International and Area Studies Commons^™

Tiny Treasures: Cloves In Early Modern English Literature, Emily Soon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This Southeast Asian spice not only sparked fierce international competition, but also featured within the literature of the Global Renaissance.

A Qualitative Study Of Immigration Trauma, Posttraumatic Growth, And The College Experience Among Mena Immigrant Students, Braa A. Elkhidir

Dissertations

Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) immigrant students who are seeking to earn a higher education in the United States have to navigate acculturative stressors and systemic barriers. Prior research has focused primarily on the challenges MENA immigrant students experience without deeply exploring how these students adapt and grow. The focus in this qualitative study was to understand how MENA immigrant college students experience and make meaning of their academic journeys. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore the academic experiences of seven MENA immigrant college students in the United States and assess how acculturative stressors, personal strengths, coping strategies, and …

External Debt In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Five Country Case Study On External Lending, Andres Ramirez

International Studies (MA) Theses

This thesis examines China as a new external lender to Africa and analyzes if their large infrastructure loans are leading developing countries into debt distress, compared to Multilateral and Commercial Private financing. A regression analysis is run on a 10-year data set, 2014-2024, and analyzes the external debt service-to-revenue ratio, relative to the external debt stock by lender, across a panel of five East and West African economies, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, and Benin. The empirical findings in the analysis shows that commercial private debt causes the most strain on a country’s external debt service to revenue ratio, but …

Shifting Faith Among Indigenous People In Arunachal Pradesh, India: Revisiting Greenfeld's Civilizational Framework, M. Amin Khan

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper examines changing religious demography in Arunachal Pradesh through Liah Greenfeld's theory of civilization as a self-generating and self-reproducing symbolic reality. Using decadal Census data (1971–2011), it traces the demographic decline of Indigenous/Tribal religions classified under “Other Religions and Persuasions” (ORP) alongside the widespread growth of Christianity and the more limited growth of Hinduism. The analysis argues that these demographic shifts reflect more than religious conversion; they reveal differential capacities for cultural reproduction. Whereas civilizations endowed with codified first principles and enduring institutions sustain continuity across generations, Arunachal Pradesh's largely localized and orally transmitted indigenous traditions have proven less …

Professor Greenfeld’S Last Class: Notes For Online Lectures On “The Science Of Humanity,” Delivered To Students And Scholars Primarily From India, July 2025, Liah Greenfeld

Comparative Civilizations Review

The question for this class is: What is humanity?

We all believe we all know what it is, don’t we? After all, there is hardly any subject more important for us, a question on the answer to which other subjects depend — political, social, economic. Answers to questions such as: what are human economic needs and desires; what political structures are optimal for humans; is democracy, for instance, a universal human desire; should politics in every nation be democratic, or, perhaps, authoritarian governments are better; is freedom a natural need, does it make life better, does equality?

Guest Editor’S Introduction: Liah Greenfeld And The Future Of Comparative Civilizational Studies, Monika Monika, Guest Editor

Comparative Civilizations Review

Every scholarly life leaves behind unfinished questions. Professor Liah Greenfeld was acutely aware of this. Throughout a career spanning more than four decades, her research never settled into the repetition of established arguments. Each major work emerged from the unresolved problems of the previous one, enlarging both the scope of its inquiry and the range of disciplines with which it engaged. Nationalism led her to questions of modernity (Greenfeld, 1992) and the foundations of economic development (Greenfeld, 2001). The growth of the modern economy and the emerging new forces of globalization, in turn, raised broader questions about the self and …

In Memoriam: Liah Greenfeld A Reflection From The President Of The Comparative Civilizations Forum, Bibi Pelić

Comparative Civilizations Review

It is with sorrow and gratitude that the Comparative Civilizations Forum dedicates this special 2026 Fall issue of the Comparative Civilizations Review to the memory of Professor Liah Greenfeld, who passed away in May of this year.

Professor Liah Greenfeld was a sociologist, an anthropologist, a political scientist — and more than any single label can hold. Across four decades at Harvard and then at Boston University, she built a body of work, from Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity to The Spirit of Capitalism to Mind, Modernity, Madness, that stepped outside the boundaries the modern academy likes to draw. …

Liah Greenfeld: Scholar, Thinker, Friend, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

Professor Liah Greenfeld and I met several years ago when she submitted an article to the Comparative Civilizations Review. Her thoughtful demeanor and personal kindness to all were quickly evident, but so, too, was her scholarship, especially her probing theories of state, society, and civilization.

Morocco’S Sand Wall Construction: Challenges In Peacemaking Efforts In Western Sahara, Tarasyah Faz'lin, Apipudin Apipudin

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

The Sahrawi ethnic conflict in Western Sahara has been ongoing for decades. Although various international efforts have been made to resolve it peacefully, they have not yielded results. This study focuses on the construction of a sand wall by Morocco and the involvement of international actors in the Western Sahara conflict. It explores the legal implications of Morocco’s construction of the sand wall, the role of international actors, the causes of the UN’s failure in achieving a peaceful resolution, and the impact of the conflict on the younger generation of Western Sahara. This research uses qualitative methods and primarily employs …

Ethics Under Siege: The Conflict In Tigray Through The Lens Of Just War Theory, Daniela Widya Purba

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

This research article explains the ethical principles of the conflict in Tigray based on the Just War Theory. By using the descriptive qualitative methodology, this research article draws data from secondary sources which includes; academic journals, news reports, as well as international legal instruments to analyze the moral trajectory of the conflict. This research begins with jus ad bellum, to assess Ethiopia’s government justification in declaring conflict within Tigray. While the government fulfilled the criteria of just cause and legitimate authority, the question stands on the ambiguous political intentions and the failure to enact peaceful alternatives before resulting in waging …

Presidential Visits As Foreign Policy Instruments: U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy In Trump’S Second Term, Atar Thaung Htet

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Through an analysis of President Donald Trump's October 2025 travel to Asia, this study investigates the consequences of U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy under his second-term diplomacy. The paper examines three significant diplomatic encounters—the ASEAN Summit in Malaysia, bilateral meetings in Japan, and the APEC Summit in South Korea—using a qualitative case study methodology based on role theory and foreign policy analysis. The results show that alliance-centered security cooperation, strategic balancing toward China, and selective economic engagement were U.S. Indo-Pacific goals. Through extremely transactional and bilateralized relations, presidential diplomacy allowed the United States to fulfill a number of foreign policy responsibilities, such …

Reinforcing Media Governance In Indonesian Dynamic Cyber Space, Poppy Setiawaty Nurisnaeny, Hendra Kaprisma, Chrisna Yudhawinata, Sudirman Sudirman

International Review of Humanities Studies

Following the rapid change in technology development, the Indonesian mass media have undergone a digital transformation. This digital mass media and its users have evolved, assimilated, and integrated themselves to fit in the cyber world. This distinguishing feature distinguishes them from traditional mass media. The cyber environment's infinite international boundaries are both advantageous and disadvantageous, as it is difficult to govern digital activity outside Indonesia's jurisdiction. This unregulated environment became a breeding ground for cybercrime, making the digital space unsafe for individuals and threatening national security. In response to this issue, the Indonesian government has enacted various laws and policies, …

The Indonesian Conjunction Dan ‘And’ And Its Chinese Correspondences: A Corpus-Based Approach To Syntactic And Register Variation, Hatmi Idris

International Review of Humanities Studies

This study examines how the Indonesian conjunction dan ‘and’ is rendered in Chinese across syntactic units using a corpus-based contrastive approach. Focusing on children’s books, classic novels, and online news, it analyzes coordination at word, phrase, and clause level from a syntactic and register perspective. Findings show that dan ‘and’ does not correspond to a single Chinese form. At the word and phrase level, nominal coordination employs hé (和) ‘and’, yǔ (与) ‘and’, and yǐjí (以及) ‘as well as’ , with formal news discourse favoring yǔ (与) ‘and’ and yǐjí (以及) ‘as well as’. In verbal coordination, bìng (并) ‘furthermore’ …

Social Archeology In Colonial Capitalism: Space Analysis, Class, And Race In The Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij Batavia In Early Twentieth Century, Rendy Dharmawansyah, Irmawati Marwoto Imj

International Review of Humanities Studies

The research is to analyze the building of Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (NHM) in its position as a Dutch Trade Company in the Dutch East Indies. It shows an influence of the colonial image, that is discriminative against the social condition of the native Indonesian in its structural architecture. By applying a Marxist theory on the analysis of social class, this writing examines the building of the NHM trade office and the material remains that revealed social class and racial segregation. The result of the study discloses that the architecture of the NHM building pointed out the dominating colonial power over …

Persuasive Strategies In Umrah Marketing On Social Media: A Comparative Study Of Arabic And Indonesian, Stevania C. Asahri

International Review of Humanities Studies

This study examines persuasive strategies in Arabic- and Indonesian-language Umrah marketing flyers circulated on social media. As public interest in Umrah continues to grow, travel agencies increasingly rely on digital platforms not only to promote travel packages but also to construct spiritual appeal, religious credibility, and consumer trust. This study therefore aims to analyze how spiritual imagery is constructed, how rhetorical and pragmatic persuasive strategies are used, and how persuasive patterns differ between Arabic- and Indonesian-language Umrah marketing flyers. The study adopts a qualitative-dominant convergent parallel mixed-methods design. The qualitative analysis is based on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), integrated …

Radical Responsibility: Sartre And The Ecocentric Erosion Of Human Agency, Khodadad Azizi, Naupal Asnawi, Abby Gina Boang Manalu

International Review of Humanities Studies

Contemporary ecological crisis persists despite decades of environmental ethics discourse and rising public awareness, a discrepancy researchers have named the awareness-action gap. One influential corrective, running from Aldo Leopold’s land ethic through Arne Naess’s deep ecology, addresses anthropocentric domination by folding the human being back into the biotic community as one member among others. This article argues that such levelling, whatever its merits against domination, carries an underexamined cost: it erodes the very ground on which anyone can be held responsible for ecological destruction, since only a being capable of choice, not soil, water, or rock, can be asked to …

The Role Of Act Up-Paris In The Development Of The Hiv/Aids Treatment In France, Andi Zenitha Sakina Bahdar, Airin Miranda

International Review of Humanities Studies

The government’s slow handling of HIV/AIDS in the early days of the disease resulted in a high wave of activism. One example is the HIV/AIDS activism organization, Act Up-Paris. This organization aims to fight HIV/AIDS with most of its members from homosexual groups. This research aims to prove that the New Social Movement carried out by the HIV/AIDS activist organization Act Up-Paris can encourage HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts by the government and health institutions in France. This research examines data sources in the form of scientific journal articles, books, and news articles that discuss ACT UP Paris' actions in …

Hairdressing Service Request In Japanese, Kirana Insyafira Rafa, Filia Filia Dr.

International Review of Humanities Studies

This study aims to explain the request for hairdressing services in Japanese beauty salon, focusing on the use of verbal and nonverbal markers. This study use descriptive qualitative design. The data source consists of video conversations between clients and hairstylist on the NARIKYO channel on YouTube. The results of analysis revealed 128 request data through two strategies, such as 77 verbal and 51 nonverbal. Verbally, desiderative forms (such as -tai and -hoshii) with 33 data, followed by declarative forms (such as -ga ii, omakase de, unfinished tense) with 17 data and embedded forms (such as -you na, -mitai na, -hou …

Onomatopoeia In The Digital Comic The Wormworld Saga (2010), Nur Kholidah, Julia Wulandari

International Review of Humanities Studies

This study examines the forms and meanings of onomatopoeia derived from concrete sounds in the digital comic The Wormworld Saga. The study aims to explore the use of onomatopoeia in The Wormworld Saga and to describe its forms and meanings using a descriptive qualitative method. This study analyzes the forms of onomatopoeia based on the categories proposed by Gross (1988) and analyzes their meanings based on the classification proposed by Körtvélyessy and Štekauer (2024). The results show that there are 54 onomatopoeia classified as concrete sounds. In terms of form, the most common onomatopoeia are non-word forms, accounting for 41 …

Constructing Geisha Representation: Textual Analysis Of Memoirs Of A Geisha On Social Media X, Khadijah Hamumpuni Setyawan, Rouli Esther Pasaribu

International Review of Humanities Studies

Geisha are professional entertainers who have mastered Japanese traditional arts and often appear in various media covering Japanese culture. However, there are frequent misunderstandings about geisha outside Japan. The release of the Japanese-produced film Shogun has sparked discussions about older films from the west that are set in Japan, such as Memoirs of a Geisha. This study aims to analyze the representation of geisha in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) and how that representation is constructed and reinterpreted by Japanese and Western audiences through the social media platform X. Using textual analysis, this study examines the movie as a cultural …