Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Changes In The Devadasi Tradition, Danika Bebe

Global Studies Student Scholarship

Danika Bebe ’23
Majors: Global Studies and Public and Community Service
Minor: Business and Innovation
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Trina Vithayathil, Global Studies

This creative research project examines the Devadasi profession in India. It seeks to understand the lived experiences of women who are temple prostitutes in current day India and their experiences of sexual exploitation and abuse. The findings from the research are shared through a poem entitled “around the sun”. A detail description of the stanzas and poem mechanism accompanies the poem.

Framing Asian Atmospheres: Imperial Weather Science And The Problem Of The Local C.1880–1950, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It would be of the greatest importance to meteorology’, noted the editor of the Singapore Chronicle in 1829, ‘if a set of hourly meteorological observations could be instituted at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Singapore, Malacca, and some station on the elevated plains of Hindostan’. 1 Of course, the author’s comments speak from a uniquely imperial perspective, whereby such observations would benefit the colonial service of – in this case – the British Empire, enabling enhanced knowledge of imperial atmospheres and the related economic and scientific benefits that this could bring. That meteorology was closely linked to empire and imperial control has …

Building A Long-Time Series For Weather And Extreme Weather In The Straits Settlements: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach To The Archives Of Societies, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In comparison to the Northern Hemisphere, especially Europe and North America, there is a scarcity of information regarding the historic weather and climate of Southeast Asia and the Southern Hemisphere in general. The reasons for this are both historic and political, yet that does not mean that such data do not exist. Much of the early instrumental weather records for Southeast Asia stem from the colonial period and, with some countries and regions changing hands between the European powers, surviving information tends to be scattered across the globe making its recovery a long and often arduous task. This paper focuses …

Guest Editorial: Disaster, State And Science: Historical Narratives Of Extreme Weather In East Asia And The Pacific, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This curated special issue asks how history can be used as a lens into disaster and disaster management. It takes as its premise the idea that approaches from different disciplines - including the humanities and social sciences – can offer new perspectives on understanding disaster, managing disaster and disaster risk. The concept is not new, historically focussed studies have long provided meat for hazard investigations and modelling, especially those focused on geological or hydrological time-series analyses; multi-hazard interactions and identifying historical underliers for contemporary risk. It has become increasingly common, for example, to include historians in collaborative efforts to better …

Gaming And Culture: How Videogames Can Affect Global Players' Preception And Understanding Of Japan's History And Culture, Garrett Davies

Capstone Showcase

Video game developers have the ability to create synthetic worlds. These are places where players have the ability to immerse themselves within a culture presented to them by the creators. This allows a global audience to participate in the expression and learning of culture but that may come at a cost. Focusing on Japan, I want to dive into how culture is presenting within video games, why it is presented in such ways, and what that means for players' perception of the country through play.

A Question Of Scale: Making Meteorological Knowledge And Nation In Imperial Asia, Fiona Williamson, Vladimir Jankovic

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This special issue of History of Meteorology explores processes of making, communicating, and embedding modern meteorological knowledge in late nineteenth and early twentieth century imperial Asia. Its focus is on the institutionalisation of meteorology in key nation-building activities such as developing agricultural services, synoptic mapping to predict storms, and participation in scientific organisations and initiatives. Collectively, the essays explore the intersection of local, regional, and international scales and processes in generating new forms of state-sponsored meteorological practices and institutions, though complex multi-layered networks involving different actors and modes of information flow across multiple scales. In so doing, they reveal the …

Screening Southeast Asia: Film, Politics, And The Emergence Of The Nation In Postwar Southeast Asia, Darlene Machell Espena

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

The Science Of Stifling Heat: Recognising Urban Climate Change In The Straits Settlements, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Heat is a ubiquitous part of tropical living. During the nineteenth century consumers and writers of travel literature, explorers and colonists became increasingly familiar with the endless, languid summers of tropical climates where continued, unrelenting heat and humidity created a daunting climate for the European.

‘Living In A State Of Filth And Indifference To … Their Health’: Weather, Public Health And Urban Governance In Colonial George Town, Penang, Fiona Williamson, Katrina Proust

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores the development of public health infrastructure in George Town, Penang, before the 1930s. It argues that the extreme weather of the tropical climate led to a unique set of health challenges for George Town’s administrators, as the town grew from a small British base to a multi-cultural and thriving port. Weather and public health were (and still are) integrally connected,although the framing of this relationship has undergone significant shifts in thinking and appearance over time. One lens into this association is the situation and expression of these elements within municipal structures.During the nineteenth century, government departments were …

Disasters And The Making Of Asian History, Chris Courtney, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Environmental historians have often been drawn to disasters. They have unearthed the often-forgotten stories of erupting volcanoes, raging rivers and rainless skies, and in so doing have reminded their colleagues from more anthropocentric disciplines that the societies, economies and cultures they study are part of broader physical systems. In addition to highlighting the agency of nature, however, disasters have also helped to remind us that environmental history remains at heart a humanistic discipline. It should never be simply a lament for lost natural habitats, but also a discipline which offers a unique prism through which to study people. It is …

Thucydides In Pyongyang: Fear, Honor And Interests In The 1968 Pueblo Incident, Benjamin Young

Faculty Research & Publications

Purpose: On January 23, 1968, North Korean naval forces captured a U.S spy ship, the USS Pueblo, off the coast of Wonsan. This incident nearly led to a second Korean War and heightened hostilities between the U.S and North Korean governments. This article demystifies the strategic thinking of Kim Il Sung’s regime and clarifies the reasoning behind Pyongyang’s risky undertaking in capturing the Pueblo and its crewmen as a rational and pragmatic action.

Design, Methodology, Approach: While the Pueblo crisis has been examined by a number of historians, this article which is based on former Eastern bloc archival documents and …

The Politics Of Disaster: The Great Singapore Flood Of 1954, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Singapore in the 1950s was a deeply divided society. Struggling to recover from the hardships ofthe Second World War and fighting an internal battle that the British government termed an‘emergency’, it was a time of hardship, tension, and anxiety. In the midst of this crisis, Singapore’sinhabitants continued to manage the natural elements of their climate and environment, especiallythe dangerous combination of heavy monsoonal rains, low-lying marshland, and tidal flooding.This article examines the circumstances surrounding a particularly severe episode of flooding thatoccurred in December 1954. It explores how the flood’s impact was exacerbated by humanexigencies, especially recent government resettlement plans and …

Malaya's Greatest Menace? Slow-Onset Disaster And The Muddy Politics Of British Malaya, C. 1900–50, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In 1948, a chilling statement from British Malaya’s Director of Agriculture, F. Burnett, made headline news. According to Burnett, unchecked soil erosion across hillside Malaya would soon render the country’s precious agricultural land infertile. Erosion had worsened considerably after the 1880s due to widespread, indiscriminate agricultural and industrial clearing. By the 1920s, it had become a sizeable socioeconomic and environmental issue, thought also to contribute to the scale and intensity of flooding and the likelihood of dangerous landslips. The British Government raised a series of empire-wide inquiries across the first half of the twentieth century, tied to an emerging global …

How Collective Memories And Divergent Historical Perceptions Influences Sino-Japanese Relations, Kenneth Chevreaux

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This project is looking to provide a comprehensive study of how history has influenced and structured modern Sino-Japanese relations.China and Japan are two of the East Asian powerhouses with economies that account for a majority of the region’s economic activity. They are two of the most influential countries within the East Asian region and arguably the world, but Sino-Japanese relations have a history of tension and conflict that spans back centuries. It is my intention with this research project to develop a multi-perspective analysis of the structure of Sino-Japanese relations with a basis in constructivist theory. This research can assist …

The History Problem: The Politics Of War Commemoration In East Asia, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay summarizes my argumentin The History Problem: The Politics of WarCommemoration in East Asia. The historyproblem is essentially a relational phenomenonthat arises when nations promote self-servingversions of the past by focusing on whathappened to their own citizens with littleregard for foreign others. East Asia, however,has recently also witnessed the emergence of acosmopolitan form of commemoration takinghumanity, rather than nationality, as itsprimary frame of reference. Whencosmopolitan commemoration is practiced as acollective endeavor by both perpetrators andvictims, a resolution of the history problem willfinally become possible.

Remembering Negdels: Nostalgia, Memory & Soviet-Era Herding Collectives, Maya Sutton-Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

During the socialist period Mongolia’s nomadic herders were grouped into collective herding units called negdels. Today, over twenty years after Mongolia transitioned to democracy, herding has been privatized completely and negdels are a distant memory. This study explores the history of negdels by conducting twenty-five oral interviews with herders about their memories of collective herding. This study focuses on a soum in the Mongolian countryside, Bayandelger, while also incorporating interviews with people from Ulaanbaatar. Bayandelger is a unique location for this project because it was selected by the Soviets to receive assistance in an effort to make it a model …

Kim Was Korea And Korea Was Kim: The Formation Of Juche Ideology And Personality Cult In North Korea, Bianca Trifoi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Juche ideology, created by founder Kim Il-Sung, governs all aspects of North Korean society. This thesis attempts to answer the questions of why and how Juche ideology and the cult of personality surrounding Kim Il-Sung were successfully implemented in North Korea. It is a historical analysis of the formation of the North Korean state that considers developments from the late 19th century to the late 20th century, with particular attention paid to the 1950s-1970s and to Kim’s own writings and speeches. The thesis argues that Juche was successfully implemented and institutionalized in North Korea due to several factors, including the …

The History Problem: The Politics Of War Commemoration In East Asia, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Seventy years have passed since the end of the Asia-Pacific War, yet Japan remains embroiled in controversy with its neighbors over the war’s commemoration. Among the many points of contention between Japan, China, and South Korea are interpretations of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, apologies and compensation for foreign victims of Japanese aggression, prime ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and the war’s portrayal in textbooks. Collectively, these controversies have come to be called the “history problem.” But why has the problem become so intractable? Can it ever be resolved, and if so, how? To answer these questions, the author …

In Memoriam: Ramon Hawley Myers 1929-2015

Journal of East Asian Libraries

No abstract provided.

Oral History Interview With Ruth Chiang: Growing Smu, Ruth Chiang

Oral History Collection

The interview covered: first involvement with SMU, first batch of SMU students, student creed, CIRCLE values, student community service, finishing touch program, career services including OnTrac, internship, graduate employment service, Dato’ Kho Hui Meng Career Centre.

Biography:

Director of the Office of Student Life and the Office of Career Services, SMU, 2000-2015

Ruth has a Master Degree in Communications Management from the University of South Australia; a graduate Diploma in Business Administration from NUS and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Economics from Singapore University. She is also an accredited administrator of personality inventories like MBTI, DISC, MAPP, Proscan, …

Outside The 'Big 4': Inception And Growth Of Independent Artistes And Institutions, Seshan Ramaswami

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

The Thailand Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington, Serene Chen

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Thai migrants first began trickling into the Chao Phraya river valley from Southern China in the eleventh century. Thai chieftains established petty kingdoms in modern-day Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, initially as tributaries to more established Burmese and Khmer rulers. However, both the diminishing influence of the Khmer Empire and the Mongols’ sacking of the Burmese capital Bagan in 1287 left a political vacuum in mainland Southeast Asia, which was soon filled by Thai kingdoms such as Sukhothai (1238–1463), Chiang Mai (1296–1775), Ayutthaya (1351–1767) and eventually Bangkok (f. 1 782). In the process, the up-and-coming Thai polities supplanted the Khmer Empire …

The Vietnam Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Although most of Southeast Asia is home to religions and cultures carrying significant Indic influence, Vietnam alone is the mainland’s only Sinicised culture. Chinese emperors directly ruled northern Vietnam for most of the period spanning 111 BCE to 938 CE. The next eight hundred years saw a series of independent Vietnamese kingdoms administered by Chinese-style mandarins gradually extend control over and supplant the Indic Champa civilisation to the south—even as French incursions began chipping away at Vietnamese territory as early as 1858.

The Government Facilitation Of North Korea's Human Rights Abuses Eclipsed By The Threat Of Nuclear War, Kim Kathryn Angstro Doom

Senior Projects Fall 2015

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

The Dili Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, Lai Cheng Lim

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Timor-Leste, Asia’s newest nation, is located in Southeast Asia, on the southernmost edge of the Indonesian archipelago. The country was colonised by the Portuguese for over 450 years, occupied by the Indonesians for 24 years and administered by the United Nations for two and a half years. As a nation, Timor-Leste has had a very traumatic birth.

Oral History Interview With Arnoud De Meyer: Conceptualising Smu, Arnoud De Meyer

Arnoud DE MEYER

The interview covered: first involvement with Singapore, tertiary education in Singapore, business schools, role of university, city campus.

Biography:

President, SMU, 2010–present

Professor De Meyer became the fourth president of SMU in September 2010. A leader and well-known scholar in management studies, his research interests include manufacturing and technology strategy, management of R&D and innovation, management under conditions of high uncertainty and for novel projects, management and innovation in Asia, the globalisation of Asian firms, and e-readiness in Europe. He publishes widely in academic journals and books.

For twenty three years, Professor De Meyer was associated with INSEAD where he …

Maintaining The Mandate: China's Territorial Consolidation, Marcanthony Parrino

Honors Theses

This thesis constitutes an attempt to better comprehend and understand the People’s Republic of China (PRC) effort to consolidate territory it believed rightfully belonged to China and its implications moving forward. China is a fascinating, complicated and confusing country. It is the most populated country in the world with 1,349,585,8381 people, 91.5% of whom are ethnic Han Chinese. The remaining 8.5% of the population is split amongst 55 ethnic minorities.2 While 8.5% may seem like a small number, 8.5% of 1,349,585,838 is just under 115 million people. That is over one-third of the population of the United States. If the …

Recruiting The All-Female Rani Of Jhansi Regiment: Subhas Chandra Bose And Dr Lakshmi Swaminadhan, Tobias Frederik Rettig

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The recruitment of the all-female Rani of Jhansi Regiment of the Indian National Army in Japanese-controlled Singapore and Malaya, with a particular focus on the period between the first female guard of honour on 12 July 1943 through to the opening of the regiment's main camp in Singapore on 22 October 1943, has to date been insufficiently studied. Starting with the conception of the Regiment in an Axis submarine by the Indian nationalist leader Subhas CHANdra Bose (1897–1945), this paper examines the ideas and figures that inspired the regiment and the role of Bose and Dr Lakshmi Swaminadhan (1914–2012) in …

Comments On The Setting Up And The Growth Of Smu By Mr Heng Swee Keat, Minister For Education At Smu Commencement Ceremony 2013, Swee Keat Heng

Oral History Collection

Transcript of speech by Mr Heng Swee Keat, Minister for Education at SMU Commencement Ceremony on Wednesday, 25 July 2013, 9am at Resorts World Sentosa. He was involved in the setting up of SMU and talked about the growth, the daring, and the sharing by SMU and its students.

Oral History Interview With Annie Koh: Growing Smu, Annie Koh

Oral History Collection

The interview covered: first involvement with SMU, risks of joining a new university, roles and responsibilities, financial markets and institutions course, executive and professional education, collaboration, Wharton School, business cases, International Trading Institute, commodities trading, Masters in Wealth Management, Office of Business Development and External Relations.

Biography: Vice President for Business Development and External Relations, SMU, 2000–present

Annie Koh is Vice President for Business Development and External Relations at the Singapore Management University (SMU). An Associate Professor of Finance, Annie also holds the position Academic Director of The Financial Training Institute (FTI), Center for Professional Studies (CPS), International Trading Institute …