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Coming Distractions: China Watcher, Richard Baum

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the winter of 1994 I moved to Yokohama, Japan, to direct a semester-long U.C. Education Abroad Program (EAP) curriculum on Peace and Development Studies at Meiji Gakuin University. Because all electronic communications in Japan were controlled by the government’s telecomm monopoly, NHK, Internet access was extremely expensive, and my Compuserve subscription was costing me a small fortune —over US$250 each month — in connection charges. Since I was in more-or-less regular e-mail contact with a number of other China scholars in various countries, I decided to economize on my on-line connection charges by periodically sending group e-mailings to several …

Razorback, Frank Wheeler

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis contains the first five chapters of the novel titled RAZORBACK, written by Frank Wheeler Jr. It is a crime drama, set in the Arkansas Ozark Mountains. The main character, Conrad, is a reclusive woodworker living in the back woods. His estranged wife, Jennifer, pays him a visit after five years with little contact between them, and asks him to kill someone for her. She claims it is a matter of personal safety; the man she has been seeing socially has become violent and threatening. After some consideration, Conrad agrees. He has his own agenda, however, and he finds …

"The Future In The Instant": Posthumanism(S) In Early Modern English Drama, Farrah Lehman

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation examines prominent points of intersection between early modern English theatrical practices and posthumanist, post-cybernetic new media theory as a means of interrogating assumptions about “media narratives” (here, the development of dramatic blank verse), proto-Brechtian anti-illusionism, and sensory encounter related to the late sixteenth-and early seventeenth century stage. The arguments presented here in part rely on the work of three present-day critics: Mark B.N. Hansen, N. Katherine Hayles, and Brian Massumi, all of whom explore posthumanist theory while addressing possibilities for posthumanist practices within the humanities. Examining a wide range of texts, including plays and pro-and anti-theater tracts, initially …

Reading Round-Up: 2/12/10

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. China Beat team members Jeff Wasserstrom and Kate Merkel-Hess have a new piece at Foreign Policy discussing the recent joint report issued by the governments of China and Japan regarding the 1937-38 Rape of Nanking. In“Nanjing By the Numbers”, they argue that focusing on the continued controversy over the massacre’s death toll overlooks the greater significance of the report:

It would be too much to hope that any joint report over the causes and events of the Pacific War would reach accord on every issue. But as partisan as the debate on the Nanjing massacre has often seemed, a …

Religion And Manifestations Of Chinese Modernity, Paul Katz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One of the most frequent questions that scholars and writers hear is “I’m interested learning more about your field. What should I read?” Answering this query is surprisingly tricky, as often the books that specialists love the most are far beyond the introductory level that many general readers are seeking. China Beatwould like to help; below is the inaugural post in our new series, “Where to Begin.” In these essays, we’ll be asking authors to suggest a broad range of books that might make up a good beginning reading list for someone setting out to explore an unfamiliar topic. Here, …

Cross Talk

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“Wit, comic repartee, tongue-twisting speed and impressively lengthed sleeves are on display at a Peking University art society’s bi-termly xiangsheng (cross talk) performance. The audience behind me was, if sparse, in stitches throughout.”

— Alec Ash, Six

证婚人: A Memoir, Jacob Dreyer

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

While living in Shanghai last year, Jacob Dreyer found himself working as a 证婚人 [zhenghunren] in one of the city’s many wedding facilities. Translated as “wedding officiant,” “priest for weddings,” or “wedding witness,” zhenghunrenhas no real equivalent in the West. The role involves leading the wedding ceremony, but there is no need for a zhenghunren to be certified or authorized to perform weddings — which is one reason Dreyer was able to slip into the position so easily.

Shanghai, September 2009. It was the time of year when it was just beginning to be crisp. At a party at night, …

Upcoming Event: Ying Zhu On Google And China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Ying Zhu, Professor of Media Culture at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island, will be giving a talk on Friday, February 12 at Google’s Manhattan headquarters, beginning at noon. Although the event is not open to the public, a limited number of guest passes can be arranged; anyone interested in attending can contact her by e-mailing Ying.Zhu[at]csi.cuny.edu

Ying Zhu’s presentation, titled “Emerging Critical Masses and Shifting State-Society Relations in China,” will focus on Google’s recent tensions with China, as well as the adventures of Avatar in Chinese theaters, to explore the concept of China’s emerging “critical …

U.S.-China Relations: A Quick Q-And-A With Warren I. Cohen, Jeffrey Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

While trying to keep up with the latest twists and turns of U.S.-China relations, something I recently wrote about for Time magazine’s Asian edition, I learned that a new edition of a book on the topic that I’ve learned a lot from, and also assigned in a recent undergraduate class, is about to come out from Columbia University Press. The book is Warren I. Cohen’s America’s Response to China: A History of Sino-American Relations, and this will be its fifth edition. Given the current interest in interactions and tensions between Washington and Beijing, I decided to ask Cohen (whose name …

A Conversation On “Confucius” With Daniel A. Bell, Alec Ash

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The film Confucius premiered in Beijing last month, to a backdrop of controversyover Avatar being dropped from cinemas to make way for more patriotic fare. I saw the film last weekend with Chinese student friends, and we couldn’t hold back the occasional open snigger: in a word, Confucius is cornier than maize. It also raises interesting questions about the selective interpretation and political uses that modern China makes of its ancient Confucian tradition.

I put some of these questions to Daniel A. Bell, Professor of Philosophy at Tsinghua University, who has written widely on Confucianism (including pieces for The China …

Six Takes On Martin Jacques, Jeffrey Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I have a commentary that’s just appeared online at time.com (it’s in print as well in Time Asia’s February 8 issue), in which I focus on the distinction between what I call “Big China Books” (with “titles that cry out to be put in bold type”) and the quite different works that take a “worm’s eye” rather than “bird’s eye” view of the country, and which usually avoid predictive assertions. I state my preference for the latter genre, which I call forays into “scholarly reporting,” taking my cue fromAndrew Ross.

While I mention several books falling into each category, the …

Coming Distractions: Country Driving, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I made my initial foray into China studies in the fall of 2000, when I took a course called “Travelers in History.” Beginning with The Travels of Marco Polo, we moved forward through the centuries, reading a sampling of China-related travel narratives as well as works by historians looking back at those who had journeyed to and from China (such as The Question of Hu by Jonathan Spence and Peter Hopkirk’s Foreign Devils on the Silk Road). For the “modern” period, we read Paul Theroux’sRiding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China(1988). Although I thoroughly enjoyed Theroux’s book, and thought …

In Case You Missed Them: Books By Martin Jacques And Yasheng Huang, Howard French

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

During his first trip to China recently, Barack Obama was excoriated by pundits for his meekness on a host of issues, from Tibet to exchange rates to human rights. Newspaper commentary in the United States went on endlessly about the curtailment of American influence in an age where a fast-rising China has become this country’s main creditor. The event that supposedly crystallized all of this was the American-style town hall meeting the president had planned, but which the Chinese government appeared to control. In the end, Obama was limited to a stilted forum with an audience of carefully screened and …

The Treaty Of Fort Laramie With Sioux, Etc., 1851: Revisiting The Document Found In Kappler's Indian Affairs: Laws And Treaties - Website Announcement & Link, Charles D. Bernholz, Brian Pytlik Zillig

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Government Documents and the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries are pleased to announce the release of a World Wide Web site, entitled The Treaty of Fort Laramie with Sioux, etc., 1851: Revisiting the document found in Kappler's Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties.

This treaty was an important transaction formed by the federal government with a number of prominent American Indian tribes of the Great Plains. Its creation and provisions were a demonstration of the growing need for less animosity among the tribes themselves, in part to yield increased security for an ever-growing …

Τρυφη And Υβρισ In The Περι Βιων Of Clearchus, Vanessa B. Gorman, Robert J. Gorman

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Recent discussions of the fragments of the Περι Βίων have seen the concept of pernicious luxury as a key to understanding aspects of this work of Clearchus. In particular, it is thought that Clearchus reflects a moralizing historiographical schema according to which wealth leads to an effeminate luxury (τρυφή), eventually producing satiety (κόρος), which in turn provokes the afflicted to violence (υβρις), ultimately bringing the subject’s destruction. We maintain, in contrast, that it is anachronistic to attribute this pattern of thought to Clearchus, and further, that the state of the evidence does not permit …

Getting Out Of A Rut: Decolonizing Western Women’S History, Margaret D. Jacobs

Department of History: Faculty Publications

For over three decades, western women’s historians have been working not just to challenge male biases within western history scholarship but also to create a more multicultural inclusive narrative. Paradoxically, however, the overarching narrative of western women’s history continues to sideline women of color and to advance a triumphalist interpretation of white women in the West. This essay argues that a multicultural approach has not provided an adequate framework for understanding women and gender in the American West. Instead, western women historians must “decolonize” our narrative and our field through seriously considering the West as a colonial site. To do …

Die Toten Als Grenzwächter Der Nation: Die Beinhäuser Des Italienischen Faschismus In Südtirol, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Relates an account of the history of the annexation of the South Tyrol region by Italy. In German.

Adolf Eichmann: Ein Optant Aus Tramin, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Im Mai 2007 taucht in Buenos Aires das Reisedokument eines gewissen Ricardo Klement aus dem Südtiroler Weinort Tramin auf. Der Ausweis mit der Dokumentennummer 100.940 und dem Stempel des Roten Kreuzes wurde im Juni 1950 vom Delegierten des Internationalen Roten Kreuzes in der Hafenstadt Genua ausgefertigt und unterschrieben. Was die Sache brisant macht: Bei Ricardo Klement handelt es sich um Adolf Eichmann, den Organisator der Shoah - des Völkermords an den Juden. Eichmann hatte sich für seine Flucht nach Übersee 1950 Südtiroler Papiere und eines Rotkreuzausweises bedient. Der Fund löste einen weltweiten Sturm der Empörung und der Verwunderung aus. Im …

Happy Birthday To Us . . .

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On January 14, 2008, the very first China Beat post went online

Google + China: Q-And-A With Mara Hvistendahl

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Below is a short Q-and-A that Jeff Wasserstrom conducted with Hvistendahl via e-mail.

Exchanges: Reconciling Confucianism And Socialism?, Daniel A. Bell

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Today China Beat would like to introduce our new “Exchanges” feature, which we hope will become a regular item on the blog. The debate below, between Daniel A. Bell and Michael Walzer, was originally printed in the Winter 2010 issue of Dissent, and is reposted here with permission. We’d like to invite our readers to share their thoughts on this discussion, and will run a response from Daniel Bell in the coming weeks. Please send your comments and questions to thechinabeatgmail.com.

Photo: A World Of Ruins

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center organized a trip to teach English at a school built for the disaster victims of the big earthquake that shook Sichuan in 2008.

What Exactly Happened In Copenhagen?, Yu Zhou

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Commentary and coverage of China’s role at Copenhagen has been widespread in the past few weeks, including from some of the writers and journalists we pay close attention to like Xujun Eberlein, Pallavi Aiyar, and Evan Osnos, among many others. Here, China Beat contributor Yu Zhou critiques the reading of China’s role as it has developed in the Western press.

Reading Round-Up, 2/27/2010

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. Hat tip to China Digital Times for directing us to this video by Ian Johnson at the Wall Street Journal site. Johnson narrates a quick tour of the Palace of Eternal Joy (Yongle Gong) in remote Shanxi Province, where a 700-year-old Daoist mural covers the walls. The paintings include rare depictions of Daoist gods, as well as representations of Yuan Dynasty architecture, “very little of which has survived.” Amazingly, the temple housing the mural was disassembled and relocated, piece by piece, during the Mao era, as a planned Yellow River dam would have flooded its original location.

Listening On China (This Week)

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

We wanted to draw reader attention to a few interviews that aired this week from regular China Beat contributors.

Not Aesopian Enough: A Chinese Publishing Fable, James W. Loewen

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In April 2008, Ma Wanli, a professor of American history at Nanchang Hangkong University in Nanchang, China, emailed me to introduce himself as the translator of the Chinese version of my U.S. best seller, Lies My Teacher Told Me. He also invited me to write a preface for this new edition. I agreed.

Notes On The Shanghai Expo, Jonathan Hwang

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. One of my Chinese classmates mentioned that what really mattered for Chinese visitors were the big exhibitions: Japan, China, Europe, and the US. While still interested in the big exhibits, most Westerners were also astounded by the fact that North Korea and Iran were among the countries with pavilions at the Expo. The pavilions, although far from spectacular, showed a side of the “rogue” nations that is impossible to see in Western media, which often focuses on the proliferation of nuclear weapons and anti-US sentiment. The North Korean Pavilion showed video clips of the Mass Games and random shots …

Questioning The “Chinese Model Of Development”, Zhansui Yu

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Chinese, following Chairman Mao’s famous phrase, tend to use the expression “like a fire burning in the wilderness” [燎原之火 liaoyuan zhi huo] to describe the unexpected rise and popularity of something marginalized or rebellious. Since the literary explosion in the years immediately after Mao’s death, mainland Chinese literary circles have rarely witnessed such a “wild fire.” Recently, however, a fierce literary “fire” suddenly broke out and shocked the entire Chinese intellectual world. The spark that ignited this fire is Chan Koon-chung’s 陈冠中 political novel Shengshi: Zhongguo 2013 [盛世：中国 2013]. [1]

More Questions Than Answers, Michelle Yeh

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Earlier this month, we ran an opinion piece by Peter Zarrow concerning the plagiarism accusations against Tsinghua University Professor Wang Hui, in which Dr. Zarrow explained why he had signed a letter of support organized by international scholars and sent to Tsinghua’s president. The essay was picked up and circulated by the MCLC listserv, where it generated a number of comments. One of the responses came from Michelle Yeh of UC Davis, and we asked Dr. Yeh if she would expand her remarks and share them with China Beat readers. She has done so in the essay below, and also …

R.I.P. China Blogs?

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

We were amused to see that the most recent Sinica podcast was ominously titled “Death of the China Blog,” since here at China Beat we feel very much alive. To our relief, however, the discussion (among host Kaiser Kuo, Imagethief’s Will Moss, and Danwei’s Jeremy Goldkorn — who was good enough to do an interview with us last month) ended with the happy conclusion that while the China blogosphere has changed quite a bit in the past few years, it’s still going strong. We heartily agree.