Wang, Xueju. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 255-269). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese; some appendixes in Chinese.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Portuguese

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of History

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of History

The city of Shanghai was transformed from a treaty port of around half a million people when the British first arrived after the end of the Opium War to become the most populous, prosperous, and cosmopolitan metropolis in China by the early 20th century. The development of public transportation systems contributed significantly to the urban expansion and growth of the city, as well as in reshaping the city's identity. This dissertation examined the impact of public transportation on the urban landscape of Shanghai by focusing on three major issues: "tradition versus modernity", state and society relations, and the relationship between technology and society. As a divided city governed by three separate political jurisdictions, Shanghai offered a unique perspective in understanding the roles public transportation and urban planning played in changing a city's layout. This dissertation addressed the specific differences in the development of urban infrastructure and its impact on population growth, mobility and accessibility, and economic prosperity of the British controlled International Settlement, the French Concession, and the Chinese city. The first half of the dissertation analyzed the roles in which "traditional" man-powered vehicles such as the wheelbarrow, sedan chair, horse-drawn carriage, and rickshaw played, before delving into the arrival of "modern" machine-powered vehicles such as automobiles, trams, trolleys, and buses in the early 20th century. Each form of transportation vehicle is discussed for its specific role, and the type of clientele it catered. This dissertation argued that man-powered vehicles and machine-powered vehicles did not necessarily compete with each other for passengers, as each type of vehicle served its specific purposes and clients. Public transportation; just like food, clothing, or housing is a form of material culture where one's socioeconomic or class status is revealed by the type of transport one chooses. Because the different types of vehicles did not directly compete with each other, they all saw significant increases in ridership. The 'tradition versus modernity" theme is aimed at addressing the bigger picture of "continuity and change", where Shanghai was transformed by foreign influences yet at the same time it still retained traditional Chinese characteristics to form a complex identity. The second half of the dissertation dealt with state and society relations, and the relationship of technology and society. The issue of public versus private responsibility is addressed with historical analysis of government orchestrated urban planning and the private sector providing the services to fulfill the people's needs and demands. In focusing on these two themes, this dissertation argued that technology has inherent political agenda attached to it, as government policies specifically created areas of the city which had better public transportation infrastructure, which led to these parts of the city being more commercially prosperous and vibrant than others. Routes, lines, and stops were designated with specific political purposes in mind, and public transportation accessibility contributed to the uneven economic developments across the city. The Greater Shanghai Project of 1927-1937 was a specific attempt by the Chinese government to create a new city center that could shift the population away from the foreign concessions into the Chinese territories. This dissertation argued that this campaign would not have been feasible even without the Japanese attack due to insufficient public funds. The findings in this dissertation will hopefully add to the scholarship on the history of Shanghai and the history of technology in China.

published_or_final_version / History / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

This dissertation investigates Chinese women's rhetorical practices in the early twentieth century. Tracing the formation and development of a new rhetoric in China, I examine women's writings that were denigrated in the May Fourth period. I argue that as an important part of the new rhetoric, women's texts explored women's issues and created the modern self in the May Fourth period by critiquing a patriarchal tradition that excluded women's experiences from its articulation.I begin by challenging the assumptions that rhetoric is a Western male phenomenon. Situating my study in the area of comparative rhetoric, I critique the previous scholarship in the field and delineate the research methodologies used in this dissertation. In Chapter 2 I locate women's rhetorical practices within the specific social and historical contexts of the May Fourth period. I contend that the May Fourth women's literary texts are rhetorical, considering the different conception of rhetoric in the Chinese rhetorical tradition as well as the social impact these texts created at that historical juncture. In Chapter 3 I extrapolate Lu Yin's feminist rhetorical theory and practice from her sanwen (essays) and fiction. I argue that by emphasizing tongqing (sympathy) in her literary theory, Lu Yin's discourse offers an example of how gendered and culturally specific rhetorical concepts and strategies influence the reader and exert social changes. Chapter 4 provides a case study of Bing Xin, another well-known woman writer in the May Fourth period. I argue that by advocating a "philosophy of love" throughout her lyrical essays and fiction, Bing Xin injected a distinctive female voice in the male-dominated discourse in which women and children were either belittled or silenced. Bing Xin's view of writing as expressing the writer's individuality as well as her unique feminine prose style transformed this classical genre into a more vigorous rhetorical form. Using my case studies as reference, I conclude by drawing out the implications of Chinese women's rhetorical experiences for the studies of rhetoric and comparative rhetoric. I show how such a cross-cultural study of particular rhetorics can help further our exploration of human rhetorical practices in general.

This study explores some of the urban visions inherent in Japanese colonial modernity in Manchuria and how they represented important aspects of the self-consciously modernizing Japanese state. Perceiving the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun as a tabula rasa upon which to erect new and sweeping conceptions of the built environment, Japanese used the city as a practical laboratory to create two distinct and idealized urban milieus, each appropriate to a particular era. From 1905 to 1932 Changchun served as a key railway town through which the Japanese orchestrated informal empire; between 1932 and 1945 the city became home to a grandiose, new Asian capital. Yet while the facades the town and later the capital—as well as the attitudes of the state they upheld—contrasted markedly, the shifting styles of planning and architecture consistently attempted to represent Japanese rule as progressive, beneficent, and modern. More than an attempt to legitimize empire through paternalistic care, however, Japanese perceptions of these built environments demonstrate deeper significance. Although Japanese intended Changchun's two built environments to appeal to subject populations, more fundamentally they were designed to appeal to Japanese sensibilities in order to effect change in Japan itself. Imperialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries involved policies of dominance and exploitation that included a range of endeavors central to the creation of contemporary societies. It is in part because Japanese believed they were acting progressively in places like Changchun that many Japanese in the postwar era have had difficulty acknowledging the entirety of Japanese activities on the mainland in the first half of the twentieth century.

This study demonstrates the flexible nature of relations between “peripheral” polities imperial “core” polities. The decentralized nature of the Mongol and Iroquois confederacies enabled them to dictate terms during negotiations with the Ming dynasty or British, respectively, giving them a higher degree of agency in their relations. Comparing the experiences of the Mongols and Iroquois provides a better understanding of how indigenous confederacies acted and reacted under similar circumstances. Likewise, this study aims to demonstrate the capacity for “peripheral” confederacies to resist, selectively adapt, and negotiate with “core” empires. / Confederacy in action -- Iroquois historiography -- Mongol historiography -- Social structures and foundation myths -- "Relative" relations. / Department of History