College of Arts & Humanities
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item A Survey of the Evolution of the Violin Repertories by Composers from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau in the Twentieth Century(2021) Sin, Cheuk Hang; Mureșanu, Irina Roxana; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In comparison with the vast canon of repertoire written for solo violin in the western classical tradition, relatively few works by Chinese composers are regularly studied, programmed, or performed. The purpose of this dissertation is to highlight violin repertoire, both as a solo instrument and in chamber music setting, by twentieth century composers from the Greater China region. The violin was introduced to the general Chinese public in the nineteenth century, but it was not until the twentieth century that Chinese musicians began writing music for the violin, after learning western classical compositional techniques while studying abroad. Despite a century of political turmoil and rapid globalization, Chinese folk elements have remained a major component in violin works. Folk materials from a wide region were used by various composers: from the south in Canton to the north in Inner Mongolia, and from the east in Taiwan to the west in Tibet and Sinkiang.Though more than a century has passed since the first violin composition was written by a Chinese composer, this repertoire has yet to become standardized within the western musical canon. While traditional Chinese music is relatively well-documented and studied, there is limited research and few publications focusing on contemporary Chinese violin literature. This survey will spread awareness of previously under-represented works and highlight the historical context of music from this region. Chinese composers who have written the most representative music for the violin and have had great influence on their homeland and internationally are discussed in the dissertation.Item GOSPEL SINGING IN THE VALLEY: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE HYMNODY AND CHORAL SINGING OF THE LISU ON THE CHINA-BURMA/MYANMAR BORDER(2015) Diao, Ying; Witzleben, John L; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation is an ethnomusicological study of contemporary musical practices of the Christian Lisu in Nujiang Prefecture in northwest Yunnan on the China-Myanmar border. Among all the changes that the Nujiang Lisu have experienced since the twentieth century, the spread of Protestant Christianity throughout Nujiang’s mountainous villages has existed for the longest time and had one of the greatest effects. Combining historical investigation and ethnographic description, this study uses the lens of music to examine the impact of this social change on the Lisu living in this impoverished frontier region. The Lisu characteristics have never been vital in the music written by the Christian Lisu in Nujiang. Compared with the practices described in other ethnomusicological writings on Christian music around the world that I have read, this absence of incorporation of indigenous musical elements is unusual. There are probably many other cases similar to that of the Lisu, but few ethnomusicologists have paid attention to them. I aim to elucidate this particular scenario of Lisu Christian music in relation to three social and cultural forces: the missionary legacy of conventions; the government’s identification of the Lisu as a minority nationality and its national policies toward them since the 1950s; and the transnational religious exchange between the Christian Lisu in China and Myanmar since the late 1980s. My examination focuses on two genres which the Lisu use to express their Christian beliefs today: ddoqmuq mutgguat, derived from American northern urban gospel songs, the basis of the Lisu choral singing; and mutgguat ssat, influenced by the Christian pop of the Burmese Lisu, with instrumental accompaniment and daibbit dance and preferred by the young people. Besides studying these two genres in the religious context, I also juxtapose them with other musical traditions in the overall Nujiang music soundscape and look at their role in local social interactions such as those between sacred and secular, and majority and minority. This dissertation demonstrates that the collective performances of shared repertoires have not only created a sense of affinity for the Nujiang Christian Lisu but also have reinforced the formation of Lisu transnational religious networks.Item The Role of U.S. Technology Transfer and Foreign Investment in East Asia and the Soviet Bloc in Opening China's Door in 1979(2013) Karr, Dennis K.; Sicilia, David B; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The most radical component of China's Open Door economic policy in the late 1970s was its encouragement of joint ventures and other foreign direct investment (FDI). Although scholars have studied the impact of the new policy on China's economy and on the global economy, few have considered the background of the reforms. Drawing from relevant American business archives, contemporary news reports, and other primary sources, I argue that China's reforms in 1979 were likely influenced by three important dynamics: contributions of American joint ventures and other FDI to China's economically successful neighbors in East Asia and the attractiveness to China's reformers of enabling similar contributions in China; contributions of American joint ventures and other FDI to the Eastern European countries aligned with the Soviet Union, coupled with China's competition with the Soviet Union for expanded economic relations with the U.S.; and interactions between American leaders and businesspeople with Chinese counterparts.Item An East and West Debate on Human Rights(2011) Chan, Benedict Shing Bun; Morris, Christopher W.; Philosophy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In an East and West debate on human rights, scholars from different cultures disagree on whether all civil and political rights are human rights. While they generally agree that basic civil rights such as rights against torture and slavery (i.e., physical security rights) are human rights, some of them argue that traditional political rights in the West such as freedom of speech and political participation (i.e., liberal rights) are not human rights. Some scholars, such as Daniel A. Bell, argue that liberal rights are not human rights because liberal rights conflict with some East Asian cultures. In this dissertation, I argue that both physical security rights and liberal rights are human rights, and explain the relationship between these rights and East Asian cultures. First, I argue that if liberal rights are not human rights because they conflict with some East Asian cultures, then physical security rights are also not human rights because physical security rights also conflict with some East Asian cultures. Next, I discuss the idea from Daniel Bell and Michael Walzer that physical security rights are human rights because they are minimal values. Based on their idea, I explain what minimal values are, and why it is possible to develop some maximal theories of physical security rights in East Asian cultures. I argue that since physical security rights are minimal values, they are still human rights even they conflict with some East Asian cultures. I then argue that liberal rights, similar to physical security rights, are also minimal values, and it is possible to develop some maximal theories of them in East Asian cultures. Therefore, similar to physical security rights, liberal rights are also human rights even they also conflict with some East Asian cultures. I also discuss other human rights debates, especially the debates between Daniel Bell and other philosophers. Charles Taylor argues for an overlapping consensus approach on human rights; Jack Donnelly argues for a Western liberalist approach on human rights. I explain the relationship between these approaches and my arguments, and how my arguments can help them to reply to the challenges from Daniel Bell.Item VIRGINIA WOOLF IN CHINA AND TAIWAN: RECEPTION AND INFLUENCE(2010) Lee, Kwee-len; Liu, Jianmei; Comparative Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Virginia Woolf's reputation as a writer, critic, and writer has long traveled far and wide. While her popularity in Europe has been well documented, her reception in the Chinese-speaking world--which enjoys the largest population on earth--has been little discussed. This study represents an effort to trace the reception and influence of Woolf and her work in China and Taiwan, which share similar cultures and languages but have been separated by socio-political ideologies, back to as early as the 1920s. The discussion is temporally divided into four periods, from the pre-separation period before 1949, the pre-open-policy period before 1978, the pre-21st century period, through the most recent decade in the very beginning of the twenty-first century. Each period is shown to demonstrate its unique characteristics. The three decades before the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan enjoyed a privilege of direct contact or correspondence with Woolf herself and her contemporaries. Such a privilege was nevertheless limited to the elite few, which in turn limited Woolf's overall reception. The next period witnessed a Woolf never so forlorn in the Chinese-speaking worlds. In China, she was totally silenced along with her modernist comrades. Her reception in Taiwan appeared somewhat better but was still hardly commensurate with the efforts introducing her and her contemporaries. The last two decades of the twentieth century saw her reception on the rise in both Taiwan and China. Their somewhat different readerships, however, distinguished the ways in which she had been received: while Taiwan was warm and quick to notice her social concerns, China was more critical in attitude and focused more on her literary theories. During the 2000s, Woolf's reception is argued to have matured to such an extent that it turns into influences as evidenced in the various artistic creations in response to her works and the various appropriations of her image as a feminist writer. From the sporadic budding in the first half of the twentieth century to its full blossom in the last decade, Woolf's reception is examined against its receiving environment and argued to vary with different factors at different times.Item PANG XUNQIN (1906-1985) - A CHINESE AVANT-GARDE'S METAMORPHOSIS, 1925-1946, AND QUESTIONS OF "AUTHENTICITY"(2009) Zhu, Xiaoqing; Kuo, Jason; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation has three goals. The first is to chart the artistic life of Pang Xunqin (1906-1985) and his art works from 1929 to 1946. Pang's metamorphosis from an aspiring young artist in Paris and Shanghai in the 1920s and 30s, into an artist in his own right, a graphic designer, an educator, and a scholar of the history of Chinese art and craft, while ceaselessly trying to renew himself - all this is a record that deserves an art historical recognition. The second goal is to locate Pang Xunqin in the historiography of Chinese modern art in an attempt to problematize issues of inclusion and exclusion in the historiography of the field. The third goal, which is closely tied to the second, is to utilize post-colonial inquiries to explore myriad issues of non-Western modernism embodied in Pang Xunqin's case. Such issues include the divisions among the "traditionalists," the "academic realists," and the "modernists," colonial cosmopolitanism in the Shanghai of the 30s, and the appropriation of "primitivism" in the 40s. Attention also focuses on the issues of authenticity and "hybridity," Western orientalization of the East and self-orientalization by the East in cross-cultural encounters, and identity politics and nationalistic agendas in the construct of the guohua (national painting) and xihua (Western painting) divide. The post-colonial methodology employed here helps raise questions regarding the binary construct of tradition vs. modernity, the East vs. the West, the center vs. the periphery, and the global vs. the local. By placing Pang Xunqin's case in its semi-colonial historical and transnational context and by engaging in dialogue with the recent rich scholarship on cultural and post-colonial critiques, in conjunction with a formal analysis of his paintings and designs, this dissertation offers not only a monographic study of Pang's artistic life but also a critical examination and reassessment of the established art historical narratives of Western-trained artists in the historiography of Chinese modern art.Item 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.Item The Intellectual Origins of Lin Yutang's Cultural Internationalism, 1928-1938(2009) Lee, Madalina Yuk-Ling; Gao, James Z; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of thesis: THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF LIN YUTANG'S CULTURAL INTERNATIONALISM, 1928-1938 Madalina Yuk-Ling Lee, Master of Arts, 2009 Thesis directed by: Professor James Z. Gao Department of History Cultural internationalism is international relations guided by intercultural affairs rather than by interstate affairs. From the outset of modern international history, two models of cultural internationalism have emerged--symmetrical and asymmetrical. The asymmetrical model--the one-way import of cultural ideas--was reserved for the non-Western world. China under the Chiang Kai-shek regime naturally falls under the asymmetrical model. The symmetrical model--the reciprocal exchange of cultural ideas--was reserved for the intra-Western world. My study shows how Lin Yutang, in 1935, defied the restrictions of the symmetrical model and implemented symmetrical cultural internationalism--reciprocal cultural exchange with the Western world--with incredible success. My study also contributes a new analytical framework for cross-cultural studies by analyzing the ideology and methodology of Lin Yutang's framework from the perspective of cultural internationalism. Moreover, this study traces the origin of Lin's framework to one of the New Culture paradigms conceived by Hu Shi and Zhou Zuoren.Item Changing Evaluations of the Four Wangs During 20th-Century China(2009) Wang, Xingkui; Kuo, Jason; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis examines the receptions of the Four Wangs during the Republican Period (1911 - 1949) and the People's Republic Period (1949 - present). Twentieth century China has witnessed great changes in its cultural landscape. With new ideas and technologies from the West, traditional Chinese painting has been reevaluated, and sometimes rejected. The Four Wangs of the Early Qing dynasty, seen as the last great achievement of Chinese painting in the literati tradition before the twentieth century, are under fierce debate. Whether the Four Wangs have any genuine creative achievement or are they mere imitators of the ancient masters is one of the central issues. But the debate on the Four Wangs also concerns greater cultural issues, such as whether China should embrace the Western realistic style in art in order to revolutionize Chinese painting. This thesis examines the evaluations of the Four Wangs and pays close attention to the opinions of prominent figures such as Kang Youwei, Chen Duxiu, Cai Yuanpei, Teng Gu, Chen Shizeng, Fu Baoshi, Hu Peiheng, Yu Jianhua, Huang Binhong, Xu Beihong, Tong Shuye, Wang Bomin, Nie Chongzheng, etc. By examining these figures' opinions of the Four Wangs, this thesis hopes to investigate the historical context of each argument, and identify the strategies each one employs to convince the opposing side.Item Learning From The Media: Perceptions of "America" From Chinese Students and Scholars(2008-02-16) Roberts, Quincy; Struna, Nancy; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research examines the perceptions that international students and scholars from China form of the United States. This thesis tracks the participants' recollection of their beliefs about the U.S. before arriving and examines the transformations that occurred because of lived circumstances and experiences. The research participants eagerly took advantage of the opportunity to visit and study at American universities, believing that this country had the best there was to offer in terms of educational quality. This perceived superiority of the U.S. was believed to extend into other social and cultural categories as well. Through examining the participant's imagined ideals of life in the U.S. the objective is to understand the importance individuals and lived experiences play in the reception and interpretation of cultural images, as well as foreground the "individual" as the main site to examine the intersection of the "global" and the "local". This is meant to elevate the importance of the individual when studying the impact and influence of globalization in the lives of individuals. By using Appadurai's notion of mediascapes as a means to study popular culture the goal is to understand the local and the global in studying the connection between the imagination and globalization.