Chinese Studies Commons^™

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 …

Finding A Way Out Of The Filter Bubble: The Confusion Of A Heavy Social Media User, Longwen Miao

Masters Theses

This thesis studies how algorithmic recommendation systems reshape visual perception, aesthetic judgment, and the construction of selfhood within contemporary digital culture.

Everything begins with the experience of repeatedly encountering algorithmically recommended content on everyday digital platforms. On these platforms, images, sounds, and social interactions are continuously selected, repeated, and reorganized by predictive systems, forming an environment in which perception is constantly structured and adjusted.

From this observation, the research raises two central questions: how do algorithmic recommendation systems reshape visual perception, aesthetic judgment, and self-recognition, and how might these systems be intervened in or made perceptible through artistic practice? Within …

What Teachers See: Collaborative Artmaking In Chinese And U.S. Elementary Schools, Jiayu Shi

Masters Theses

This study explores how elementary art teachers in the United States and China perceive and use collaborative artmaking with their students. Driven by my personal journey as a Chinese student and art educator now studying in the U.S., this research asks: How do teachers in these two countries compare in their views of collaborative artmaking, including its social-emotional outcomes, benefits, and challenges. I conducted semi structured interviews with three elementary art teachers: two from China (one veteran, one early-career) and one from the U.S. with experience in both rural and urban schools. Findings show that teachers in both contexts value …

Domestic Travelers: Transparent Machines, Hollow Bodies, Hanyi Wang

Masters Theses

Digitization is not a modern invention. Derived from the concept of fingers, this mindset of packing information into quantifiable, interchangeable units sounds mechanical, yet eerily physical. Try to imagine: a ghostly hand with millions of fingers with the same length, likeness, and function. Under the worldview of Digital Narrative, we live in a digital simulation: everything is representable with quantifiable units, fluid across media. Yet under this spectacle of convenient abundance, something is missing. The Unknowables are replaced with arbitrary symbols, while the Uncategorizables are omitted. This is a framework that cannot accommodate human subtleties and complexities. One needs to …

Until The Ground Breaks, Annie Hu

Masters Theses

Until the Ground Breaks explores the complex relationship between personal memory, embodied experience, and internalized "archival logic." By examining long-term cross-cultural diasporic experiences and the shifting dynamics of family narratives—including the sensory experiences and fading memory of a grandmother, a father's correspondence that acts as a textual record of emotional logic, and the continuous revision of family history—this thesis dissects the psychological tremors that occur when the illusion of a singular, stable memory archive collapses. This research rejects the view of memory as a static container of truth, revealing it instead as a dynamic, unstable, and constantly rewritten living system. …

Made In Chimerica, Austin Wang

Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to answer how prop design may function as an effective vehicle to challenge notions of orientalism, an inquiry grounded for the purposes of this thesis in contemporary Asian diasporic experiences within the United States, and spark deeper questions regarding notions of assimilation, erasure, and cultural ownership. Cultural understanding of Asian American experiences have long been tethered by White-dominant frameworks to orientalist stereotypes that range from early xenophobic caricatures to more modern dehumanization attempts via techno orientalism and model minority myths. At its fundamental core, orientalism centralizes White-dominant narratives as the major filter by which to judge, interpret, …

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 …

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. …

Exploring Identity Through Clay: A Humanistic Art Therapy Case Study With A Blind Chinese Adoptee, Virginia Jade Leicht

Expressive Therapies Theses

This qualitative case study explored how working with clay in art therapy can help support a blind man’s identity exploration. This paper addresses the problem of many traditional therapeutic approaches within the art therapy realm: They rely too heavily on visual engagement, which can limit the accessibility and opportunities for self-exploration and identity development for those who are blind. The study was grounded in current research and foundational theories based on the humanistic art therapy approach. Clay is considered an accessible medium that engages multiple senses and allows for emotional exploration and meaning making, specifically through tactile and sensory-based engagement …

Icarus’S Fall: Villainization In Wicked, Star Wars, And The Untamed, Laura Renfroe

Honors Theses

When looking back on the most beloved, yet infamous, villains of popular culture, one can note an abundant rise of prequels and backstory-driven media exploring the paths that villain characters take that lead them to their tragic fall. Some of those stories include John M. Chu’s Wicked, George Lucas’s Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Chen Jialin and Zheng Weiwin’s The Untamed, each of which explores protagonists who are labeled as “wicked” and depicted as fallen to the “dark side.” While these characters are often studied in existing literary research, there have yet to be explicit ties …

Within Boundaries: Collecting And Exhibiting Chinese Contemporary Art In M+, Hong Kong, Lei April Liu

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates how M+, Hong Kong’s museum of twentieth- and twenty-first-century visual culture, collects and exhibits Chinese contemporary art under political and institutional constraint. It argues that M+ operates through adaptive autonomy, a condition in which curatorial and educational strategies transform limitation into method. By analyzing the museum’s formation, exhibition practices, and comparison with other Asian institutions such as the Asia Culture Center in South Korea, the Power Station of Art in China, and the National Gallery Singapore, the study reveals how M+ sustains visibility of Chinese contemporary art with political sensitive topic through 绥靖 (Sui Jing; subtle appeasement) …

He Rengao Super-Consciousness Imagery, A Global Touring Exhibition, Jun Dong

MA Projects

Focusing squarely on He Rengao’s long-developed visual philosophy, this exhibition will take the form of a solo presentation introducing Super-Consciousness Imagery to New York audiences. As one of China’s most established contemporary artists, He has spent decades refining a highly introspective and philosophically grounded painterly language. This exhibition aims to situate his mature body of work within an international conversation, foregrounding painting as a site where civilizational imagination, spiritual inquiry, and aesthetic experimentation converge. The exhibition title, Super-Consciousness Imagery, encapsulates two key elements central to He’s artistic practice; it refers to the expanded state of awareness the artist seeks to …

From Monasteries To The Market: The Legal And Spiritual Economies Of Himalayan Art In China, Hengshi An

MA Theses

In recent years, the Himalayan art market in China has shown a remarkable transformation, emerging as one of the most dynamic segments within the broader Asian art economy. While much of the global and domestic art market has stagnated, Tibetan and Himalayan artworks have achieved sustainable growth and high auction price with major collections been published, showing structural strength rather than speculative enthusiasm. This paper examines the drivers behind this phenomenon through a qualitative analysis of auction data, dealer networks, and collector behavior across key hubs in China such as Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. The findings suggest that …

News Media Sentiment Toward Chinese Ai: A Comparative Analysis With Belt And Road Initiative Involvement And Public Opinion On China, Asya Vaisberg

Pomona Senior Theses

This study evaluates different countries' news media’s sentiment towards Chinese AI, between May 2023 and May 2024, by using Microsoft Azure NLP Sentiment Analysis. The results are then compared with the country’s public opinion on China and its involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). For this study 12 countries have been selected which are USA, Australia, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Romania, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Philippines, Brazil, and Egypt. For each one, GNews Application Programming Interface (API), which has access to more than 60,000 global news sources, was used to aggregate relevant news articles based on queried keywords. The collected …

Representation And Cross-Cultural Mediation Of Contemporary Ink Art In New York’S Primary Art Market: A Case Study Of Fqm Gallery, Mengtian Melody Yang

MA Theses

This study investigates the representation and cross-cultural mediation of contemporary Chinese ink art within New York’s primary art market. Using Fu Qiumeng Fine Art (FQM) as a core case study, the research adopts a qualitative methodological framework that integrates document analysis, visual analysis, and semi-structured field interviews to examine how the gallery operates as a cultural intermediary. It explores how FQM defines and frames “Contemporary Ink Art,” selects and presents artists, and translates the aesthetic and philosophical foundations of this tradition for Western audiences. The findings show that FQM positions ink art not merely as a medium-based practice but as …

Chinese Transnational Intellectual Elites In Nanyang And China: A Comparative Study Of Lim Boon Keng, Wu Lien-Teh, Wong Nai Siong And Khoo Seok Wan, Lin Lan

Student Works (2020-2029)

During the late Qing and the Republican period, the longstanding extensive corridors of Chinese labour migration to the Nanyang were supplemented by a significant flow of elite travel and cultural and professional exchange between China and Nanyang. A group of transnational intellectual elites came into being whose lives and life-work spanned geographical and cultural space between a colonised and Westernised Southeast Asia and a China on her transition to modernity. Among them were Lim Boon Keng, Wu Lien-Teh, Wong Nai Siong and Khoo Seok Wan, the four case studies in this dissertation. An investigation of these elites either from Nanyang …

戴君恩以「臆」解《詩》研究, Aifan Zhan

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

晚明文人戴君恩（1570-1636）的《讀風臆評》以「臆」解讀《詩經》，是明代中後期《詩經》的解讀經學向文學轉向思潮的具體體現。本文在學界研究的基礎上，以戴氏《讀風臆評》為核心，結合其《剩言》《繪孟》等著作，探討其解《詩》體系的生成背景、方法論特徵及詩學意義。第一章梳理晚明思想文化背景，指出戴氏受心學運動、文學復古及制藝風潮的影響，並補充其師承關係；第二章聚焦以「臆」解《詩》的理論建構，分析戴氏將莊子「天籟」說與「以意逆志」的理解論相融合，強調直覺體悟與主體想像，打破傳統美刺框架，顛覆傳統經學解《詩》框架；第三章通過分析戴氏對《詩經》的評點實踐，闡釋戴氏如何將前人理論融入詩歌審美分析中，提出「情與景會」的創作論，並重構情景關係，進一步揭示戴氏對清代情景觀的啟發；第四章通過分析戴氏總結的「格法」，解構詩歌內容，融合莊子超驗哲學與心學理論，建立以「虛」解詩的向度，推動《詩經》解讀從附會現實走向文學審美的轉向。

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 …

Narrating The New Cold War: Investigating Chinese Cyber Propaganda And Sino-American Tensions On Bilibili, William G. Highfill

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

This thesis examines Bilibili, a Chinese video-sharing platform originally known for its anime, comics, and gaming (ACG) content, as a critical site for the formation and circulation of nationalist discourse in the context of a “New Cold War” between the United States and China. As ideological rivalry increasingly shifts from traditional state media and military posturing to decentralized digital platforms, Bilibili offers a unique case study in how propaganda evolves in participatory online spaces. Through a combination of digital ethnography and discourse analysis, this research explores how Bilibili’s algorithmic infrastructure, comment culture (弹幕), and remix-oriented design allow users to not …

Theatricality Of The Ephemeral: Media Of Surplus And Spectatorship In Liang Dynasty (南朝梁, 502-557) Palace-Style Poetry And Hou Hsiao-Hsien’S A City Of Sadness (1989), Yingyi Wang

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

This essay focuses on the mediation of spectatorship experience by “ephemeral media” in Liang Dynasty (南朝梁, 502-557) palace-style poetry and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s film A City of Sadness (1989). Drawing from Alexander Galloway’s “the interface effects” in new media studies, I investigate how the diegetic “ephemeral media” in these two texts, such as dust, candlelight, silence, and writing, function as opaque interfaces that complicate spectatorship. I examine spectatorship experience from the angle of ephemeral media by looking at how they direct spectators’ attention from the world of representations to processes of mediation. Transplanting Xiaofei Tian’s notion of the “surplus” in her …

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 …

How To Walk On Water: Living Through The Absurd, Esther Du

Masters Theses

Set in a speculative world submerged by water, this thesis constructs a fragmented, nonlinear narrative that reflects on survival, memory, and displacement in the aftermath of catastrophe. Through three interwoven chapters—The Outcast, The Researcher, and The World—the project explores the emotional and psychological landscapes of individuals navigating a post-apocalyptic existence where the past is irretrievable and the future uncertain. Using an interdisciplinary form of visual storytelling, writing, and sound, the work draws from personal experience and collective trauma to examine how people reconstruct identity and meaning after loss. Rather than offering a definitive answer to existential …

Belonging In Memory, Yilin Li

Masters Theses

This book is a visual and textual exploration of belonging, memory, and the sublime found in the mundane. Through a combination of written reflections and curated artworks, it traces my artistic journey, showcasing how I search for belonging through memory, everyday life, personal witness, family dynamics, and cultural memory.

The first part delves into the intimate connections between everyday life and artistic inspiration, weaving together personal experiences, observations, and memories into imaginative narratives. The second part presents a chronological selection of my artworks, illustrating my artistic evolution. Initially, my work responded to China’s rapid urbanization, exploring fading personal and collective …

Shifting Us Strategies: Preventing China’S Continued Military Aggression Through Unrestricted Warfare Tactics Targeting Supply Chains, Andrew P. Downs

Master's Projects and Capstones

Strategic competition between the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) has developed into a complex multi-domain struggle encompassing military, economic, and trade aspects. This research demonstrated that the current U.S. deterrence strategy is mismatched in its ability to engage with the PRC and its use of asymmetric tactics. While the US continually depends on technological advantage through expensive platforms, the PRC is developing more subtle ways in which to subvert the US' ability to respond to an expanding China. While the US response has focused on conventional means, the PRC has adopted Unrestricted Warfare as a counter …

Breaking The Ice: China And Lawfare In The Arctic, Sophia Toner

Honors Theses

This thesis examines China's engagement with international legal frameworks in the Arctic through a lawfare lens, using a structured analytical framework to assess whether Chinese activities constitute lawfare. Focusing on two key cases—China's involvement in submarine cable infrastructure and its navigation of the Northern Sea Route—the research applies Andrea Beck's three-part definition of lawfare: "(1) the misuse of the law in order to, (2) achieve a military objective, and (3) undermine the legal framework." The analysis reveals that China's Arctic engagement does not fully constitute lawfare according to this definition. Rather than misusing legal frameworks, China operates within existing structures …

Trans-Pacific Connections: Chinese Porcelain And Aztec Motifs In Colonial Mexico, Natalia Ramirez

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This research explores artworks within the Global Baroque as visual and ideological evidence through which colonial power, trade, and cross-cultural influence shaped the material culture of the early modern world. Centering on blue and white ceramics as a key medium of transcultural and trans-local exchange, the study analyzes how global motifs, particularly those drawn from Aztec and Chinese traditions, were reinterpreted, aestheticized, and circulated in Aztec and Novohispanic artistic practices.

Through a close observational comparison of Aztec and Chinese decorative systems, the study recognizes contrasting systems of cultural documentation embedded within similar visual forms. Aztec motifs, rooted in ritual, calendrical, …

Fan Art, Jacob Lay

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the work of artists like Vincent van Gogh, Donald Baechelor, and Cezanne in their relationship to my work and contemporary painting. Drawing from personal letters, interviews, and essays on these artists, the paper places painting and drawing from the thesis exhibition in a history as well as relates them to current pop culture relics. The paper also includes a process-based analyses of how each painting is made and with what materials.

From Amazon To Malaya: Polyphonic Narratives Of Writers And Subaltern Voices In Colombian And Malaysian Rubber-Forest Literature, Menglu Chen

ELIN Graduate Theses

No abstract provided.

Koxinga: The Catalyst Of Taiwan's Current Geopolitical Conflict, Lauren Masterson

Honors College Theses

Taiwan, strategically located in the South China Sea, has long faced challenges in asserting its sovereignty. While much of the existing scholarship focuses on the 20th-century conflict between the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and the Chinese Communist Party, this study turns to the mid-17^th century to trace the roots of the island’s contested status. It centers on Zheng Chenggong (1624–1662), also known as Koxinga, who established the Ming loyalist Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan (1661–1683) following the fall of the Ming dynasty. By examining Koxinga’s actions and the legacy he left behind, this research draws parallels between his retreat …