<p> This dissertation attempts to examine Chinese realist novels (novellas) flourishing in the transitional period between Mao&rsquo;s era and post-Mao era (1976-1984). This period, rarely explored in English-speaking academia, constitutes a critical site to understand the social and cultural transformation from socialist to post-socialist China and to study the &ldquo;individual&rdquo; newly formed in that period whose influence continues to shape today&rsquo;s China. By looking into realist novels, my research attempts to understand this social change and the historical construction of an individual subject distinct from both the human subject conceptualized in the socialist realism in Mao&rsquo;s era and the bourgeois individual in the 19th century European Realism. Realist novels, which opened a textual space for social imagination in a liminal period, undertook the role of creating a life-world of post-socialist China with its mimetic and critical function, thus launching another &ldquo;cultural revolution&rdquo; immediately following the ending of Mao&rsquo;s &ldquo;Cultural Revolution.&rdquo; The main body of my research consists of the analysis of three sub-genres&mdash;Enlightenment fiction (Chapter One), humanist fiction (Chapter Two) and peasant&rsquo;s fiction (Chapter Three), each corresponding respectively to political subject, aesthetic subject and economic subject. The dissertation will show how the enlightenment subject, Kantian subjectivity and &ldquo;persona economicus&rdquo; reinvigorated in these fictional imaginations. However, it was also a period in which all these newly constructed &ldquo;myths&rdquo; of subject were pressed to meet their internal limits which led to their ineluctable dissolution. This was due to the emergence of the &ldquo;wild individual,&rdquo; for example, we can detect the terrifying unrestrained desire of lower class that participated in the discursive formation of the autonomous subject and we can detect the anxiety caused by the accumulation of capital even in the overall optimistic narrative of peasant&rsquo;s literature.</p><p>

The Indian labor diaspora that settled in Malaya, now known as Malaysia, was a diaspora that was used to further colonial ambitions. Large scale agricultural projects required a workforce that Malaya did not have. South Indian peasants from the untouchable Madrasi caste were taken to Malaya, initially, as indentured servants. When indenture was abolished, they were engaged as contract workers. Inferiority and backwardness were common colonial perceptions that were held against them. These laborers were exploited by the British as they had no bargaining power or the ability to demand more than a meager wage. World War II redefined the way these laborers started to view the British. Having suffered defeat in the hands of the Japanese, the colonial power retreated meekly. This was a significant development as it removed the veil of British dominance in the eyes of a formerly docile people. When the British returned to Malaya after the war, it was a more defiant Indian labor community who greeted them. These wanted more concessions. They wanted citizenship, better wages and living conditions. They wanted a future that did not retain them on the rubber estates but one where they could finally shed their subaltern roots and achieve upward mobility. This new defiance was met with antagonism by the colonial power whose main concern was to get the lucrative but stalled rubber industry up and running again. The destitution and impoverishment suffered by the Indians during the war was ignored as they were rounded up like cattle to be put to work again on the estates. When their demands were not met, Indian laborers joined forces with the heavily Communist influenced Chinese migrant community to go on strikes, the strongest weapon they had at their disposal. The creation of the All Malayan Rubber Workers' Council, a predominantly Indian trade union, is essential in showing how Indian labor became a threat to the British that they eventually had to retaliate with draconian military suppression through the imposition of the Emergency in 1948. Archival material from the Malaysian National Archives, The National Archives of the United Kingdom, the Labor History and Archive Study Center at the People's History Museum in the United Kingdom, and the Hull History Center in the United Kingdom, were analyzed to present an alternate narrative as opposed to the colonial narrative, in recognizing and attributing a modern spirit and agency amongst this formerly docile labor diaspora. This work presents the events of 1945-1948 as a time when Indians rejected the colonial perception of them as an inferior people, and challenged the colonial power. However, their efforts were subverted by the British and by doing so, the British ensured the maintenance of a labor diaspora that would continue to be exploited by those who ruled over them.

<p> In countries particularly susceptible to environmental disturbances like Japan, discourse has centered on resilient design: seeking building materials that withstand natural forces to protect populations while being the most up to date with international trends in technology and science. As a culture with a long history of wood use in buildings, the sudden surge in stone, concrete, masonry, and steel production and use in building applications following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 signaled a momentous shift in Japanese architectural practices and customs. While a preference for these &ldquo;modern&rdquo; materials generally continues today, the properties and characteristics of wood and wood-derived products are being reexamined in light of worldwide ecology movements and perspectives in sustainable design that had not existed prior to the mid-twentieth century. </p><p> Using the subject of material culture as a lens through which Japanese urban architectural history and political debates are brought into sharper relief, this thesis argues that manufactured engineered wood products like cross laminated timber (CLT) are a part of the larger ongoing discussion on how to solve urban problems and offer the ability to connect sustainable and resilient building design agendas in cities. In addition, if CLT and other wood-based materials are domestically grown and responsibly manufactured on a larger scale than exists presently in Japan, industrial productivity of wood from local forests will recover after long periods of stagnant development, a move heavily invested by the present Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his administration. </p>

The purpose of this thesis is to use the history of music theory to study cultural change in Japan. It has been said that “music is number” (Sima Qian), that it is the “organon of philosophy” (Schelling), that the discovery of the identity of certain simple mathematical ratios with the basic aural consonances—ascribed to Ling Lun in the East and Pythagoras in the West—is the inaugural instance of the “mathematization of reality.” It is this isomorphic relationship between mathematics and music that allows us to unlock the latter and all that it represents with the precision of the former. Indeed, it is my contention that music theory provides one of the crispest articulations of particular mentalités. This thesis is comprised of six chapters Chapter one outlines the history of music theory and shows how it applies to the history of modern Japan. Chapter two describes the way that music theory changed musical sensibility: music-theoretical ideas were imported by bureaucrats, actualized in school songbooks, and through these and other means suppressed the initially unfavorable reaction to Western music through a concerted effort to "hear through" the music to the ideas beneath. Chapter three looks at the way that the twelve tone equal division of the octave functioned analogously to Panofsky's perspectival "symbolische Form": a condition of possibility that rendered intellectually invisible other ways of organizing sound. Chapter four investigates the idea of a “natural scale” and traces attempts in Japan to provide rational, scientific justifications for Japanese scalar formations. Chapter five shows how a particular form of the pentatonic scale—one that both overlapped with the "universal" scale of pre-modernity and was compatible with the diatonic system—came to represent the “Japanese essence” within the constraints of the twelve tone system. Chapter six discusses the double nature of this pentatonic scale through a description of how it symbolized Japan’s entry into the “rationality” of the modern musical system while simultaneously objectifying “Japan” within that system as a specific lack. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations

The dissertation examines the evolving role of Germans under the auspices of European imperialism in modern China's hydraulic management and economic globalization. In the early nineteenth-century, Germans were on the margins of both the Chinese and British Empires, connecting former frontier regions to the major hubs of Asian trade. Over the nineteenth-century there was a large expansion of trade on the coast, where Qing authority had to contend with an emerging international maritime legal and economic order, and German shippers before national unification had a niche as carriers of domestic Chinese trade. As transport technology changed, western shipping interests clamored for the Chinese state to undertake material changes on China's waterways to develop new port infrastructure. Galvanized by a series of natural disasters as well as a dramatic increase in trade, Chinese officials began to collaborate with Western officials and engineers to manage infrastructure projects. Germans in particular played a key role in the transnational transfer of technology. All the while, late Qing and Republican Chinese governments gained increasing control over the internationally-staffed water conservancy organizations. With the First World War, Europeans, preoccupied with their own conflict, shifted their attention away from China, and Americans took up where the Europeans had left off in the financing and advising of hydraulic projects. Yet, German modernity continued to have an enduring influence in visions for China's economic globalization, hydraulic infrastructure, and state power. / History

<p> Shigeru Mizuki (1922-2015) is one of the most sophisticated and accomplished of modern manga artists. His work synthesizes ancient and modern Japanese visual artistic methods with contemporary tropes from Western graphic art to tell profound and complex stories that reflect major themes of war and the supernatural world. This thesis argues that Mizuki&rsquo;s work should be reevaluated as a valuable contribution to modern art based on the following three qualities: technical mastery and innovation in visual art; socio-political and philosophical depth of content; and his impact on other contemporary Japanese artists. Such study is significant because of the popularity of manga and other graphic art in shaping both popular culture and the view of art adopted by younger generations. Thus, studying Mizuki has implications for our understanding of art and its intersection with popular culture, and raises questions regarding whether popular media like manga should be considered seriously by art historians. </p><p>

<p>A paleodemographic analysis was conducted using skeletal data from J?mon period sites in Japan. 15P5 ratios were produced as proxy birth rate values for sites throughout the J?mon period. Previous studies based on numbers of residential sites indicated a substantial population increase in the Kant? and Ch?bu regions in central Japan, climaxing during the Middle J?mon period, followed by an equally dramatic population decrease, somewhat resembling changes that occurred during a Neolithic Demographic Transition (NDT). The J?mon are viewed as a relatively sedentary, non-agricultural group, and provided an opportunity to attempt to separate the factors of sedentism and agriculture as they relate to the NDT. Skeletal data showed fairly stable trends in birth rates, instead of the expected increase and decrease in values. This discrepancy calls into question the validity of previous studies. The stable population levels suggest that sedentism alone was not the primary driver of the NDT.

This dissertation reveals how religious factors affected the development of the Korean War. Much prior research has analyzed the causes and nature of the Korean War, in part because of the war's impact upon later events, from the Cold War to the present day geopolitical standoff. Though the war has been much-studied, religious factors have rarely been included in these analyses. This de-emphasis of religion may be a justifiable simplification in general war historiographies, but not in the specific case of Korea. This current study uncovers the unique role of religion in Korean-American relations and in Korean culture and politics, prior-to-and-during the time of the Korean War.;The Korean War ushered in a time of intimate collaboration between state and non-state actors, unparalleled in American diplomatic and military history. Because American missionaries had been working among Koreans for many years, they possessed the language skills, human connections, and geographical knowledge that the US military lacked. From the early days within the Pusan Perimeter through the late period at P'anmunjo&breve;m, American missionaries were highly visible on the frontline, at the negotiation table, and in the POW camps. They were also important to the battle of propaganda. their letters and reports aroused sympathy in America for the Korea people.;In addition to the contributions of American Missionaries, the effect of Korean Christians was an equally important factor to the shaping of the conflict. Churches were rather influential within Korean society; clergymen were active in Korean politics; and many of the top politicians were Christians. Christianity was a major obstacle to Communist control of the North and subversive activities in the South. With the assistance of foreign funding, churches were transformed by the ravages of war into an important source of charitable assistance for millions of impoverished refugees. Although this study looks at religious factors in general, the discussion focuses primarily on Protestant churches and Protestant missionaries. These Protestant churches, of all religious institutions in Korea; exerted an influence far disproportionate to their per capita membership. Similarly, these Protestant missionaries, of all religious actors, had significant influence upon the American military and upon the American public. In particular, the majority of missionaries who stayed behind and worked effectively with the Korean government and US military were from the American Presbyterian missions. They took the initiative on relief efforts and set the standard for others to follow.;This dissertation makes an important contribution to religious history as well. In the process of assessing the impact of Christianity upon the Korean War, this dissertation begins by examining Christianity's development within Korea, primarily from the arrival of American missionaries in the late Choso&breve;n period. Christianity is found to have had a strong impact upon Korea's social development, internal politics, and foreign-relations. The Christian community was an important part of the independence movement against Japanese control. When one considers that South Korea has emerged today as one of the most Christianized of nations, that every elected Korean president has been a Christian, and that Korea now sends out more missionaries than any nation besides America, then the historical value of such a study of into Christianity's origins becomes clear.

The Micronesian island group of Belau, long-identified by the United States as an important strategic area, became part of a United Nations trusteeship administered by the U.S. immediately after World War II. Although the United States promised to promote self-government within the trusteeship, U.S. officials have consistently designed and implemented policies with the intention of maintaining permanent access to Belau's land, reefs, and waters far military purposes. Women have emerged as major actors in debates surrounding Belau's political status and as opponents of U.S. military proposals in national and international arenas. Drawing from nearly two years of field research, 1987-1989, that concentrated largely on the experiences of two women and their family history, extensive recorded conversations provide key texts for examining gender and politics at the intersection of historical patterns of ranked matrilineal clan relations, newly-instituted electoral politics, and consideration of U.S. military proposals. By focusing on the structure and negotiations of clan relations, on extensive exchange events among relatives, and on national political activities, I investigate how men and women have worked together in various political arenas and examine how categories of "women" and "politics" in Belau have been constructed in specific socio-cultural and historical contexts. Feminist and poststructural conceptions of power have been central in choices to emphasize specific dialogues and particular interactions in this interpretive, discourse-centered ethnography. I explore how power circulates in local arenas, emphasize the multiplicity of discourses and subjectivities operating at any given time, and contextualize the confrontations through which this ethnography has been produced. This ethnographic experiment, therefore, addresses relations of power not only in content but also in the process of the research and writing itself.

<p> When an object is introduced to a new culture for the first time, how does it transition from the status of a foreign import to a fully integrated object of that culture? Does it ever truly reach this status, or are its foreign origins a part of its identity that are impossible to overlook? What role could the arts of that culture play in adapting a foreign object into part of the culture? I propose to address these questions in specific regard to early modern Japan (1550&ndash;1850) through a black lacquered <i> &omacr;tsuzumi</i> drum decorated with a gold powder motif of intersecting arquebuses and powder horns. While it may seem unlikely that a single piece of lacquerware can comment on the larger issues of cultural accommodation and appropriation, careful analysis reveals the way in which adopted firearms, introduced by Portuguese sailors in 1543, shed light on this issue. </p><p> While the arquebus&rsquo;s militaristic and economic influence on Japan has been firmly established, this thesis investigates how the Kobe Museum&rsquo;s <i> &omacr;tsuzumi</i> is a manifestation of the change that firearms underwent from European imports of pure military value to Japanese items of not just military, but also artistic worth. It resulted from an intermingling of Japanese-Portuguese trade, aesthetics of the noble military class, and cultural accommodation between Europeans and Japanese that complicates our understandings of influence and appropriation. To analyze this process of appropriation and accommodation, the first section begins with a historical overview of lacquer in Japan, focusing on the Momoyama period, and the introduction of firearms. The second section will go into the aesthetics of lacquerware, including the importance of narrative symbolism and use in the performing arts with a particular emphasis on the aural and visual aesthetics of the drum. Finally, I will discuss this drum in the global contexts of the early modern era, which takes into account the tension between the decline in popularity of firearms as well as the survival of the drum. Pieced together, these various aspects will help to construct a better understanding of this unique piece&rsquo;s place in the Japanese Christian material culture of early modern Japan.</p>