Since 1960 Ikeda Daisaku has been the leader of Soka Gakkai, one of the largest lay Buddhist movements in the world. He is also the founder of Japan's third largest political party, the Komeito, and of two universities, including Soka University of America in California. Millions of people in Japan today and hundreds of thousands outside it consider themselves his disciples. How has Ikeda been able to attract such a large number of devout followers?

Mixed languages are somewhat amorphous: they are little understood and difficult to recognize. Because of this, they are under-studied and under-represented in the field of contact linguistics, despite being recognized as a clear language “type.” Pidgins and creoles receive a lot of attention, even by non-linguists, leaving mixed languages under-documented. These bilingual languages lie between an in-group linguistic code and a creole. Only three mixed languages are universally agreed upon in the literature; however, many others have been suggested.

Degung kawih have been defined as modern, popular songs performed as interludes by female singers (sinden) within Sundanese rod-puppet performances. After the 1950s and ‘60s “heyday” of the sinden, Sundanese composer Nano Suratno, inspired by the desire to make gamelan and other traditional Sundanese instruments appealing to the post-New Order West Javanese youth, began to compose in innovative hybrid styles that deliberately emphasized aspects of Western music within gamelan performance.

Beginning with the Analects of Confucius, political writings in early China (ca. fifth- to first-century B.C.) are populated with accounts of individuals, historical or fictional, who are both homeless and stateless. Implicit in the articulation of this new space outside of the family and the state is a new humanism, a new understanding of the historical agency and responsibility of individuals, that will come to be the site of contention on which the first empires in early China, namely the Qin and Han dynasties, eventually emerged.

Chinese women’s gender identity in the global workplace in contemporary China is a complex phenomenon. Based on data collected via in-depth interviews, participant observations and focus group discussions, Sun explores the relationship between gender identity of female white-collar workers and their working experiences in foreign companies in China. She examines how different forces from foreign companies, popular culture and women’s own experiences commingle to define these women’s gender identity.

On January 15th, 1924, a maidservant in Beijing was murdered at the home of her employer, a bank accountant named Shen Ruihong and his wife. The case became a protracted legal battle as police, prosecutors, and the Shens’ defense lawyers argued different theories of Mrs. Shen’s involvement in the murder on the basis of divergent interpretations of fingerprints and blood stains found at the crime scene.

When China was recovering from the mid-nineteenth century rebellions, Sichuan assumed a special position in the expanding fiscal system of the Qing government. The province developed from a poor frontier region into a major contributor to both central government revenue and interprovincial assistance after the 1860s. Different from other regions, however, a large part of this increase in provincial revenue came not from new commercial taxes but from land tax surcharges. But how was the provincial government able to raise these surcharges?

July 1, 2011 was the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); meanwhile the day also marked the climax of a nation-wide craze of “singing red songs.” The “red songs” (traditionally called “revolutionary songs”) praise, compliment and commemorate the CCP and various revolutions led by the Party. In major cities of China, state-run danwei (work units) organized professional and amateur choirs to perform “red songs” celebrating the CCP’s birthday.

We are approaching a decade of formal democracy in Afghanistan. What is the state of democracy in the country? To what extent do Afghans support democratic institutions and the state more generally? Are there differences between attitudes toward national and local governing institutions? What role does informal governance play? This talk will examine results of a large mixed-methods research project in Afghanistan that explores individual attitudes toward the state and other political institutions in the country.

A symposium by the PA Governor's Advisory Commission on Asian American Affairs and the PA Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED)

Learn about the DCED and its economic development capabilities for Pittsburgh companies.
Network with DCED trade representatives
- Peter O’Neill, Executive Director for the DCED’s Center for Trade Development
- Trade representatives from India, China, Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore
Sunday, September 16, 2012
3 – 4:30 pm
Duquesne University
Rockwell Hall, 5th Floor Room 505 (map: http://www.duq.edu/about/map.cfm)