Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A House Museum Café: Part 1, Leksa Chmielewski

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In American museums, the museum gift shop or café stands as a constant reminder—before exhibit visits, after them, even in between them—of the dire financial straights in which nonprofits chronically find themselves. Museum gift shops and cafes are multiplying in Chinese museums too, even though the vast majority of Chinese museums are state-affiliated and enjoy full government funding. Chinese academics who work with museums lament that the Chinese museum scene still has much to learn from the American nonprofit-based system—but if that implies budget cuts, layoffs and a proliferation of museum shops selling finger-puppet versions of classic paintings, it’s not …

Liu Xiaobo And The Nobel Peace Prize: Readings And Reactions

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

When we heard of Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize win last week, we quickly reached out to a variety of China Beatniks and asked for either their reactions to the news or links to any writings they had done on Liu in the past. Below are some of the responses we received.

Readings On Liu Xiaobo And The Nobel Peace Prize, Part 2

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Many more commentaries about Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Peace Prize have been published since we collected an initial round of readings on Friday. Here’s the latest:

First Reactions: Liu Xiaobo Wins Nobel Peace Prize

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Here in California, we woke up early this morning to the news that Liu Xiaobo had indeed been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. There’s been an outpouring of coverage in the hours since Liu’s win was announced, which will surely continue in the days to come; at the moment, “Liu Xiaobo” and “Nobel Peace Prize” are also in Twitter’s top-ten trending topics worldwide. We’ve been combing through news stories and tweets and put together this quick list of readings:

China’S Population Destiny: The Looming Crisis, Wang Feng

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Observers of China’s rise, when assessing the implications for global peace and prosperity, have largely focused their attention on the country’s economy, on its energy and resource needs, on the environmental consequences of its rapid expansion, and on the nation’s military buildup and strategic ambitions. Yet, underlying all these dazzling changes and monumental concerns is a driving force that has been seriously underappreciated: China’s changing demography.

New Readings On Mega-Events And Matteo Ricci

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Two of the scholarly publications on our radar have new China-related content online:

California Dreamin’ At China’S World’S Fair, Jeffrey Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Shanghai can be a surreal place to visit in ordinary times. This is due to the juxtaposition of buildings, modes of transportation, and lifestyles that seem to belong to not just different decades but different centuries. And this aspect of the city was heightened for me last summer by the presence of the 2010 World Expo.

Coming Distractions: Chinese Whiskers, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Pallavi Aiyar’s 2008 memoir, Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China, details the six years she spent living in Beijing, first teaching English and then becoming a reporter for The Hindu. Now stationed in Brussels with the Business Standard, Aiyar’s articles tend to focus on topics such as Belgium’s cultural conflicts and theuneven parallels drawn between India and China. For this reason, I was quite surprised to learn that Aiyar’s second book, to be released by Harper Collins India in early 2011, is a story of Beijing narrated by two cats: Tofu and Soyabean, the protagonists of Chinese Whiskers, share …

Gao Xingjian, Wolfgang Kubin, And The Nobel Prize Debate Ten Years On, Sebastian Veg

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Chinese literature and its significance or insignificance is a continued subject of heated debate in China. From May Fourth, when anti-traditionalist thinkers called on literature to assume a pioneering role in transforming subjects into citizens, to its use as propaganda during World War Two and on both sides of the Strait after 1949, it was seen as a crucial vector of political ideas. During the “Enlightenment” of the 1980s, literature was again called upon to play a central – though politically very different – role in helping society come to terms with the officially still taboo traumas of the Cultural …

Shanghai Mourns Victims Of High-Rise Fire

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Thousands of Shanghai residents gathered on Sunday to mourn the victims of last week’s fire at Jiaozhou Road. Adam Minter has a thoughtful post on the mourning procession (as well as links for further reading) at Shanghai Scrap; Marta Cooper’s blog . . . in Shanghai has photos from the assembly. At the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report, watch a short video about Sunday’s gathering. On Twitter, users have been marking their thoughts on the fire and its aftermath with the hashtag #jiaozhoulu.

Bill And Warren’S Excellent (Chinese) Adventure, Caroline Reeves

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are throwing a charity banquet in Beijing. On September 29th, the two American tycoons will host a dinner for China’s wealthiest magnates to convince them to give their monies away to charity. This event has caused a stir in the Chinese world. Everyone from movie stars to industry moguls is involved. Doonesbury is talking about it. Some billionaires have publicly declined to dine with the dynamic duo, wondering aloud if the event was planned to publicly part them from their new fortunes. Their response has called into question China’s “charitable impulse” and given rise to …

Anhui’S Barefoot Aids Doctors, Annie Ye Ren

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

For the past four years, I have periodically worked with a Chinese grassroots HIV/AIDS non-governmental organization (NGO) that serves children in Fuyang Prefecture, Anhui Province. The Fuyang AIDS Orphan Salvation Association (AOS)gives aid directly to local communities, addressing local needs that are often overlooked or underfunded by large-scale government projects.

Shin-Gate: Misunderstanding The Power Of Shame In South Korea, Koushik Ghosh

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

Shame is not perceived the same way in different cultures, nor is it used the same way. How does that difference across cultures influence our interactions in public space? How does it affect our business interactions? It has been argued, especially in the wake of Asia’s financial crisis in 1997, that there was a lack of shame in Asian cultures aft er the economic crash. The same kind of argument has been presented in the United States following the financial crisis which began in 2008. President Obama has tried to shame the Wall Street crowd. Economic commentators have spoken of …

Subverting The Subject Position : Toward A New Discourse About Students As Writers And Engineering Students As Technical Communicators, Roxane Gay

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

There is ample evidence of a longstanding and pervasive discourse positioning students, and engineering students in particular, as “bad writers.” This is a discourse perpetuated within the academy, the workplace, and society at large. But what are the effects of this discourse? Are students aware faculty harbor the belief students can’t write? Is student writing or confidence in their writing influenced by the negative tone of the discourse? This dissertation attempts to demonstrate that a discourse disparaging student writing exists among faculty, across disciplines, but particularly within the engineering disciplines, as well as to identify the reach of that discourse …

Contact, Brittany Osbourne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This fiction novel focuses on the Sankofa philosophy that we as human beings must learn from our past to better understand our current existence and future; however, sometimes we choose to ignore or suppress the past because remembering it may be too hurtful. When we forget what happened yesterday our outlook on today and tomorrow becomes distorted. Contact is a novel that attempts to explore how 'living in the now' alone becomes problematic because the past'if not remembered'will come back to haunt you. The erasure of the line between Diasporic Africans and their African past is the primary theme explored. …

Scraping Down The Past: Memory And Amnesia In W. G. Sebald's Anti-Narrative, Kathy Behrendt

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Vanguard anti-narrativist Galen Strawson declares personal memory unimportant for self-constitution. But what if lapses of personal memory are sustained by a morally reprehensible amnesia about historical events, as happens in the work of German author W. G. Sebald? The importance of memory cannot be downplayed in such cases. Nevertheless, contrary to expectations, a concern for memory needn’t ally one with the narrativist view of the self. Recovery of historical and personal memory results in self-dissolution and not self-unity or understanding in Sebald’s characters. In the end, Sebald shows how memory can be significant, even imperative, within a deeply anti-narrativist outlook …

“The Superman Exists, And He Is American”: Graphic Novel Film Adaptations And Masculine Heroism In Post-9/11 Culture, Richard Charles Abate

Film Studies Honors Papers

This senior thesis paper discusses the representation of masculinity and heroism in post-9/11 culture and how filmic adaptations of graphic novels have helped to shape these representations. Following the events of September 11th, the cultural definitions of the masculine hero shifted, allowing the average, working class man to become the embodiment of American heroism. This new understanding of the American hero was marked by sexual difference and a redefinition of the masculine “hard-body” that allowed for the possession of a heroic masculine identity to appear more attainable. This thesis primarily examines the filmic adaptations of works by Frank Miller and …

Dylan's Covers, Janet Gezari, Charles Hartman

English Faculty Publications

This article discusses songs performed by musician Bob Dylan which were cover versions of songs by other performers as well as songs by Dylan which were heavily based on other songs. Songs discussed include "Blowin' in the Wind," which is based on the spiritual "No More Auction Block," "Blood in My Eyes" by the band Mississippi Sheiks and "When the Deal Goes Down," based on a radio theme song by musician Bing Crosby. Other topics include concerts by Dylan, music lyrics, and music performance.

Obligation To Obey The Law: A Study Of The Death Of Socrates, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Do we have an obligation to obey any law, no matter how unjust or evil, provided only that it is in fact a valid rule of the legal system in which we happen to be physically located? Reassessment of the relation between law and ethics justifies a new look at the classic statement of legal obligation: the death of Socrates found in the dialogues of Plato. Three possible bases for an ethical obligation to obey the law are examined.

Purple Patcher 2010, College Of The Holy Cross

Purple Patcher Yearbook

This is a digitized version of the 2010 Purple Patcher. Physical copies of the Purple Patcher are held by the College of the Holy Cross Archives.

Circulation And Consumption: Transnational Mass Tourism In Cancun, Mexico, Christine Vassallo-Oby

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship

Cancun’s packaged image of paradise is a dynamic and constantly flowing contestation of identity and livelihood for those involved in the service sector. Indigeneity is used as spectacle, prop, and entertainment in the tourism industry and is especially popular in mass tourism zones like Cancun. Circulation of not only bodies, but theory surrounding authenticity and indigeneity, are all represented in the hyper-commodification that defines mass tourism. Cancun uses transnational connections for marketing of space, goods, and people that are in a constant state of circulation. Looking at the rise of the tourism industry in Cancun processually leads us to explore …

The Use Of Japanese Paper In The Repair Of Leather Volumes In Arl Libraries’ Preservation Departments Survey Results, Ann C. Kearney

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Skunk River Review 2009-10, Vol 22, Austin Leeds, Kari S. Griffin, Ezmeralda Montemayor, Faith Burket, Jason Scholbrock, Hillary Ann Brighton, Eric J. Linn, Paul Richard Adam, Sage Devaney, Melanie M. Cox, Latroya Marie Sickler, Zach Dalaba, Andrew Kopaska, Sylvia King, Kristen Glick, Sara L. Roggemann, Jason Lighthall, Paige Sanders, Catherine Drahota, Jason Lee Borkowski, Douglas J. Meyer, Roselyn Harbart, Shelaine Harbart

Skunk River Review

Welcome to the 2009-2010 edition of The Skunk River Review!

We received a record number of entries this year, making this volume one of the best and most competitive! We even added a new category called Art & Literary Analysis to include a growing number of submissions dedicated to inspiration and critique. Each year we continue to receive many fine examples of student writing. Selection is a challenging process but enjoyable as the submissions range from a variety of topics and styles. Selected entries were only minimally edited for clarity.

The Skunk River Review focuses on students from various DMACC …

The Identical Rivals Response To Underdetermination, P.D. Magnus, Greg Frost-Arnold

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

The underdetermination of theory by data obtains when, inescapably, evidence is insufficient to allow scientists to decide responsibly between rival theories. One response to would-be underdetermination is to deny that the rival theories are distinct theories at all, insisting instead that they are just different formulations of the same underlying theory; we call this the identical rivals response. An argument adapted from John Norton suggests that the response is presumptively always appropriate, while another from Larry Laudan and Jarrett Leplin suggests that the response is never appropriate. Arguments from Einstein for the special and general theories of relativity may …

Rubber And Race In Rural Colonial Cambodia (1920s–1954), Michitake Aso

History Faculty Scholarship

THIS ARTICLE TRACES THE DEVELOPMENT OF RUBBER PLANTATIONS IN CAMBODIA and some of their most important consequences for Cambodian society. First, European land claims, often several thousand hectares, and subsequent land clearing radically altered the lives of local peoples and disease ecologies. Second, those engaged in creating plantations were at the same time recreating a rural border society, in particular a racial version of it, and tensions arising from perceived racial differences among the various local groups grew during the colonial period. Third, plantation owners imported large numbers of laborers from northern and central Vietnam thus increasing the circulation of …

Review: Becoming Modern Women: Love & Female Identity In Prewar Japanese Literature & Culture By Michiko Suzuki, Susanna Fessler Phd

East Asian Studies Faculty Scholarship

Review of the book "Becoming Modern Women: Love & Female Identity in Prewar Japanese Literature & Culture" by M. Suzuki

On Forgiveness And Healing: Narrative Therapy And The Gospel Story, Lois E. Malcolm, Janet L. Ramsey

Faculty Publications

Psychologists and theologians often talk past each other, particularly when discussing forgiveness. Comparing narrative therapy and the gospel story provides a way to engage the conversation meaningfully, both realities providing ways to transform human lives

Forgiveness As New Creation: Christ And The Moral Life Revisited, Lois E. Malcolm

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

God And Time: Relative Timelessness Reconsidered, Alan G. Padgett

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Experiencing The Spirit: The Magnificat, Luther, And Feminists, Lois E. Malcolm

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.