East Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

Review: James W. Heisig, Thomas P. Kasulis, And John C. Maraldo (Eds), Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook (Hawai'i, 2011), James Mark Shields

Other Faculty Research and Publications

Book Review: James W. Heisig, Thomas P. Kasulis, and John C. Maraldo (eds), Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook (Hawai'i, 2011)

Review: Christopher Ives, Imperial-Way Zen: Ichikawa Hakugen’S Critique And Lingering Questions For Buddhist Ethics (Uhp, 2009), James Mark Shields

Other Faculty Research and Publications

Review of Christopher Ives, Imperial-Way Zen: Ichikawa Hakugen’s Critique and Lingering Questions for Buddhist Ethics (UHP, 2009)

Pure Land And The Social Order In Twelfth-Century China: An Investigation Of "Longshu’S Treatise On Pure Land", Trevor Davis

Student Work

A 2012-2013 William Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Trevor Davis (Saybrook College '13) for his essay submitted to the History Department, “Pure Land and the Social Order in Twelfth-Century China: An Investigation of Longshu’s Treatise on Pure Land.” (Valerie Hansen, Professor of History, advisor.)

Davis' essay makes a powerful argument about the Pure Land Buddhist Wang Rixiu's understanding of Southern Song (1127-1279) society. Although Pure Land Buddhism is often thought to be egalitarian - or at least to challenge traditional hierarchies - Trevor shows that for Wang Rixiu, an egalitarian Pure Land coexists …

Behind The Silk Screen A Critical Analysis Of Translators, (In)Visibilty, And Alternative Translation Environments, Justin Charles Sprague

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The act of translation is one that is riddled with difficulties, and the labor that the translator performs is equally as difficult. Translators must simultaneously grapple with linguistic issues from languages being incongruent as well as the aspects of language embedded with culture. These complexities have given rise to the study of translation and the struggles that translators face. What often goes unnoticed, however, are the ways in which the habitus of translators informs their cultural labor. Likewise, their position as cultural intermediaries between a target and source culture illuminate challenges that are not explicitly answered or even addressed in …

Teaching English Language Learners From China, Abigail Pavlik

Honors Theses and Capstones

This research paper attempts to provide American teachers with important background information for teaching English language learners from China. The research is presented primarily for ESL teachers, but much of it would also be useful for any teacher or professor working with students of this description. The paper proceeds by exploring similarities and differences between 1. Chinese and English, 2. Chinese and American culture, and 3. Chinese and American education or "classroom culture," considering all along the way the implications for teaching and working with these students.

The Human Flesh Search Engine: Democracy, Censorship, And Political Participation In Twenty-First Century China, Vincent Capone

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

The Human Flesh Search Engine is a recent, unique phenomenon on the Chinese internet. Comprising of thousands of forum, micro-blog, and entertainment websites and mobilizing the overwhelming number of Chinese internet users, or netizens, the search engine is able to quickly find obscure information and identify seemingly anonymous internet personalities. These websites allow netizens to have their voices heard in an otherwise restrictive government, however these websites also become a hotbed for dissent, with web users highlighting stories and figures which they deem harmful to society. Through clever investigative work, netizens hunt down an individual's identity with the goal of …

Chinese Diasporic Culture Studies In The "Post-National" Age: The Politics Of Discourse And Theoretical Transformation, Feng Lan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Under the impact of post-theories, Chinese diasporic culture studies has exhibited a tendency to resist or transcend the political domination of the nation-state. This essay examines the sources of and the relationships between three major theories in this field, seeking to clarify their ideological orientations as well as historical limitations. The paper concludes that the connection between the Chinese diaspora and the sociopolitical process of modern China necessitates a methodologically critical application of Western formulations of post-nationalist theories into Chinese diasporic culture studies.

Jacques Ranciere's Regimes Of Art And Contemporary Political Art, Hongsheng Jiang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper examines the three regimes of art proposed by Jacques Ranciere: the ethical regime of images, the representative/poetic regime of art, and the aesthetic regime of art which implies a politics of equality and democracy. For Ranciere, "dissensus" is the articulating point between art and politics. This paper focus on Ranciere's criticism on contemporary political art: how the "critical art" takes the wrong track toward the "testimony art" and "relational art"; how the "critical art" was polluted by the logic of global consumerism; and how the ethical turn of contemporary art constitutes a deconstruction of both the autonomy and …

A Probe Into The Mode OfZhuanWriting InThe Literary Mind And The Carving Of Dragons, Xianpei Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The paper proposes that the mode of "zhuan (chronicle)" writing should be considered as an important literary concept in ancient Chinese narratology. The mode of chronicle refers neither the commentaries on the classics as scripture nor the biographical writings, which have all been using the same Chinese character of "zhuan." The "zhuan" here refers to the literary and historical narrative mode as created in The Chronicles of Zuo and developed and matured by Sima Qian and Ban Gu. In order to resolve the difficulties in long narratives, Liu Xie proposed two narrative techniques of "zonghui (summarization)" and "quanpei (measured arrangement)" …

The Futures Of Comparative Literature, Lezra Jacques

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Comparativism, this essay argues, should respond to the phenomenon of globalization by producing a critique of the concepts of literary value and universality. A polemical genealogy of the discipline of Comparative Literature shows "literary theory" in the post-war period to have emerged as a threat to disciplinary boundaries in the university, and for this reason to have always been regulated by a Cold-War humanism grounded in an Arnoldian belief in concepts like "the world." Comparativism should militate against such concepts rather than adopt them; it should take up the tasks of producing difference, of guarding untranslatability, of recapturing the discipline’s …

Paul Ricoeur's Narrative Explanation Concerning The Issue Of Time, Feixiong Fu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Paul Ricoeur not only sees the signs of language as linguistic grammatical system but also reduces them into the discourse communication of "speech act" and into the signification of human existence. They function both as a mediator and as a truth-deliverer. Ricoeur's phenomenological hermeneutics is based on general narrative semiotics, implements the inadequacy of formalistic theories such as structuralism, and effectively enunciates "narrative practice." "Narrative practice," as the basic human cultural phenomenon, is a kind of "mimetic activity" centered round "emplotment," the probable condition of which is the time structure of human action. As the nature of time is aporetic, …

Personality Transformation And Writing Transference In Li Yu's Novels And Dramas, Mingqi Zhong

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The paper focuses on the relationship between Li Yu's personality transformation of personality and his writing of novels and dramas and proposes that the formation of his creative mind-state and artistic ideas originates in his psychological transformation from cynicism to comical secularity. This personality transformation, the paper demonstrates, leads the transference of Li Yu's literary mind and results in a writing as a form of existence that caters for the contemporary life in the reality with secular concerns. This indulgence in the function of entertainment of literature greatly hinders Li Yu's scope of social criticism and development of artistic innovation, …

A Synopsis Of The Symposium On "Transformation Of Literature And Art And The Innovation Of Literary Theory", Haijing Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.

In Search Of The Historical In The Literary:Classic Of The Mountains And Seas And The Lost Cultural Mega-Tradition, Shuxian Ye

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The paper is a case study of Shanhai Classic (Classic of the Mountains and Seas) to demonstrate how fictions can be explored as reliable historical materials. The paper tries to apply a quadruple-evidence method into the study of the mythohistorical text so as to break the generic and textual boundaries, to open up a new terrain for the literary, the historical and the philosophical, and to reconstruct the mega-tradition of Chinese culture.

The Genealogical Evolution Of Apollo's Images, Hui Tang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The minor-Asiatic background enabled Apollo to take on multiple identities in the reconstruction process of Greek myths. Appolo's image was initially displaced and equated with the Sun-God Helios. The Sun-God in Homer and Hesiod' works was still Helios while Apollo was the god of hunting, medicine and music (the god of literature and art). The Histories of Herodotus excluded Helios from the main twelve gods of Olympus, and made the young god Appolo take a higher position in heaven. Tragedy playwrights before 500 BC. called Apollo the Sun-God, regarding his oracles as the moira which cannot be altered or resisted. …

Upon "Aesthetic Education As Substitute For Religion" And The Secularity Of Cai Yuanpei's Construction Of Aesthetic Belief, Liyong Pan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Via his theory of "Aesthetic Education as Substitute for Religion," Cai Yuanpei intended to reconstruct the national belief through aesthetic education in a cultural context where the religious spirit was non-existent and the Confucian rites-music institutions had long collapsed. The uniqueness of aesthetics as mental activities and the socio-political context of modern China determine the tension between the secularity and the transcendence in the aesthetic construction of belief, which often results in the sacrifice of the transcendental spirit. This is closely linked with the state of mind of the intellectuals entangled between China and the west, the traditional and the …

"Relating Instead Of Making" And The Sage Myth, Qicui Tang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The paper tries to investigate why Confucius make the claim of "relating (shu) instead of making (zuo)." It starts with an exegesis of "shu (relating)" and "zuo (making)," putting them back into their initial context of oral and ritual tradition. The paper demonstrates that "shu (relating)" originated from the rite of oral praying and "zuo (making)" was a later extension, each with its own emphasis. While "shu" lays particular stress on abiding by the skill of divination and putting the ritual words and deeds into practice, "zuo" lays particular stress on the ritual tradition of inscription and building. The key …

Discourse Of Art Criticism And Visual Metaphor, Chenguang Ling

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Visual art criticism is the center of art criticism, whose discourse often develops around visual themes, as is manifested in the two respects, namely, the relationship between seeing and interpretation regarding the transformation from "seeing" to "speaking out", and that between seeing and being seen revealing the contribution of visual activities to shaping the subject' self-consciousness and showing intersubjectivity. The conversion of visual objects into verbal expressions is an inevitable issue in discourse of art criticism, and it appears in two connected patterns, namely, the visualization of ideas and the verbalization of visual image. The result is that ideas, when …

For An Ontological Critique Of The Narrative Of Social Crises, Zhiqiang Zhou

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The paper maintains that cultural critique need not only rely on discursive strategies in contemporary public sphere but also insist an ontological criticism. Such a critique can then construct its destructive criticism in local areas so as to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of contemporary political reality. The paper then proposes "an allegorical criticism in a sensational style" so that the effects of sensation, shock and multi-position may help to achieve the political aims of cultural criticism.

Marxism And Form: An Interview With Prof. Fredric Jameson, Jiangang Yang, Xian Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.