Chinese Studies Commons^™

Negotiating Plurality: Korean Catholic Funerals As Lived Religion, Jieun Han

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines Korean Catholic funeral rites through the lenses of ritual

guidebooks and lived religion, arguing that Catholic funerary practice in Korea

has emerged through sustained engagement with Confucian and Buddhist tradi-

tions as well as modern nationalism. Focusing on Catholic manuals such as the

Sangjang yesik [Rites for Mourning and Funerals] and related texts, it traces how

officially sanctioned liturgical forms coexist with, accommodate, and reinterpret

indigenous ritual logics surrounding mourning, burial, ancestor veneration, and

care for the dead. Rather than viewing Korean Catholic funerals as a simple

localization of Roman rites, the article conceptualizes them as a …

Editor's Introduction, Brent H. Otto S.J.

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Hindu Poetry And The Project Of An Inter-Spiritual Catholic Theology, Francis X. Clooney

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article engages the work of the Indian south Indian Tamil-language Vaiṣṇava poet saints known as the Alvārs. The article specifically focuses the First HundredHoly Linked verses of Poykai Ālvār to argue for inter-spiritual learning between Catholics and Hindus. The article concludes with personal reflections on this encounter within the context of the global Catholic Church

The Maghrebi Silk Road: A Medieval Exploration, Malak Ouammou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Maghrebi Silk Road: A Medieval Exploration is an interdisciplinary historical examination of a variety of intellectual and material cross-cultural interactions and connections between Asia and the Maghreb from 900 to 1492. It primarily revolves around agriculture, sericulture, and immaterial and material culture, with an emphasis on knowledge production and dissemination. In it, I focus on the Mediterranean endpoint of the Silk Road network, illustrating the Maghrebi Silk Road through an exploration of various case studies such as rice, silk, and storytelling that demonstrate the role of and the extent to which these “secondary” Silk Road routes existed and were …

Tùn-Scene And A-Futurism: Biomythography, Opacity, And Posthuman Imagination, Minglu Du

Masters Theses

Grounded in the author’s position as a Chinese feminist, this thesis examines how East Asian women, as well as East Asian-coded femininity more broadly, are objectified and othered within futurist visual culture in the age of artificial intelligence. Through an engagement with ornamentalism, techno-Orientalism, and posthumanism1 , it argues that the persistent figure of the feminized humanoid cyborg continues to reproduce colonial and patriarchal structures of desire, rendering marginalized bodies as fetishized and violable surfaces. In response, the thesis develops Tùn-Scene, a biomythographic artistic framework and the first experiment in what the author provisionally names A-Futurism. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s …

破酆都 Calling Her Through The Gates, Yuqi Liu

Masters Theses

My practice centers on papermaking, printmaking, and artist books to explore fiber as both image and language. I treat paper not simply as a surface, but as a living material through which memory, labor, and history can be held. By making my own sheets from plant fibers, fungi, and other organic matter, I create works in which material and meaning are inseparable. Shaped by my engagement with the natural world, women’s history, and overlooked vernacular forms of knowledge, my work moves through cycles of life and death, presence and disappearance, fragility and resilience. My projects with mushrooms and mycelium led …

Asia Pacific Perspectives Vol. 19 No. 1, 2025, University Of San Francisco

Asia Pacific Perspectives

Articles

Think Pieces

Photo Essay

Book Reviews

A Description Of Zhao Zhang’S Nature No. 2 And Xiaoxuan Xu’S An Unusual Feast Of East, Sicheng He

Dissertations, 2020-current

This research presents a new path in the development of Chinese music by aiming to incorporate both modern Western and ancient Chinese influences in form, texture, tonality, topic, and other dimensions of style and structure. Two Chinese composers whose recent compositions for the piano share similar characteristics: Zhao Zhang (b. 1964; Nature no. 2, 2013) and Xiaoxuan Xu (b. 1990; An Unusual Feast of East, 2022). The research will discuss how Zhao Zhang and Xiaoxuan Xu accomplish this fusion of old and new in their recent piano works Nature no. 2, (2013) and An Unusual Feast of East, 2022. …

Closing The Revolution: The Criticize Water Margin Campaign And The Politics Of Surrender In Mao’S China, Yaowen Dong

Asia Pacific Perspectives

The mid 1970s witnessed a massive Maoist campaign to attack the late imperial vernacular fiction Water Margin, which had been previously favored by the Chinese Communist Party because of its elements of rebellion and egalitarianism. The paper examines the Criticize Water Margin Campaign in 1975 and 1976 that interpreted the fiction as class-reconciliation and surrender. I argue that the dramatic shift of the narratives surrounding Water Margin manifested the deeply embedded paradox between rebellion and normalization in the communist revolutionary project. Such paradox of revolution is not only the product of the infringement of the coming neoliberal world order, …

From Collection To Documentary: An Eventful Journey Of Developing And Managing The Wan-Go H.C. Weng Film Collection, Jim Cheng

Journal of East Asian Libraries

Experience, challenge, lesson, reward, and inspiration of developing and managing a special collection: Wan-go Weng Film Collection in a major research library.

An Exploration Of Third Spaces In China, Clare J. Hummer

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

Exploring Third Spaces in China in a multimedia format.

Ancestral Rites And Tablets As A Site Of Contestation Between Confucian Filial Piety And Catholicism: The Cases Of Chinese Confucian Yan Mo And Korean Catholic Yun Ji-Chung, Mideum Hong

Journal of Global Catholicism

This essay examines how the Confucian practice of filial piety, particularly as expressed through ancestral rites and tablets, became a focal point of contention in the encounters between Confucianism and Catholicism. Focusing on the cases of the Chinese Catholic Yan Mo and the Korean Catholic martyr Yun Ji-chung, I argue that the different historical and cultural contexts in China and Korea significantly shaped how each figure understood and responded to the practice of ancestral rites. While Catholicism spread globally, local converts developed distinct theological interpretations rooted in their respective cultural traditions. Although Yan Mo and Yun Ji-chung reached divergent conclusions …

Overview & Acknowledgments, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

This Introduction overviews the work of contributors from the Graduate Symposium sponsored by the Journal of Global Catholicism and the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.  The Introduction also highlights the independent peer reviewed submission from Dr. Agnieszka Laddach of the University of Warsaw.

The Rise And Fall Of The Small Bronze Tripod Used For Pouring Heated Libations (A Pre-Confucian Libation Rite), Elizabeth Childs-Johnson

Art Faculty Publications

The rite of pouring out heated alcohol in honor of spirits begins during the Late Neolithic but matures as a formal institution known in writing and in cast bronze during the earliest phases of the historic Bronze Age, namely the Erlitou (ca. 1900-1600 BC) and Shang periods (ca. 1600-1046 BC). As will be analyzed, the libation rite known as ... [示 + 爵 = ...] (jue/guan) in Shang oracle bone divinations involved the use of the tripod jue爵 (bronze vessel). Although the rite [...] continues to appear in written inscriptions through most of the Western Zhou era, by the 9th-8th …

China's Economic Retaliation Against Norway After Liu Xiaobo's 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, Ian Murphy, Shaomin Li

Management Faculty Publications

This case study analyzes China's geoeconomic retaliation against Norway after the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo. China employed non-tariff barriers, diplomatic freezes, and restricted exchanges, severely impacting sectors like salmon exports. This occurred despite the Nobel Committee's independence from the Norwegian government. Although Norway's overall economic impact was mitigated by market adjustments, the six-year diplomatic freeze significantly influenced its human rights foreign policy. This case exemplifies China's strategic use of informal economic tools to punish and deter, showcasing the link between political sensitivities and economic leverage in international relations.

Think Piece: Urban Echoes: How The New Historiography On Cities Is Reframing Our Understanding Of Mao’S China, Taoyu Yang

Asia Pacific Perspectives

Despite the conventional portrayal of the Chinese revolution as a predominantly peasant-oriented movement, cities emerged as critical arenas for the Chinese Communist Party’s project of modernization and class restructuring during Maoist period (1949–1976). Over the past decade, scholarly attention has increasingly turned to the urban dimensions of the early years of the People’s Republic. This think piece addresses how recent scholarship on cities offers new analytical insights into our understanding of Maoist China by focusing on six recently published monographs. Themes to be discussed in this essay include the contested and evolving notion of socialist modernity, the transformative effects of …

Book Review: William Nelson Lovatt In Late Qing China: War, Maritime Customs, And Treaty Ports, 1860-1904, By Wayne Patterson, Wen-Hsin Yeh

Asia Pacific Perspectives

No abstract provided.

The Batiandi Li Family, Xifu

Zea E-Books Collection

The novel tells the story of six generations of the Li family over the course of nearly a century and a half, a legendary saga. The protagonists of the Li family in various historical stages of the book are searching for their own identity and the position of the family on the road of life. Sometimes they seize opportunities and create temporary brilliance for the benefit and glory of the family, while at other times they submit to fate and follow the tide of history, content to live ordinary lives like common people.

In 1832 the second brother of the …

The Confucian Path To Utopia : Liao Ping’S Theory Of Great Harmony, 1897–1918, Jiahui Dong

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

Seeing utopia as “the expression of the desire for a better way of being” and a term that encompasses both the meanings of “good place” and “no place,” this thesis examines the theoretical interaction between Western utopianism and the concept of great harmony, or Datong, which emerged from the study of ancient Chinese classics. It focuses on the late Qing to early Republican period through the case of Liao Ping (1852–1932), a new-text Confucian scholar from Sichuan province, China. As an eminent scholar, Liao was deeply exposed to and influenced by Western concepts and literature during the time of …

Returning Into The Deep Forest--A Methodological Practice Around Memory, Asianness, And Speech, Yu Ye

Masters Theses

">">The title of this thesis is borrowed from the Tang dynasty poem Deer Enclosure by Wang Wei: “Empty mountain, no one in sight—only the echo of voices. Returning sunlight slips into the deep forest, shining once more on moss.” I feel like my essay is responding to this kind of sensation: light does not shine head-on, but folds back, glancing sideways through dense branches, illuminating what is often overlooked. In that gesture of return—quiet, angled, persistent. This thesis unfolds in three chapters, each following a distinct path—image (Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes), movement (The Rings of Saturn by …

The Struggles For Equality And Democracy In Modern China: Which Was More Influential?, Angelina K. Lambros

Publications and Research

This paper analyzes the struggles for democracy and equality in modern China, from the fall of the Qing Dynasty to the Tiananmen Square movement. It considers which struggle was more influential, evaluating the recurring theme of a fight for democracy in China since the New Culture Movement, and a quest for social and economic equality that Mao and the Chinese Communist Party committed themselves to. Ultimately, the paper concludes that the struggle for democratic norms and institutions was always present among the Chinese people, but it did not succeed in pushing the government or the Party to adopt political reforms. …

Thomas Pereira’S 'Lülü Zuanyao' 律呂纂要 (Ca. 1685): A Jesuit Music Theory Textbook For The Chinese Emperor, Qingfan Jiang

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Thomas Pereira (1646–1708), a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, arrived in Beijing in 1672 and was appointed by the Kangxi Emperor (1654–1722) as his music tutor. For the emperor's music lessons, Pereira authored Lülü Zuanyao 律呂纂要 [Elements of Music] (ca. 1685), the first known Western music theory treatise written in Chinese. My translation includes the first half of Zuanyao that focuses on Western music notation, solmization, and the hexachordal system. As a product of the global circulation of musical knowledge in the early modern period, Zuanyao is significant in three ways. First, it illustrates the direct influence of the music education Pereira …

Making Waves: Comfort Women Justice Movements Across Generations, Julia A. Jacobellis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1932 and 1945 an estimated 200,000 women across the globe were coerced into becoming comfort women for the Japanese military. As comfort women they were forced to prostitute themselves to soldiers, and endured physical, psychological and emotional torture. While comfort stations were liberated in 1945 with the end of World War II, the Japanese government has yet to formally apologize for their treatment of comfort women, and has failed to meet the demands of survivors and their families who seek reconciliation and justice. The global leaders of these movements for reconciliation are institutions and organizations in South Korea, China, …

Institutionalisation And Institutional Evolution: A Model Of Selecting Government Officials In Ancient China, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

The evolution of institutions in selecting government officials in ancient China reflected efficiency considerations and increased power concentration in the hands of the ruler. Selecting government officials in ancient China became more rule‐based over time, and standardisation and centralisation were some key features of this process. In this dynamic model, a higher volume of transactions, shown as the number of candidates needed to be evaluated, leads to institutionalisation, which has a higher fixed cost but a lower marginal cost in processing each transaction. In the steady state, a ruler with a more encompassing interest chooses a higher level of institutionalisation. …

Transformation Of Buddhist Musical Practices From The 7th-13th Centuries As A Response To Political And Social Disorder In Medieval India, Stephan Duran

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

This article gives an account of the development of Buddhist musical practices on the Indian subcontinent from their earliest, datable instances, to the disappearance of Buddhist institutions from India proper, demonstrating the persistence of descendant traditions of Sanskrit Buddhist chant and song in contemporary Japanese, Tibetan, and Newar esoteric Buddhist communities. It is argued that the Buddhist musical theory and praxis of these three cultural spheres both preserve features of ancient and medieval Indian Buddhist music and sonically illustrate the transition from political and social order to de-centralized social organization, a shift that took place between the 7^th and …

Asia In Saint Louis: Synergy Of Library Instruction, Digital Humanities, And Community Engagement, Joan Wang, David Romney

Journal of East Asian Libraries

This article explores the integration of library instruction, digital humanities, and community engagement through the "Asia in Saint Louis" project at Washington University in St. Louis. Led by subject librarians Joan Wang and David Romney, in collaboration with digital humanities specialists and local community organizations, the project aimed to digitally reconstruct and showcase the histories of Asian Americans in St. Louis from the late 19th to the 20th century. Funded by the Missouri Humanities Council, the project employed ArcGIS StoryMap technology to create a series of interactive narratives. These StoryMaps, supported by archival research and community involvement, highlight key themes …

Beyond Boundaries: Evaluating Bl/Yaoi Subject Headings In Academic Library Classification, Cecilia Zhang

Journal of East Asian Libraries

This study critically evaluates the effectiveness of the newly established Library of Congress Subject Headings, "Boys' Love (Gay Erotica)" and "Yaoi (Gay Erotica)," in classifying and facilitating the retrieval of information related to these genres. By examining the complex history of these terms within fan communities in Japan, China, and Korea across different historical periods, this research argues that the current LCSH oversimplifies the genre's rich cultural context and ongoing innovation, creating barriers to effective information retrieval and access. Additionally, the use of the term "Gay Erotica" is misaligned with the nuanced nature of BL/Yaoi, further complicating its classification. This …

Korean Newspapers And The “Irish Problem”: Japanese Censorship In Colonial Korea, 1920-1930, Jaehyun Kim

Student Work

Jaehyun Kim’s thesis, “Korean Newspapers and the ‘Irish Problem’: Japanese Censorship in Colonial Korea, 1920-1930,” touches upon a subject that scholars of colonial Korea have given insufficient attention to. Kim asks why there featured so many colonial Korean run newspaper articles on the Irish Independent movement in the 1920s and 1930s when the Japanese colonial government actively censored Korean newspapers. Indeed, in the wake of the March First Independent Movement, the colonial authorities shifted its harsh military rule to a more conciliatory cultural policy, allowing Koreans to vent their nationalistic sentiments within the confines of state control. However, the level …

The One-And-A-Half Chinas’ Problem: Taiwan And The Origins Of Peaceful Reunification, 1978–1988, Lucas Miner

Student Work

Lucas Miner’s thesis, “The One-and-a-Half Chinas’ Problem, Taiwan and the Origins of Peaceful Reunification, 1978–1988,” deals with attempts by the Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang to achieve unification between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan during the early phase of China’s reform era. The thesis seeks to update our interpretation of Cross-Strait relations by exploring the origins of peaceful reunification, tracing its early evolution from 1978 to 1985. Primary sources from both sides of the strait—especially from the rich repository at the Academia Historica in Taipei—allows Miner to construct a nuanced and significant narrative that uniquely incorporates …

Threading With Hair // Intertwined Stories, Cloris Ding

Masters Theses

“Threading with Hair // Intertwined Stories” is a poignant exploration that navigates the nuanced landscape of women's growth and identity recognition amidst biased societal influences, tracing the trajectory from the artist’s mother's generation to her own. Through a deeply personal lens, the thesis transcends individual narratives to articulate some shared female experiences. Employing reflective works in the form of jewelry, objects and writings, the study delves into female-centric topics, including the fluidity of identity, the transformative journey through various life stages, and the profound impact of societal expectations and family heritage. At the heart of this exploration is the metaphorical …