Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Nebraska - Lincoln, 2006. / (UnM)AAI3215320. Adviser: John Wunder. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-04, Section: A, page: 1500.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, 2007. / Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 28, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-11, Section: A, page: 4636. Adviser: Heidi Ross.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Princeton University, 2007. / (UMI)AAI3273509. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 3093. Adviser: Stephen F. Teiser.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Religious Studies, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 14, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-12, Section: A, page: 4722. Adviser: John R. McRae.

Thesis (PH.D.)--Syracuse University, 2003. / "Publication number AAT 3081663."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 2005. / "Publication number AAT 3194022."

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: A, page: 0422. Adviser: Norman K. Denzin. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-184) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

This dissertation is a history of the idea of travel in South Asia as it found expression in Urdu travel writing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Though travel has always been integral to social life in South Asia, it was only during this period that it became an end in itself. The imagined virtues of travel hinged on two emergent beliefs: that travel was a requisite for inner growth, and that travel experience was transferable. Consequently, Urdu travel writers endorsed travel not to reach a particular destination but to engender personal development, social advancement and communal well-being. Authors conveyed the transformative power of travel to their readers through accounts that traced out their inner journeys through narratives of physical travel, an ideal echoed in an old proverb that re-emerged at this time: “travel is the means to victory.” This study, which draws on extensive archival research from four countries, represents the most comprehensive examination of travel writing in any South Asian language. Through a diachronic analysis of a wealth of new primary sources, it indexes shifting valuations of travel as they relate to conceptualizations of the self, the political and the social. It demonstrates that though the idea of beneficial travel found its first expression in accounts commissioned by a colonial government interested in inculcating modern cosmopolitan aesthetics, it quickly developed a life of its own in the public sphere of print. This dynamic literary space was forged by writers from across the social spectrum who produced a profusion of accounts that drew inspiration from Indic, Islamic and European traditions. In the twentieth century, too, travel writing continued to evolve and expand as it adapted to the shifting dimensions of local nationalisms and successive international conflicts. In independent India and Pakistan, it broke new ground both aesthetically and thematically as it came to terms with the post-colonial geography of South Asia. Yet, throughout this history,Urdu travel writing continued to cultivate the idea that the journey was valuable for its own sake. / Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

This dissertation traces the thought and career of Dadabhai Naoroji, arguably the most significant Indian nationalist leader in the pre-Gandhian era. Naoroji (1825-1917) gave the Indian National Congress a tangible political goal in 1906 when he declared its objective to be self-government or swaraj. I identify three distinct phases in the development of his political thought. In the first phase of his career, lasting from the mid-1860s until the mid-1880s, Naoroji posited the “drain of wealth” theory, which argued that British colonialism was dramatically impoverishing India by siphoning off its resources. Naoroji embedded a political corollary into his economic ideas, arguing that empowering Indians through political reform was the only way to stop the drain. As early as 1884, Naoroji declared that the ultimate objective of such reform was Indian self-government. Naoroji contended that the best chance for achieving political reform lay through influencing the British Parliament. In the second stage of his career, beginning in 1886, Naoroji took up this task by contesting a parliamentary seat. He constructed a broad alliance among various progressive British leaders—Irish home rulers, socialists, and women’s rights activists—and relied upon them and Indian allies to win election to the House of Commons in 1892. In Parliament, Naoroji pushed for the implementation of simultaneous civil service examinations, which he envisaged as the first step toward Indian self-government. Naoroji’s time in the Commons, however, was brief and disappointing, and in the third and final phase of his career, beginning in 1895, he radicalized considerably. He propounded his views on Indian poverty with renewed force while strengthening his ties with socialists and anti-imperialists in Britain and abroad. Concluding that imperialism was inherently economically exploitative, Naoroji declared that only swaraj could stop the drain of wealth. / History

This dissertation considers how Chinese models of Buddhist social organization and Pure Land thought undergirded the Japanese monk Chōgen’s campaign to restore the Great Buddha of Tōdaiji, destroyed in the Gempei civil war at the end of the 12th century. While Chōgen’s activities as chief solicitor of the campaign partially owed to his network of social connections earned through a selective Buddhist education, Chōgen’s three pilgrimages to China were crucial for providing much of the knowledge, methods, and technologies that made possible the largest religious and civil engineering project attempted in Japan to that time. Though nominally a Buddhist monk, Chōgen embodied the ideal of a polymath. In order to recreate Japan’s foremost Buddhist symbol, he was compelled to assume a wide range of responsibilities: fundraising among aristocrats and warriors; forming a network of lieutenants, donors, and common devotees; managing temple estates that provided revenues; developing transportation infrastructure to carry materials and supplies; casting the Great Buddha statue; overseeing religious rites; and finally, rebuilding Tōdaiji’s halls. These diverse activities required creative forms of religio-social networking and technologies not extant in Japan. During his travels to the Chinese port city of Ningbo, as well as the religious mountains of Tiantaishan and Ayuwangshan, Chōgen learned of Pure Land halls built by lay confraternities, and adopted them as models for the later sanctuaries he constructed around Japan for proselytization and fundraising purposes. He also borrowed organizational principles from Chinese Pure Land societies from the urban centers of Ningbo and Hangzhou in order to create a massive Pure Land network in his homeland that embraced former militants from the civil war, the imperial family, monastics from a wide range of institutions, and even the common populace – all of whom contributed to the Tōdaiji rebuilding effort. Ultimately, the fields of religion and technology that Chōgen imported from China not only enabled the reconstruction of Japan’s most important Buddhist temple, but also brought Japan into the fold of an emerging East China Sea religious macroculture of the late 12th and early 13th centuries that expanded with the activities of traders and later Japanese pilgrims who would emulate Chōgen’s voyages. / East Asian Languages and Civilizations