This thesis is an in-depth analysis of beauty ideals in South Korea and India. These two countries have recently turned to skin lightening and cosmetic surgery in order to achieve their new beauty standards. Not only do these two countries share a propensity for those two trends, but they also have an overwhelming majority of the population that identifies with a specific religion; Hinduism in the case of India and Confucianism in the case of South Korea. However, it is not clear that the current beauty ideal in each country aligns with the beauty ideal set out in the respective foundational religion.

<p>My dissertation, "The People's Republic of Capitalism: The Making of the New Middle Class in Post-Socialist China, 1978-Present" draws on a range of visual cultural forms - cinema, documentary, and fashion - to track the cultural dimension of the emergence of the new middle class subject in China's encounter with global capitalism. Through cultural studies methodologies and critical theoretical practices, I explore the massive reorganization of national subjectivity that has accompanied the economic reforms since 1978. How, I ask, has the middle class replaced the proletariat as the dominant subject of Chinese history? What are the competing social forces that contribute to the making of the new middle class subject, and how do they operate? By considering these questions in terms of the cultural cultivation of new sensibilities as much as identities, I trace China's changing social formations through the realm of cultural productions. This project is organized into three parts, each of which attends to a particular constellation of middle class subjectivities and ideologies. In Part I (Introduction and Chapter 1), I explore how the Chinese middle class subject is shaped by historical, political-economic, and cultural forces. I show that the new social actor is structurally dependent on the national and transnational bourgeoisie and the post-socialist party-state. In Part II (Chapters 2-5), I focus on the relationship among fashion, media, and Chinese consumer culture in the socialist and post-socialist eras. By engaging with films such as Xie Tieli's Never Forget (1964), Huang Zumo's Romance on Lushan (1980), Qi Xingjia's Red Dress is in Fashion (1984), and Jia Zhangke's The World (2004) and Useless (2007), I suggest that the representation of fashion and consumption in Chinese cinema, documentary, and new media is a privileged site for deciphering otherwise imperceptible meanings of class, ideology, and history in the formation of the Chinese middle class subject. In Part III (Chapter 6), I attend to the repressed underside of Chinese consumer culture: rubbish. This project reorients our understanding of socialist and post-socialist China, seeing them as underpinned by the contradictions emblematized in the Chinese middle class.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis attempts to provide a brief historical outline of the environmental movement in Taiwan and the unique political situation that has directly affected how the movement has progressed. Thereafter, it looks at some examples of environmental disputes that have occurred in recent years, paying special attention to the ways the environmental movement has interacted with the government. This provides the background to frame the analysis, which will shed light on the reasons for the current state of distrust and antagonistic interactions between the environmental movement and the government. Finally, the thesis evaluates whether such interactions with the government is helpful for the environmental movement in achieving its goals, while suggesting other possible models of environmentalism in Taiwan.

In Hong Kong, 'green living' (luksik saangwut) is promoted as a way of living that is kind to the Earth and good to the people. It is a grassroots movement that encourages people to take personal responsibility for the environment and the society at large. While most studies of Asia's environmental movements focus on green groups' lobbying tactics and mobilisation strategies, this thesis pays serious attention to individuals' experience of living a green life. Although Hong Kong's green culture is highly influenced by the global appeal to sustainability and environmental protection, its specificities are shaped by the city's social and political climate in a unique historical conjuncture. By focusing on individual experience and their practices of green living in the everyday, I argue that green living in Hong Kong is best understood as 'technologies of the self' wherein new environmental, social, and political subjectivities are formed among the ordinary people. The perceived reciprocity between the act of healing nature and the healing power of nature is an essential element in the formation of green subjectivity in Hong Kong. Not only does green living help people heal and transform themselves, it has also given rise to an embodied politics (santai likhang) that enables people to reimagine a social and political 'otherwise'. Such embodied politics has come to represent a politics of hope that empowers people to confront with the politics of fear that has been looming over Hong Kong since the former British colony was returned to China in 1997. In light of this background, I argue that what the Hong Kong people want to sustain is not just the natural environment, but also the social norms and the ways of living that are thought to distinguish themselves from their counterparts in mainland China.

The thesis is set against the backdrop of literary Chinese as the cosmopolitan written language across East Asia and examines two contemporary literary Chinese writers in the ninth century: Ch'oe Ch'iwǒn from Silla Korea and Sugawara no Michizane from Heian Japan. Though composition in Chinese characters on the peninsula and the archipelago was ancient, a high-water mark within this community appeared in the ninth century. At that time, literary Chinese was embraced by mainstream literati as the medium for poetry and prose, and competent composition in this international written language came to have political as well as cultural significance. The importance of Ch'oe Ch'iwǒn and Sugawara no Michizane as the great masters of Chinese letters in Korea and Japan derives in part from their talents and in part from the social and political acceptance of Chinese. This comparative research primarily draws inspiration from Sheldon Pollock's comparison of the Sanskrit cosmopolis and the Latin cosmopolis. Pollock describes the Latin cosmopolis as coercive and the Sanskrit cosmopolis as voluntaristic. I argue that the history of literary Chinese in East Asia provides a third cosmo-political model for the history of interactions among language, literature, and cultural and military power. The literary Chinese cosmopolis can be characterized not as coercive or voluntaristic but as hegemonic. I compare Ch'oe Ch'iwǒn and Sugawara no Michizane for their cosmopolitan identities, transnational experiences, and diglossic worlds. Though there is debate over the appropriateness of the terms "diglossia," "Chinese cosmopolis," and "Sinographic cosmopolis" to describe the world in which Ch'oe and Michizane lived, I argue in favor of "literary Chinese cosmopolis," because I pay attention to the common grammar, syntax, and other linguistic features one must bear in mind when composing in literary Chinese (as opposed to reading). Localism produced vernaculars, but the unity of the community was based on composition in a cosmopolitan language. That cosmopolitan language was literary Chinese, a hyperglossic language, a language that allowed universal communication in East Asia. Intersecting with various disciplines and bringing several critical fields into conversation, this work contests and refreshes a series of key issues at the heart of discussions on globalization, namely the intrinsic relationship between language and power. How does cultural power emerge from language? How does writing in a "foreign" script articulate ethnic, local identities? As a meditation on language politics, ethics, and the historical situation of an earlier cosmopolitan ecumene (ninth century CE), this work will, I hope, offer insights into the specificities and mechanisms of a past cosmopolitan era in East Asia, even as it establishes a broader historical and ethical context for contemporary debates on globalization.

abstract: ABSTRACT Cyberbullying has emerged as one of educators' and researchers' chief concerns as the use of computer mediated communication (CMC) has become ubiquitous among young people. Many undesirable outcomes have been identified as being linked to both traditional and cyberbullying, including depression,truancy, and suicide. America and Japan have both been identified as nations whose youth engage frequently in the use of CMC, and may be at a potentially higher risk to be involved in cyberbullying. Time spent using CMC has been linked to involvement in cyberbullying, and gender and age have, in turn, been linked to CMC use - these may play significant roles in determining who is at risk. In order to assess the effects of nationality, gender, and age on cyberbullying involvement among Japanese and American middle school students, a survey exploring these factors was developed and carried out with 590 American and Japanese middles school students (Japan: n = 433 and America: n = 157). MANOVA results indicated that that Americans tend to both use CMC more and be more involved in cyberbullying. In addition, Japanese involvement increased with age, while American involvement did not. There were minimal differences between Americans and Japanese with regards to traditional bullying. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Educational Psychology 2011

abstract: The following dissertation provides perspectives on the social, political, economic, and academic influences on language use, and particularly heritage language use, within the Filipino American community. What is the nature of language in this community? In what ways does language exist or co-exist? The hypothesis that autochthonous Filipino languages in the United States cease to be spoken in favor of English by Filipino Americans was tested through mixed methods of research. Literature and databases were reviewed which provided information concerning statistics, issues, and policies relating to language in Filipino America. Field research and interviews were conducted in which language use was of key interest. Results varied individually and contextually. Language seems to exist within the Filipino American community on a dynamic continuum. Immigrant Filipino Americans appear to be bilingual and multilingual. Second generation Filipino Americans tend to be English dominant with a range of bilingualism. The California Department of Education (CDOE) appears to foster bilingualism / multilingualism through its World Languages Departments (secondary education level), by offering language courses, such as Tagalog-based Filipino. Efforts to maintain non-English, Filipino languages in Arizona are less conspicuous, but they do exist primarily in familial and entrepreneurial ways. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2011

abstract: Sacred apocalyptic texts claim to foretell coming events, warning the faithful of some terrible fate that lies beyond the present. Such texts often derive their power from successfully recasting past events in such a way as they appear to be "predicted" by the text and thus take on additional meanings beyond the superficial. This ex eventu status allows apocalyptic texts to increase the credibility of their future predictions and connect emotionally with the reader by playing on present fears. The fifth-century Daoist apocalyptic text, the Scripture on the Cycles of Heaven and Earth (Tiandi yundu jing, &#22825;&#22320;&#36939;&#24230;&#32147;), is no exception. This thesis examines the apocalyptic markers in the poetic sections of the text, attempting to develop a strategy for separating the generic imagery (both to Chinese texts and the apocalyptic literary genre as a whole) from the more significant recoverable references to contemporary events such as the fall of the Jin dynasty and the subsequent founding of the Liu-Song dynasty. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. East Asian Languages and Civilizations 2011

abstract: Kiran Nagarkar, who won the Sahitya Akedemi Award in India for his English language writing, is a man who attracts controversy. Despite the consistent strength of his literary works, his English novels have become a lightning rod - not because they are written in English, but because Nagarkar was a well-respected Marathi writer before he began writing in English. Although there are other writers who have become embroiled in the debate over the politics of discourse, the response to Nagarkar's move from Marathi and his subsequent reactions perfectly illustrate the repercussions that accompany such dialectical decisions. Nagarkar has been accused of myriad crimes against his heritage, from abandoning a dedicated readership to targeting more profitable Western markets. Careful analysis of his writing, however, reveals that his novels are clearly written for a diverse Indian audience and offer few points of accessibility for Western readers. Beyond his English language usage, which is actually intended to provide readability to the most possible Indian nationals, Nagarkar also courts a variegated Indian audience by developing upon traditional Indian literary conceits and allusions. By composing works for a broad Indian audience, which reference cultural elements from an array of Indian ethnic groups, Nagarkar's writing seems to push toward the development of the seemingly impossible: a novel that might unify India, and present such a cohesive cultural face to the world at large. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. English 2011

abstract: The Vimalakirti Sutra is one of the classics of early Indian Mahayana Buddhism. The sutra narrates that Vimalakirti, an enlightened layman, once made it appear as if he were sick so that he could demonstrate the Law of Mahayana Buddhism to various figures coming to inquire about his illness. This dissertation studies representations of The Vimalakirti Sutra in Chinese painting from the fourth to the nineteenth centuries to explore how visualizations of the same text could vary in different periods of time in light of specific artistic, social and religious contexts. In this project, about forty artists who have been recorded representing the sutra in traditional Chinese art criticism and catalogues are identified and discussed in a single study for the first time. A parallel study of recorded paintings and some extant ones of the same period includes six aspects: text content represented, mode of representation, iconography, geographical location, format, and identity of the painter. This systematic examination reveals that two main representational modes have formed in the Six Dynasties period (220-589): depictions of the Great Layman as a single image created by Gu Kaizhi, and narrative illustrations of the sutra initiated by Yuan Qian and his teacher Lu Tanwei. The latter mode, which became more popular than the former in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), experienced adaptation from handscroll to panoramic mural. It is also during this period that a minor scenario, the Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers, became a necessary vignette for representation of the sutra. Since the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers gradually became an independent theme. This author investigates the thematic shift caused by various factors. These include the transformation of later Chinese narrative painting and the prevalence of shinu hua &#20181;&#22899;&#30059;, painting of beauties, in later Chinese painting. There is also a change in the role of the Heavenly Maiden from one of many maidens to the only and necessary partner of Vimalakirti. Ultimately, the image of the Heavenly Maiden evolves from a Buddhist heavenly being to a Daoist fairy and later to a symbol representing auspicious meanings. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Art History 2011