Asian History Commons^™

Book Censorship In Post-Tiananmen China (1989-2019), Yuwu Song

Journal of East Asian Libraries

Abstract: Censorship has become more prevalent in Chinese cultural and social life since the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Modern commentary on Chinese censorship focuses on news media and Internet, but neglects print books, which is part of a broader crackdown on dissent. To fill this gap, the project aims to map the contours of book censorship in China during the past 30 years. The emphasis is on the Chinese authorities’ increasing attempts to dominate people’s minds under Xi Jinping, who ascended to power as the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012. The project reveals different levels of …

Christian Mass Movements In South India And Some Of The Critical Factors That Changed The Face Of Christianity In India, Philip Joseph Mathew

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The main reason for Christian growth in India was not individual conversions but rather Christian mass movements (CMMs). Since the late 1700s, a series of independent CMMs among non-Christians and a mass reformation movement within the Suriani community have occurred in the southern end of India. These MMs culminated in a mass emancipation movement against caste-imposed segregation of Dalits in the late 1800s, an event of national significance. In the early 1900s, Pentecostalism evolved from these CMMs and transformed the religious landscape of Christianity in South India and later in India as a whole. The Thoma Christians were the early …

Thailand: The Return Of Authoritarianism, Alexandra T. Harrison

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

In the post–World War II global order, democracy has made advancements around the world. However, it is not uncommon for governments to establish systems that try to emulate democracy while embodying a more authoritarian rule, which quickly becomes problematic because authoritarian governments are notorious for violating their citizens’ rights. This can be seen specifically in Thailand, where multiple military coups d’état have caused changes in the government, forcing the nation to alternate between democratic and authoritarian policies. The most recent coup staged in 2014, shifted the government away from democracy entirely, transitioning into the strictest authoritarian rule Thailand has seen …

Tsaachin Reindeer Herders: Perceptions Vs Reality, Sharla Dart

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Mongolia is a country commonly known for its vast steppes and rich culture of nomadic pastoralism. Images of livestock grazing on the open steppe often come to mind when people think about the country. However, what about the lesser-known reindeer herders? The Tsaachin reindeer herders of Mongolia are an ethnic group in the northernmost region of the country that have been subject to common misconceptions stemming from perceptions created by people consuming exaggerated and false narratives. This study aims to discover if perceptions that outsiders have influence the reindeer herders of the West Taiga.

Small But Strong: Growth And Development Of The Sikh Community In Kathmandu, Sarbjot Z. Jessop

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

No abstract provided.

Retracing Revolutionary Footsteps: The Legacy Of The People’S War In The Maoist Heartlands, Katherine Coetzer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In 1996, Nepal was engulfed in a civil war when the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) – hereafter referred to a— launched a guerilla war against the state. In historical and political scholarship on the conflict, there has been a tendency to situate the conflict with a neat set of causes and consequences. In focusing on the macroscale changes, such narrations of “Big History” obscure the experiences of the Nepali people who were—and continue to be— impacted by war with the loss and violence endured clinically tallied in human right reports and social science studies. Within rigid analyses, the variegated …

Born A Foreigner: Tibetan Statelessness In India, Sonam Rikha

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

A majority of the Tibetans in India are stateless, meaning that they have citizenship to no internationally recognized country. India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and has no national refugee framework. Therefore, residents of India are either designated as foreigners or citizens. Tibetans—including those that were born in India—are labeled as “foreigners” in India. Stateless Tibetans in India have no permanent legal status, making them vulnerable to detention and deportation. Furthermore, stateless Tibetans can’t buy property, have limited educational and career opportunities, and constantly have to renew documentation in order to reside in India. While …

What Makes Mad Honey “Mad”? An Investigation Into The Obsession Of The Himalayan Wild Cliff Honey, Codi Farmer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Mad honey is a rare variety of cliff honey found in the mountainous regions of Turkey and Nepal and has been harvested by Indigenous groups for centuries. In Nepal, it is found on high-hanging cliffs that people risk their lives to face, but what makes this honey so special to cause generations of Nepalis to brave the formidable heights? Through a series of reading primary and secondary sources, watching first-hand accounts of honey hunting, and interviewing honey hunters, filmmakers, authors, and laypeople alike, I work to find the answer to the puzzling question – what makes mad honey "mad"? In …

From Post-Pantheism To Trans-Materialism: D. T. Suzuki And New Buddhism, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

In modern Western thought, pantheism remains a powerful if controversial undercurrent. Recent re-evaluations of the work of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) point to pantheism’s radical implications for metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. Pantheism (Jp. hanshinron 汎神論) also has significant valence within Japanese Buddhist modernism, particularly in the work of scholars and lay activists who articulated the outlines of a New Buddhism (shin bukkyō 新仏教) from the 1880s through the 1940s. For these thinkers, pantheism provided a “middle way” between materialism and idealism, as well as between theism and atheism. In the postwar period, lapsed radical turned Buddhist Sano Manabu …

Dalit Studies: The Impacts Of British Colonization In India, Dalit Identity & The Internationalization Of Caste Discrimination At The United Nations, Yashpreet Birdi

Major Papers

The centuries-old caste system dividing individuals in society in a hierarchical order has long been responsible for the continuous oppression of the Dalit (also referred to as Untouchables) population in India. Experiences associated with British colonization period in the country have greatly influenced the fundamental social values, structures, and institutional frameworks of modern and democratic India, along with the identity of Dalits. Scholars in the newly emerged academic field of Dalit studies have examined contemporary issues of the Dalit population, whereas academics of post-colonial studies have analyzed the various social, economic, and cultural losses of British colonization in India. Although …

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

The Forum: Journal of History

No abstract provided.

Buddhist Socialism In China, 1900–1930: A History And Appraisal, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

Although it is only in recent decades that scholars have begun to reconsider and problematize Buddhist conceptions of “freedom” and “agency,” the various thought traditions of Asian Buddhism have for some centuries struggled with questions related to the issue of “liberation,” along with its fundamental ontological, epistemological and ethical—if not economic and political—implications. With the development of Marxist thought in the mid to late nineteenth century, a new paradigm for thinking about freedom in relation to economics, history, identity and socio-political transformation found its way to Asia, where it soon confronted traditional religious interpretations of freedom as well as competing …

元明時期華北國家秩序的重建 : 軍屯、漕運和馬政 : 以大名府為例, Senhao Hu

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

本研究將以大名府為例，從軍屯、漕運和馬政三種國家制度展示元明華北國家秩序對地方社會重塑的過程。本研究不僅能夠為華北的衰落提供制度層面的解釋，還能說明元明制度的連續性。本文第二章和第三章將討論明初大名府的衛所和軍屯。這二章會結合大量不同地域和時期的地方志對大名府軍屯的設置、分布和數量做一考證，並通過東明縣穆氏家族說明這一二元體系對地方社會產生的影響。本文第四章將通過河南漕糧於小灘鎮交兌這一經濟活動進一步說明大名府被塑造為薊州鎮「飛地」的過程。本章將通過梳理豫漕交兌點之變說明豫漕交兌對小灘鎮的依賴，並分別從環境和制度兩個角度說明交兌點變與不變的原因。本文第五章將以大名府為例從「餘地征銀」的角度重新檢討明代華北馬政的負擔。本文將通過考證史料說明，實際上明代馬政並未對華北地方社會造成想像中的沉重負擔。總之，本文將通過軍屯、漕運、馬政三種國家制度說明明代國家權力對位處北方內地的大名府重塑的過程，並冀求通過這一過程說明華北的衰落，以及元明制度間的連續性。

Scientific Collaboration And The Cold War: 1945-1970, Autumn Wyland

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis is an examination of scientific collaboration between 1945 and 1970, covering the end of World War II and through the early stages of the Cold War. Prior to the Second World War, scientific collaboration was frequent and necessary to development and research. World War II created a new atmosphere of secrecy, preventing scientists from collaborating as they once had. This paper examines what that collaboration looked like, how it was derailed and why, how some scientists sought to return to collaboration, sometimes at personal expense, and finally what those effects looked like throughout the Nuclear Age and Space …

Taiwanese Indigenous Representation, Rhetoric Of Resistance, And Heteroglossia In Warriors Of The Rainbow: Seediq Bale., John Yu-Choh Chang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the relationship between Taiwanese indigenous narrative and rhetoric, in textual representations of the Seediq people and the 1930 Musha Incident. It explores how the forced colonization of Taiwanese indigenous people affected their identities and cultural representation, and how multi-voiced forms of narrative, storytelling, and meaning-making have rooted in indigenous oral traditions and rituals that counter colonial representations. Across a range of cultural texts, I identify what I call Taiwanese indigenous rhetoric of resistance (TIRR), drawing on Simon J. Ortiz’s theory of indigenous literature and oral traditions as indigenous-nationalist forms of cultural resistance. In addition, I draw on …

Total Prevention: A History Of Schistosomiasis In Japan, Alexander Bay

History Faculty Articles and Research

In Japan, schistosomiasis was endemic in Yamanashi Prefecture and a few other hotspot areas where the Miya’iri snail lived. The parasite’s lifecycle relied on the intermediary Miya’iri snail as well as the human host. Parasite eggs passed into the agrarian environment through untreated night soil used as fertiliser or through the culture of open defecation in rural Japan. Manmade rice fields and irrigation ditches, night soil covered paddies and highly refined growing seasons put people in flooded rice paddies to intensively work the land in the spring and summer. The disease was equally dependent on human intervention in the natural …

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 …

Solidarity Divided: The Miike Strike Of 1960 And Fractures Within Japan's Labor Movement During The Cold War, John L. M. Dinh

University Honors Theses

One of the most famous episodes of labor seeking concessions from management in postwar Japan was the Miike strike of 1960 in Ōmuta, Fukuoka Prefecture. The goal of the striking coal miners was to pressure management of the Mitsui Mining Company to rescind over a thousand notices that would force those affected into "voluntary retirement," most targeted union members who were hostile to management. However, there was a lack of unity among the strikers where the miners split between the "first union" and the "second union." The first union was hostile to management and opposed such rationalization measures entirely. The …

The Cost Of Urbanization: A Look Into The Transformation Of Mao Era Reforms, Tieren A. Dokes

Master's Projects and Capstones

Mao Zedong has played an influential role in Chinese society, whether for better or for worse. His policies have caused ripples throughout contemporary Chinese society, but nothing stronger than his desire for urbanization and economic land reform. Utilizing Mao’s drive for urbanization and economic reform as essential historical context, this paper connects how the contemporary governmental push for urbanization has been unyielding, and, in some ways, counterproductive as decade-old Mao-era institutions reverberate in an echo chamber with cracks that allow darker forces to seep in. Real estate and urban development companies and local governments are given monetary incentive to redevelop …

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 …