Browsing by Author "Schoneveld, Erin"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Analyzing Section 16 of the Konggzi Jiayu: Confucius's Attitude Towards Supernormal Creatures and Incidents
    (2016) Qiao, Yiwen; Schoneveld, Erin
    This thesis is arguing that the book Kongzi Jiayu should be given more scholarly attention than it is currently getting. The Kongzi Jiayu has long been ignored because it was determined to be a forgery by the mainstream scholars in the Qing dynasty. Nevertheless, I consider that evidences these Qing scholars used to support their argument to be insufficient and believe we should take the Kongzi Jiayu more seriously. To prove this statement, the thesis focuses on Confucius’s attitude towards creatures and incidents of the supernormal sphere by analyzing Section 16 of the Kongzi Jiayu. If we only look into widely-accepted Confucian classics like The Analects and the Book of Rites, Confucius’s attitude towards supernormal creatures and incidents may seem ambiguous since he commends them in some records by saying they are virtuous and belittles them in other records by stating they are things he would not touch upon in his teaching. After a close reading of the sixteenth section of the Kongzi Jiayu, I present an argument that Confucius did not deny the existence of supernormal creatures and incidents, nor did he encourage people to form intimate relationships with them. Since the ultimate goal of Confucianism is to cultivate ethical and right people, Confucius rationalized and incorporated supernormal creatures and incidents into the system of rites when he had to talk about them. Thus, supernormal creatures and incidents, although found in multiple places inside classic texts attributed to Confucius, are only mentioned to the extent that they will not be distractions for people’s focus on self-appropriation and self-transgression.
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    Feng Menglong’s Vernacular Short Stories: A Guide To The Rise of the Merchant Class in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644): A Complementary System of Confucianism and Capitalism
    (2015) Gallagher, Caitlin; Kwa, Shiamin; Schoneveld, Erin
    This thesis postulates that the rise of the merchant class during the Ming Dynasty, as interpreted from historical context and Feng Menglong’s short stories, created a complementary fusion culture of capitalism and Confucianism. Through a critical analysis of Feng Menglong and his vernacular short story, the Ming Dynasty’s unique fused culture is revealed. The structure of the short story and Feng Menglong’s interwoven social commentary also provides further proof of the Ming Dynasty’s fused culture. Specifically, in the critical reading of Feng Menglong’s stories: “Censor Chen Ingeniously Solves the Case of the Gold Hairpins and Brooches,” “Old Man Zhang Grows Melons and Marries Wennu,” “Jiang Xiangge Reencounters His Pearl Shirt” and “In Righteous Wrath, Old Servant Xu Builds Up a Family Fortune,” this thesis will examine this culture’s emphasis on physical objects as portrayed through jewelry, currency and even beautiful women. It will also show that cracks emerged in the foundation of traditional Confucian culture as a result of the ascendance of the merchant class. While significant, these cracks failed ultimately to uproot the Confucian literati from their perch at the top of the Chinese social hierarchy. In the final analysis, however, this thesis will prove that the merger of merchant class mores and the Ming Dynasty’s unique culture not only coexisted in complementary fashion, but also planted the seed for the blending of capitalism and Confucianism that ultimately took root in contemporary China.
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    From Past to Present: Matsui Fuyuko and the Subversion of Women and Trauma in Nihonga
    (2017) O'Connell Sarah; Schoneveld, Erin
    Looking back at World War II Japan, there is a general feeling that the government in this time was very authoritarian. However, during this time, Japan’s government did follow a constitution. One may naively think that a constitutional government cannot possibly become authoritarian. If the government managed to become authoritarian, what happened to the constitution? Was the it ignored or abused? Was it changed to suit the government’s wishes? Was the Emperor restricted in any way? In this thesis, I explore the powers and limits of the Japanese government under the Meiji Constitution. I chose different sections of the Meiji Constitution and studied the powers that the Emperor, the Diet and the administrative government had and the sort of rights that people had. I also researched to see if there were any loopholes that allowed the government to limit those rights, and whether there were any changes in the constitution that could have contributed to the government’s power over the people. As a result, however, I discovered two things: first, that the constitution was never amended and was used until the end of WWII, and second, that the politics and the relationship between the people and the government under the Meiji Constitution were quite complicated. While under the constitution, the government was able to legally have a great deal of power over the people, the constitution also provided some checks on the government. In fact, the constitution’s existence was in part created to please the people, so in itself it also was a check on the government. Old principles and practicality also provided incentive for the government and the people to use and abide by the constitution. This study of the Meiji Constitution, I believe, will give some insight into the powers and limitations of a constitution on a government.
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    From the Self to the Country: Women’s Liberation in the Twentieth-Century Chinese Political Posters
    (2017) Luo, Siyuan; Schoneveld, Erin
    Political posters, an artistic medium that has long been applied as an effective tool of propaganda by the Chinese, used women as a vehicle in disseminating national policies to a mass audience. This thesis closely analyzes the March 8 Special Issue of Revolution Poster published by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (1927) and three posters—New View in the Rural Village (1953), A Glorious Production Model (1954), and New China’s Female Parachuters (1955)—issued by the Communist Party of China (CCP) to examine their respective portrayals of women, and investigate the methods in which women were used as subjects of propaganda during 20th century China. A main portion of the thesis provides a thorough visual and textual analysis of the contents presented by the four posters. The thesis also expounds the contrasts of the posters issued by the KMT and the CCP in terms of genres, portrayals of women, intended audiences and messages, and attempts to explore the policies on women’s liberation of the two parties. However, by interpreting the information and meaning of the posters within the relevant historical background in which they came from, this thesis also points out a commonality shared by the two parties regarding the issue of women’s liberation. The thesis argues that despite their strikingly different visual representations, the four posters which all take women as their main propaganda subjects emphasize the relationship between women and the nation, more particularly, to stress the necessity of urging women to directly and fully participate in the movements benefitting the country in order to achieve their own liberation.
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    Interpreting Symbolic Items Across Yu Hua and Zhang Yimou's To Live
    (2020) Yung, Chayanit Jenny; Schoneveld, Erin
    Yu Hua's novel To Live (1993) and Zhang Yimou's film adaptation by the same name has made waves in both contemporary Chinese and international circles in educating the public about the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. While the novel and the film share the same core story, Zhang has changed certain aspects of the story in order to portray different themes and depict a more hopeful tone throughout the film, as opposed to Yu's darker storytelling. These two works have portrays the rapid modernization and industrialization of China, and these turbulent, changing times have made lasting impacts on modern China. This paper will focus on the symbolic items that both Yu and Zhang employ in their works and how these symbols demonstrate the effects of the choices the Chinese government made had on society. The symbols that Zhang and Yu use in their works are cultural items that a contemporary audience would have had regular access and interaction with. In incorporating these cultural props into their work, Zhang and Yu are able to connect with their audience in ways that other historical accounts cannot. In order to support this argument, I will be analyzing the way these props are used through film and literary analyses. The literary analysis will focus on how these items are described, and the film analysis will focus on mise-en-scene and cinematography.
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    The Urgency of Utari: Decolonizing Translation and Preserving Ainu Identity Through the Oral Narratives of Chiri Yukie’s Ainu Shin'yōshū
    (2024) Frohsin, Molly; Schoneveld, Erin
    The Ainu people are an indigenous population of northern Japan and Russia, comprising three subgroups: Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Kuril Ainu. Following the Meiji Restoration and seizure of Ezo, renamed Hokkaido in 1869, all but the Hokkaido Ainu were ethnically cleansed from their homeland, with Hokkaido Ainu being forcibly assimilated into Japanese culture. Linguistically, Hokkaido Ainu is the only surviving dialect of the Ainu language, classified as endangered by UNESCO. While the extinction and endangerment of Ainu language dialects was, in part, due to linguistic assimilation, no Ainu dialect has ever possessed a formal written language system, rendering Ainu historical information by means other than oral tradition previously challenging. Though Western missionaries and scholars constructed Ainu writing and published Ainu-English dictionaries, they were not entirely accurate and not meant for ease of communication, but rather to succeed in their proselytization of the Ainu people. However, it was oral traditionalist and transcriber Chiri Yukie, a young Ainu woman, who first began publishing the oral narratives and legends of the Ainu gods, or kamui yukar, in written format, in her yukar anthology entitled Ainu Shin’yōshū (Ainu Collection of Mythology). In addition to her Ainu upbringing, Chiri became fluent in Japanese, and published the Ainu Shin’yōshū in both languages. This thesis will examine Chiri’s written preservation of the Ainu language, as well as her incomparable impact on Ainu identity and pride. Although Western figures have attempted to lay claim to their superiority in the Ainu Studies field, their academic merit is hindered both by their misconception of the Ainu as a primitive society and discriminatory remarks made towards the Ainu people, present in their publications. From both an anthropological and social standpoint, it is evident that Chiri’s transcriptions, authentically promoting the heritage of the kamui yukar, are exceptionally valuable products of her short lifetime.
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    The Xianchang Aesthetic: Strengthening the Power of Chinese Queer Politics and Independent Cinema
    (2016) Arffmann, Finn; Schoneveld, Erin
    The purpose of this thesis is to examine the ways in which the Chinese independent film industry, specifically the xianchang aesthetic within documentaries, has provided an artistic medium for the country’s LGBTQ social justice movement to flourish despite government oppression. In addition to utilizing a comprehensive set of sources and interviews from scholars and activists, a framework composed of Arendtian visibility politics as well as theories surrounding the camera as a politically subversive device were used to evaluate the political efficacy of xianchang aesthetic in three documentaries: Queer China; Comrade China (Cui Zi’en, 2011), Bye Bye Surabaya (Xiaogang Wei, 2010), and Magic (Liu Yan, 2015). The xianchang aesthetic contains a unique history within the genre of Chinese documentary as a style that places much significance on capturing the “here and now” of everyday experiences. After contextualizing this aesthetic within the intertwined histories of Chinese independent film and the LGBTQ movement, different uses of live footage within the three documentaries were analyzed and evaluated based on their capacity to mobilize the viewer and create productive spaces for Chinese queer visibility. This analytical approach to these three documentaries resulted in findings that supported the correlation between the intimate documentation/camera lens of the xianchang aesthetic and radical forms of visibility/solidarity for the LGBTQ community in China. Despite the fact that these results inevitably reflect arbitrarily constructed and hegemonic discourse within art and sexuality/gender orientation, the content and style of these three documentaries nonetheless spoke to radical alternatives for modes of documentary filmmaking. This thesis concludes that despite its complicated history and inability to represent totalized truth, the growth of the xianchang aesthetic within the field of Chinese independent documentary have allowed this art form to foster revolutionary action and vision within the Chinese LGBTQ social justice movement.
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    What Is in a Date? The Implications of Misdating a Jade Camel
    (2015) Rauss, Olivia D.; Schoneveld, Erin; Kwa, Shiamin
    In an attempt to reveal the vulnerabilities and limitations of existing methodologies used to date jade objects, this thesis closely analyzes the Tan Camel (Figure 1a-f), a carved Chinese jade camel owned by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Through the examination of current scholarship, as well as defining and examining the specific methodologies of formal analysis and stylistic comparison, this study addresses the complexity and subjectivity of dating jade. This thesis argues the critical need for scholars and museum curators to be more transparent by providing well-cited rationale and explanations for the dates attributed to the jade in their collections. It concludes by recommending further research on jade history and carving techniques as those findings are key to creating a more accurate and reliable dating methodology.