Asian History Commons^™

Comic Legacies Of The Japanese Silver Screen, Aaron Gerow, Xavi Sawada, David Baasch, Eugene Kwon, Adam Silverman, Anna Tropnikova, Chloe Yan

Film Series Commentaries

Pamphlet created for the film series “Comic Legacies of the Japanese Silver Screen” presented at Yale University from February to April, 2024. Starting with an introduction outlining the history of Japanese film comedy, the pamphlet contains plot summaries and commentaries on the following films:

Buddhist Mass for Goemon Ishikawa (1930, Saitō Torajirō) Fighting Friends (1929, Ozu Yasujirō) Romantic and Crazy (1934, Yamamoto Kajirō) Singing Lovebirds (1939, Makino Masahiro) Akanishi Kakita (1936, Itami Mansaku) Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryō (1935, Yamanaka Sadao) Room for Rent (1959, Kawashima Yūzō) Doctor’s Day Off (1952, Shibuya Minoru) Oh, My Bomb! …

Playing Changes: Music As Mediator Between Japanese And Black Americans, E Taylor Atkins

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

Since the mid-twentieth century, music has played a central role in encounters and interactions between the people of Japan and those of African descent. It proved far more effective for pro- moting interracial dialogue and understanding than efforts in the early 1900s to foster an alliance against white supremacy and imperialism. This essay unpacks the ways that encounters with Black music transformed Japanese musicking and generated knowledge and empathy for people of African descent among Japanese. Personal interactions between Black and Japanese musicians constituted a process of “grassroots globalization” that circumvented the dominance of American mass media in representing African …

Immigration, Diversity, Cultural Clash, And – Hopefully – Cultural Melding? A Review Of Mrs. Chatterjee Vs. Norway (2023), Raja Ramanathan

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

For migrating from 'developing’ countries, to relocate in the ‘advanced West’, a message that came through from the western society is clear: “Integrate.” The Norwegian official in the movie 'Mrs. Chatterjee vs. Norway" says this unequivocally and with impact: “Be like us if you want to live here or go back to where you came from.” The message of the western world – ever since they started colonizing the ‘native’ lands of Asia, Asia and the Americas – was that the natives had to be saved from themselves. That was “the white man’s burden” – a burden of “civilizing” the …

The Fall Of Public Opinion: The Tet Offensive, The Anti-War Movement, And The Media, 1963-1975, Taylor Ann Cusick

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

From 1963 to 1975, public opinion regarding the Vietnam War changed drastically. In the beginning, the public was largely on board with Americans going overseas to fight against the North Vietnamese military. Citizens felt the American military was doing what was necessary to secure democracy in a region where communism was spreading, and the public was not easily swayed by those who opposed the war. The media mirrored public opinion during the first years of the war. By 1968, support for the war declined dramatically, and the media’s portrayal of the conflict reversed. Newscasters began to argue that the risk …

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …

"Kittenish Appearance:" Western Fashion In Meiji Japan, Harry Zhang

Gettysburg College Headquarters

This paper seeks to examine the degree to which Meiji era Japan adopted Western fashion. It uses written and photographic sources to understand the attitude of Meiji era Japanese towards the introduction of Western fashion into everyday life, and the changing of said attitudes throughout the Meiji era and its implication on Japan's national identity.

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

Moving At The Speed Of Trust, Sun Ho Lee

Masters Theses

Moving at the Speed of Trust is a workbook of strategies — practices, definitions, and techniques — to nurture community-building in support of inbetweeners who live between power structures and cultures and are often left out. Inbetweeners are those individuals whose lives are in transition through recent immigration or forced translocation from Asia to America.

These strategies revolve around threads of trust: kin, giggles, vulnerability, and shared experience. With these threads, we can question power. We can preserve stories, expand the ways we connect, shift perspectives on what is “standard,” and cultivate a community rooted in understanding. To understand each …

International Student Orientations: Indian Students At American Universities Around The Turn Of The Twentieth Century, Param S. Ajmera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the writings and experiences of five Indian international students in the United States during late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By drawing attention to these students, I attend to the ways in which notions of freedom, progress, and inclusivity associated with American higher education, and liberalism more generally, are related to structures of racialized and colonial dispossession in India. I build these arguments by reading archival sources such as university administrative records, student publications, personal and official correspondence, as well as understudied aesthetic works, such as memoirs, travel narratives, essays, doctoral dissertations, and public lectures. These historical …

Review- Archives And Human Rights, Alexandra Pucciarelli

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Archives and Human Rights edited by Jens Boel, Perrine Canavaggio, and Antonio González Quintana utilizes seventeen case studies to examine the role archives and archivists can play in international justice after human rights violations. The cases include but are not limited to; Rwanda, Spain, and Cambodia.

David Versus Goliath: The Power Of Weakness In Asymmetric Warfare—Lessons From History, Nicholas K. Petaludis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Under what conditions do violent nonstate actors (VNA) succeed against states? Why does David sometimes beat Goliath? Since at least the time of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian Wars, the realist narrative in international relations measures power primarily in relative, coercive, and deterrent terms. Strong states should accordingly face fewer constraints and enjoy more options while pursuing their national interests. Unconventional warfare, and its subsets of terrorism and insurgency, should—given these circumstances, end in VNA failure. Sometimes, however, VNAs find success. By comparing the literature on historical and current case studies, I propose that a set of preconditions and two mechanisms …

Li Zhichang’S Propaganda Of The Conversion Of The Barbarians): The Cause Of Decline Of Quanzhen Daoism In The Yuan Period, Jian Liang

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

In 1281, under the order of Kublai Khan, the Daoist Canon and some other Daoist texts compiled by the Quanzhen Daoist sect were burned. Since Qiu Chuji’s meeting with Genghis Khan in 1221, the Quanzhen Sect enjoyed sixty-years of prosperity and its leaders been appointed as leaders of all Daoist and Buddhist sects under the Yuan Mongol dynasty. During this period, Quanzhen Sect experienced a turning point from prosperity to decline. Li Zhichang, the seventh-generation leader of the Quanzhen Sect, spread the huahu (Conversion of the Barbarians) discourse in order to suppress Buddhism. This directly affected the Mongols’ attitude towards …

Japanese Colonialism: Unraveling The Complex Historiography And Cultural Genocide In The Korean Peninsula, Madison Huckabay

History | Senior Theses

Upon the influence of western imperialism reaching East Asia, Japan began its own imperial conquests as it worked to establish itself as a world power alongside Russia and Western powers. After the first Sino-Japanese war between Qing China and Imperial Japan, China was forced to recognize independence to Korea, along with ceding the Taiwan, Pescadores and Liaodong territories to Japan as of 1895. While Japan initially claimed to promote Korea’s independence and nationalism, they officially ended up annexing Korea as of 1910. From the perspective of the western powers and historians, they were initially optimistic about Japan’s reform on Koreans. …

Map, Census, Museum: Imagining The Malaysian Nation-State And The Malay Identity, Jackson Rockett

Honors Theses

Using historian Benedict Anderson's framework from his seminal text Imagined Communities of examining nation-building and identity construction through colonial artifacts, this thesis turns to maps, censuses, and museums to better understand the colonial and post-colonial imagining of the country that is now known as Malaysia. Reconciling with regional histories that predate the nation-state and defy the contemporary boundaries of territoriality, this thesis largely seeks to elucidate the contestation between colonially-imposed ideas of spatiality, categorization, and the reproduction of history with the modern Malaysian nation-state and the conflation of ethnicity with nationalism from which much of this contestation is derived from.

National In Form: Language Reform And Romanization In The Early People’S Republic Of China, Nicholas E. Demick

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

“Filipinos In California, Community, And Identity”: A Personal Inquiry, Sam T. Mcclintock

The Forum: Journal of History

No abstract provided.

Wang Xitian And The Chinese Experience In Imperial Tokyo, 1899-1923: Class, Violence, And The Formation Of A New National Consciousness, Isabella Yihan Yang

Student Work

A 2021-2022 Williams Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Isabella Yang (Saybrook ‘22) for her essay submitted to the Department of History, "Wang Xitian and the Chinese Experience in Imperial Tokyo, 1899-1923: Class, Violence, and the Formation of a New National Consciousness” (Daniel Botsman, Professor of History, advisor).

Drawing upon a remarkable array of sources in Japanese, Chinese and English, Isabella Yang, in her thesis “Wang Xitian and the Chinese Experience in Imperial Tokyo, 1899-1923: Class, Violence, and the Formation of a New National Consciousness,” has crafted a genuinely path-breaking account of an aspect of …

The Perspectives Of Urban Renewal: Reevaluating The Image Of Late Twentieth Century Gentrification Of U.S. Chinatowns, Christian E. Manalac

Gettysburg College Headquarters

Urban renewal or gentrification has affected many low-income minority families in the United States with redevelopment projects that destroyed their neighborhoods for the affluent white middle class. Unlike, many minority groups who protested against the intrusive practice Chinatowns communities saw themselves divided over the issue. Chinatowns throughout the nation benefitted from redevelopment projects that brought new investments into their neighborhoods’ businesses, but like other minority neighborhood, they also suffered as their residents were displaced. This case study examines the debates over urban renewal of Philadelphia and Washington D.C’s Chinatowns through local newspaper coverage from the 1970s-1990s. Specifically, this study uncovers …

Creative Citizen Peacebuilding: Japanese Artists And Audiences Respond To The Vietnam-American War, Long T. Bui, Ayako Sahara

Peace and Conflict Studies

This article explores two case studies related to South Vietnam and Japan, relating them to the controversial history and legacy of the Second Indochina War. The first is the Japanese adoption and adaptation of South Vietnamese antiwar music. The second is a Japanese film, uncovered decades later after the war, exposing the role of Japan in South Vietnam. Cultural productions, from nations allied with the United States, sought to expose the popular struggle for peace against the rising tide of Cold War military violence and corporate capitalist exploitation. Through interviews, archival research, and textual analysis, the article argues for a …

A Study On The Sports Industry In Edo: Preface To A Study Of The History Of The Sports Industry In Early Modern Japan, Hironori Tanigama

Japanese Society and Culture

This study discusses what sorts of industries developed in Edo during the early modern period and their characteristics, with a specific look at the sports industry. The results of this study are as follows. 1. In the 17th century, the sports industry in Edo targeted the ruling samurai class. Samurai in Edo were fond of sumo tournaments and archery exhibition competitions; both were heavily influenced by the Kyoto area (then the capital). At the time, traditions carried on since the Middle Ages remained strong in the world of sports. 2. At the end of the 17th century, various urban sports …

Control, Allegiance, And Shame In Male Qing Dynasty Hairstyles, Carolle Pinkerton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is about the politicization of hairstyles in imperial China. They indicated conformity with social norms, or rebellion against them. This was especially true under the country’s last dynasty. The Manchu conquerors imposed their own hairstyle, the queue, on their Han Chinese subjects to make their rule palpable to China’s illiterate millions. “Hair martyrs” who refused to accept this “barbarous” hairstyle were ruthlessly eliminated. The Manchus had feared assimilation into the much larger Han population. But the introduction of one uniform male hair style for both Manchus and Han blurred the lines between the two groups. In this way …

Kokoro: Hints And Echoes Of Japanese Inner Life, Lafcadio Hearn, Koizumi Yakumo

Zea E-Books Collection

The works of Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo) played a critical role in introducing his adopted Japan to a worldwide audience. In Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life, he writes, “The papers composing this volume treat of the inner rather than of the outer life of Japan, — for which reason they have been grouped under the title Kokoro (heart). This word signifies also mind, in the emotional sense; spirit; courage; resolve; sentiment; affection; and inner meaning, — just as we say in English, ‘the heart of things.’” After centuries of isolation Meiji-era Japan was forced to adjust …

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 diaspora, and colonial Southeast Asia, …

Carpets As Signifiers Of Historical Change: The Azerbaijani Carpet Industry From The Mid-Nineteenth To Late Twentieth Century, Jill Boggs

Senior Theses

The Azerbaijani carpet industry, long recognized as an important piece of Azerbaijan’s cultural heritage, transformed dramatically between the mid-nineteenth and twentieth centuries in response to political, economic, and social changes that took place under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. During this period, the carpet industry began to use modern weaving techniques and materials, favored factory production over traditional hand-woven designs, and created pieces for exportation rather than personal or community use. These developments contribute to two historical schools that view the Soviet Union as either a prison of nations, stifling non-Russian cultures, or a nursery of ethnic identities, …

Library Sources Available On Pre-Islamic Religious Traditions Of The Eastern Hindu Kush And On Shamanism Among The Kalasha People, Dr. Muhammad Kashif Ali, Dr. Ghulam Shabbir, Prof. Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Chawla

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The shamanism is the oldest cult of human being, in Pakistan the Kalasha are the sole people in the (eastern) Hindu Kush region who have the tradition of shamanism alive though at the last breath. The Kalasha are Indo-Aryan people of Dardic branch and their religion has similarities with the religion of Vedic period. Shaman or dehar is one of the most significant institutions of the community and is the most spiritual in nature. However, for some decades the shamanism due to multiple reasons is towards the decline; impurity is the key reason. Though the Kalasha people does not have …

Remembering The Experience Of War: A Sensory Study Of The Vietnam War And Collective Memory, Jacob Randolph

Master's Theses

The Vietnam War is remembered in a variety of ways. It is remembered as a war against communism, yet one that was also against American ideals of freedom. It is remembered as a war of patriotism, yet one that was also against the numerous military members who fought in it. It is remembered as a war for integration and unity among black and white, yet many African-Americans remember the time period as a war being fought abroad and at home. Memory of the war is obviously contradicting, but then again the 1960s and 1970s oftentimes were.

This thesis examines how …

On Their Own Terms : A Case Study Of Chinese Peasants’ Linguistic Techniques During The Socialist Education Movement, Wenkuo Ma

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations

The Socialist Education Movement, also known as the Four Cleanups Campaign, was a nation-wide political movement that took place between 1963 and 1966 in China. The initial aim of the movement was to deal with the grassroots cadres’ corruption problems. However, the authority later conducted a class reconsideration work, and all the peasants became the targets of the movement. This project uses meeting records, self-inspection reports, personal statements, and a variety of other grassroots materials from the Jinjiapu Village in northern China to study peasants’ experience and discourses during the campaign. In contrast to the previous studies that focus on …

宋元明時期台州貨幣化進程, Ke Zhao

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations

本研究主要探討中國貨幣化在宋元明時期在台州地方上的發展的進程性問題，意圖針對宋明貨幣化發展「斷裂」，在「唐宋變革」和「明清資本主義萌芽」的悖論中搭建起更為貫通的解釋框架。從宋明發展的長時段的角度覲察，則11世紀到16世紀這600年間宋代台州貨幣經濟從擴張到收縮、到再擴張之問的轉換十分明顯，台州貨幣化發展的過程，一言以蔽之，可以概括為貨幣化-去貨幣化-貨幣化的週期性變動。由於很難對貨幣化進程有一個準確的衡量，在考察一地的貨幣化進程時，關鍵之處在於，衡量通過貨幣進行的經濟活動的比例增加，以及對貨幣的需求增加，對於中國古代社會的台州地區來講，貨幣化進程取決於兩個因素，即：經濟發展程度和經濟體制或結構的變化。這兩個因素是本文方法上考察台州貨幣化發展的依據。本研究通過比較宋代台州擴張性貨幣政策驅動的案例和明代台州收縮性貨幣政策驅動的案例發現，財政結構在宋元明時期台州貨幣化發展過程中起了關鍵的作用，即賦役體系和鹽業專賣制度的變遷影響了台州宋明不同時期「貨幣化」到「去貨幣化」週期的轉變。

Finding Commonality: The First Principles Of The Leadership Thought Of Theodore Roosevelt And Traditional Chinese Culture, Elizabeth Summerfield, Yumin Dai

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

This paper argues that, while the imperative to find global solutions to complex problems like climate change and resource management is agreed, dominant ethical and intellectual thought leadership in many western nations impedes progress. The Cartesian binaries of western post-Enlightenment culture tend instead toward oppositional binary divides where each ‘side’ assumes to be the whole and not a part. And the present and future similarly assume precedence over the past. The paper points to systems thinking as both a method and a practice of wise leadership of past western and eastern societies, including their conservation of natural resources. Two historical …

Cultural Diplomacy With North Korean Characteristics: Pyongyang’S Exportation Of The Mass Games To The Third World, 1972–1996, Benjamin Young

Faculty Research & Publications

During the 1970s and 1980s, the communist government in Pyongyang sent Mass Games instructors to the Third World in order to improve the image of North Korea abroad and promote its version of socialist modernity. The Mass Games, a huge choreographic gymnastics event of 100,000 performers, artistically exhibited the North Korean idea of "ilsim-dangyeol (single-minded unity).” In the era of decolonization, postcolonial leaders in the emerging Third World turned to East Asia for developmental inspirations and some leaders, notably Idi Amin of Uganda, admired the North Korean model of collectivism and discipline. The Mass Games, epitomized the communalistic values of …