Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Daily Reads—The Sequel: Five Valuable More-Than-Just-China Asia Sites

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Last week, our blog-list focused on sites specifically devoted to the PRC or Taiwan, but astute commentaries on and information related to China Beattopics sometimes shows up other kinds of places on the web. With this in mind, we’ll be doing at least two sequels—this one on sites we value that have an Asian focus but are not China-specific, then another later on that deals with sites that have a global purview (but periodically have insightful things to say about Chinese themes).

1. Japan Focus

Since this site’s editor, Mark Selden, is the author or co-author of several important books …

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 …

Taelspin For Monday, January 21, 2008

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

This past Christmas, AIDS activist and new daddy Hu Jia was arrested by Chinese authorities. He is currently in detention and his lawyers have been denied access, while his wife and newborn son remain under house arrest with extremely tight security. This month a You Tube video appeared, filmed by Hu and his wife last year, that can only be described as “Reality TV for Those Under Government Surveillance.” Rebecca MacKinnon, one of the best bloggers on the media and China today, gives a searing analysis of the situation. For more on Hu Jia, the blog Black and White Cat …

Reseña De Nadie Hablará De Nosotras Cuando Hayamos Muerto: El Thriller Como Comentario Social, Oscar Pereira Zazo, Lola Lorenzo

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

Un torero, o quizá un miembro de la cuadrilla del torero, firma un programa a un admirador de la fiesta taurina. Son los primeros planos de esta película. Otro torero fuma con gesto grave, preocupado por lo que le espera. Se pone a rezar un padrenuestro para que la corrida salga bien y se le respete la vida. Son los rituales de los toreros en capilla.

Reseña De Barrio: Realidad E Incongruencia Social En Un Melodrama Moral, Oscar Pereira Zazo

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

Una historia de hoy en día que tiene por protagonistas a tres muchachos de quince años: Rai (Críspulo Cabezas), Javi (Timy Benito) y Manu (Eloi Yebra). El lugar es Madrid, en uno de los barrios de la periferia: ciudad dormitorio, barrio obrero de grandes torres de apartamentos que linda con la autopista de circunvalación M-40. Verano, seguramente agosto, cuando muchos madrileños están de vacaciones y quedan en Madrid los más pobres, los marginados y los emigrantes.

Reseña De Intacto: Irrational Exuberance, Oscar Pereira Zazo, Lola Lorenzo

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

La ruleta de un casino en alguna parte del mundo: Un croupier se dirige en francés a las personas que rodean la mesa de juego. Uno de los jugadores está ganando; otro hace gestos con un pañuelo que se ha sacado del bolsillo. Las cámaras de seguridad del local lo registran todo. Pronto veremos de qué manera tan simple se le acaba la suerte al ganador.

Reseña De Belle Époque: La Cultura Del Silencio Y La Nueva Imagen De España En El Año De Gracia De 1992, Oscar Pereira Zazo, Lola Lorenzo

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

El traveling nos adentra por un camino de palmeras. Al fondo se divisa un objeto que en la distancia resulta difícil de identificar. La musiquilla ligera sobre los títulos de crédito nos predispone a sentarnos relajados en las butacas. Es muy posible que lo que vayamos a ver tenga mucho de comedia.

Reseña De Abre Los Ojos: Life Is A Dream, Oscar Pereira Zazo

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

Madrid (aséptico y muy deslocalizado), en el presente y ciento cincuenta años en el futuro. Asistimos, por dos veces, al despertar de César, joven de veintipocos años. En la primera ocasión observamos atónitos un imposible Madrid vacío. El primer sorprendido es César, quien detiene el coche cuando se da cuenta de que no hay un alma por las calles y sale corriendo Gran Vía abajo hacia la Plaza de España. El segundo despertar es una repetición del primero, con algunas importantes diferencias.

Taelspin For Sunday, January 20, 2008

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Taelspin will glean the best of the China blogosphere for your reading enjoyment. Suggestions and comments on blogs or posts we missed are always greatly appreciated.

This has been rumored for awhile here in Beijing, but the Angry Chinese Blogger gives the lowdown on the decision by some of the top Olympic teams to avoid staying in Beijing during the games. Reportedly, teams from Europe and America are making arrangements to stay and train in (and this is sure to be particularly galling to the Chinese) Japan out of concerns for pollution, food safety, and other issues. No idea how …

Following A Recipe: When Op-Ed Pieces On China Go Wrong

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is visiting Beijing and the Daily Telegraph has a dour op-ed piece written by Bruce Anderson in today’s edition. Anderson argues that China’s reemergence as a great power is not nearly as worrisome as the prospect of China’s failure.

“If China succeeds, there will be a price. The West would lose power. But Chinese success is much the lesser evil. Imagine what would happen if that huge and powerfully armed nation became a failed state.”

Fair as it goes. China is a large, powerful, and nuclear-armed nation. A collapse of the Chinese state would likely …

Why China’S Dollar Pile Has To Shrink (Relatively Soon)

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

James Fallows has a piece in the February, 2008 Atlantic on what he calls “The $1.4 Trillion Question” – why China continues to accumulate $1 billion a day in relatively low-return American assets (mostly Treasury bills), why this can’t go on forever, and what it could mean if this pattern of investment ends abruptly rather than slowly. On the whole, it’s a good introduction, with some useful background on the people responsible for making the central government’s investment decisions. (The point that one of the two key figures, unlike his counterparts almost anywhere else, has never invested for himself, or …

Self-Promotion Saturday: China’S Brave New World

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

My latest book—and my first that is virtually free of footnotes, includes lots of first-person anecdotes, and has some chapters that combine equal parts historically informed analysis and playful musings—went into production a year ago. At the time, I didn’t realize quite how much of a “best of times, worst of times” year 2007 would turn out to be for the appearance of a work like China’s Brave New World—And Other Tales for Global Times, which strives to offer an alternately serious and whimsical look at ways the PRC and the world at large have been changing.

On the plus …

Frivolous Friday

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Rachel DeWoskin’s Babes in Beijing is only one example of an increasingly frank discussion over the past few years of the experiences of foreign women in China. Anna Sophie Loewenberg, a journalist and filmmaker, has been making videos about her life in China (with particular focus on love) for the past year or so under the title Sexy Beijing. You can find more, including contemporary news briefs, at the Sexy Beijing YouTube page or homepage.

The popular American television show, America’s Next Top Model (hosted by Tyra Banks), took its final episodes to Shanghai and then Beijing last fall. Below, …

Our Daily Reads: Best Of China Blogs

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The contributors at The China Beat read a lot of China blogs. Here is a primer of a few of our collective favorites. We welcome you to add your own must-reads (or plug your own blog) in the comments section.

Best One-Stop Source of Information: China Digital Times

Best Media Blog: A tie between Danwei and China Media Project

Best Industry Blog: China Law Blog

Best News Blog: Beijing Newspeak – Written by Chris O’Brien, a language polisher/rewrite artist for Xinhua, a fascinating and frequently hilarious look behind the scenes of Chinese media.

Best Issue Blog: China …

In Case You Missed It: They Chose China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the opening scenes of Shuibo Wang’s 2005 documentary, “They Chose China,” American soldiers dressed in the long, padded winter coats of the Chinese military cluster around a microphone to explain the international threat posed by McCarthy’s witch hunts and U.S. intolerance for freedom and democracy. The documentary tells the story of these twenty-one American soldiers, held as POWs by the Chinese during the Korean War, who refused repatriation after the 1953 armistice.

Through a mix of archival footage, Chinese and American TV clips, and contemporary interviews with one of the few surviving defectors, Wang tries to unearth why the …

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 …

On The China Beat

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China has been looming ever larger in the global economy and the global imagination in recent years, and the international chatter about the country hit a crescendo last year with reports about things like lead paint, moon shots, an architectural face-lift in the capital in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games, high growth rates, a rising middle class, and ever sharper divides between haves and have-nots. As China draws more attention from the Western media and its readership, the need for storytellers and interpreters of China has also grown. As China scholars and writers who are concerned about the way …

After The Avalanche

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Most Taiwan observers expected a convincing KMT victory in last Saturday’s Legislative Yuan elections, perhaps even a landslide. What we got was an avalanche, with the KMT garnering 81 of 113 seats (71.68%), as opposed to a paltry 27 for the DPP. The scale of the rout was unprecedented, especially since the KMT ended up with just over 51% of the popular vote, as opposed to approximately 37% for the DPP, numbers that do not differ that dramatically from those of past elections.

A wide range of factors contributed to the DPP debacle, including profound concerns with the slow pace …

Anniversaries: The Rise And Fall Of Wang Mang

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

We subscribe to an online encyclopedia to help one of my sons with homework, and because I placed the order, their “This Day in History” feature comes to my inbox. China rarely figures, which isn’t that surprising. After all, they need brief, punchy items that will catch readers’ attention, and that means items familiar enough to a general audience that a five word title is understandable, and that only three sentences are needed to remind us of what happened and why we should care. So I’m not crusading for “1644: Manchus enter Beijing with the help of Wu Sangui” to …

Review Of Sharon L. Jansen, Debating Women, Politics, And Power In Early Modern Europe, Carole Levin

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Sharon Jansen is a historian who has published a number of fine books, including Dangerous Talk and Strange Behavior: Women and Popular Resistance to the Reforms of Henry VIII and, of particular interest to this review, The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe, a book that examined the strong women who ruled in a variety of fashions, as regnant or regent. She begins her current book, Debating Women, describing being in the British Library in 1996 doing research on her Monstrous Regiment book. For background she read widely on the debate about nature and ability in …

The Great White Mother: Maternalism And American Indian Child Removal In The American West, 1880-1940, Margaret D. Jacobs

Department of History: Faculty Publications

A rich historiography has accumulated regarding American Indian boarding schools and the experience of Indian children within them. Western women's historians have also studied many white women who were involved in efforts to advocate for American Indians. Yet, in general, these two historiographical tracks have developed along parallel lines without intersecting. This essay argues, however, that white women were integrally involved in the removal of American Indian children to boarding schools and that their involvement implicated them in one of the most cruel, yet largely unexamined, policies of colonialism within the American West. Through a politics of maternalism, many white …

Review: Brenz Als Kontroverstheologe. Die Apologie Der Confessio Virtembergica Und Die Auseinandersetzung Zwischen Johannes Brenz Und Pedro De Soto, Amy Nelson Burnett

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Johannes Brenz is known primarily as the organiser of the Württemberg Church and as one of the major figures in the development of Lutheran Christology. This book looks at another aspect of Brenz’s career, his role as defender of Lutheran theology against challenges by Catholic theologians. In 1555 the Spanish Dominican Pedro de Soto published an attack on the Württemberg Confession, which had been written by Brenz and presented at the second session of the Council of Trent in 1552. This led Brenz to write a lengthy Apology of the Württemberg Confession that was published over the next four years …

Argentinien Als Ns-Fluchtziel. Die Emigration Von Kriegsverbrechern Und Nationalsozialisten Durch Italien An Den Rio De La Plata 1946-1955. Mythos Und Wirklichkeit, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Unser Wissen über die Flucht von NS-Kriegsverbrechem nach Übersee ist 60 Jahre nach Kriegsende immer noch dürftig. Dieses Kapitel zählt zu den wenigen großen Grauzonen der NS-Vergangenheit. Das ist keineswegs zufällig, beschäftigt sich doch die Zeitgeschichte erst seit einigen Jahren mit diesem Thema. Es waren Schriftsteller und Journalisten, die sich über viele Jahre der NS-Fluchtwege exklusiv angenommen hatten. Die Schilderungen über Geheimorganisationen, die NS-Täter ins Ausland geschleust haben sollen, trugen in der Regel romanhafte Züge. Unser Bild ist bis heute stark davon geprägt. Spätestens seit dem Buch "Die Akte Odessa" von Federick Forsyth wurde die Organisation "Odessa" zu einem Mythos …

Review Of Peter Wright, Ed., Fifteenth-Century Liturgical Music, V: Settings Of The Sanctus And Agnus Dei., Peter M. Lefferts

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

Peter Wright's edition of English settings of the Sanctus and Agnus from the second quarter of the fifteenth century is the latest addition to the Fifteenth-Century Liturgical Music subseries of Early English Church Music, and the second to adopt a new format for notation and editorial apparatus. ... A generous critical apparatus for each work is clearly laid out, with highly valuable commentary in the General Remarks for many items. The editor's introduction discusses the policy of selection of repertory, the styles of the works edited, their age, sources, and composer attributions, the kinds of distortions in transmission that these …

Wind Through The Buffalo Grass: A Lakota Story Cycle, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

Wind Through the Buffalo Grass: A Lakota Story Cycle is a narrative history of the Pine Ridge Lakota tribe of South Dakota, following its history from 1850 to the present day through historical events and through the stories of four fictional Lakota children, each related by descent and separated from one another by two generations. The ecology of the Pine Ridge region, especially its mammalian and avian wildlife, is woven into the stories of the children. Illustrated by the author, the book indudes drawings of Pine Ridge wildlife, regional maps, and Native American pictorial art. Appendices indude a listing of …

Nebraska Summary: S651 Massey Ferguson 8680, Nebraska Tractor Test Lab

Nebraska Tractor Tests

ABOUT THE TEST REPORT AND USE OF THE DATA The test data contained in this report are a tabulation of the results of a series of tests. Due to the restricted format of these pages, only a limited amount of data and not all of the tractor specifications are included. The full OECD report contains usually about 30 pages of data and specifications. The test data were obtained for each tractor under similar conditions and therefore, provide a means of comparison of performance based on a limited set of reported data. EXPLANATION OF THE TEST PROCEDURES Purpose The purpose of …

Warps & Wefts 2009, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The interlacing of warp and weft defines a woven fabric. The weaver strings warp yarns onto a loom, a frame designed to hold the warps parallel and taut, and then introduces the wefts sequentially. The process is weaving; the result is a textile.

When we think of textiles, we most often think of garments to clothe our bodies and furnishings to supply our domestic needs. But throughout history, textiles have also played a primary role in fashion, drawing on not only color and pattern but also draping qualities and the effects of tailoring to cover (or show off) the body. …

Constructing Entropy, Xanthe Isbister

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

Significant portions of my life have been spent in the wilderness of Nothern Canada. These experiences such as hiking, exploring, and prospecting, that began in early childhood created in me a profound respect and concern for the wilderness environment. I scek to capture and express this "sense of place" in my work. In the last th ree years visits to this region of Canada, or to any wilderness area, for that matter, have been minimal. This absence has created a drive within mc to employ memory, perhaps idealized, as source material in this ceramic sculpture. A demanding and labor -intensive …

Decay Of The Domestic, Kimberly J. Thomas

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

Because I was an adult when my parents divorced, I was aware of how the tumultuous situation and new knowledge were working to change my childhood memories. Past events became tainted, clarified, or muddled. Different from my memories was the idea of history, specifically a family's history. My inner narrative changed and to this day differs from my parents' narratives. This was a shocking realization of the subjective nature of history. Ultimately, the events of the divorce made me unsure of things of which I had been certain. Through these photographs I am questioning my ideas about family, memory, history, …

What Is In Front Of You?, Susan A. Dewsnap

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

Pots are familiar forms, approachable and understood. They are opened, looked into, lifted and held and this is when their hidden virtues of suggestively vast interior, weight and gravity are revealed. I continue to be intrigued by the questions that pots provoke: those of making, possibilities of use and by the endless manifest forms in which they appear throughout various cultures of the world. My recent work has been an investigation into the dynamics of how the drawing on the surface and the shape of a piece can be intimately connected, that one cannot exist without the other. I aspire …