This dissertation studies the writing of fiction in modern China from 1937 to 1949 in the three politically-divided areas: the Nationalist-controlled area, the Communist-dominated region, and the Japanese-occupied districts (before 1945), under the framework of “contested modernities” (the capitalist, the colonialist, and the socialist). Works of fiction here are explored as fundamentally cultural responses to the social, political, and historical experience. Therefore, it appreciates the dialectics of the content-form of these works as expressions, manifestations, and articulations of the contending modernities that competed against each other during that era. Methodologically, this project combines the application of the theory of “field of cultural production” promoted by Pierre Bourdieu, with the approach of historical/political hermeneutics as advocated by Fredric Jameson. The three areas set the stage for cultural productions of differing ideological tendencies. In this context, fiction is a testing ground for various versions and visions of “new cultures” of Chinese modernities. Here, we treat “1940s China” as a social-cultural space and “fiction” as a literary and intellectual institution in which various visions of “new cultures” expressed themselves. “Style” or “form” then becomes a socially symbolic, political action in which writers’ search for social and symbolic certainty was incarnated. Part I, “Negotiating with the Nightmarish Modern,” explores writers from the Japanese-occupied areas. The first chapter studies the relationship between the experience of exile and Xiao Hong’s war-time diasporic literature. The second chapter explores the middle-brow boudoir literature from Shanghai. In particular, it studies the works by Zhang Ailing. Part II, “Rethinking the Disjointed Modern,” investigates the Nationalist-controlled regions. The so-called “neo-romanticist” writers Wumingshi and Xu Xu, as well as the famed writer of the “July School” Lu Ling, are its objects of study. The third part, “Contending for a New Modern,” takes as its object of research writings from the Communist-controlled area. It looks into the “peasant writer” Zhao Shuli’s stories and the works by the May-Fourth-writer-turned-Communist-intellectual, Ding Ling. The study not only substantiates the argument that in modern China, the search for a new subjectivity was undertaken through conquering the identity crisis of the “new man” and “new woman,” but also testifies to the fact that this “control of the form” was simultaneously a symbolic action that articulated the anxiety of the intellectuals about becoming a new, modern Chinese. Put in other way, this search for a new identity is premised upon the establishment of a new subjectivity, which was an integral part of the project of building various “new cultures.” Through a practice of political hermeneutics of fictional texts and social-historical subtexts, this dissertation shows that social modernity and literary modernity intertwined and interacted with each other in the development of modern Chinese literature / text

The crisis of the Chinese nation in the early twentieth century compelled May Fourth intellectuals to search for a modern self in order to modernize and strengthen the nation. They did so by self-consciously experimenting with literary forms and genres, from which the first-person narratives arose. This thesis explores how particular formal or generic characteristics produce, problematize, or even impede the formation of a modern self modeled on the Western Enlightenment notions of the self as autonomous, coherent, and bounded. I argue that despite the two authors’ attempt to create an aspirational modern self, the selves constructed in the two texts are always fragile, split and fragmented. It not only reveals the limits of the Western Enlightenment epistemology of the self but also a more complicated processes of how the concepts of the self and subjectivity, as discursive constructs, are contested and negotiated in particular historical circumstance and social reality.

Strategic management is getting important for performing arts groups. Strategic planning for an organization brings steady and sustainable development for the organization. The researcher has observed Kaohsiung City Chinese Orchestra for a long time, and has found that KCCO is facing challenges in both positioning and development: namely, fund application, personnel hiring and evaluation, marketing strategy, and R&D. The aim of the study is to find an efficient management strategy for the Orchestra. This research is based on strategic management, with Hofer and Schendel strategic management level being main structure, merging Nutt and Backoff, Wright, Kroll and Parnell and Robbins and DeCenzo strategic management steps, adding Porter's Five Competitive Forces analysis in the external environment scans, and combining SiTu DaXian's analytical elements in corporate look. The researcher tries to analyze KCCO¡¦s management mode by doing action research and implementing strategic action self-criticism and assessment. The researcher hopes to develop a long-term strategy and find the most favorable operational mode for KCCO. There are three parts in this study: (1) Understanding the purpose of the establishment of KCCO (2) Conducting an internal and external environment scan to identify challenges (3) Planning strategic actions according to strategic issues, suggesting strategic directions and actions, and assessing the effects. This study uses the method of interviewing, participant observation, and analyzing KCCO¡¦s documents. This research, a case study, analyzes KCCO¡¦s operation mode and finds the problems. The researcher uses operable research strategies to do action research and designs interview materials and questionnaires, then analyzes random sampling questionnaires. Finally the conclusion is proved through triangulation. This thesis has five chapters. Chapter One is the introduction, which includes research background, research motivation, research objective, theory structure, research contribution and chapter outline. This chapter explains the backgrounds of Taiwan¡¦s professional Chinese classical orchestras so that we may better understand the orchestras¡¦ development. Chapter Two collects relevant documents and materials of strategic management and sums up research theory and structure. Chapter Three, the research model, includes research problems, research procedures, research field, research object, material collecting, material analysis, and research constraints & limitations. Chapter four elaborates on KCCO¡¦s background and analyzes KCCO¡¦s management present situation in terms of organization framework, source and allocation of funds, program contents, ways of marketing, and R&D. Chapter Five includes strategic directions, issues, execution and assessment, conclusion and suggestions. This research finds that there is room for KCCO¡¦s development in its positioning, funds, professional administration, program designing, brand building, marketing, audience development, extending education, and music reinforcement, all of which will enable KCCO to fulfill its mission: ¡§Get a foothold in Kaohsiung, extend all over Taiwan, and set the eyes on the world.¡¨

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

This thesis provides a historical review of the theoretical and practical influence of Protestant missionaries on the late Qing Chinese language reformers. The origins of the language reform movement have always been concealed in historical records. The missionaries’ contribution to this movement has almost entirely been forgotten. With a focus on the key figures in the language reform movement, including W.A. P. Martin, John Macgowan, Joseph Edkins, Lu Zhuangzhang, and Wang Bingyao, this thesis attempts to demonstrate the similarities between the missionaries’ views on the Chinese language and those of their Chinese assistants. The Chinese reformers’ imitations of the missionaries’ language experiments are also outlined. In the historical context of late Qing China, the Chinese reformers made language reform a way of enhancing the national strength of China. Thus, they made modifications to the original Romanized system and invented their own written forms of phonetic characters. With reference to the collaborations between China and the West, the thesis emphasizes Western influence as one of the crucial aspects of the origin of the language reform movement in China. This movement is still ongoing today with the widespread use of the pinyin input method in computers and smartphones. The thesis is divided into two chapters, analysing both the theoretical and the practical dimensions of language reform. It demonstrates how the missionaries’ critique of the perceived defects of the Chinese language and their practice of changing the linguistic situation in China strongly affected the views and practice of the Chinese reformers. It also offers a critical analysis of the Chinese reformers’ rationale, including their eagerness to advance the modernity of China. The first chapter discusses their views on the defects of the Chinese language in terms of its ideographic features, chaotic grammatical structure, and the discrepancy between speech and writing; it examines how their statements, proposals, and debates on these issues amounted to a discursive formation that defined the classical Chinese language as an inadequate instrument for China’s modernization project. I argue that the Chinese reformers accepted the missionaries’ phonocentric critique of the Chinese language and recognized the need to reform it in order to revitalize Chinese civilization. Through an examination of the genealogy of the missionaries’ influence on the practice of the early Chinese language reformers, particularly Lu Zhuangzhang and Wang Bingyao, I argue in the second chapter that the early stage of language reform in China sought its embodiment in the missionaries’ language practice: it was carried out through a combination of defence, argument, and negotiation between the Chinese reformers and the missionaries, eventually resulting in a compromise between reforming the language and preserving the cultural essence of China. With the knowledge and institutions that had been produced, the reformers’ final objective was to increase the literacy rate of the Chinese population, as this would thus strengthen the power of China as a modern nation-state. Finally, by revisiting the historical contribution of the late Qing language reformers, I argue that language reform in China is an unfinished project. / published_or_final_version / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

This study is based on an exhaustive analysis of 1,500 Russian words that have been borrowed from the Russian lexicon into Modern Chinese.The purpose of this study is in part to provide a scientific basis for the formulation of the standardisation of the Chinese language.The fact that at present there is no standard method by which foreign words are borrowed into Chinese is problematic because it gives rise to confusion amongst Chinese speakers. It is hoped that this study can begin to clarify such methods, and also limit potential abuses of lexical borrowing that do not accord with the linguistic principles of the Modern Chinese language. In addressing these issues this study covered eight forms of borrowing that exist in Modern Chinese borrowings.In effect these eight forms all stem from either phonetic, semantic or direct transplantation forms of borrowing.This thesis has also discussed many of the linguistic difficulties, and their resolutions, that arise in the process of borrowing.It has also highlighted several aspects of lexical borrowing that have not been addressed in previous literature, and suggested creative ways in which these issues could be addressed in the future. It is hoped that the content of this thesis is able to form part of the process of providing a reference for the formulation of an official Chinese language policy. / Master of Arts (Hons)

This study consist of a comparative analysis of the nostalgic female characters in Pai Hsien-yung's two short stories: "Wandering in a Garden, Waking from a Dream," and "A Celestial in Mundane Exile," and Tennessee Williams's two plays: The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. Beginning with a brief discussion of the socio-historical background of Pai's Republican China and Williams's American South, a general analysis of previous scholarship on Pai and Williams's works follows. The analysis of the selected works focuses on the stylistic and symbolic features in Pai and Williams's characterizations, such as Pai's use of stream-of-consciousness, reference to the k'un opera Peony Pavilion, elaboration over descriptive details of the setting, symbolic use of clothing and accessories, and Williams's symbolic use of music genres: "Blues Piano" and the "Varsouviana Polka," and his use of rhythm and other poetic elements in his characters' speech, in the style of "personal lyricism." My study is based on a close-reading analysis of the selected works by Pai and Williams. Their humanistic approach to their respective declining aristocratic cultures and their sympathy for the nostalgic female characters' tragedies will be more apparent when the study focuses mostly on the texts themselves. Their similar belief in the universal values, such as compassion, sacrifice, and courage, has made their works comparable. In the discussion of themes, the idea of the humanistic role of literature articulated by William Faulkner in his Nobel Prize Speech is also used to connect Pai and Williams's sympathetic approach to their characters.

Hu Shi began the modern Chinese New Poetry movement by calling for the liberation of poetic forms, but what constitutes "form" and how best to approach its liberation have remained difficult issues, as the apparent material, objective reality of literary form is shown to be deeply embedded both culturally and historically. This dissertation presents five movements of the dialectic between form and history, each illustrated by case studies drawn from the theory and practice of modern Chinese poetry: first, the highly political and self-contradictory demand for linguistic transparency; second, the discourse surrounding poetic obscurity and alternative approaches to the question of "meaning"; third, a theory of poetry based on its musicality and a reading practice that emphasizes sameness over difference; four, poetry's status as "untranslatable" as against Chinese poetry's reputation as "already translated"; and fifth, the implications of an "iconic" view of poetic language. By reading a selection of poets and schools through the lens of their approaches to form, I allow the radical difference within the tradition to eclipse the more familiar contrast of modern Chinese poetry with its foreign and pre-modern others. My dissertation represents a preliminary step towards a historically-informed formalism in the study of modern Chinese literature. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

This study consist of a comparative analysis of the nostalgic female characters in Pai Hsien-yung's two short stories: "Wandering in a Garden, Waking from a Dream," and "A Celestial in Mundane Exile," and Tennessee Williams's two plays: The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. Beginning with a brief discussion of the socio-historical background of Pai's Republican China and Williams's American South, a general analysis of previous scholarship on Pai and Williams's works follows. The analysis of the selected works focuses on the stylistic and symbolic features in Pai and Williams's characterizations, such as Pai's use of stream-of-consciousness, reference to the k'un opera Peony Pavilion, elaboration over descriptive details of the setting, symbolic use of clothing and accessories, and Williams's symbolic use of music genres: "Blues Piano" and the "Varsouviana Polka," and his use of rhythm and other poetic elements in his characters' speech, in the style of "personal lyricism." My study is based on a close-reading analysis of the selected works by Pai and Williams. Their humanistic approach to their respective declining aristocratic cultures and their sympathy for the nostalgic female characters' tragedies will be more apparent when the study focuses mostly on the texts themselves. Their similar belief in the universal values, such as compassion, sacrifice, and courage, has made their works comparable. In the discussion of themes, the idea of the humanistic role of literature articulated by William Faulkner in his Nobel Prize Speech is also used to connect Pai and Williams's sympathetic approach to their characters.