Houses Built For Gods: Articulations Of Urban Hokora In Kyoto, Steele Engelmann

Anthropology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Amidst the urban landscape of Kyoto, Japan, there are thousands of hokora, small neighborhood shrines. This study uses social theories of pilgrimage and space to examine the articulation of hokora, community, and personal desire. As sites of local pilgrimage, hokora form networks of communal, but also individual, aspirations across the urban spiritual landscape of the city. This thesis argues that communities are connected to the larger social structures of Kyoto through hokora. As such, neighborhoods are reproduced and displayed through their hokora’s entanglements with the urban, social, and religious landscapes of Kyoto. Therefore, this study deploys an ethnographic approach to …

The Legal Culpability Of Emperor Hirohito In The Outbreak Of The Second Sino-Japanese War, Joseph Castellano

Honors Projects

An analysis of the legal culpability of Emperor Hirohito in the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War based on primary source evidence. Combines an examination of primary and secondary sources to demonstrate that Emperor Hirohito was legally responsible for his role in the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

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 …

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 …

Food, Drink, Time, New Year And Cloth, Jian Li

Masters Theses

My project uses traditional Chinese calligraphy culture and my own family stories to create five daily use products to help my user find a sense of belonging to Chinese culture and also introduce my culture and stories to all audiences.

As an international student who came to the US, I have often struggled with a lack of cultural identity and belonging. This is a common issue faced by many who choose to leave their homes and venture to new places. However, I believe that we can overcome this by creating products that generate an emotional connection with their users.

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 …

Moving Narration: A Journey Through History, Yincheng Zhu

Masters Theses

The Central Pacific, as the first transcontinental railroad, is a remarkable achievement in the history of the United States. However, the story of what happened during its construction, including the struggles of the first generation of immigrants from China who built the tracks, and the resistance of native Americans to cede their lands, is largely forgotten. The California Zephyr, as a long-trip train that currently runs on the Central Pacific tracks, is not only a means of transportation but should also tell the history of survival and resistance embodied by the landscape it moves through and tracks it travels over. …

Caron's Japan: Tokugawa State And Society Through A European Lens, Cegan Hinson

Student Research Submissions

Dutch East India Company (VOC) merchant François Caron describes Tokugawa Japan as a rigid political hierarchy controlled by the Shogun, similar to the governments established by absolute monarchs in Europe. Caron understands and insightfully describes Tokugawa society by emphasizing perceived and real similarities between Tokugawa Japan and Early Modern Europe. He struggles to understand religious differences between these societies, but his description of Japanese religious practices still reflects how the Shogunate utilized Buddhism and anti-Christian policies to uphold their rule. Caron also depicts Tokugawa Japan as a land of plentiful resources prime for lucrative trade. He includes the writings of …

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 …

Love Is Real & I Just Had Some For Dessert: Legacies Of Communal Care & Compassion In Asian Diasporic Women's Food Writing, Miki Rierson

Honors Projects

In this project I work to recover influential yet often erased Asian American female immigrant chefs and food authors from the mid-twentieth century to the present, situating their contributions in a deep-rooted tradition of diasporic women who used cooking as a means of communal agency and care. Immigrant Asian cookbook authors and chefs have long faced internal criticisms from their own diasporic communities of either inauthenticity or engaging in “food pornography,” to use writer Frank Chin’s term—a line of criticism that Lisa Lau has elaborated on as “re-Orientalism.”Though these criticisms should not eclipse the works themselves, I discuss and counter …

Explaining Suharto's Rise And Fall: International And Domestic Variables, Julia Batanghari

Undergraduate Honors Theses

For three decades (1968-1998), Indonesia was led by President Suharto, whose authoritarian military regime is remembered for its corruption and brutality. This paper offers an analysis of Suharto’s rule through the lens of two events: his 1965 purge of local ‘communists’ and the riots of May 1998. Drawing comparisons between the two, I delve into systemic causes by considering the influence of domestic and international variables. Exploring links between intergroup accommodation and democracy reveals that Suharto’s lack of ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious inclusivity paved the way not only for the anti-Chinese sentiment which pervaded Indonesian society during his presidency, but …

Writer Identity Construction Of Thai Efl Students: A Phenomenological Study, Kittika Limpariwatthana

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

ABSTRACT

This empirical study uncovered Thai English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writer identity construction and revealed how Thai culture plays a role in the development using a sociocultural perspective. Data collection for analysis includes interviews with nine Thai college students, a group interview, English writing essays, and artifacts they provided throughout a 15-week English writing course. The focus of this study was to gain insight into the phenomenon of identity construction among EFL writers from perceptions of their lived experiences.

Based on the description of identity development, the research findings focus on two different ways the participants perceived their …

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 …

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 …

Missouri Soybean Exports And The Democratizing Market Force, David D. Hammons

MSU Graduate Theses

A commonly held assumption of America’s post-Cold War place in the world is that prolonged contact with American capitalism and democracy will lead to the adoption of these systems in all nations that participate in international trade. This paper attempts to verify or disprove that assumption by examining a specific traded commodity between two specific nations, the institutions that support this trade, and the people actively participating in it. The growth of soybean exports from the state of Missouri provides this vehicle for examining the trade history between the United States of America and China, and provides evidence that disproves …

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, …

The Cnn Effect And State Violence Against Muslim Ethnic Minorities, Sydni Resnick

International Political Economy Theses

The emergence of new technology and mass social media has become a dominant tool for the propaganda machine which cycles baseless fringe opinions through unfettered and relentless iterations providing a false legitimacy to an alternative set of baseless facts that ultimately drives official policies. Specifically, the media is important as it molds public perception and brings global attention to international crises. International crises, such as ethnic cleansings or genocides, are widespread throughout the globe. Throughout history, genocides have been possible by the production of false narratives against specific religious or ethnic minorities. These narratives were promoted and reiterated by national …

The Construction And Formation Of Chinese Character, Lejia Zhang

Theses - ALL

Chinese characters are very unique. As one of the most widely used scripts in the world, its complex forms and large volume of characters make it always daunting for beginners, which is related to the long history of Chinese characters. This paper is divided into five parts, based on a definition of the nature of ancient Chinese characters. In the first part, it is argued that Chinese characters are made up of smaller elements. A single Chinese character, as a morpheme, is the smallest ideographic unit of the Chinese language, but a single character may also be formed by combining …

Placing God: Defining “Post-Christianity” For Contemporary Japanese Christians, Leryan Anthony Burrey

Master's Projects and Capstones

This work suggests that we consider a new, working definition of post-Christianity. This new paradigm is in response to Western Christian thought being too dominant a force that fails to take into enough account other global experiences— like those of Japanese Christians. These reflections are based on scholarly opinions claiming that Christianity is a “global culture,” and ultimately argues for more international inclusivity in Western Christian thought and institutions, especially regarding the Asia-Pacific. Moreover, this paper illuminates how iitoko dori allows Christian thought to peacefully coexist in Japan’s greater society. The research also explores specific Japanese cultural practices that make …

The Colonial Marginalization Of Filipino And Filipino American Soldiers In The Us Army During World War Ii, Corey Joseph Tinay

Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the structural paradigms in place within American society as multifaceted tools of colonialism and how they impacted the experiences of minority and colonized soldiers in the United States Army during the Second World War. The history is analyzed through the postcolonial lens, observing factors in place such as; denial of place in history, identity, and recognition of service. The research questions that this thesis addresses are as follows: What are the colonial implications in the experience of Filipino and Filipino American soldiers experience during the Second World War? Are colonial soldiers treated as more expendable than white …

Mechanisms Of Biases And Cultural Literacy In International Language Education: One Such Story To Carry, Yukari Birkett

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Despite equity and inclusion initiatives, the English based colonial model has permeated the kindergarten to college systems, teaching/learning, theories and methods, the perception of second language acquisition, multiculturalism, and language education (Knowles et al., 2015; Macedo, 2019; Phillips & Abbot, 2011; Battiste, 2013). Additionally, cognitive neuroscientific discoveries of the complexity of language learning, emotional intelligence, and cultural literacy systematically failed to reach educators. Few studies have focused on what factors impact on cultural biases of foreign language learners, or what factors in learning facilitate the dismantling of durable biases. What are the hidden agendas for teaching and learning foreign languages? …

From Memory To Present To An Uncertain Future: An Analysis Of History And Policy On Chinese Food Security, Justin Mascarin

Honors Projects

This paper seeks to analyze China’s historical relationship to famine to better understand contemporary Chinese policy on food security. The historical analysis focuses both at the political level and the level of the peasantry, with a particular focus on the Great Chinese Famine. This Chinese specific analysis in conjunction with an understanding of food security history helps to better understand two white papers on food security from the Chinese Government in 1996 and 2019. This paper finds these white papers to be response to deep rooted doubts in the ability for the Chinese Government to logistically support such a massive …

Model Minorities: Asian Americans And The White-Black Racial Paradigm, Jason Tom

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the racial wedge driven by Whites between Blacks and Asian Americans during the Cold War on to the present. Model minorities is a term coined by whites in the 1960s to suppress Civil Rights protests and Black demands. By elevating a minority group through success stories, whites constructed a means to suppress Black people’s organizing for change against systemic racism and oppression.

Cumulative Grief, Xuan Pham

Masters Theses

A written thesis to accompany the M.F.A. Exhibition Cumulative Grief, in which the artist's personal and familial narrative explores the complexity and nuances of racial grief.

The Chinese In California: Archaeology And Railroads At The Turn Of The Century, Evelyn Hildebrand

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Research on Chinese sites in California have focused on ethnicity, ethnic relations, and the material expression of ethnicity all of which are key issues in overseas Chinese archaeology. Chinatown sites produced data that helped define Chinese culture and experience in historical California. One railroad construction work camp site identified in 2016 located in the Cajon Pass in the late 1800’s offers the potential for insight into the lives of the workers. Chinese occupation in San Bernardino is not well understood, and the site may offer information on the culture, traditions, and integrations of the workers. Thousands of Chinese men left …

Washing The River In Relation To Interpellation, Theatricality And Spectatorship, Patricia Miller

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Patricia Miller's Master of Fine Arts Thesis Paper

What Seoul Saw, What Gwangju Knew: Journalism And Censorship During The Gwangju Pro-Democracy Movement, Emily Ambrose

Honors Projects

This year marks the 40^th anniversary of the Kwangju Pro-Democracy Movement, a civilian protest in the city of Kwangju against the Chun Doo Hwan military dictatorship, which was brutally crushed by the military. This research focuses on the journalism that occurred during movement and attempts to analyze the relationship between the government and the media by gauging the extent of censorship. This is done by comparing censored national and local newspapers in Korea to uncensored foreign newspapers for differences in the information presented. Because of factors such as biases and differences in access to resources between newspapers and journalists, …

Redefining Through Remembering: China’S Political Objectives As Reflected In Chinese State Commemoration Of The Korean War, 1950 - 2010, Yoojin Han

Student Work

A 2019-2020 Williams Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Yoojin Han (Berkeley College '20) for her essay submitted to the Department of History, "Redefining through Remembering: China’s Political Objectives as Reflected in Chinese State Commemoration of the Korean War, 1950 - 2010” (Denise Ho, Assistant Professor of History, advisor).

A highly analytical and engaging senior essay grounded in an impressive array of both primary and secondary sources, Yoojin Han’s thesis, “Redefining through Remembering: China’s Political Objectives as Reflected in Chinese State Commemoration of the Korea War,” utilizes Chinese “leadership speeches” made and published during …

The Belt And Road Initiative: China’S Rise, America’S Balance, And Latin America’S Struggle, Garrett Bullock

History Honors Papers

This research attempts to understand the evolving relationship between China, the United States, and Latin America. Specifically, it explores China’s rapid rise as a formidable geopolitical power, the United States’ mixed response to that rise, and efforts by two Latin American countries, Ecuador and Argentina, to avoid exploitation by both China and the United States—and, indeed, to even benefit from this mutating relationship. In all cases, historically constructed ideas and strategic interests shape relations among these various actors. Accordingly, this research lays out the historical sources for each of these powers’ central ideas. Then, it connects those ideas to the …

The Permanent Liminality Of Pakistan's Northern Areas- The Case Of Gilgit-Baltistan, Hamna Tariq

Senior Theses and Projects

Since Pakistan’s inception, Gilgit-Baltistan, a sprawling region in Northern Pakistan, has not been granted provincial status due to its colonial association with the disputed region of Kashmir. Gilgit-Baltistan refutes its forceful integration with Kashmir, an unfortunate remnant of British divide-and-rule strategy, and demands provincial recognition and constitutional rights. Pakistan unfairly claims that it awaits the UN-sanctioned plebiscite in Kashmir to determine the region’s status. However, the likelihood of a plebiscite is little to none, since the Indian government officially annexed Indian-held Kashmir in August 2019, breaching the UN resolution on the plebiscite. A region that has been at the mercy …