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Academic Journal Report: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies By Nicole Barnes

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I have in my hot little hand the December 2008 issue (Volume 9, Number 4) of a hot little journal from Routledge Press, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Supported by the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation and Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung and Tsing Hua Universities, this journal has a truly international editorial collective hailing from Singapore, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Taiwan, the PRC (including Hong Kong), Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, India, and the U.S. To further demonstrate its comprehensive Pacific Rim approach, the journal accepts publications in Asian languages as well as in English.

Although this is an academic journal, it …

Berita Volume Xxxiii, Number 3 (2009), Ronald Provencher

Berita

Table of Contents

Editor’s note...1

Periodicals...1

Books....5

Websites & opportunities…11

Amnesty International...12

Prospectus…...12

Research Staff...12

Stress, Status, And Sociability: Exploring Residential Satisfaction In The Rural Midwest Following Rapid Immigration, James Potter, Rodrigo Cantarero, Amy E. Boren

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

This investigation examined predictors of residential satisfaction among newly arrived residents (NAR) and long-term residents (LTR) of a rural community following a rapid influx of immigrants into the community. The physical environment, social/cultural aspects of life, and resources and public services were hypothesized to affect perceptions of residential satisfaction. Both LTR and NAR were pleased with environmental attributes, sociocultural attributes, and public services. An inverse relationship was revealed between stress and residential satisfaction. The primary sources of stress for LTR related to economics and social status issues, whereas the primary sources of stress among NAR involved issues concerning family and …

Review Of Violence, The Arts, And Willa Cather. Edited By Joseph R. Urgo And Merrill Maguire Skaggs, Karsten H. Piep

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This compilation of twenty-three essays proves that contemporary scholarship has moved beyond trite debates about Cather's alleged propensity to romanticize violence. Accordingly, the volume's editors have assembled a series of nuanced readings that reconsider Willa Cather's artistic uses of violence as well as her appropriations of various art forms before the backdrop of World War I, modernist aesthetics, Nativism, and 1920s feminism. Approaching their subject through the lenses of biographical, historical, aesthetic, psychoanalytical, and gender criticism, the contributors paint Cather as a sometimes generous, sometimes severe critic of American culture, whose insistence on the inescapability of violence is attended by …

Notes And News

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

CALL FOR PAPERS

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FREDERICK C. LUEBKE AWARD

Chinese Philanthropy In Southeast Asia: Between Continuity And Change, Thomas Menkhoff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

What makes ethnic Chinese philanthropy tick? Thomas Menkhoff looks at what drives prominent Chinese business leaders to give back to society and offers a glimpse of the changing face of ethnic philanthropy.

Du Néoréalisme En Afrique: Une Relecture De Borom Sarret, Sada Niang

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Critical evaluations of African cinema have tended in the past to confi ne the analysis of this corpus to its content. In books and articles published earlier, the colonial and postcolonial history of the continent abound, social dramas are explained at length, thefts at all levels, cultural mystifi cation, corruption as well as violence are amply described. The insights of such an approach notwithstanding, the aesthetic sources of African cinema are not limited to the rural and the traditional. Through a comparison of Vittorio De Sica Bicycle Thief and Sembène’s Borom Sarret, this paper argues that african cinema inserted itself …

The Last General Of The Red Army, Ed Jocelyn

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

General Xiao Ke, who died last month in Beijing at aged 101, was the last surviving commander of the Chinese Red Army that made the legendary Long March. Only 27 when he led his troops out of their Communist base in south China, Xiao never reached the career heights promised by his youth and ability. Instead, his later life became notable for a commitment to principle that put him at odds with political reality.

Xiao Ke was born in Hunan Province to a scholarly family that had fallen on hard times. Three of his eight brothers and sisters died in …

Islamism, State Control Over Religion And Social Identity: Turkey And Egypt, Alper Y. Dede

Dissertations

In post Cold War politics, as a powerful alternative to the authoritarian "status-quo" regimes of the Muslim World, Islamism has become among the most critical political issues as various Islamist movements increasingly challenge governments for more political reforms, democratization, and greater participation and in the political process.

The current debates on Islamism, though useful, often emphasize the issues of security, democracy, or stability. However, they seem to overlook the importance of processes and the mechanisms of Islamism as well as how Islamists' concerns for preserving their Islamic social identity (Muslimness) and government control over religion contribute to their politicization. Thus, …

An Assessment Of Local People’S Opinions Of Community Conservation Initiatives In Relation To Livelihood Strategies In Kenya, Jill Mechtenberg

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Abstract This paper analyzed the changing livelihood strategies in Kenya, and their cultural impacts via a literature review. I then combined this understanding with the data I collected while in Kenya to examine the opinions local people have of community conservation initiatives, based on their changing livelihood strategies. I expected to find that the following factors would have an affect on the opinions local community members have of community conservation initiatives: livelihood strategy, gender, ethnicity, whether or not they believe the distribution of benefits coming from wildlife conservation is equitable, what issues they would like to see improved within community …

Why Was Yao Ming Fined?

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A colleague here at the Beijing Sport University whom I have known for over ten years, Yi Jiandong (易剑东), is one of the two most vocal media commentators on Chinese sports in the academic world (along with Lu Yuanzhen 卢元镇). He has reached an exalted status that an American professor like myself can only marvel at from afar. He is one of the “Big-Name Bloggers”(名人博客) on the Qzone blogsite, where he shares space with the likes of Feng Shuyong, head coach of the national track and field team (whose main purpose seems to be to report on Liu Xiang, 2004 …

Wmu International News February 2008, Haenicke Institute For Global Education

WMU International News

In this issue:

WMU welcomes 60 Dominican Republic students

Western Michigan University's 19th annual International Festival

Ugly Sweaters Ice Capades

Bi-cultural upbringing complements study abroad work

CELCIS veteran named interim director

Winter fun in West Michigan

5 Good Short Reads On China Beat Topics–All By People Who Aren’T China Specialists

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Academics focusing on China, like other area specialists, tend to place a high value on formal training in the language and culture of the place we’ve devoted ourselves to teaching and writing about. We think (and I’m no exception) that most of the best scholarly work on Chinese issues has been done by people with this kind of training. And the people outside of the academy that we pay the closest attention to—journalists, free-lance writers, business commentators, policy analysts, etc.—tend to be those who have had some training in Chinese studies, or know the language and have demonstrated a primary …

Five Good Short Books On China: A Guide For Readers With Limited Attention Spans

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This list is for an imaginary couple who are about to take their first trip to China and have made it clear to me that they only have a limited amount of time to spend reading up on the country in advance. Or, perhaps better yet, they’ve been honest enough to tell me that they won’t start to read up on China until their plane actually takes off, and they want some ideas of what to cram into the limited space of their carry-on bags. Though busy, these imaginary friends (I do have real ones, but none that have asked …

Book Review: Zhorna: Material Culture Of The Ukrainian Pioneers By Roman Paul Fodchuk, Svitlana P. Kukharenko

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

For Roman Paul Fodchuk the zhorna, or stone quem mills, symbolically represent the hardships early Ukrainian pioneers in Alberta experienced and successfully overcame while adapting to their new life. The book covers a broad range of the material culture topics-from pioneers' clothing and house utensils to house building and agricultural technology. Throughout its six chapters, the author presents the pioneers' chronological "becoming" through the lenses of material culture objects, both those brought with them at the end ofthe 19th century and also objects made in Canada.

Caree Carries Subversive Memories: Recent Reflections On Ministry In Former Yugoslavia, Gerald Shenk

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Cross-Cultural Differences In Learning And Education: Stereotypes, Myths And Realities, Gerhard Apfelthaler, Katrin Hansen, Stephan Keuchel, Christa Mueller, Martin Neubauer, Siow-Heng Ong, Nirundon Tapachai

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Despite the fact that both learning styles and cross-cultural differences have been important research topics for decades, surprisingly little work has been done on comparisons of learning behaviour across cultures and its impact for teachers working in culturally mixed settings. This chapter is based on a research project funded by the European Union seeking to provide fresh knowledge on cross-national differences in attitudes towards learning of students from selected countries. It reports on the results from Austria, Germany, Singapore and Thailand and outlines some of the implications for teaching in higher education.

Review Of The Ambivalent Art Of Katherine Anne Porter By Mary Titus, James T.F. Tanner

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Mary Titus's The Ambivalent Art of Katherine Anne Porter is an original, serious, feminist study of Porter's ever-shifting and problematic self-analysis respecting the proper roles of women in modern culture. According to Titus, Porter rebelled against her upbringing yet never relinquished the belief that her work as an artist was somehow unnatural, unbecoming in view of the conventional notion of woman as child bearer. Yet Titus is certain that Porter overcame such notions, or at least ambivalently tempered them, to create her· memorable fiction.

In her fiction, Katherine Anne Porter (1890- 1980) provides varied treatments of the Great Plains areas …

Review Of Riding For The Brand: 150 Years Of Cowden Ranching By Michael Pettit, D. Anthony Tyeeme Clark

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

As a family of ranchers, there is little doubt that the Cowdens have contributed to 150 years of the history of the western fringe of the Great Plains in Texas and New Mexico. As descendent and author Michael Pettit suggests, the Cowdens arrived in Texas approximately five years after the state was admitted to the Union. To add an additional perspective, Quanah Parker's band of Comanches were twenty-five years away from accepting reservation life at Fort Sill in Oklahoma Territory as William Hamby Cowden settled in Palo Pinto County, Texas. He clashed with bands of Comanches, . but in the …

Orthodoxy And The New Russia, Jonathan Clarke, Duncan Reid Thd, Med

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This paper examines the contemporary phenomenon of the reemergence of the Orthodox Church not only as the leading religious institution of post-Soviet Russia, but also as a core marker of identity. The disappearance of the Soviet Union has produced a profound crisis of idemity in Russia. Traditional markers of identity, particularly the Orthodox Church, have assumed an importance hardly anticipated before the collapse of the USSR.

French Framing Of Anna Karenina: Confused Identities In Russian Aristocratic Culture, Devin Conley '07

Honors Projects

Anna Karenina uses Russian identities and Russian language in opposition to European culture and French language to highlight the superficiality ofthe Russian aristocracy in the nineteenth century. In the context of the novel, honesty to oneself worth is the highest expression of being; unless one lives in truth, one cannot lay claim to a genuine existence. Culture and, more importantly, cultural identity provide this appraisal and affirmation of our own self-worth, as well as a framework in which to approach life.

Reconciling Ethnicity, Subalternity And Chinese Eco-Aesthetics: Human And Animal Subjects In Lu Chuan's Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, Chia-Ju Chang

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

An ecological discourse has not yet arisen in the mainstream of Chinese film studies. Lu Chuan's Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (2004) is the first transnational feature film in China about the endangered Tibetan Antelope. This "eco-thriller" is based on a true event and is about a group of Tibetan volunteers trying to capture the leader of a poaching group who is responsible for mass-slaughtering and skinning the endangered Tibetan Antelope. The film engages a complicated politics of transnational capitalism, ethnicity, animal rights and aesthetics. In this paper, I first survey the history of animal poaching in the Kekexili area and the …

Managing Stakeholders During It-Enabled Organizational Transformation: A Case Study Of E-Government In South Korea, Hyun Jeong Kim, Gary Pan, Shan Ling Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The implementation of e-government is a burgeoning phenomenon across the globe. It improves and enhances the infrastructures and services provided to the citizens. However, a review of the IS literature reveals that research on the implementation of e-government is rather limited, which could be due to the general misconception of the public sectors as rigid and risk-averse establishments. The shortage of studies on e-government’s implementation presents a knowledge gap that needs to be plugged. This gap is significantly amplified by the increasing number of e-government initiatives being implemented by governments in recent years. This paper describes and analyzes South Korea’s …

Economías De Redención: "La Agricultura De La Zona Tórrida" (1826) De Andrés Bello, Alvaro Kaempfer

Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies Faculty Publications

Si “Alocución a la Poesía” (1823) de Andrés Bello era un llamado a dejar Europa, cruzar el Atlántico y fundar la historicidad del Nuevo Mundo, “La agricultura de la Zona Tórrida” (1826) sería su factura programática. Sobre un proyecto poético inconcluso que Bello tituló América, la poesía, matriz cultural de Occidente en el primero, traza, en el segundo, la conversión de los hijos del colonialismo en sus nuevos agentes poéticos e históricos. “Agricultura” liga la genealogía de esa América, “del Sol joven esposa / del antiguo Océano hija postrera” según “Alocución,” a la voluntad transatlántica que convertirá su naturaleza en …

Berita Volume Xxxi, Number 4 (2007), Ronald Provencher

Berita

Table of Contents

Editor’s note... 1

Periodicals...…..….….1

Books...9

Conferences, papers and manuscripts...11

Amnesty International...12

Prospectus...12

Research Staff...12

This Time He Moves! The Deeper Significance Of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Radical Break In Good Men, Good Women, James N. Udden

Interdisciplinary Studies Faculty Publications

Following the recent success of Taiwanese film directors, such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Ang Lee and Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwanese film is raising its profile in contemporary cinema. This collection presents an exciting and ambitious foray into the cultural politics of contemporary Taiwan film that goes beyond the auterist mode, the nation-state argument and vestiges of the New Cinema.

Cinema Taiwan considers the complex problems of popularity, conflicts between transnational capital and local practice, non-fiction and independent filmmaking as emerging modes of address, and new possibilities of forging vibrant film cultures embedded in national (identity) politics, gender/sexuality and community activism. …

This Sporting Life: Sports And Body Culture In Modern Japan, William W. Kelly, Atsuo Sugimoto

CEAS Occasional Publication Series

Yale CEAS Occasional Publication Series - Volume 1

Sports in Japan have long been embedded in community life, the educational system, the mass media, the corporate structures, and the nationalist sentiments of modern Japan. For over a century, they have been a crucial intersection of school pedagogy, corporate aims, media constructions, gender relations, and patriotic feelings. The chapters in this book highlight a wide range of sports, and together, they offer a significant window on to the ways that the sporting life animates the institutions of modern Japan.

Representation In Kenya, Its Diaspora, And Academia: Colonial Legacies In Constructions Of Knowledge About Kenya's Coast, Jesse Benjamin

Faculty Articles

This paper explores the construction of knowledge in Kenya in the context and aftermath of colonialism and underdevelopment. Those communities that were politically and economically marginalized in Coast Province over the past century were also displaced in terms of academic opportunities, resulting in fewer social science scholars from Mijikenda and other non-Swahili communities in both Kenyan and diaspora universities. Underdevelopment studies in Africa and Kenya are briefly reviewed, and the colonial history of asymmetric social relations at coastal Kenya is traced. Finally, key debates over identity and history are examined within this context and shown to be exacerbated by diasporic …

Nationalism, Civilization, And Transnational Relations: The Discourse Of Greater China, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay examines the interplay between nationalism and foreign policy in China—but with a twist. It seeks to loosen up analytical categories to expand from cultural nationalism to see how civilization constructs identity in national and transnational ways. It examines the limits of Chinese trans/nationalism according to the main Chinese expression of inside/outside—‘civilization/barbarism’—as it constructs Chinese nationalism and Greater China. The purpose is to both critically examine Chinese nationalism and to trace what our focus on the nation-state obscures: namely, transnational politics. Rather than recounting one master narrative of Chinese nationalism, the essay argues that civilization and barbarian define Greater …

Comic : An Exploration Into Computer-Mediated Intercultural Communication, Simone Alder

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how cultural differences manifest themselves in computermediated intercultural communication (CoMIC). This study particularly looks at the role and use of digital nonverbals (DNVs) and their regulatory functions. The data analyzed is from a global virtual team working together for a period of three months. The grounded theory method has been employed to code the electronic transcript of the team's communication. Furthermore, the participants were surveyed regarding their personal backgrounds, their work, and their perception of the communication processes that took place. The study shows that in an intercultural communication process DNVs are used to avoid intercultural misunderstandings …