Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Shanghai’S Expo: What Everyone Needs To Know

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In exactly one week, the countdown clocks in Shanghai will all finally hit zero. This is because this year May Day will also be Opening Day for the 2010 World Expo, an event that has been largely ignored in the United States (at least until very recently), but has been the subject of an enormous amount of advance publicity (and hype) within China, in part because it will be that country’s first World Fair and the first large-scale spectacle held there since the giant National Day parades of last year and the Beijing Games of 2008. It is an event …

Dmitry Shostakovich's Twenty-Four Preludes And Fugues Op. 87: An Analysis And Critical Evaluation Of The Printed Edition Based On The Composer's Recorded Performance, Denis V. Plutalov

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

This particular research is a tribute to Dmitry Shostakovich, who was not only a great composer, but also a great pianist and interpreter of his own works. Shostakovich is famous for the most part as a great symphonic and chamber composer. His piano works did not gain as much popularity as his large scale works. In fact they attracted very little attention from the modern generation of pianists. Shostakovich's Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues op. 87 stand out among his piano works as a unique cycle, equaling Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in its concept.

Chapter One provides an introduction to the subject …

Why We Love Dusk, Scott C. Kratochvil

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis is a collection of original poems written at the University of Nebraska while studying literature. The introductory essay briefly explores what "truth" might mean at this time in history and whether or not we can do without it. The poems that follow are arranged like a chapbook so that they might influence each other and affect a reader together in ways that they could not otherwise.

Back To The Future: Going To The World’S Fair!, Shellen Xiao Wu

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Once upon a time, world’s fairs displayed the glory, wealth, and reach of European empires and those who wished to emulate them. Countries from Asia, Africa, and South America set up booths presenting ”native” products, alongside the latest steam engines, repeating rifles and other technological wonders of the “advanced” nations. The first World’s Fair in London in 1851 brought the translucent Crystal Palace; the Eiffel Tower served as the entrance arch to the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1889; in 1893 the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago symbolized America’s entry into the ranks of powers.

In ten days, the Shanghai Expo …

Event Reminder: China Dialogue At Uc Irvine, 4/23

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A reminder for our readers in Southern California that China Beat is co-sponsoring an event at UC Irvine on Friday afternoon. Jeff Wasserstrom will be in dialogue with journalist Mara Hvistendahl, discussing “The Challenge of Writing about a Fast-Changing China: Notes from the Borderland Between Scholarship and Journalism.” The talk will also serve as a book launch for China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, Wasserstrom’s new release from Oxford University Press.

The event will be held in Humanities Gateway, room 1030, from 1:00-2:30 p.m.

Processing King Lear, Patric Michael Vendetti

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

This thesis is the culmination of my scenic design work for William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Lear in the Howell Theatre at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Within this paper I will look at the processes used to create the set design, the execution of the set design and the final product when seen in a fully realized production.

Insight Into Madness: The Rise And Fall Of The Duke Of Cornwall, Kyle Broussard

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

The Duke of Cornwall, created by the world’s most popular and influential playwright in history, William Shakespeare, is a complex, compelling, and controversial character brought forth to life in the pages of King Lear. In accordance to guidelines established by the University of Nebraska, the following graduate thesis will provide a basic outline of my journey through the challenges of understanding, developing, and ultimately performing the role of Cornwall in Shakespeare’s King Lear. The Duke of Cornwall was a challenging and often difficult role to embody and understand due to several factors, such as interpreting his motivations, understanding …

Reading Round-Up: China In The World

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A grab bag of readings around the web that we wanted to share — loosely connected by a “China in the world” theme that the site editors have been thinking about a lot lately, as we’ve begun discussing the possibility of a secondChina Beat book to follow up China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance. Though it’s presently more an idea than a plan, now it seems that everywhere we look, we see China Beatniks being talked about in different parts of the world, connecting China with different parts of the world, and simply moving from writing about China …

Unravelling The Rebozo: The Effects Of Power On The Body In Sandra Cisneros’S Caramelo, Guadalupe V. Linares

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis is a literary, cultural, and theoretical analysis of Sandra Cisneros’s novel Caramelo. Caramelo traces the coming-of-age of its young protagonist, Celaya. Through this character, Cisneros reveals the impact of living between cultures. Born of a Mexican immigrant father and a working-class Mexican American mother, Celaya finds herself asked to choose sides. Celaya’s grandmother, Soledad, is the central secondary character on whom all others react. She embodies the effects of colonialism on this family. Through Soledad’s struggles, readers come to see the psychological damage caused by power relationships that privilege part of the self over the whole. In combination …

Qinghai Earthquake Stories In Translation

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

•At his blog, Bruce Humes compares a Newsweek story on the earthquake’s aftermath, “A Sympathetic Hearing,” with its Chinese translation appearing inCankao Xiaoxi (参考消息), finding that quite a bit got edited out and altered. Highlights of the Cankao Xiaoxi version, summarized by Humes:

•Quotes from China social commentator Yang Hengjun are cut to ribbons and then spliced, partly to remove references to anti-Tibetan prejudice among Han, arguably fostered by China’s own media coverage (“It’s very hard to see real Tibetans…on TV, they’re dancing all the time, shaking hands with leaders, celebrating, or shown as troublemakers.”)

•Chinese people don’t “Tweet” (even …

Costume Design For Tartuffe By Molière, Shannon Paulick

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

“Tartuffe: The Costume Design Process” is a paper that describes the conceptualization, creation, and critique of the costume design chosen for the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film’s production of Tartuffe during the spring semester of 2010. The conceptualization process included meetings with the director, historical research of France during the 1660s, and consideration of the play’s specific needs. The rough sketches and finalized renderings, along with the historical research, are featured within the thesis. The creation process involved numerous people, hours, and creative solutions to bring the design to fruition. Newspapers and an American College Theatre Festival respondent …

Robert Barnett On The Qinghai Earthquake

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the aftermath of last week’s earthquake in Qinghai, Brice Pedroletti of Le Mondeinterviewed (via e-mail) Robert Barnett, director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University. (Read the interview, and a related story, at Le Monde’s website.) Below, an unedited English version of their interview, which is posted here with permission of both Brice Pedroletti and Robert Barnett.

Interview with Robert Barnett on Yushu’s earthquake political implications (April 16th)

Brice Pedroletti: What can we expect the political mood to be in the Tibetan population as well as among the monks, towards the Chinese authorities, over one year after …

Updates On The Qinghai Earthquake

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. Evan Osnos has a “Letter from China” at his New Yorker blog that addresses the earthquake as “a test of openness,” as rumors spread throughout the country worry that the government is hiding predictions of another quake that will supposedly hit Beijing and Tianjin in the coming weeks. Osnos also links to this page at the Huffington Post, which lists organizations accepting donations to aid in earthquake relief.

2. China Digital Times has centralized its news about the earthquake at this page.

3. Danwei’s “Front Page of the Day” looks at how various Chinese newspapers covered the earthquake.

4. …

Dancing Is My Hobby

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“In Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia, a 76-year-old former PLA soldier and amateur calligrapher from Shanghai dances away another Tuesday morning. Underneath his footwork, he has written in almost as flawless spelling, ‘Dancing is my hoby’.”

— Alec Ash, Six

Asia, Faraway Or Next Door?, Samuel Y. Liang

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On my way from England to AAS 2010, I stopped in New York for two nights and visited the Chinatown in Manhattan. This prosperous area sprawls beyond the boundary shown in the tourist map towards the shoreline of the East River; it also encroaches on neighboring Little Italy, which is increasingly like an island in a sea of Chinese shops and restaurants. The density of the shops and their gaudy commercialism, it seems to me, exceed those in Chinese cities and are quite similar to those in Won Kok, Hong Kong.

In a buffet-style restaurant, I got to know two …

Qinghai Earthquake Readings

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Quite a bit is being written today about Wednesday’s earthquake in Qinghai, and we expect many more stories in the coming days. Here, a survey of what we’ve found online so far:

1. The Guardian has put together an interactive map of the quake region, as well as a powerful photo series.

2. Danwei has translated a commentary by Wang Jian of China National Radio, which focuses on the difficulties of relief and rescue efforts:

At this time, we do not have enough tents to shield the victims from the cold, and we do not have enough blankets to warm …

Expo Readings Around The Web

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With the Shanghai World Expo opening in just a few short weeks, it’s now showing up in news stories on a daily basis. A few links to check out:

1. The team at Shanghaiist got to take a tour of the still-under-construction Expo grounds last week, and have posted quite a number of pictures from their visit; check out their galleries of Zone A, Zone B, and Zone C. Over at Shanghai Scrap, Adam Minter documents his look inside the U.S. Expo pavilion (and his underwhelmed reaction) in a story here.

2. Also at Shanghaiist, Elaine Chow has conducted a …

Before China Beat, There Was China Beyond The Headlines, Timothy B. Weston

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

For several years now there has been a close connection between China Beat and China beyond the Headlines. The latter, a series of essay collections edited by myself and Lionel M. Jensen, is designed for a general and classroom audience (Volume One was published in 2000; Volume Two, China’s Transformations, was released in 2007). In addition to some common players who have been involved with both, such as Geremie Barmé, Tim Cheek, Tim Oakes, Jeff Wasserstrom and myself, China Beat and China beyond the Headlines are fortunate to share Susan McEachern of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers as an editor. Each …

Book Talk(S)

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Finishing up work on China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, which is due out in a few days from Oxford University Press, and then more recently preparing for a series of public events that are linked in some way to its publication, set me thinking about the varied ways that books incorporate things that have gone before them. The many kinds of building blocks, from tales told to things written down, that authors use to create something new.

I’ve never written a novel, but I’ve heard that these can easily grow out of a tale told …

Socialist Cosmopolitanism: China Beat Event

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On Wednesday, April 7, the China Beat was pleased to co-host (with the Humanities Collective) a talk at UCI by Nicolai Volland, who teaches Chinese Studies at National University of Singapore. Volland spoke on “Socialist Cosmopolitanism: China’s Other ‘Age of Openness’ in the 1950s.” ReferencingFrank Dikötter‘s recent book on Republican China, The Age of Openness: China Before Mao, Volland argued that 1950s China can also be seen as “open,” if not to the U.S. and Western Europe. Volland explored cultural exchanges within the socialist world to provide evidence of China’s continued international engagement during the early Mao years. Interested readers …

Though I Am Gone

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In his review of Andrew Walder’s Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement, John Gittings discusses the July 1966 murder of Bian Zhongyun, deputy principal of the Beijing Normal Girls’ High School. Gittings mentions that Bian’s story has been told in a moving documentary that features interviews with her husband, who shares photographs that he took at the time of her death. The entire movie, Wo sui siqu (我虽死去 Though I Am Gone), is available on YouTube; below, we’ve embedded the first section of the film (in Mandarin with English subtitles).

I Am Regan: The Preparation, Performance And Afterthoughts On The Character Of Regan In King Lear, Tiffiney C. Baker

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

The Preparation, Performance and Afterthoughts Concerning the Role of Regan in Shakespeare’s King Lear Tiffiney Carol Baker, M.F.A. University of Nebraska, 2010 Adviser: Harris Smith In April of 2009 I was cast as Regan Cornwall in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s main stage production of King Lear. Throughout the summer I researched various aspects of the playwright, the play’s origins, family dynamics and various other aspects concerning the world of the play in order to gain a clearer understanding of the character. The following is the documentation of my process divided into three sections. Section one contains historical research and a …

Listen At Home To Peter Hessler And Ken Pomeranz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Earlier this year, UC Irvine hosted a conversation between Peter Hessler and Ken Pomeranz, centering on a discussion of Hessler’s new book, Country Driving. A podcast of that event is now available, jointly produced by The China Beat andMaking History Podcast (a site run by Jana Remy, a UCI History graduate student and friend of the blog). Check it out at the MHP website, or on iTunes.

Just One Child Wins Post-1900 Levenson Prize

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Though China Beat contributors come from around the globe, the blog’s editorial team is based at UC Irvine. For that reason, we take special pride in announcing that at last month’s Association for Asian Studies annual meeting, UCI Professor of Anthropology Susan Greenhalgh won the Joseph Levenson Prize for Best Book on China Post-1900. Professor Greenhalgh’s book, Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng’s China, was published by the University of California Press in 2008, and attempts to answer several questions that have permeated her work as a population specialist during the era of the one-child policy:

Why? Why …

Cut, Bryan Drew

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The act of cutting is to sever, to divide an object or even an idea into separate parts of its original state. Non-tangibles can also in a sense be ‘cut’, like gaps in memories or modifications of beliefs or ideas. My work encompasses these definitions of cutting. Working mostly from photos, I use imagery from personal experience, such as meat from my hunting experience, patterns from nostalgic blankets, or photos of people in my life. Other times, I choose imagery simply because I feel compelled to paint it, or it feels somehow needed within the composition. My process begins by …

In Case You Missed It: China Dream, Christopher R. Hughes

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Liu Mingfu 刘明福, China Dream: The Great Power Thinking and Strategic Positioning of China in the Post-American Age (Zhongguo meng: hou meiguo shidai de daguo siwei zhanlue dingwei). (Beijing: Zhongguo youyi chuban gongsi, 2010).

China Dream, by Colonel Liu Mingfu, a professor at Beijing’s National Defense University, is the latest of several books to speculate on how China can displace the leadership of the United States after the global economic crisis. Understandably, Liu’s military background has led to conjecture over whether his views reflect the ambitions of the PLA or even China’s leaders. Yet China Dream is most interesting not …

An Intergroup Perspective On Stepchildren's Communication With Their Nonresidential Parent's Family, Rebecca Diverniero

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Communicating and negotiating boundaries can be a challenge to family members who have experienced a divorce and remarriage. In particular, stepchildren and their nonresidential parent‘s family must manage potential changes and challenges to their communication and relationship as the stepchild transitions into stepfamily life. Centered in the interpretive paradigm and Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), the researcher interviewed 29 current and former stepchildren about their transition into stepfamily life to address six research questions: (1) What are the turning points in stepchildren‘s communication with their nonresidential parent‘s family? (2) How do stepchildren perceive and describe family identification with their nonresidential parent‘s …

Missing Footage At The Aas, Timothy Cheek

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Roundtable session at this year’s annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in Philadelphia was titled “Against Amnesia: History, Memory and the Role of Public Intellectuals in 21st Century China.” A mix of scholars from China and North America were scheduled to report and discuss, but at the last minute our featured speaker, Ms. Cui Weiping (崔卫平) of the Beijing Film Academy, could not attend. She was prevented from leaving China for the roundtable even though she had been specially invited by the AAS and had her passport, US visa, and air tickets in hand. She was …

Selected Writings Of Victoria Woodhull, Victoria C. Woodhall

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Suffragist, lecturer, eugenicist, businesswoman, free lover, and the first woman to run for president of the United States, Victoria C. Woodhull (1838–1927) has been all but forgotten as a leading nineteenth-century feminist writer and radical. Selected Writings of Victoria Woodhull is the first multigenre, multisubject collection of her materials, giving contemporary audiences a glimpse into the radical views of this nineteenth-century woman who advocated free love between consensual adults and who was labeled “Mrs. Satan” by cartoonist Thomas Nast. Woodhull’s texts reveal the multiple conflicting aspects of this influential woman, who has been portrayed in the past as either a …

Lamb Bright Saviors, Robert Vivian

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

“Robert Vivian’s prose is lyrical and harrowing—harrowing in the Biblical sense,” Sven Birkerts said of The Mover of Bones, the first book in Vivian’s Tall Grass Trilogy. That same lyrical power carries this new volume to a place of hard-won hope and redemption at once both spiritual and earthly. Lamb Bright Saviors begins as an apocalyptically inclined itinerant preacher staggers across the Nebraska prairie. With his young assistant, Mady, in tow hauling a wagon stacked with bibles, it’s not long before the preacher finds he’s come to the final fulfillment of his self-proclaimed life’s work: to die in front …