session a: Saturday, October 10, 8:45 a.m.-10:15 A.M.
A1 Exploring Gender in 20th-Century China | 203 Lawrence Chair: HIROSHI NARA, University of Pittsburgh
LIFANG WANG, Syracuse University,
Rural Chinese Female Higher Education Students Negotiating the Intersectionality of the Urban-Rural Divide and Gender in Contemporary China
This paper examines how the urban-rural divide and gender shape the identities of rural Chinese female students when they move from their rural origins to study and live at urban higher education institutions in China. It is based on qualitative study with 66 rural female students attending five universities and one college in northern China. My research findings show that dominant discourses portray rural female higher education students as deficit, and the participants in my study contested such a portrayal by exerting their agency to challenge, negotiate and resist the dominant discourses. My research findings also reveal that the lives of rural female students were multidimensional and diverse so that their situations could not be explained by analyzing the effects of either the urban-rural divide or gender, but rather by engaging in an analysis of intertwined power structures that shaped their lives and identities.
DAIJUAN GAO, Seton Hall University
The Garden of the Forbidden Fruit in The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai
Han Bangqing's 1892 novel, The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai, paints a panoramic picture of lives of the courtesans and patrons of the pleasure quarters of fin-de-siècle Shanghai. In sexually-segregated late Qing society, the sweetness of romantic love could only be tasted in the seclusion of high-class brothels. The men of the novel yearn for the sweetness of romantic love which they sought in local courtesan houses. But despite its empathy for the characters’ passion, the novel is a cautionary tale in which the lives of wealthy patrons who partook in the forbidden fruit of romantic love paid the price and ended up with emotional wounds and financial ruin. The tragic love affairs illustrated that, in the Confucian-dominated society, while personal happiness was overruled by social conformity and individual freedom gave way to patriarchal totalitarianism, an individual’s pursuit of romantic love was doomed to fail.
CHRISTIAN POTTER, University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign
Queering the Mother/Son Relationship in Contemporary China
Throughout Chinese history, the mother/son relationship has held significant status and importance. For a mother, having a son meant her husband's family line could continue and rites of ancestor worship could be performed. For a son, the mother provided moral and classical education, and a son’s success was often directly attributed to his mother. However, the boundaries, meanings and practices of the mother/son relationship have changed over time as the relationship played central roles in discourses of nationalism, Confucianism, and gender.
This relationship takes on new meanings when the mother/son duo is completed by a son who was born a daughter. Female-to-male (FTM) transgender sons and their mothers chart new territory as they reinterpret and challenge the norms embodied in traditional ideals of mother/son relationships. My research will explore how FTM sons and their mothers view their old/new relationship, complicating and subverting normative discourses as they necessarily engage with them.
GINA ELIA, University of Pennsylvania
Mothers and Daughters: Using Religion to Explore Female Relationships in Republican-Era China
This paper concerns Su Xuelin's novel Thorny Heart (棘心) (1929), which centers on a non-religious, liberal female protagonist named Xingqiu, who believes in the modernization project of the May Fourth Movement in China but nevertheless converts to Catholicism and agrees to an arranged marriage she knows will not make her happy, all out of love for her mother. I argue that Xingqiu’s religious conversion allows her space to prioritize the desires of other women more than she is able to in secular society, where such desires are largely disregarded. In order to make my argument, I rely not only on close-reading analysis of the novel itself, but also on reviews and analyses of the novel written at the time of its publication and more general Chinese-language scholarship on the role of religion in May Fourth literature.
A2 Legacies of WWII in China, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East | 205 Lawrence
Chair: CECILIA CHIEN, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
VERA FENNELL, Lehigh University
The Long March from Bandung: Does the Ghost of the Bandung Conference Appear in Contemporary Sino-African Relationships?
When the People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao) published an editorial commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Asian-African Conference that was held in Bandung, Indonesia on April 18, 1955, it revived the memory of both an event and an ideological orientation - Asian-African (yafei youyi) friendship as political solidarity, which was also considered “….South-South cooperation…”. As the editorial pointed out, the newspaper diligently reported on Premier Zhou Enlai’s Bandung Conference presentations and speeches, discursively creating a radical revolutionary state ideology of communist internationalism that posited an alternative route through the bipolar Cold War international dynamic, a.k.a. the Third World. Does this imagined community of the Third World Sino-African friendship have any contemporary relevance or value beyond propaganda?
This paper argues that the Bandung-era Asian-African (yafei youyi) friendship as an ideology of political solidarity is still an active force today. It resonates through the foreign policy directives of China’s “new strategic partnerships” (xinxing zhanlue huoban guanxi) of the 2000s and animates the July, 2014 State Council white paper on China’s foreign aid policies.
THOMAS MCGRATH, Muskingum University
Chinese, American and British collaboration in the creation and development of the Chinese Army in India, 1942-1944
This paper examines the origins, training and deployment of the Chinese Army in India (CAI) during the Second World War with an eye towards the complex interactions between Nationalist China, the United States and Great Britain. The CAI was formed from the remnants of Chinese Army units who had fought in Burma during the Japanese invasion in 1942, and personnel later airlifted from China. These soldiers were trained using American doctrine and equipment by American Liaison Officers at Ramgarh, India. The presence of this large Chinese force in India generated significant tension for British officials. When the CAI was deployed in 1944 to re-open an overland route to China via Burma under the command of General Joseph Stilwell, they represented the meshing of Chinese, American and British military and political interests.
A3 The Empire in China: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives | 1500 Posvar
Chair: TBD
FRANCIS ALLARD, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
The Nanyue Kingdom (204 – 111 BCE): Archaeological and Historical Perspectives
Established in southeast China after the fall of the Qin dynasty, the Nanyue kingdom (204 -111 BCE) was centered at the head of the Pearl River delta (in Panyu, present-day Guangzhou), a location which had previously facilitated the transfer of pearls and rhinoceros horns to the Qin. The presence of objects of non-local origin or inspiration in Nanyue tombs suggests the continued importance of such long distance links to the Nanyue elite. Although Chinese historians generally state that the kingdom occupied much of “Lingnan” (present-day Guangdong and Guangxi), even reaching northern Vietnam, a consideration of Nanyue’s archaeological record and of contemporary and later historical sources points to the likelihood that the kingdom’s control over Lingnan was neither firm nor extensive. The talk also suggests that southern trade goods did not in fact play much of a role in helping support or define Nanyue’s social and political system.
VINCENT LEUNG, University of Pittsburgh
The Long March from Bandung: Does the Ghost of the Bandung Conference Appear in Contemporary Sino-African Relationships?
The very idea of a modern China presupposes a pre-modern, traditional China which it has left behind. It is no surprise, therefore, that in the last two centuries, the contentious emergence of modern China went hand in hand with a radical reimagining of ancient China. In this paper, as an example of this intricate, dialectical relationship between modernity and antiquity, I will study the history of the discovery of oracle-bone inscriptions in the last decades of the Qing dynasty and the Republican period. In the works of Wang Guowei (1877-1927), Luo Zhengyu (1866-1940), and other scholars who first deciphered these archaic inscriptions on these fragments of animal bones and shells, we shall discover a curious conception of antiquity among these turn of the century intellectuals that at once embraces the cultural origins of Chinese civilization and disavows the failures of the imperial tradition, all towards the imagining of a modern China.
YUNYAN ZHENG, Princeton University
The Event of Changing Residence of the Macartney Embassy in Beijing
In 1989, Alain Peyrefitte iterated the ritual conflicts of Macartney Embassy to China in 1793 caused by the ignorance of the Qing Court; nine years later, James Hevia pointed out that the conflict was not just caused by the ignorance of the Qing, instead studying both of the Empires’ ritual traditions. Henrietta Harrison, recently, has been conducting a study on the tribute system and endowments versus gift giving. The publishing of many diaries and archives makes it possible to discover more details. This research tries to view the cultural conflict from “the Event of Changing Residence of the Embassy in Beijing” and its influences by comparing the viewpoint of each party. From this small event, the cultural conflict was caused by the personal interactions of the Chinese officials who received the British delegation, where the reaction by the British officials left suspicion in the minds of all involved.
CHRISTOPHER EIRKSON, University of Pittsburgh
Steppe Ambitions: Early Ming Concepts of Empire and China’s
Northern Frontier
My paper examines early Ming ideas of empire and argues that the early Ming Dynasty (CE 1368-1644) viewed itself as the inheritor of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, not merely as cleansers of a Mongol legacy. Traditional historiography has placed overwhelming emphasis on the Ming Dynasty as the last "Chinese" dynasty of China's imperial period. It also depicts the Ming as temporally sandwiched between barbaric "conquest dynasties" and fundamentally different from them, especially in its foreign ambitions, which are said to be static and defensive-minded. I demonstrate that the early Ming state and its rulers envisioned the empire as stretching over a larger region than it actually encompassed, but in a far more nuanced and historically informed way than the traditional notion of "All under Heaven" implies. The Mongol legacy heavily impacted Ming concepts of empire.
A4 Relationships and Identity in 19th to 21st Century Japan | 1501 Posvar
Chair: MASAKO NAKAGAWA, Villanova University
HIDEO WATANABE, William Paterson University
Turning Strangers into Friends in 19th Century Japan
Conflict and Cooperation' in Asia can be discussed through the sphere of Japan's modernization in the 19th Century. Perry's visit to Yokohama forced Japan to open its doors to the West, ending 250 years of closure. Strong anti-foreign sentiments still existed among Japanese and restricted foreigners to the Yokohama Settlement located in the Yokohama Harbor.
Although the settlement symbolized conflict between Japan and the West, it also required cooperation. Not only foreigners but Japanese nationals lived and worked in the settlement and there were lots of cultural interactions between them. Foreigners brought Western ideology and technology in, and acting together with them, Japan attained great success in the Meiji modernization.
Not only Yokohama but Kobe was designated a foreign settlement by the Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1858. This presentation will examine global interaction in the Yokohama and Kobe Settlements with particular focus on conflict and cooperation.
NYRI BAKKALIAN, University of Pittsburgh
The Sparrow’s Dream: The Meiji Revolution and Local Self-Assertion in Northern Japan
It is a fact that the southwestern Japanese clans were victorious in the Meiji Restoration war of 1868 and built the modern Japanese order. Yet this is not enough for a comprehensive view on the Restoration. My project goes beyond simply accepting the victors' narrative. I explore why the Northern Alliance, a collection of domains in northeastern Japan, failed where the southwesterners succeeded. Following on powerful albeit sporadic Japanese research over the last thirty-odd years, I argue that the Alliance simply presents an imperfect analogue to the Kyoto-based southwestern coalition. The allies drew on a local tradition political legitimacy and self-assertion stretching back a millennium, and engaged in 'horizontal' cooperation amongst themselves, rather than relying on their ties in relation to a political center. I argue that rather than conservatism or technophobia, what doomed the Alliance was a plethora of issues ranging from fragmented politics to the Tenpo Famine's aftermath.
JAMES HOMMES, University of Pittsburgh
Guido F. Verbeck as a ‘Foreign Hero’ for Japan: Assessing the Role of Foreigners in Asian Nationalism
In historical accounts of modern nationalist movements, few foreigners are emphasized in the development of those nations. But, occasionally, there are key transnational “foreign heroes” who are included in such narratives. The first Asian society to successfully modernize in the 19th century was Japan, and there were many foreigners who contributed to Japan's development. Perhaps one of the most intriguing is the figure of Guido F. Verbeck, a gifted Dutch-American missionary, teacher, translator and government advisor who resided in Japan for four decades from 1859-1898. By the end of his life and throughout subsequent periods, the Japanese viewed him as a trusted heroic figure who devoted his life for the good of Japan and its people. Do “foreign heroes” like Verbeck problematize traditional views of Japanese nationalism? Are there other key figures like Verbeck both in Japanese history and in other Asian societies?
ZHEYA GAI, Washington and Jefferson College
Sino-Japan Relations: Hot Economics Cold Politics
This paper examines the key facts and events in the relationship between China and Japan in recent years and analyzes the important factors that help drive the relationship. The paper makes three main arguments. First, the recent relationship between China and Japan may be best characterized as 'hot economics and cold politics.' Second, the main forces behind the largely contentious political relations are history and self-identity as a people in both countries, domestic factors such as political survival and generational change, and the vicious circle of escalating tensions driven by the security dilemma in the post-Cold War security environment. Third, there is potential for more tension and conflict as well as more restraint and cooperation. It is hopeful that common interests and pragmatism would help achieve a less contentious relationship in the short run. In the long run, two conditions are crucial for more reconciliation between China and Japan: combating xenophobic nationalism within both countries and building more trust in each other through more robust bilateral and multilateral engagements.
A5 Remaking the Western, Rethinking East Asia | 1700 Posvar
Chair: CHARLES EXLEY, University of Pittsburgh
Discussant: LUCY FISCHER, University of Pittsburgh
SEUNG HWAN SHIN, University of Pittsburgh
North by West: The Manchurian Western in Transnational Perspective
My paper examines the Manchurian Western and its recent return with a particular focus on The Good, the Bad, the Weird (Kim Jee-woon, 2008). I understand the vernacular South Korean film genre as a notable venue to investigate the transnational evolution of genre cinema. The tropes of the Western such as the frontier, epic action, and mercenary are all foreign to Korean history and the Manchurian Western has often been accused of its inauthenticity. However, I argue that the inauthenticity gives the genre special relevance in sociocultural imagination in South Korea and demonstrate how the Manchurian Western draws on exogenous idioms to address endogenous concerns, particularly the claustrophobic historical conditions in South Korea. In doing so, I also show that the hybrid genre’s emphasis on transnational and transcultural mobility questions established perceptions around nationhood and national cinema.
KUN QIAN, University of Pittsburgh
Displaced Western (?): National Allegory and Satire at the Borderless Frontiers
My paper traces the evolution of the “Western” genre in Chinese Cinema in the last thirty years. Examining recent films such as Let the Bullets Fly (Jiang Wen, 2010), Eastern Bandits (a.k.a. An Inaccurate Memoir; Yang Shupeng, 2012), The Chef, the Actor, the Scoundrel (Guan Hu, 2013), and No Man’s Land (Ning Hao, 2013), this paper discusses how the Chinese filmmakers incorporate elements of Westerns into works of national allegory, and how the shifting and mixing meanings of the "West" in the Chinese context--origin of Chinese civilization, cradle of Communist revolution, geographical frontier, ethnic minority, and the Western/American hegemony—are used to negotiate a national identity and a position for commercial genre films in Chinese cinema.
CHARLES EXLEY, University of Pittsburgh
No Land’s Man: the Western, the Wanderer, and Hokkaido as Contested Frontier Space
My paper examines the evolution of Hokkaido as a frontier space in the Japanese Western, looking in particular at Yurusarezaru mono (Lee Sang-il, 2013). Drawing closely on Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992), the work has been recognized as a faithful remake of Eastwood’s iconic late Western. At the same time, Lee reframes the Western to focus on displacement, especially the repression of political and ethnic ‘others’ in the acquisition of Hokkaido in the 1860s. This rewriting of the Western is inspired in part by manga artist Tezuka Osamu’s Shumari, a work set at the same early Meiji moment which explores the Imperial origins of the frontier in Hokkaido. Lee’s reinterpretation of Hokkaido as colonial space raises questions about established perceptions of nationhood, identity, and imperial origins.
A6 A Historical and Theoretical Reassessment of the Social Critique of “Critical Buddhism” (Hihan Bukkyō)
5130 Posvar
Chair: STEVEN HEINE, Florida International University
Discussant: LINDA PENKOWER, University of Pittsburgh
JAMES MARK SHIELDS, Bucknell University
Against Harmony: Philosophical and Political Precedents for Critical Buddhism
Critical Buddhism has engaged in attacks of past and present advocates of Japanese particularism, prominent Japanese philosophical figures who endorse nationalism, and specific Buddhist doctrines that perpetrate discrimination, all of which are judged to be lacking in certain “critical” criteria and thus have forfeited any claim to being “truly Buddhist” or to contribute positively to various sociopolitical issues in Japan. This paper constructs a genealogy of Critical Buddhism broadly conceived in the context of Japanese modernity by focusing on several progressive Buddhist figures and movements from mid-Meiji through early Shōwa periods, including the New Buddhist Fellowship and the Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism. It argues that previous attempts to centralize criticism as a basic precept were largely unsuccessful due to an inability to distinguish the Buddhist components of their thought and practice from other discursive elements.
STEVEN HEINE, Florida International University
The Aftermath of the Storm Created by Critical Buddhism
Critical Buddhism was instigated in the 1980s by an incident in which a representative of Japanese Buddhism, who was participating in a worldwide congress of religious leaders, publicly denied his sect’s complicity in, or even the existence of, the problem of social discrimination against outcasts (burakumin) that persists in Japan. This episode caused a sense of outrage with regard to the apparent disconnect between ideals and reality that led both researchers and monks to reevaluate classical teachings of Buddhism in relation to current values and practices. In the decades since the storm some leaders of Critical Buddhism have continued to examine the religion’s role in regard to bias as well as extreme nationalism and exclusivism, but generally this has been carried out in a less confrontational and more collegial and solution-oriented way. This paper analyzes newer directions taken by figures involved in the Critical Buddhist social movement.
VICTOR FORTE, Albright College
What Critical Buddhism Contributes to Issues of Social Responsibility
Critical Buddhism has been largely concerned with qualifying Buddhist orthodoxy while rejecting the universalism and transcendence found in notions like Buddha-nature, innate enlightenment, and non-dualism in favor of an authentically critical Buddhist doctrine grounded in the concepts of karma, non-self, and dependent origination. The main concern underlying this polemical agenda was to bring attention to social injustices resulting from status-quo assumptions made in the name of Buddhist universalism. Concrete human problems of political exclusion and economic oppression can be largely ignored if difference is merely subsumed by claims of non-dualism. But detractors of Critical Buddhism have questioned how doctrinal clarity will be able to lead to social justice, and have observed little historical evidence to suggest that karmic orthodoxy results in greater human empathy. How might Critical Buddhism respond to these questions and construct a viable practice of social responsibility?
A7 Three Narratives on the Construction of Identity and Discourse: International Relations, Literary Studies, and Religion | 5200 Posvar
Chair: MARK BOOKMAN, University of Pennsylvania
Discussant: EDWIN GOFF, Villanova University
MARK BOOKMAN, University of Pennsylvania
Revelation as Resolution: Language & Ontology in Shingon Buddhist Doctrine
Shingon Buddhist doctrine stipulates that the origin of existential conflict and the key to its resolution may be found in the liminal space generated during the process of signification. This paper will provide a tripartite systematization of the aforementioned doctrinal theory and its associated linguistic philosophy so as to shed light upon how the semiotic transformation of existential conflict into quiescence may occur. First, an occasioned reconstruction of the Shingon Buddhist cosmological and soteriological schemata will elucidate how differing hermeneutical taxonomies paradigmatically instantiate and dissolve discriminatory identities; a process oftentimes held accountable for the genesis of conflict. Then, the examination of praxes and ritual implements employed by Shingon Buddhism will illustrate how such identities may be transformed into consecratory vehicles oriented towards the goal of conflict resolution. Lastly, a historical and hierarchical framing of the Shingon Buddhist cosmological and soteriological schemata will call forth several examples of its merits.
ASHLEY LIU, University of Pennsylvania
History and Fiction as Genres of Narrative Literature: Ontology, Conflict, and Cooperation
History and fiction are two major strands of narrative literature whose nature and development can be studied vis-à-vis each other. This paper attempts to illustrate the nature of history and fiction as genres of narrative literature in premodern China and their interactions with each other. In order to discuss history and fiction in premodern China, it is essential to first clarify the common misconception that the English word “fiction” is equivalent to xiaoshuo in Classical Chinese. Subsequently, I will examine current scholarly understanding of what fiction is in premodern China and refute the notion that fiction is narrative literature about what is imagined and invented. In its place, I will propose alternative definitions of fiction and history that emphasize on visible textual and generic conventions. Finally, I will discuss the ways in which history and fiction can be perceived to conflict and cooperate with each other in premodern Chinese literature.
JERISA UPTON, American University
Uniting the Dragon and the King of the Sky: An Exploration of State Identity and Violent Conflict
China’s rapid rise and potential to meet or surpass the power of the United States evokes machinations of war for some and hope for peaceful bilateral relations for others. Naturally, the normative question of how each state should proceed, while avoiding Allison’s “Thucydides Trap” arises. Though the stakes balance precariously between peace and conflict, there are no predictive models fully capable of forecasting the outcomes of political actions before they are initiated. Thus, such a complex question requires careful consideration of both the structural and ideological factors that shape political outcomes. In this three-part paper, I discuss how each country’s cultural narrative helps to define their political interests and further explore how their identities as states influence their conceptualizations of power and its pursuit in the struggle for dominance. Lastly, I use my findings to weigh the probability of violent conflict versus cooperation.
A8 Border Conflicts on Land and in the Sea: China, Vietnam, the United States, and Territorial Goals Over the Past Fifty Years| 5400 Posvar
Chair: TBD
MICHAEL BURCH, Wabash College
Two Dreams in One Bed: China, the United States and the 2014 South China Sea Territorial Dispute
The 2014 South China Sea territorial dispute has become the newest flashpoint of the emerging strategic rivalry in the Asia-Pacific region, increasingly shaping how state and elite behave under the highly complex and multi-level circumstances. While the possibility of a major military conflict in the South China Sea remains unclear, state policy-makers and newspapers in both China and the United States before and after 2014 have competed over various issues such as territorial ownership, sovereignty, regional security, international law, natural resource, the Sino-Vietnamese relationship, strategic intervention, and human rights. Meanwhile, public opinion in the two countries have fermented various discourses of nationalism, historicism, anti-Americanism, anti-expansionism, and anti-communism, which have overlapped, yet contrasted, with the ones formed from the top down. We consider in this paper the state policies and public discourses as rival strategies and political conceptualizations of the most recent asymmetrical and multilateral relations between China and the United States. Using the Vietnam-China South China Sea dispute as a case study and employing a two-level game framework, we examine the tensions between various domestic coalitions in both countries with government policy. Specifically, we are able to demonstrate that these conflicting narratives at the domestic level have led to a recalculation by both countries of Vietnam’s importance in shaping the outcome of twenty-first century territorial disputes.
CHRIS BIEHL, Wabash College
Looking Towards The Future In The South China Sea
Since the end of the Third Indochina War, relations between China and Vietnam have remained peaceful with the notable exception of the Spratly and Paracel Islands. These islands have been a contentious issue between China and Vietnam since Vietnamese Independence. Recent developments in the area has led many policymakers to predicted that a large-scale conflict between the two countries is quite possible. I evaluate this claim by using Fravel’s (2008) theory about China and territorial dispute escalation to investigate historical militarized disputes such as the events of Johnson Reef in 1988. This theoretical investigation combined with an analysis of recent developments in the South China Sea supports the theory that a militarized conflict could soon occur between China and Vietnam because of the increased presence and competition by both nations in the area. My paper, in this regard, intends to construct a theoretical dialogue with the current theorizations of the territorial dispute and sheds a light on the scholarships on borderlands in general.
SHANE XUAN & YUESE HE, Wabash College
Shaping Public Opinion in Authoritarian China: Media’s Role during the Indochina Wars; Fear and War: China, Vietnam and the World beyond Asia during the Third Indochina War
Both China and the United States were deeply involved in Vietnam’s wars during the twentieth century, but domestic support for these interventions were quite different. I argue that domestic reactions to state’s intervention in the conflicts abroad depend on how states manipulate media to mobilize and shape domestic attitudes. Specifically, my research conducts a comparative study of subnational surveys and newspapers in the United States and China during the Indochina Wars (1945-1980s). In conducting such an analysis, I examine how the Chinese were unencumbered by the media in articulating their view of the conflicts in Vietnam, while the United States faced increasing difficulty in promoting their message to the general public. I demonstrate that anti-colonialism, nationalism, and the global context of ideological rivalry all contribute to how the domestic polity viewed the unfolding of the various wars in Vietnam, which then constrained state actors and reshaped their strategies and goals. In this regard, my research contributes to the role of media and audience costs in the context of global rivalry to the field of Southeast Asian conflict studies.
Both China and the United States were deeply involved in Vietnam’s wars during the twentieth century, but domestic support for these interventions were quite different. I argue that domestic reactions to state’s intervention in the conflicts abroad depend on how states manipulate media to mobilize and shape domestic attitudes. Specifically, my research conducts a comparative study of subnational surveys and newspapers in the United States and China during the Indochina Wars (1945-1980s). In conducting such an analysis, I examine how the Chinese were unencumbered by the media in articulating their view of the conflicts in Vietnam, while the United States faced increasing difficulty in promoting their message to the general public. I demonstrate that anti-colonialism, nationalism, and the global context of ideological rivalry all contribute to how the domestic polity viewed the unfolding of the various wars in Vietnam, which then constrained state actors and reshaped their strategies and goals. In this regard, my research contributes to the role of media and audience costs in the context of global rivalry to the field of Southeast Asian conflict studies.
A9 Discovering Local History in China: Finding, Utilizing and Digitizing New Sources | 209 Lawrence
Chair: ELIZABETH KASKE, Carnegie Mellon University
Discussant: JING LI, Duquesne University
TERRY CHEUNG, Washington University in Saint Louis
Openness and Development: Evidence from Fujian Land Records
After Fuzhou has been established as one of the five treaty ports in China, Fujian began to develop as one of the major export hubs. Its development continued to gain momentum as more ports in Fujian were opened. Chinese Land Records contain primary documentation of land ownership from year 1584 to 1978. It provides us information on at least two areas: 1) Land Market Tightness; and 2) Land Price. The frequency of land transaction before and during international trade era approximates the land market condition in Fujian, which also indirectly measures the rate of urbanization in Fujian. Together with the land price, which was an indicator of the relative strengths of demand and supply, a better portray of the urbanization process can be obtained. Using the two indices we constructed and other secondary sources, we can shed light on the relationship between openness of Fujian and its development.
KATHERINE CARLITZ, University of Pittsburgh
Chaste-Maiden Zhang in the Jiading County gazetteer: Martyrdom or Murder?
The death of Chaste Maiden Zhang in Jiading County, Jiangsu, is a story well-known to students of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), because of eloquent accounts by the Ming essayist Gui Youguang. The Chaste Maiden, as all agree, died in 1544. But how did she die? Here the historical sources are not in agreement, and this very disagreement points to the evolving role of county gazetteers in late imperial China. In the 1557 edition of the gazetteer, compiled by a local scholar who was not particularly prominent, Zhang’s death is described as a murder: her mother-in-law’s paramours, tired of the old lady, wanted the Chaste Maiden for themselves. When she resisted, they killed her. But in the 1605 Jiading gazetteer, when the county had grown more prosperous and its literati more conscious of their reputations, the Chaste Maiden was transformed from murder victim to virtuous suicide, motivated by shame at her mother-in-law’s behavior. New details continued to surface in Qing dynasty (1644-1911) editions, allowing us to watch the changing tone of Jiading County gazetteers as they responded to changing ideals over the course of several centuries.
HAIHUI ZHANG, University of Pittsburgh
Chinese Village Gazetteers: A New Source for Local History
Chinese local gazetteers (difangzhi) have been long recognized as an important primary source for the study of local history. This paper focuses on one particular genre of newly emerged local gazetteers, the village gazetteer (cunzhi). I will track its development, and discuss its characteristics and its research value for Chinese studies.
XIUYING ZOU, University of Pittsburgh
Open Access, Digital Humanities, and the Chinese Land Records Collection at the University of Pittsburgh
Over the past decade Open Access movement and digital humanities wave in libraries and academia have had profound impact on resources available and research methodology in humanities field. In the field of Chinese humanities, the many available open access resources greatly complement the print resources, which have traditionally being the main repertoire of sinologists. Furthermore, efforts in digital humanities have made rare and unique materials accessible to anybody and anywhere. It also greatly expanded the scope of humanity research, making more collaboration and innovation possible. This paper will review the open access movement as reflected in the Chinese humanities field, using the digitized Chinese land records collection at PITT as a case study.