No description available.

No description available.

The di-zi is a type of side-blown bamboo flute which has been popular in Chinese music for approximately 1500 years. The instrument is constructed from a special type of bamboo grown in the southern part of China. The di-zi is especially known for its buzz-like sound quality caused by the sympathetic vibration of a special membrane placed over a hole between the mouth hole and the upper-most finger hole. In order to allow for easier key and register changes, there are many different sizes and lengths of this instrument. Today, there are even di-zi that have head joints for easier tuning. / The long history and use of the instrument has been relatively well-documented in Chinese sources; however, there are few resources in English which are dedicated solely to this instrument. In addition, the few English sources on Chinese music give little information on the di-zi except for a physical description of the instrument. The purpose of this treatise is to expand on the English documentation of this instrument and to inform those living outside of China about its place in Chinese music. It is evident from my experience in both performing and teaching this instrument, that there is a strong interest in Chinese music in the west. The enthusiasm for the di-zi flute further proves the need for something to be written in English on this instrument, its historical development, playing technique, and performance practice. / In preparation for this treatise, I returned to China in the summer of 1992 in order to gather more resources and written documentation about the history of the di-zi. Because the instrument is so popular in Chinese music, it was important to include some interviews with performers and professors. Also, I visited several different Chinese musical instrument factories, in order to document the process of making the di-zi and to gather information on its maintenance and repair. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-12, Section: A, page: 4602. / Major Professor: Charles DeLaney. / Thesis (D.Mus.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This dissertation consists of six chapters: The first four chapters trace the history of Japanese piano music; the fifth chapter is a conclusion; and the last chapter is a complete list of 3,000 Japanese piano compositions written since the first Japanese piano piece was composed in 1900. The response of Japanese composers to Western-style music from the Meiji Restoration to the present is analogous to a transfusion: Japanese composers have accepted Western music while maintaining their cultural identity in an ever changing environment. The introduction of Western music through public school education at the beginning of the Meiji-period changed the function of music in Japan before Japanese composers could react to it creatively. The way that Japanese Western-style music has developed parallels other aspects of cultural Westernization: importation; absorption; and recreation. The borrowed musical forms eventually were transformed by combining them with the original characteristics of Japanese traditional music. It has taken more than one hundred years for the complete absorption of Western music into Japanese culture. The level of piano playing in Japan had improved dramatically from 1950 to 1970, and this is reflected in piano compositions in Japan. The first chapter relates Japanese history to Western music up to the first Japanese piano piece, which was composed in 1900. It examines the importation and development of Western ideas and culture into Japan from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century. The second chapter illustrates the flowering of vocal music which led the development of Western-style music in Japan from 1900 to 1926. The third chapter discusses piano music from the beginning of the Showa-period (1926-1989) to the end of World War II. In this period the level of Japanese compositions improved greatly and Japanese piano music entered the international stage. The fourth chapter concerns Japanese piano music in the post-war generation.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of East Asian Languages and Cultures, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 28, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-12, Section: A, page: 4833. Adviser: Richard Rubinger.

Dissertations on Asia and Australia's relations with Asia, either completed in 1999 or 2000 or in progress in 2000 in Australian universities. The list was compiled by Robert Elson from information supplied to the Asian Studies Association of Australia. Arranged by regions of Asia: general or comparative; Australia and Asia; East Asia; South Asia; Southeast Asia; West Asia. / Description based on contents viewed June 4, 2002; title from home page.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2708. Adviser: Kai-Wing Chow. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-239) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

In this thesis I use historical films to construct a social history of Japan's tumultuous interwar and wartime periods. I analyze filmic depictions of the Bakumatsu period (1853-1868), Japan's rocky transition to modernity, from the perspective of the audiences of 1925-1945, an era in which societal interest in representations of the Bakumatsu period soared. Methodologically, I use close visual analysis but move beyond an aesthetically-minded film studies approach to raise issues of audience reception, war and society, empire, sexuality and gender, censorship, urban spaces and popular culture in modern Japan. I have thereby intervened in the existing scholarship, which has either largely ignored films or focused overmuch on film's aesthetic merits. I seek to reclaim films, especially popular films, as historical sources. Close visual analysis illuminates aspects of visual texts that a solely historiographic approach might overlook. And a 'history-as-experience' focus on the audience, and the history of the period in which a given visual text was produced, is critical to the process of historical contextualization. The body of films I analyze offers vital evidence of then-current socio-cultural conditions and perspectives on history. I analyze commercially successful films, produced from 1925 to the war's end, in five chapters, on revisionism, comedy, serial history, hate the enemy films, and romances, respectively, and highlight the ambivalence of each type over the significance of the Bakumatsu period. Despite increasing pressure on the film industry to produce deadly serious hegemonic narratives supportive of the state and later the war effort, the hit films I examine contain many potentially subversive undercurrents. Their box office success indicates that covert resistance to Japan's militaristic course won favor with audiences. Those who lived through the 'dark valley' of 1925-1945 used Bakumatsu films to create a popular culture that was lighter in tone, and more resistant to state goals, than prior research on interwar Japan suggests. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

This thesis examines the significance of gold and silver in the process of political consolidation and socioeconomic change in Japan from 1550 to 1737. I argue that the role of precious metals in the transformation of early modern Japan demands reassessment for several reasons: (1) control of the gold and silver mines had a significant impact on the ability of the warring overlords to consolidate their rule; (2) possession of gold and silver was indispensable to the establishment of the Tokugawa hegemony, a stable polity that lasted for 260 years; (3) gold and silver facilitated Japan's rapid commercialization; (4) gold and especially silver drew Japan into the dynamic system of international trade, which constituted the newly emerging world system of economic interdependence; and, (5) Japan's withdrawal from the world market system in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was related to the large losses of silver due to exports and the decline in mining production.

Australian economic thought on tariffs underwent a remarkable transformation between the 1920s and 1970s. In the twenties a group of orthodox economists developed a cogent case for protection which endorsed the government's tariff policy. By the seventies however, the economics profession in Australia no longer supported this and advocated freer trade. This dissertation explains the evolutionary process in the intellectual history of that country during a fascinating period of economic development. It highlights the interaction between thought, policy, experience and changing circumstances. In analysing the social relevancy of that thought the impact of the economist upon policy is assessed. / The early case for protection overcame the shortcomings of the static orthodoxy by creatively combining the terms of trade effect, and in anticipation of the general form of the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, with an income distribution aspect, together with dynamic externalities. This model revealed that tariffs were an effective instrument of economic development for the Australian community. / As the institutional circumstances and state of development changed, so too did the intellectual support for the original model. In the light of the Keynesian fiscal revolution other tools became available and acceptable. Developments in the theory of domestic divergences from the mid-sixties onwards enabled free trade to become unencumbered from its nexus with laissez faire. / As the basis for the early model withered away, trade liberalization became an accepted objective. But a new debate appeared over the costs of structural adjustment particularly as pervasive unemployment from the mid-seventies onwards led to political intransigence. Thus unlike the early stages of the debate rifts appeared between the views of economists and politicians. / The social relevancy of economic thought on tariffs is a distinguishing feature throughout the period under review and the economists played an active role in policy formulation. The task remains for current Australian economists to continue this tradition by devising politically acceptable plans for reform which meaningfully integrate the present day institutional fabric of their society into their recommendations. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-03, Section: A, page: 1014. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.