Daily Violence Within The Western Sephardic Diaspora, Daniel Strum

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Recurrent private acts of violence within dense and homogenous communities, or diasporas, illustrate a tension between powerful gossip transmission and imperfect translation of such power into efficient social control.

This presentation explores the manifestation of private violence in the daily life of the Western Sephardic Diaspora in the early seventeenth century, examining inquisitorial sources from Portugal and notarial records from the Netherlands. These sources indicate that as much as group members expected mutual responsibility, trustworthiness and compliance with social norms from their fellow group members. Yet when they felt disappointed, they expressed their resentment aggressively. Aggression took shape of offenses …

Rome, 1571: A Body And A Murder Investigation In The Ghetto, Serena Di Nepi

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 1571 story of Sabato del Corsetto tells about violence in the Roman ghetto in the second half of Sixteenth Century. It concerns many issues related to violence: family violence; verbal violence; physical violence; violence among women; violence arisen both for economic and personal reasons and even attempt made by the Jewish community to manage violence and violent people.

Eschatological Avengers Or Messianic Saviors? Violence And Physical Strength In The Vernacular Legend Of The Red Jews, Rebekka Voss

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The vernacular legend of the Red Jews allows us to explore the relationship of violence, physical strength and power during the early modern period, extending the traditional treatment of Jews and violence in that era. Violence is often linked to power and physical strength. Violence is typically associated with ruling authorities and the realm of the majority, rather than in the hands of an oppressed minority, as in case of Diaspora Jewry, which has been identified with victimhood. Moreover, in historiography, the perception of Jews as targets of aggression perpetrated by “the other,” whether Christian or Muslim, corresponds to the …

Plague And Violence Against Jews In Early Modern Europe, Samuel Cohn

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Based on Italian chronicles and archival sources Samuel Cohn examined questions of violence against Jews during plague.

Killed Or Be Killed. Realities And Representations Of Violence In Seventeenth-Century Ukraine, Adam Teller

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Based on sources related to the 1648 Chmielnicki Uprising, Adam Teller examined "The Realities and Representations of Violence in Seventeenth Century Ukraine"

2013 Emw: Jews And Violence In The Early Modern Period, Emw 2013

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 2013 Early Modern Workshop on “Jews and Violence in the Early Modern Period” sought to contextualize the violence involving Jews in the early modern period in order to understand this crucial aspect of their experience. Participating scholars tried to complicate not only the over-simplified notion of Jews as solely victims of violence in the premodern period, but also examined complexities of the question of Jews as victims of violence.

Keynote address by Robert Davis of Ohio State University, "Typologies of Violence in Early Modern Europe"

Bennington Opera House: Early 20th Century Entertainment In Rural Vermont, Karyn Norwood

UVM Libraries Conference Day

There's a lot you can do with the rich content that historic newspapers provide! Karyn Norwood, Vermont Digital Newspaper Project/VTDNP Digital Support Specialist, presented a research project on the Bennington (Vt) Opera House, using Chronicling America to find interesting newspaper advertisements and articles that illustrated the transitions in the entertainment industry in rural Vermont in the early 20th century.

Elements And Perspectives Of Educational Accountability In China And Denmark, Yihuan Zou, Palle Rasmussen

Summer Workshop on the Comparative History of School Accountability

Different types of accountability systems may be found in education. For instance Anderson (2005) distinguishes between the following three main types, namely (1) detailed institutional regulation of educational activities and compliance to this; (2) acknowledgement of professional norms and adherence to these and (3) specification of expected results and evaluation of performance. For all three types a range of instruments to evaluate and to improve may be used. Accountability through performance has become more widespread in many contexts during recent years, but that does not mean that institutional regulation or even professional norms have disappeared. The three types coexist in …

The Origins, Evolution, And Effects Of Test Based Accountability: North Carolina And The Nation, 1976-2009, Scott Baker

Summer Workshop on the Comparative History of School Accountability

This paper examines the origins, development, and effects of test based accountability between 1976 and 2009. Using evidence from North Carolina and other southern states to illuminate broader national developments, the paper focuses on three overlapping waves of test based accountability that began in southern states in the 1970s and spread throughout the United States in the decades that followed: 1) the minimum competency movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, 2) the raising of high school graduation requirements and the implementation of more rigorous high school exit exams in the 1980s and 1990s, and 3) the adoption of …

Educating Wards Of The State: Gender-Based Vocational Curriculum In Jamaican Industrial Schools 1890 – 1940, Shani Roper

Summer Workshop on the Comparative History of School Accountability

Throughout the late nineteenth century, the Jamaican colonial government along with several religious institutions established a small network of Industrial Schools as well as a Reformatory to house criminal, destitute, and displaced juveniles. Advocates of the industrial school system argued that the goal of an industrial school education was to create good colonial citizens. A gender- based vocational oriented curriculum was promoted on the grounds that such an education enforced values of self-sufficiency and thrift. This curriculum differentiated industrial schools from its counterparts in the general education system. The main goal of school administrators was to re-socialize children to become …

Danish Primary Education Accountability – A Conceptual And Organizational Jour-Ney Of Accountability Practices In Danish History Of Education, Christian Ydesen, Karen Egedal Andreasen

Summer Workshop on the Comparative History of School Accountability

In this paper we focus on primary education accountability as a concept and as an organisational practice in Danish history of education. Contemporary policy studies of education often address questions of accountability, but the manifestations of school accountability differ significantly between different national settings. Furthermore, accountability measures and practices actually change the ways and means by which societies approach their cultural edifices in general and their educational systems in particular. In other words accountability measures and practices tend to have a disciplining effect on its surroundings. Hence there is a need to clarify the characteristics and traits connected with the …

Afro-Environmentalism: Black Stewardship In The New Millennium, Shelby Renee Burks Ward

Black Issues Conference

In the 21st century, societies face serious environmental problems. Black leadership in the environmental arena—stewardship—is vital for successful decision-making that respects all life on the planet, human health, and sustainable economy. Afro-environmentalism will explore how the legacy of the civil rights movement inspires environmental activism, current environmental problems, and how people of African descent are needed to effectively address those problems.

As African-Americans, the civil rights leaders of yesterday gave us an incredible legacy. Men and women fought against oppression and gave their lives for equal treatment, justice, and freedom. Today, environmental problems also include matters of injustice, untruth, and …

Fostering Student Engagement In An Upper-Level, Online Seminar On The History Of Sexuality: Lessons Learned About Pedagogy And Course Design To Deepen Students’ Learning, Kristine Rabberman

Blended Learning in the Liberal Arts Conference

GSWS 422 “History of Sexuality” has been offered for four years in the online summer program at the University of Pennsylvania. The instructor leads advanced undergraduate and graduate students through a highly interactive seminar class in which they learn how to analyze critically works in the history of sexuality, exploring sexual identities, roles and norms from Ancient Greece and Rome, to the United States in the 21^st century. Students are required to demonstrate their critical engagement and understanding of central debates and themes, methodological challenges, and issues of change versus continuity. One of the instructor’s goals in teaching the …

Praying For Bullets: The Moral Necessity Of International Intervention In Cases Of Genocide, Layla Raine Grice

Young Historians Conference

Perhaps the most heinous crime imaginable, genocide has pockmarked the landscape of the twentieth century. Genocidal conflicts erupt over issues of culture and race, touching the heart of how we as humans define ourselves. Despite repeated attempts to prevent genocide the UN’s policies remain unclear and insufficient. This paper attempts to define the moral obligation of the UN towards nations experiencing genocide, including a specific examination the Bosnian and Sudanese genocides of 1995 and 2004. Based on Rawl’s “veil of ignorance” and theories of moral objectivism, the UN is morally obligated to intervene with whatever tools necessary to halt genocide.

A Western Empire, Grace Garrett

Young Historians Conference

Over a hundred year period spanning the 17th and 18th centuries, Russia underwent sweeping social and political reforms. Peter the Great and Catherine the Great stand as bookends to this great transformation, with the latter embracing and expanding on the former's initial vision. This essay focuses on the role art played in Russia's efforts to become "a Western Empire".

“The Woman I Love”: The Underlying Motives For King Edward Viii’S Abdication, Sarah Gimble

Young Historians Conference

The human tendency to over-romanticize stories heard about politicians reflects our simple desire to cling to a ray of hope in a world where news is not always satisfying. This was the case with the supposed love story surrounding King Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, and the King's subsequent abdication. A closer inspection reveals that the King's "love" for a married woman and his willingness to abdicate were no more than an escape from the life he never wanted. This paper will explore King Edward VIII's political and personal motives for quitting the job he was destined to perform.

Biomimetic Robots At War: The Ethical Ramifications Of American Military-Industrial Complex, Nina Kostur

Young Historians Conference

This paper discusses the correlation between the American military-industrial complex and the application of robotics over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries. The military-industrial complex has encouraged scientists to spend time developing weaponry and reconnaissance devices designed to hurt other human beings rather than investing in machines that have to potential to provide humanitarian aid. This has caused the application of robotics to become unethical.