UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    "An Uncertain Life in Another World": German and Austrian Jewish Refugee Life in Shanghai, 1938-1950
    (2014) Hyman, Elizabeth Rebecca; Rozenblit, Marsha; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Between 1938 and 1941, 20,000 Eastern and Central European Jews fled to Shanghai. Through a close examination or memoirs and oral histories, I argue that the manner in which the refugees experiences the approximately twelve years (1938-1950) they spent in Shanghai was informed by their nationality, gender, and age. Further, I argue that the twelve years they spent in Shanghai eroded the refugee's behavioral, material, and emotional connections to their old lives in Germany and Austria until all they had left was language and memories.
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    Public Works, Modernity, and Chinese Nationalism in Shanghai, 1911-1941
    (2009) Nalezyty, Nancy; Gao, James Z; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This thesis focuses on the roads and public services created by the SMC because they are a topic which clearly illustrates the ambiguity of colonial modernism in Shanghai. This colonial modernism, which in Shanghai was largely instigated by the SMC, is a process which not only made the Chinese victims of colonial modernity, but also taught the Chinese the value of this Western modernity. This thesis explores these thoughts in terms of the actual use of land in Shanghai to build roads and the administration of these roads, but also includes the use of land for other public services. While much of the recent literature on Chinese modernity has moved to cultural areas such as film, architecture, and fashion, this essay will attempt to re-examine the urban expansion of Shanghai by focusing less on the diplomatic aspect of this topic and instead on examining the use of each parcel of land as a part of the urban infrastructure and how this affected the modernization and nationalism in China. It will do so by exploring the urban expansion of Shanghai, especially the building of roads and other public services, during the majority of the Chinese Republican Period. The essay is divided into four chapters based on major changes in the expansion of the International Settlement and the relationship between the SMC and its Chinese and other counterparts. The first chapter discusses the time period from 1911-1915 when the SMC continued to expand as they had previously done during the Ch'ing dynasty. The second chapter focuses on the years 1916-1927 when formal expansion was no longer a viable option and the SMC turned to building extra-Settlement. The third chapter discusses the years between 1928-1936 when the KMT created a new administration in Shanghai and the SMC slowly began to lose control of the roads to the new Chinese administration. The final chapter discusses the disruption of urban expansion during the Japanese war and occupation from 1937-1941. This essay will attempt to examine the urban expansion of Shanghai by focusing less on cultural aspects and instead on use of land, construction of roads, and the development of urban infrastructure, which gave rise to colonial modernism and Chinese nationalism.
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    GRAND THEATER SQUARE - SHANGHAI
    (2005-05-20) Li, Luming; Bovill, Carl; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Over the last few years, Shanghai has been facing challenging urban problems resulting from rapid economic growth. Its traditional urban fabric is being destroyed hastily to make way for the galloping new constructions. To protect this city's priceless urban heritage from being engulfed by scaleless development is an emergency measure we must take now. This thesis will explore the validity of the insertion of a new mixed-used commercial, cultural and residential complex into a 6.5-acre traditional city block in a very heterogeneous urban space of Shanghai. The purpose is to provide an aesthetically dynamic yet practical solution to fill the wide scale gap between contemporary high-rise buildings and the historic blocks, to set an example of revitalization and rehabilitation that inspiringly employs the spirit of old traditional neighborhoods to highlight the city's historical past, and finally, to redefine the place of history in a new urban environment.