Chinese Studies Commons^™

The Cultural Politics Of Conspicuous Consumption In China, Min Zhou

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

To adequately understand contemporary conspicuous consumption in China, one needs to put it in a historical background and look at it not only from an economic perspective but also from cultural and political points of view. Both China and the West have had the phenomenon of conspicuous consumption at different historical periods, which, in their own ways, have constituted different cultural and political narratives and have demonstrated in them different characteristics. Three Confucian values that affect Chinese people's consumption of luxurious commodities — namely, maintaining consistency between behavior and status, family reputation and the awareness of other people's influence — …

Return To Roman Jakobson: On The Linguistic Source Of "Literariness", Wei Feng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

It is necessary to take the linguistic source of "literariness" into account when we discuss the controversy concerning the term itself. Jakobson brought forth the concept of "literariness" for the first time in 1919. After that, the relation between literature and linguistics always played a leading role in his academic thoughts. He was also the first to use the notion of "structuralism" in 1929 and became a pivotal figure in the adaptation of Saussure's structural analysis to literary theory. Not only did he explore his precursor's functionalist ideology, but also expanded the social significance and humanistic values of linguistic studies. …

Particularities In Time And Space: On Historicism In Stephen Greenblatt's New Historicism, Zhu Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Historicism usually appears as a confusing concept in scholarly writings. Several thinkers have made definitions of this term in both its strict and loose senses, and it is now usually used in its loose sense — it can refer to any methodology in which a certain entity is examined by placing it in a specific time and place. Stephen Greenblatt's major works share the spirit of historicism in its loose sense in that he has put into question the possibility of building an abstract theoretical system independent of time and space. Greenblatt was accused of having shied away from examinations …

On Different Models For Lyric Poems, Culler Jonathan, Danhong Cao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Two conceptions of the lyric have come to dominate the study of poetry in the Anglo-American world: the Romantic model, which considers lyric as an intense expression of subjective experience and emotion, and the mimetic model that treats poetry as the thought or speech of a persona created by the poet, therefore adopting methods and strategies used in analysing fictional texts. Neither of these two can be the "default model" for describing and interpreting lyrics because of their neglect of the fundamental characteristics of lyrics: all those elements which are fundamentally directions for performance rather than representations. Moreover, while lyrics …

The Formation Of Body Modernity And Its Discourse Dimension: A Case Study Of "Body Encounter" In Modern China, Jigang Huang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Body modernity played an important role in the process of shaping cultural modernity. Discourse of the body corresponded to the modern enlightenment, and expressed the political metaphor of the formation of modernity. From the issue of "body encounter" in modern China, we see the production process of the national body, the over-dominance of which reflected the needs of the time. The appearance of the body, to a certain extent, eased the anxiety of reform, which was also the body's frustration.

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

From Habits To Habitus: Chinese Elites Attempt To Create An Aristocratic Class Along The British Model, Karina Salomatina

Master's Projects and Capstones

Lately, new trends have appeared in the spending habits of Chinese elites, which include money spent on etiquette classes, butler service, British afternoon tea, debutante balls, education in boarding schools, and immigration to Britain. These new consumption patterns of Chinese elites signify their desire and attempt to adopt the British aristocratic lifestyle portrayed in popular TV series, classical novels and mass media. This study examines anthropological research, documentary videos, news reports and interviews with Chinese elites and applies Bourdieu’s theory of habitus as the main analytical tool in order to explain this phenomenon. Considering that forty years ago all Chinese …

Learning Culture: Cultural Relationship In Masked Lanterns, Yuxuan Ding

Graduate School of Art Theses

Culture shock, or culture conflict, is the unfamiliarity or disorientation an individual experiences after encountering a culture different than their own. To better understand the people around us who share a different culture and the way of life it creates, we need to first respect and understand their culture. In general, Chinese culture stresses that individuals must see themselves as part of a larger group for the benefit of society, while American culture stresses the importance of individualism.

Based on my experiences in graphic design, I decided to further my studies in a studio art context to understand how the …

Domestic Workers In Hong Kong: Their Stories, Self-Perception, And Their Portrayal In Hong Kong And Filipino Media, Lauren Ernst

Senior Theses

Foreign domestic helpers are one of the most common and unique sights in current-day Hong Kong. On the weekdays, they can be seen walking dogs, taking children to school, and completing chores around the house. On Sundays, they flood the streets in full force, relaxing and taking advantage of their one day off a week. This population faces many challenges during their time in Hong Kong – these challenges are modern as well as historical and include financial, governmental, emotional, and social challenges. Along with the challenges of day to day life, they also face challenges in that their stories …

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

Platonic And Confucian Theories On Music-Parallels And Differences, Christian Moreno

Honors Thesis

Music has always been an important part of humanity, and with the advent of the Axial Age, the period between the 8^th and 3^rd centuries BC where new ways of thinking emerged in a wide range of cultures, two of humanity’s greatest thinkers in Plato and Confucius, would apply their thoughts and theories to music. By examining their opinions of music in their written texts, especially Confucius’ Analects and Plato’s Republic, as well as modern scholarship on the subject like the work of philosopher Mark Muesse, one can gain an insight into the general thinking of these …

How Do Chinese Dialects Reflect The Way In Which Chinese Immigrants Settled In The United States?, Tom Yang

Asian & Asian American Studies Student Research Symposium

As the world’s largest ethnic group, Han Chinese constitute approximately 92% of the population of China and near 20% of the population of the word. With so many people distributed in a vast area, there are several dialect groups which are closely related to the hometown of the different speakers. The Mandarin in northern China can be quite easily understood by most Chinese citizens, since it’s not much different from Putonghua, the Modern Standard Mandarin. While the languages spoken in southern China, especially the Wu, Min, Hakka, and Yue, may sound like foreign languages to those different dialect groups users. …

The Role Of Fengshui In Chinese Homes On Long Island, Hongfei Kan

Asian & Asian American Studies Student Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

How Can Chinese Students Success In The United States, John Peters

Asian & Asian American Studies Student Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

Live Confucian: The Newsletter Of The Confucius Institute At Pace University Spring 2018, Confucius Institute

Live Confucian

A newsletter of the Confucius Institute, Pace University.

The Confucius Institute at Pace Universi­ty is dedicated to providing Chinese lan­guage and cultural education, resources,and services to meet the needs of people from all backgrounds.

Acquisition Of Word Spellings And Meanings During Reading In Nonnative Chinese Speakers, Yang Liu

Dissertations

This dissertation explored the acquisition of word spellings (orthographic learning) and word meanings (incidental word learning) during reading in adult nonnative Chinese speakers. Two studies were designed for this dissertation. In Study One, 45 Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners at intermediate and advanced proficiency levels participated and completed a character learning experiment in a self-teaching paradigm. Results indicate that CFL learners were able to use the phonetic regularity and semantic transparency of radicals to learn the spellings and pronunciations of new characters after limited exposures to the characters in a story context. In Study Two, 72 CFL learners …

Friend Or Foe: Perceptions Of China In Africa, Shahn M. Savino

Student Publications

China's rush to Africa for resources and a sphere of influence has inspired much debate in the academic world. Many western scholars generalize China's Africa strategy or African perceptions of that strategy. These are both grave mistakes. While China's objectives in Africa are the same all over, the way it achieves that strategy varies from nation to nation. In addition, African perceptions of China vary from nation to nation. Using Algeria and Niger as main case studies, this paper will show that the wealth of a nation changes the way that the Chinese government and Chinese nationals interact with that …

Imaginative Geographies: Visualising The Poetics Of History And Space, Clive Barstow

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This essay presents a visual dialogue about our relationship to place. I adopt Henri Lefebvre’s model of cumulative trialectics (1991) as a new thirdspace that more accurately represents the complexities of modern day geographies and hybrid communities by extending the binary analysis of the past and present and beyond the real and the imagined. Trialectics expand our understanding beyond physical geographies by suggesting a cerebral space that searches for new meaning and is therefore more radically open to additional otherness and toward a continuing expansion of [human] spatial knowledge and imagination.

Julia Lossau describes thirdspace as a space that ‘…tends …

不要後悔, Rattnak Sokhom

Toyon: Multilingual Literary Magazine

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Self-Reported Risk And Delinquent Behavior And Problem Behavioral Intention In Hong Kong Adolescents: The Role Of Moral Competence And Spirituality, Daniel T. L. Shek, Xiaoqin Zhu

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

Based on the six-wave data collected from Grade 7 to Grade 12 students (N = 3,328 at Wave 1), this pioneer study examined the development of problem behaviors (risk and delinquent behavior and problem behavioral intention) and the predictors (moral competence and spirituality) among adolescents in Hong Kong. Individual growth curve models revealed that while risk and delinquent behavior accelerated and then slowed down in the high school years, adolescent problem behavioral intention slightly accelerated over time. After controlling the background socio-demographic factors, moral competence and spirituality were negatively associated with risk and delinquent behavior as well as problem …