Goh Abe: A Ritual Performance of Laughter in Japan
In present day Japan seven different kinds of ritual performance of laughter festivals have been still observed in the months of January, February, May, October and December at different geographical locations throughout Japan. These ritual performances with laughter vary from each festival, reflecting where and how the festivals are held. But it is closely related to our folk belief that entertaining god with a ritual performance of laughter would bring a good harvest, for example, in several of the seven traditional festivals of laughter. Some of the festivals have a long historical tradition over 300 years. And at the same time the meaning and function of the festival have been reinvented thoughout history, as I presented in one case study in 1999.
This paper will try to examine another ritual performance of laughter held on February 7 in Mie-prefecture, Japan. This ritual performance of laughter festival is known as “okoze” (stonefish) festival, as fish are used to induce laughter among the festival participants. I would like to examine the contemporary meaning and function of this ritual performance of laughter festival based on field observation in February 2006.
Margaret Allen: The Australian horse-traders winter in Calcutta 1930.
The trade in Walers (horses) for the British forces in India drew Australian traders to India from the nineteenth century until c1938, when the Indian army was mechanised. The traders spent half the year in Australia selecting, buying and preparing a group of horses to ship to India in October or November. They usually spent the following six months in India selling their horses to the British authorities as well as to the Princely states. As one woman wrote, “the life of the family centred on the business in India.”
Often accompanied by family members, they took in Christmas and New Year festivities, including the high points of the Indian racing and social calendar. These people lived in two worlds. By focussing upon one family’s Indian season in 1930, this paper explores they ways these people negotiated the racialised and gendered hierarchies of empire in two different colonial sites.
Thalia Anthony: Williams Blackstone’s feudal influence on the north Australian mode of production
The Classical English jurist, William Blackstone, defined Crown ownership of land as the “fundamental maxim” of all English feudal tenure. In this feudal system, the Crown delegated title to landlords with corresponding jurisdictional rights. These rights were exercised over a landless class, which would be afforded some interests in land in exchange for their labour. Blackstone’s maxim was introduced to northern Australia in a manner that shaped not only Australian real property law, but also employment relationships between pastoral lessees and Indigenous Australians.
This paper argues that in the absence of a recognised mode of production in northern Australia, feudal tenure translated into feudal relationships. Feudal tenure defined dependent relationships between the government, property holders and Indigenous workers. The relationships were centred on a common and contested interest in the land. Pastoralists, with the complicity of the government, offered Indigenous people access to their land in order to exploit their labour on cattle stations. This feudal relationship existed in a number of Asian countries and was exploited by British colonisers.
In northern Australia, the feudal relationship lasted until the 1970s when capitalist employment relations based on mechanised practices and wage labour rendered redundant a land dependent toiling class. After the end of this feudal relationship, the “fundamental maxim” of Crown title continues to deny Indigenous people their land.
William Armour: "Ore no sora" representations of Japanese men in manga and anime: some initial thoughts
This paper presents some initial thinking regarding how Japanese men are represented, constructed and reconstructed in words and images.
The focus will be on Japanese men in manga and anime. Examples are drawn from the erotic manga art of Tagame Gengoroh and his representation of the gay Japanese male world of sado-masochism, the Japanese hetero-masculine world of Motomiya Hiroshi in his manga "Sarariiman Kintaroo", and brotherly connections portrayed in Arakawa Hiromu's manga and subsequent anime, "Fullmetal Alchemist". Where is masculinity being performed in these media ? What type(s) of masculinity is being performed ? And, why ? A social semiotic approach to data analysis is taken.
Peter Armstrong: Architecture in the Mono-no-nai Jidai
The cataclysm of 1945 left the major Japanese cities in a state of devastation described as yake-nohara (a term used for rice fields where the chaff after harvest has been cleared by burning.). There is much anecdotal evidence of the hardship of the time in terms of housing, food, clothing and the necessities of communal life. However, at a wider scale, the loss of empire meant the loss of many commodities of which production had been moved away from the homeland to the Pacific and continental territories. Among these commodities, building materials were a major item which had been sourced from the Empire, and the loss of these possessions created a major problem for the post-war reconstruction process. The cost of building materials from America was prohibitive, and culturally inappropriate for the Japanese life style. In facing the problem of rebuilding using materials sourced from the Japanese archipelago, the leading architects of the post-war generation took the decision to develop a national architecture based upon concrete, which was poured in wooden forms which left the imprint of sawn timber on the surface of the finished material. The technology of off-form concrete had been introduced into Japan by the adoptive Japanese architect, Antonin Raymond as early as 1934. However, it was not until postwar hardship forced the use of humbler materials that Japanese architects developed the aesthetic potential of concrete and thereby created the style now known in world architectural history as “The Japan Style”
Hamed Azizinia: Cross-cultural representation of social actors in CDA of American, British, Iranian English, and Persian Articles
The present study draws on critical discourse analysis (CDA) to seek the applicability of Van Leeuwen's model (1996) through American, British, Iranian English, and Persian discourses. The employed model comprises a system network of socio-semantic features (SSFs) by which social actors can be represented through discourses about social practices. On the basis of their qualities in sending the message throughout the texts, the study has divided the SSFs into explicit and implicit references from which a formula is elicited and labeled as mystification rate (MR). The texts are selected from the prominent newspapers on the verbal conflict of “Atomic Energy”, which is considered as a controversial and institutionalized issue within all cultures under study. The time interval for selected texts ranges from May 2005 to November 2005. The analysis of texts is organized through the qualitative and quantitative procedures. The frequencies and percentages of SSFs and their explicit-implicit versions are calculated from among 20 sample texts. Chi-square test is also employed to determine the significance of existing differences. Intra and inter-rater reliability formula is also utilized to probe the consistency and accuracy of the results. The observed variations are inseparable components of cultural structures of each community.
Sekhar Bandyopadhyay: Images of Freedom: Nation and imagination in post-independence West Bengal, 1947-52.
The aim of this paper is to understand popular perceptions of and responses to decolonization in a newly independent Asian nation-state. For that purpose it chooses India as a case study and will focus on the first five years of transitional politics and social life in West Bengal, a new Indian ‘state’ (i.e. province) created as a result of Partition of the subcontinent. The historiography of Partition has raised important issues about post-colonial India. This paper does not deny the importance of those issues, but chooses to focus on something different – on both the meanings of ‘freedom’ and the experiences of it in the first post-independence years and the ways in which those meanings and experiences illuminate the crafting of a distinct Indian modernity. This paper argues that far from there being a dominant Indian political consensus on ‘freedom’ during the late 1940s, popular expectations and anxieties were conceptualised and articulated differently on different social planes—in other words, the ‘nation’ itself was still a subject of popular debate and contestation. The process of imagining a modern nation in India was not over, but only entered a different phase in 1947. To understand this transition, the paper will look at both the representations of nationhood and myriad forms of public invocation of historical memories through iconography, films, political cartoons and literature, both adult and children’s. It will look at the protest movements of the period to examine popular mentalities and understandings of nationhood at the dawn of independence. It will also examine the transformation of the Congress into the new Raj.
Richard Broinowski: China's and India's nuclear capabilities in the context of Australian uranium sales.
After laboriously negotiating a bilateral safeguards agreement in recent months with officials in Beijing, Australia's latest customer for uranium is to be China. This development, say the uranium exporters and pro-nuclear lobby, will help reduce green house gas emissions in the world. Unfortunately, if China's energy expansion plans are to be believed, it will do nothing of the sort.
Nor will prospective sales of Australian uranium to two other new customers - Taiwan and India. On the contrary, sales of our uranium to all three countries will do nothing to halt the continuing increase in greenhouse gas emissions due to expanding electricity- generating programs around the world. They will also have the negative effects of weakening the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, and providing more fissionable material for regional weapons programs.
If the Australian government was serious about non-proliferation, it would use the abundance of Australian uranium as an instrument to persuade the international community to re-negotiate a deeply-flawed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Meanwhile, it would leave Australian uranium in the ground, where, in the light of current regional and global nuclear tensions, it appropriately belongs.
Mio Bryce: Ayashi no Ceres: The Mythological Past and Present in Manga and Anime
A genre of combined fantasies seems to dominate the global landscape of popular culture, in which manga and anime play an active role. These present-day fantasies are characterized by a strong genre hybridity and intertexuality. Advanced technoscience (information and bio-technology in particular) is often their essential ingredient, in contrast to the traditional fantasies of previous centuries which developed from the fear of increasing dominance of science and technology. Another popular element in such works are representations of an imaginary ‘past’, often involving mythological and pseudo-historical imagery. In manga and anime, images of Japaneseness has become a prevailing visual trope, as exemplified by Takahashi Rumiko’ Inu-yasha, set in an alternative medieval Japan overshadowed by magic and supernatural powers. This paper will discuss how dexterously mythological imagery is integrated in manga and anime by focusing on Watase Yū’s fantasy, Ayashi no Ceres (Ceres, Celestial Legend, 1996-2000) as an example. This story merges science fiction and mythology, using the widespread tale of a heavenly wife (Hagoromo densetsu), yet it is set in present-day Japan, depicting a number of current issues and interests, such as twins, reincarnation, cloning, power, obsession, incest, teenage pregnancy, love and self search for subjective identity.
Bhumitra Chakma: Ethnic Identity Movement and the Nation-State: Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh
The ‘nation-state’ is essentially a homogenising force, and is in general intolerant to ethnic diversity. Bangladesh as being almost a typical ‘nation-state’ represents those tendencies. This paper argues that ethnic movement in the Chittagong Hills emerged in reaction to those tendencies of Bangladesh ‘nation-state.’ State response to this movement has hinged on two sets of policy approaches: massive military mobilization and a politically-oriented in-migration program. This paper analyses the rise of ethnic movement in the Chittagong Hills, and the nature and implications of state responses to this movement.
Shirley Chan: The Ruler/Ruled Relationship in the Ziyi (Black Robe) in the Newly Excavated Guodian Chu Slip Texts
The Guodian Chu slip-texts that were unearthed in 1993 in a Chu tomb in Jingmen, Hubei Province have been called the “Chinese equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” (Tu, p.5. 2000) They contain material illuminating the formation of the early Daoist and Confucian traditions. Scholars suggest that the tomb should be dated to the latter half of the Warring States period, that is, late fourth century B.C. The 800 bamboo strips that bear roughly 12000 Chinese characters would have been written close to the time of burial (S. Allen and C. Williams:119-120).
The Guodian Chu slips are valuable for three main reasons: (1) they provide an opportunity to re-examine the relationship between Confucianism and Daoism, two major streams of Chinese thought; (2) they constitute new material for gaining new insights into the early developments of the School of Confucius, particularly in the period between the death of Confucius and the writings of Mencius (third century B.C.); (3) they call into question much of the dating of received texts, such as certain chapters of the Book of Documents (Shijing) and the Book of Rites (Liji).
This paper will discuss the Ziyi (Black Robe) text of the Guodian manuscripts. In fact, there is no doubt that the Ziyi had been well regarded, or at least well circulated, at that time, since this text, under the same title, is found in the collection bamboo strips in the Shanghai museum, dated to the time before Chu moved its capital to Ying in present Hubei Province, the same period as that of Guodian Chu slips unearthed in Hubei Province, as well as in the Liji (the Book of Rites). I will focus on the political thinking in the Guodian Ziyi, in particular, the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. I will compare the key issues in the text with the Analects and the Works of Mencius. By doing so, I will show that the text is Confucian and how the ideas have been transformed in these early Confucian texts.
Vincent T. Chang: European cultural empowerment in Chinese advertising discourse
This paper aims to explore the dialogic relations between form and function in advertising discourse by proposing a linguistic pragmatic and critical study of Chinese advertising language. The European names of person (artist/writer/poet/celebrity), place, literature, brand names and metaphor are creatively crafted and vastly employed within the captions to attract the audience's attention, to initiate cognitive poetic effects and advertising literariness, to perform diverse communicative functions thereafter, and to convey the significant and dominant ideologies viz. intellectualism, elitism, social critique of taste, nostalgia, friends' rapport, feminine awakening, humanistic concern, and those current lifestyles of petits bourgeoisie in urban contexts. Placing quite little emphasis on the target commodity, they invite and encourage an imaginative audience to spell out a variety of weak implicatures involving feelings, attitudes, emotions and impressions along these lines, fairly invisibly persuading her to recognise the prominent intercultural values and to construct the identity of cultural pluralism. Also they help shorten the social distance and shape the corporate image as a cultural landmark.
The sociocultural aspect of language use is explored to see the inseparable relationship between language and social meaning. This functional linguistic study reveals that the selling motive could well be melted and/or hidden through such a stylistic pattern/communicative strategy due to its implicitness, indirectness and vagueness. It reflects cultural consumption of celebrities along with cultural imperialism and linguistic hegemony reified within the symbolic domain of popular culture, the social interaction and dynamism of communicator and audience, and thus keeping the dialectical relationship between sociocultural structures and social practice (Fairclough 1995).
Jocelyn Chey: Youmo: Is there such a thing as a Chinese sense of humour?
The Chinese scholar Lin Yu Tang invented the term “youmo” in the 1920s, a direct translation of the English word, claiming that the Chinese language contained no such concept as “humour”. Other Chinese authorities have disagreed, referring for instance to the ancient expression “huaji”. Ancient collections of “huaji” contained stories that generally illustrated the power of quick wittedness rather than what is generally understood to be humour in the West.
There are examples of both “huaji” and humour in modern Chinese literature, in popular sayings and informal jokes, in art and daily life. Many types can be distinguished and although some may be more prevalent than others they do not display some unique or absolutely different “Chinese” quality. Chinese humour may focus on some aspects of daily life that are significant in Chinese society but not in the West, as has been pointed out by C.T. Hsia and others, but arguments that Chinese had no sense of humour before it was introduced from the West are as equally false as arguments that the Chinese sense of humour is distinct and separate from other national or ethnic types. In recent years, the forces of globalisation and increased communication with the outside world, especially through the Internet, has tended to internationalise humour in China, as elsewhere. That is not to say that understanding the social context is not of great assistance in helping one to appreciate examples of humour. The need to translate literary jokes and humorous writing may add another level of difficulty in our understanding of Chinese humour (as well as many examples of unintended funniness). Notwithstanding all these caveats, it can be shown that there is a continuous line of development from “classical” Chinese humour to the present day, and that this line now connects seamlessly with other “national” and “global” types of humour.
Mun Ga Choi: How cultural contexts affect the design of Web sites?
This study examines issues of Web users’ culture and that culture’s influence on their attitudes and intentions toward different Web sites. The assumption is made that a Web site’s cultural content characteristics such as text and graphics would affect to a Web user’s positive or negative attitude toward the Web site and his/her intentions to visit the Web site again in the future.
For this study, culturally bipolar clusters based on Hofstede (1991)’s cultural dimensions are conceptualised to characterise the Web site’s cultural content. New Zealand and Korea are chosen as representatives for the respective bipolar clusters. The participants will be asked to fill in the on-line questionnaires after browsing Web sites made for this research in which the content of the text and graphics will be varied according to cultural frameworks while the structure of the Web sites will be exactly the same. The results from four culturally different Web sites and from three culturally different groups - Koreans, New Zealanders, and English-Korean bilinguals – will be analysed and discussed.
Cross-cultural studies in the area of Web site design are still in their infancy and most previous studies have explored cultural characteristics using existing Web sites from different countries and have not investigated the effectiveness of culturally adapted Web sites. This study is innovative because it evaluates and measures Web users’ attitudes toward culturally adapted Web sites and their preferences.
Yasuko Claremont: The capacity for healing in literature
The generation born in the 1930s in Japan experienced drastic socio-political changes in their formative years. The Pacific War ended in 1945 leaving nothing but ruins, orphans, wounds and hunger. While the memories of the War have become almost history for the majority of the population, those who lived through that time can never forget their experiences, which have resulted in their conviction to work towards a better society. My paper discusses the legacy of writers in this generation, mainly focusing on the novelist, Ôe Kenzaburô (b. 1935). In his acceptance of the Nobel Prize Ôe referred to “ the wondrous healing power of art”. Indeed in his later works spiritual regeneration and socio-political issues such as the nuclear threat and human rights are the most prominent themes, expressed with great power. Although his extensive use of references to world literature and Western thinkers make his literature somewhat alien to the general public, he has created a new model of world vision in his literature in response to the spiritual need of people, particularly the youth of the world. Not least are his portraits of his mentally-challenged son, Hikari, who has been able to voice his emotions through the composition of music.
Hugh Clarke: Walls physical and ideological and a soldier’s diary
Sixty-one years after the end of the Pacific War, debate continues to rage in Japan and elsewhere in Asia over the ‘sense of history’ surrounding the conflict and how the sacrifices on both sides should be expiated. This ideological wall is a major impediment to the fostering of smooth international relations in East Asia. Yet for the ordinary soldier at the front the walls were physical and psychological rather than ideological. In this paper I consider Japanese war diaries, within the context of the diary in Japanese literature. In particular, I examine the text of the diary of a Japanese soldier who fought in New Guinea. While attempting to identify the author, I explore his personal experience of war and possible motivations for writing the diary. Finally, I consider the possibility of returning the diary back over the wall to the soldier’s surviving relatives. If we all concentrate on history as it is made at the grassroots it may indeed be possible to arrive at a world without walls.
Hiroko Cockerill: Shōwa gesaku writer: Nosaka Akiyuki
Nosaka Akiyuki (1930-), a writer, singer, lyricist and former member of the House of Councilors is best known in the West as the author of Hotaru no haka [Grave of the Fireflies] (1967). The animated movie based upon this semi-autobiographical novel was released in 1988 and was described as “one of the most mature and sobering films ever made”. In it a teenage boy cares for his little sister through their desperate struggle for survival at the end of the Second World War. In the author’s words, “it’s a double-suicide story”. Nosaka tries to depict “the idealized humanity of a brother and a sister, or, ultimately, of a man and a woman”.
In his other early works such as Erogotoshitachi [The Pornographers] (1963) and Amerika hijiki [American Hijiki] (1967) Nosaka employs a narrative style similar to that of Edo gesaku writers. This style, in which particles are frequently omitted and the “-(r)u” form verb dominates, creates an unusual frivolity, through which a harsh reality is caricatured and objectified. In this sense, Nosaka appears to be of those who inherited the legacy of Burai-ha writers, such as Sakaguchi Ango and Dazai Osamu.
Stephen Cooper: People’s Uprisings in Asia in the Pre-Colonial Era
From a list of uprisings which took place in Asia in the pre-colonial period it is argued that such events contradict the recently – expressed views of Robert Cooper, adviser to Tony Blair. They also contradict the views of Karl Wittfogel.
The uprisings took place not only against regimes featuring slavery and feudalism, but those claimed to be based on the “Asiatic Mode of Production”. The arguments of those who agree with Cooper claim that many recently independent countries have populations which have been conditioned for centuries, even millennia, into a culture of servility. The dismissive attitude towards the examples of courage and initiative involved in such uprisings are combined with descriptions if some newly-independent countries as “failed states” and “rogue states” with demands that old imperial powers intervene to establish “governance” or “Freedom”, in fact neo-colonialism.
Also examined will be reasons why such struggles usually failed, or were partly successful for only a short time, and why more recent struggles have been successful.
Jennifer Cover: Bodhasāra by Narahari: An important 18th Century Sanskrit Text
Why translate and study yet another Sanskrit text? Many early Sanskrit works have been thoroughly translated, studied and retranslated, but, until recently, later Sanskrit works have been largely overlooked, primarily because they were considered inferior to earlier works. Recently scholars have realised that, despite much study of the impact of colonialism, without a firm base of what was there immediately before colonialism this study must remain incomplete. The “Sanskrit Knowledge Systems on the Eve of Colonialism” project is investigating the period 1550-1750, but huge gaps still remain in understanding 18th century India. Few 18th century Sanskrit texts, a prime source of the intellectual climate immediately before colonialism, have been translated into English. Bodhasāra, written by Narahari in 1789, is an important contribution to this understanding. Not only is it well-written, showing that fine Sanskrit works were still being written at the very end of the eighteenth century, it is written in a different style from earlier philosophical works. I will describe several of Narahari’s striking metaphors to give a taste of Bodhasāra. Comparison with similar themes from early traditional works shows that Narahari has not merely regurgitated these works but has skilfully used them to serve his own purpose.
Tim Cross: Performing Hakata: Yamakasa and Sosaku Noh
This paper explores the creation of local Hakata identity by a summer festival, Hakata Gion Yamakasa. Reference will be made to how high culture forms of tea and noh as appear as festival elements that strategically elevate local identity to a sacrament. As an alternative to the conventional grandmaster model of cultural transmission centred on Kyoto, the local Nambo Ryu school of tea, is introduced. In front of the main altar of Kushida Shrine a senior member of Nambo Ryu prepares sacramental tea for consumption by the kami. Other members of Nambo Ryu prepare thin tea in the seated style for Yamakasa runners.
The origins of the Yamakasa festival is also the subject of a sosaku noh that has been performed three times since 2005. Historically the genre of sosaku noh has been conflated with desire to use the cultural capital of noh to legitimate various forms of power. The Taiko noh that were commissioned by Hideyoshi between 1594 and 1598 collapse the distinction between political power and the historic figures conventionally valourised by canonical noh. Hideyoshi’s appropriation of canonical noh and tea is addressed by the 1989 film Teshigahara film Rikyu.
Peiling Cui: Chinese Family Jokes
Up to date, almost all linguistic theories on humor deal only with jokes from the American or the European cultures. How is their application to Chinese jokes?
Based on the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH) by Raskin (1985) and its revision the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) by Attardo&Raskin (1991), this paper analysed about 400 Chinese family jokes, i.e. jokes in which at least one family member or the relation between two or more family members is presented or ridiculed on account of their certain characteristics.
The joke samples were collected from two currently published joke books and four Chinese websites on humour and jokes. Five parameters were used in the analysis, namely: 1. the script opposition, 2. the target, 3. the background knowledge used for joke understanding, 4. the situation described in the jokes, and 5. the narrative strategy of the text. Among them, 1, 2, 4, and 5 are directly the knowledge resources in the GTVH, while 3 is derived from the script types developed in the SSTH.
This paper is a new application of the currently influential linguistic theories on humour, and also, it will give the readers an outline of the Chinese family jokes which make a large category in the Chinese humor.
Lola Sharon Davidson: “One World in Common”: Dreaming East & West
Svapna, hypnos, sompnus, schlafen, sleep. Heraclitus observed that “the waking have one world in common”, which is often taken to imply that in sleep we each retreat to a world of our own. But this waking world we have in common, we each view from an individual perspective formed in that fragment of our common world which is the culture from which we come. And in sleep we retreat not to a private world of our own creation, nor to a universal unconscious shared by the entire human race, but to a world which, like the waking world, is both individual and collective, shaped simultaneously by our personal desires and our experience as cultural beings. In this paper I will examine similarities and differences in the way that sleep and dreams were conceptualised and interpreted in the European and Indian traditions as, from a shared beginning, they developed their particular discourses for bridging the divide between the sleeping and waking worlds.
Rashmi Desai: Succession to office in the Ramayana
In the Indian epic Ramayana (the story of the king Rama) the issue of succession to the office of kingship is so obvious and forelined as to demand no further consideration. The consequence has been that much of the scholarly writing (besides innumerable ethnographic recordings of Ramayana performances) has focused on its twin didactic aspects, namely, the relationship between the ideal king and his subjects (Rama Rajya) and the norms of behaviour, or rather the ideal roles within the joint/extended Hindu families. Yet succession per se is a topic eminently worthy of examination.
In the context of a familial/kinship based State, rules of succession are important. The foremost among them is the requirement that the heir to office be powerful and competent enough to maintain amity within the group, especially the rival claimants, as well as hold out against the outsiders. The consequence of this is that no normative rule of succession maybe so unalterable as to bring on or maintain an heir who is incompetent or weak. In other words all the rules must ultimately have a persuasive rather than a prescriptive force.
Given the above the main contenders for the transfer of office are the sons and brothers of the king. In a patriarchal society, but even otherwise, this is complicated by the fact that there are usually more than one individual in each of these categories. In a polygamous society there are half siblings and sons by different wives. There may even be stepsons where widow-remarriage, or widow-inheritance, is permitted.
Hence in the fashioning of the rules of succession an important requirement is that an order of precedence be established for inheriting the office. Besides that there is the further issue of the right of the incumbent to name his successor, within or outside the order of precedence, during his lifetime or upon his death.
This paper contends that the Valmiki Ramayana composed in Sanskrit is a document par excellence that deals with the complexities of the rules of succession in Hindu India, but also in South East Asia where the state and the people have been influence by the story of Rama. At a higher level the data presented points to the structuralist mode of thought that is implicit in the epic.
Mark Diesendorf: Energy and Greenhouse Options for India and China
Rural India and China would benefit greatly from small-scale renewable energy sources: bioenergy for cooking, and electricity for lighting and communications from small solar, wind, biomass and hydro. Industrial India and China have high rates of economic and energy demand growth. For electricity generation, both industrial societies are strongly dependent on greenhouse-intensive coal for the major proportions of their electricity, then gas, then hydro. Nuclear power makes tiny contributions to their respective electricity supplies. Since both countries have large coal deposits, their future policies on coal-burning, together with those of the USA, will largely determine Earth's future climate, environment and hence economy. The challenge to the North is to accept an equitable international system for assisting the South to develop without making the same environmentally destructive mistakes of the North. Technological and political options will be discussed.
Paul Donnelly: The Hwong Ping Sing Collection
The Chinese numismatic collection named after its donor, Hwong Ping Sing, has enjoyed a celebrated status in the holdings of the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. It had been transferred in 1961 to the Powerhouse (then the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences) from the Australian Museum during a period of government-driven consolidation of numismatic collections in New South Wales. The collection's history prior to this event is hazy; having resided in the Australian Museum since sometime in the last half of the 19th Century, it came with a detailed catalogue drawn up by Ping Sing and dated to 1862. A collection 'frozen' since 1862 has the potential to offer significant insights into issues of authenticity, as well as the nature of collecting Chinese numismatics in the middle of the 19th century. Ping Sing himself remains a mystery on which this paper attempts to shed some light.
Padma Durvasala: Autobiography: Telegu women 20th Century
The geographical area of this study is the Madras presidency and the Nizam State of Hyderabad during the first half of the century. From the 1950 s it focuses only on the Andra State. The language and ethnicity of the women was Telegu.
As far as research indicates there were no autobiographies of these women published before the start of the 20th Century. It can very likely be explained by the lack of Educational opportunities for women even now there is a small number of autobiographies available. The childhood of all four women was based in traditional Hinduism and all four were married as children.
Yet the focus of their autobiographies varies widely; one could be described as semi spiritual, one as an atheist, one a secular reformer, and one a partial communist. All four were profoundly influenced by Gandhi and became dedicated followers though each projected her own individual identity into her work and pursued various causes and interests.
These women were not royalty nor were they leaders in the conventional sense of the word (although some rose to prominent positions through their own efforts) their principle concerns were those related to women s issues ; these included child marriage, lack of education, economic powerlessness and social disadvantage some of them entered politics to lobby for these causes.
These women were courageous exceptions to customary subservient roles allocated to women most men viewed them with suspicion and even open hostility because they broke the moulds in which women were cast. Yet in large measure they did indeed accomplish what they set out to accomplish their lives were characterised by persistence and dedication. To illustrate the point the institutions established by all of them to educate girls, help disadvantaged women and provide refuge for widows are still operating today.
Women rediscover themselves through their own stories and those of others. Male dominated and male written history made women invisible for centuries: in a patriarchal society women’s accomplishments were relegated to a secondary status and ignored as a matter of public record only recently has history begun to rectify this glaring bias by acknowledging women s writing of their own experience.
Lutz Edzard: The central status of Arabic for the transmission of Classical knowledge: The case of Aristotle's Poetics
This paper reviews the chances and problems associated with the Syriac fragment and the nearly complete Arabic translation of Aristotle’s Poetics by Abu Bishr Matta regarding the elucidation of a number of problematic passages in the Greek text. After a brief survey of the textual history and relevant methodological problems I proceed directly to the discussion of a number of difficult passages in the text, starting from indications in the apparatus criticus in Kassel’s standard edition (1965) of the Poetics and resorting to the evidence presented by the Arabic translation.
John P. Egan: Not str8, not white: Asian and Middle-eastern queer youth on the Pacific Rim
How is the experience of coming out as queer mitigated by non-whiteness in post-colonial emigrant societies? Drawing on the accounts of Australian and Canada queer young men, this paper articulates how youth whose background include being Asian or Middle-Eastern mitigate and in some ways impedes the ability to claim membership in queer community. These queer (gay, bisexual or queer-identified) men from Vancouver and Sydney face hegemonic notions of queer=European. Vancouver’s queer youth experience a lesser degree of racism and exclusion than their Sydney peers—though men from both cities were Othered on their city’s respective “scene” for being non-white.
Francine Farr: India and Ethiopia: Pre-Coinage Metallic Wealth to Early Coinage
Bridging Asia and Africa overland and by sea, from prehistory to the present, through migration and trade, India and Ethiopia correspond and differ in instructive ways in their early monetary history. The pre-coinage metallic wealth of these historically rich countries is compared in this analysis in terms of form and function but also as processes and products of indigenous and cross-cultural historical conditions that shaped their first coinage. The methodology thus focuses on identifying and interpreting points of commonality and difference in their development of metallic wealth and their transition to coin usage, independently achieved and through direct and indirect cultural contact from 1,000 BCE to 500 CE. Interrelated processes in three successive stages of monetary history are cross-culturally compared: (1) metalworking, animist practices and political non-centralisation, (2) urbanisation, sovereignty and early coinage; (3) Buddhism and Christianity, the Silk Route and foreign exchange in India from King Ashoka’s reign (268-232 BCE) to the Kushan Empire (c. 50 CE – 320) and in the Ethiopian cities of Aksum and Adulis before and after the conversion of King Ezana to Christianity (500 BCE - 500 CE). Precedent comparative studies of ancient Asian and African art history and proto-numismatics being few, an historiographical overview is provided as a critical frame of reference.
Graeme Ford: The Voyages of Mahomet Zheng He
Zheng He was not a discoverer, because he travelled along sea routes from China to the Persian Gulf which had been in use for centuries. Zheng He, a Muslim of Persian descent, was a member of the semu administrative class which attained great wealth and power during the Mongol era. The semu were drawn from various countries, and Persian became important as a language of administration in China at that time. Zheng He's voyages during the early part of the Ming Dynasty were an attempt to reopen the sea trade to the Indian Ocean, and reassert the status of the semu. The banning of sea trade and closing of shipyards in China were measures that finally ended the power of the semu.
Peter Friedlander: Detective stories in Hindi literature
Hindi has had a commercial genre of detective fiction since the late 19th century. In this paper I examine a selection of popular Hindi detective novels written and published from the 1970s onwards. The discussion of these novels explores two major themes found in this literature, the negotiation of religious identities and modernity and the relationship between the supernatural and the rational. The paper then addresses the way in which the leading characters of the novels, such as the Indian woman super spy ‘Mona Darling’ are now often cited as being their authors as well as their leading characters. This is contrasted with how the novels are actually written and published by the publishing houses in and around Delhi. Finally I explore the ways in which the novels react to current affairs and year by year reflect responses to issues such as trans-national terrorism and crime, nuclear armaments and rivalry and conflicts with Pakistan.
Edmund Fung: Chinese Conservatism Reconsidered: Relocating Conservatism in Nationalism and Modernity
This paper re-examines two themes in the scholarship on modern Chinese conservatism. The first is the distinction between cultural conservatism and political conservatism. It was Benjamin Schwartz who first drew this distinction in a 1970 essay on conservatism in general and in China in particular, asserting that Chinese conservatism was largely the former and not the latter. The basis for his argument is that “few members of the articulate Chinese intelligentsia [were] prepared to defend the current sociopolitical order as a whole.” Schwartz attempted to show that Chinese conservatives were different from Edmund Burke, who, despite his criticism of the sociopolitical structure and culture of late eighteen-century England, approved of many things in general and of the political order in particular. The other theme is the view that conservative thought was too weak a force in twentieth-century China. That view grows out of a thesis on the “radicalization of the Chinese mind” in the last century put forward by Yü Ying-shih, who asserted in a 1993 article that radical thought had been excessive, culminating in the Cultural Revolution. The two themes are not directly related and have been developed separately. But read together they give a blinkered view of modern Chinese conservatism, blinkered because it ignores the politics of conservatism (Schwartz) and underestimates the strength and endurance of conservative thought (Yü). Revisiting Chinese conservatism of the Republican period, this paper is concerned with its politics and attempts to relocate it in nationalism and modernity, emphasizing its links with state building. Two main arguments will be made. First, Chinese conservatism was a response to and critique of modernity and, as such, had its own dynamics. It was marked by a dualism: cultural and political simultaneously; and also traditionalist, China-centered, irrational, and critical of the West on one hand, and progressive, rational, future-oriented, and supportive of modernization (as distinct from Westernization) on the other. Second, conservative thought was a significant force countering the radicalism of New Culture/May Fourth liberals and Marxism. It was able to arrest the “radicalization of the Chinese mind” and remained an important intellectual and political force until the last years of the Nationalist era.
Chong Han: Metaphorical Construction of ‘Supergirls’ in Chinese Internet Media Discourse
“Supergirls”, the first Chinese equivalent of “Australian Idol”, has become one of the most popular TV programs in China since its start in 2004. The unprecedented involvement of the audience through SMS and phone-ins has generated an on-going debate about its impact on Chinese society. The media reports and online comments are permeated with metaphors describing, praising or criticizing “Supergirls”. This paper examines the metaphors and semantic associations constructed in and through the media’s coverage of this activity. The data comes from three types of internet discourse: news reports, news commentaries and audiences posted comments, over the period 2004 to 2006. The results show that metaphors differ according to source (news reports, news commentaries and posted online comments), and often convey conflicting images. Using Lakoff’s cognitive theory of metaphor, this paper aims to show that the choice of metaphors reflects the different interests and ideologies of the three distinctive groups, namely entertainment journalists, news commentators and the experts they draw on, and audience members who comment online. The paper also argues that a better understanding of metaphor in media discourse contributes to a better understanding of the social and cultural situation in the present China which is in transition.
Victoria Haskins: Memsahib and Missus: transcolonial constructions of the white mistress in India and Australia.
In the late 1850s, a young woman, orphaned as a child in India under the Raj, ran away from unsympathetic guardians in Scotland to New South Wales, on an assisted passage designed to encourage the migration of respectable single British women to the colonies, and successfully re-invented herself in relation to Aboriginal people, as a classic ‘goodfella missus’. This paper takes her colonial trajectory as the starting point for an exploration into the diverse and transcultural construction of imperial/colonial white womanhood under British colonization, with a particular focus on the impact this has had on our understandings of Indigenous domestic service relationships in both countries.
Carol Hayes: Voices of War: Poetic depictions of the Pacific War
The images of the war are indelibly engraved in the minds of those who lived through the Pacific War. In his poem “Tama” (Bullet), the poet, Nagashima Miyoshi depicts a bullet as a blood sucking worm forever lodged in his body well after the end of the war. This blood sucking parasite becomes a metaphor for the war itself.
For quite some time nowThe goal of this paper is to explore the Pacific War as an ‘imaginative’ event through an analysis of its depiction in both the writings of a number of Yakeato poet’s such as Nagashima Miyoshi and Ibaragi Noriko (b.1926) and the writings of a number of Japanese soldiers stationed in the Pacific during WWII.
The presentation will begin with a review of a number of poems written by the generation focusing in particular on the imagery and metaphors used. The poetry of these more famous poets will then be compared to a number of literary and personal manuscripts written by Japanese soldiers stationed in the Pacific during WWII. An analysis of their diary entries, poems and song lyrics—all housed in the Australian War Memorial—will show how these solders sort to describe the war as they witnessed it personally, and how they sort to understand the broader context of Japan’s involvement with the war as a whole.
Kabita Chakma and Glen Hill: Writing post-nationalist histories within the walls of nationalism: the case of indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh
This paper addresses the ongoing struggle of the indigenous peoples living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (popularly known as the CHT), the borderland between Bangladesh, India and Burma. The paper is an attempt to begin a process of dismantling the wall of injustice that has grown up around the 12 indigenous tribal groups, collectively known as the Jummas, who have traditionally inhabited the CHT. It is a wall constructed through policies of militarisation and transmigration that has forced itself between the Jummas of the CHT and Bangladesh’s majority Bengali population, and is ultimately threatening to sever the indigenous people’s relation to their land.
The paper approaches its theme via the recently released low budget film, ‘Dulu Kumuri’, made entirely with a Jumma cast and production team. The film enacts the folk tale about the abduction of the young girl by a bird of prey, and the nine brothers’ subsequent frantic search for their only sister. While the film has no apparent political content and appears to be only a straight retelling of the tale, Jummas cannot help but be reminded of the infamous abduction of the high profile political activist, Kalpana Chakma, by Bangladesh military personnel. Kalpana disappeared in the early hours of 12 June 1997 and has never been seen since.
The paper argues through the parallel events of the film and the real life abduction of the Jumma woman that the potential exists for numerous walls to be dismantled: Among them the wall between fact and fiction as the ahistorical myth merges with an actual historical event; The wall between the culture of the Jumma Chakma minority and the culture of the Bengali majority as the mode of filmic retelling crosses cultural boundaries; And the wall between Bengali majority and Jumma minority, as human rights activists, particularly women, from both sides of the cultural divide united together to work on Kalpana’s behalf at the local, national and international level.
Rosita Holenbergh: Through sandstone arches and moon-gates: academic linkage of The University of Sydney with the People's Republic of China (PRC).
The evolution of Australia-China relations in higher education occurred in several loosely defined stages through the twentieth century. Traditional international networks amongst scholars were augmented by governmental sponsorship of exchange programs, forms of formal university support and private initiatives. A case study of the University of Sydney for the second half of the century reveals patterns of engagement of the central administration and the faculties. In each decade, pioneering forms of educational exchange were established across a range of faculties, including those in the grouping of the humanities and social sciences (with the beginning of award programs in Chinese under Professor Bertie Davis in the 1950s) but also in those of science and technology and health sciences. Alliances resulted largely from the individual efforts of scholars rather than through policy and strategic planning. However, the recruitment and enrolment of students from the PRC was encouraged during the 1990s in response to new market forces. The sharing of intellectual resources of the University and alumni in China is now being encouraged.
Christopher Houston: Ottoman Borderlands and the Production of Historical Knowledge about Kurds in Turkey
With the military incorporation in 1512 of Eastern Anatolia into the Ottoman Empire, the region described by the discourse on Kurdish nationalism as Kurdistan was made into a new borderland between the Ottoman and Safavid Empires. This division of the Kurdish regions between two antagonistic imperial powers resulted in various unorthodox forms of administrative arrangement, including the exemption of the Kurdish principalities in the Ottoman sphere of influence from taxes and centrally-appointed provincial governors.
Along with the re-emergence of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey in the 1970s, the significance of this Ottoman-Kurdish relationship has been keenly debated in the writing of new histories of the Kurds. In this paper I will compare a number of longer or shorter analyses of the integration of the Kurdish regions into the Ottoman Empire. It will become clear that despite significant shades of difference amongst them the historiographical material is unified by a shared political imagination. In its exploration of the Ottoman Kurdish history of the 16th and 17th centuries, the theoretical obsession of writers centres on the meaning and extent of the Kurdish principalities’ political autonomy. Further the conclusions of the individual texts are articulated with (interpretations of) the present situation in the Kurdish regions. Thus these historical interpretations are also latently concerned with what the contemporary consequences of this past political dynamic should be.
Bob Hudson: Incised Rock Art at Padaw Kaladan-Lemro floodplain, Rakhine (Arakan) state, Myanmar (Burma) [Actual authors: Kyaw Tin Aung and Pamela Gutman]
In the late 19th century, Burma’s Government Archaeologist Emanuel Forchhammer drew and described a group of incised rock pictures at Padaw, a site 16 kilometres south of Mrauk-u, in Arakan. He linked together eight individual images of boats and human figures in a narrative of conflict between invaders and locals which has remained the received interpretation of the site until today, and in recent years has been retold as a nationalist parable. New rubbings and digital images of the rock pictures indicate that Forchhammer’s sketches were inaccurate, and demonstrate that his interpretation is no longer tenable. The area seems to have been a quarry during the 15th-18th century Mrauk-u period. Quarry workers are suspected to have created the rock-cut figures, which in the context of the religious art of the time stand out as rare example of folk art on secular themes.
Catherine Ingram: If you don’t sing, friends will say you are proud: analysing and understanding Kam ‘big song’
Kam ‘big song’ is the main multi-part vocal genre of the Kam people, the eleventh largest of China’s 55 recognised minority groups. ‘Big song’ is one of only two Kam musical genres directly concerned with the transmission of Kam history and culture, and is the only genre taught systematically by recognised village ‘song experts’ through an indigenous Kam musical system. Both historically and today, the acts of learning, performing and listening to big song were and remain very important forums of accepted social interaction and structure in many Southern Kam communities. This paper demonstrates some of the major differences between Kam song experts’ understandings of the genre and outside scholars’ written analyses, and argues that analysis and understanding of ‘big song’ depends upon Kam conceptualisations and analysis of the genre to provide a complete understanding of this remarkable and unique form of musical expression.
Monica M. Jackson: Stylistic Influences of Coins on Jewellery from the Eastern Mediterranean to Bactria
Coins and jewellery have had a long and symbiotic relationship. Since ancient coinage was struck from varying hand engraved dies, no two coins were ever exactly alike. This is also the case for ancient jewellery. Each piece is a unique example of the ancient jeweller’s and goldsmith’s art. The process of celature can be studied in both gems and coins, since both were undertaken by craftsmen with identical skills.
This paper begins in Asia Minor towards the end of the 3rd century BC, with a decorative Hellenistic gold bracelet depicting the youthful Dionysos in a round mount. It belongs to the category of numismatic jewellery, because it incorporates a central image closely linked to medallic themes as well as coin types.
The discussion moves on to the gem engraving art of the Bactrian court and a cameo portrait of the 2nd century BC, which can be identified as a royal image by coins of the period. From Bactria to the coinage of Phoenicia of the 1st century BC, and finally to Rome of the 19th century AD, and the famous dynasty of goldsmiths and jewellers, the Castellani family, who manufactured jewellery of the archaeological revival style. Some of their best pieces incorporated ancient coins.
David Jaffray and Shuangyaun Shi: Chinese programs in government schools in New South Wales
The teaching and learning of Chinese in NSW government schools is expanding rapidly. Special features are noted for attention. Amongst these are curriculum offerings in schools and educational exchange programs between schools in NSW and schools in China. Advancements in technology have provided greater access to both background and non-background speakers. NSW is leading the way in these developments.
Cathy Jonak: Japanese language education In Australian schools
From a minor language studied at secondary level in the 1970's, Japanese study in Australian schools showed a steady growth culminating in the "tsunami" of the early nineties. Japanese is now one of the most popular languages studied in schools, and Australia has the second largest number of school-aged Japanese learners in the world.This paper will give an overview of the current state of Japanese language education at primary- secondary level. It will give a profile of learners and teachers, and the teaching-learning environment. It will focus on curriculum and its aims, and on current approaches such as Intercultural Language Learning and use of ICT. Finally it will discuss issues such as articulation between sectors and policy implementation.
Mats Karlsson: Nakagami Kenji’s Izoku and the possibility of Pan-Asian Brotherhood
Towards the end of his career Nakagami Kenji embarked on an ambitious project to break new grounds for the Japanese novel: Izoku (approx. The Different Tribe), his longest and most controversial work. This novel started as a serialization in 1984 and was left unfinished at the time of the writer’s death in 1992. Izoku is controversial for a number of reasons. To start with, Izoku can be seen to explore the theme of emperor worship and the possibilities inherent in the wartime myth of expansion and harmony under Japanese rule. On another level the novel is problematic because of its strongly parodic and absurd strain in terms of the plot. Furthermore, style as well contributes to the novel’s ambiguous character. Thus, critics diverge on how to understand its 800 pages of extremely flat and monotonous narration.
Setting out from these controversial aspects of the novel this paper investigates Izoku on story level as well as on discourse level. The paper also discusses how the novel relates to Minami Kaikisen, a manga that enfolds along similar lines as Izoku and for which Nakagami wrote the text and synopsis.
Irene Karpenka: Philosophical deconstructivism and the culture of the Europe-Eurasian border zone
The present stage of the development of society has put forward a number of new problems in the Europe-Eurasian region (East Europe as the place between West Europe and Russia) . There are a development of national and ethnic relations, preserving of cultural specificities of East European Nations, safeguarding of national languages. This paper proposes the consideration of both these problems and their possible solution from point of view methodology of ‘deconstruction of metaphysics’. We will try also to show that deconstruction of metaphysics as ‘removing of the totalitarian power’ will serve as the powerful research tool for the building of the model of the cultural background of the Europe-Eurasian border zone.
Hiroko Kobayashi: The Diaries of Ishikawa Takuboku
Ishikawa Takuboku (1886-1912) is generally known as a writer of "new-style" poems and traditional 31-syllable tanka written in three lines. During his short life, he also wrote a few prose works of various genres, such as essays and fiction, and had some of them published in newspapers and literary magazines. However, his reputation as an important literary figure of the Meiji period grew after his death. The publication of his diaries in 1948 renewed great interest in him. The diaries cover intermittently the last 10 years of his life from 1902 to early 1912 - a period of great social change in the late Meiji period. The entries written in Tokyo, where he lived in his later years, are most poignant. They vividly record his life of daily struggle with poverty and sickness and his aspirations for literary success. Many people with whom he had been acquainted were well-known figures (or became well-known figures later), and how they came in contact with Takuboku's life is of great interest to the reader. The diaries of Takuboku are an honest record of a man who tried to live life to the full and leap beyond the confines of his miserable circumstances.
Franz Kogelmann: Current development in the Islamic endowment system (waqf / awqaf) – a comparative perspective
The Islamic endowment system gave the Islamic ideal of religiously-motivated charity a lasting institutional form. Waqf had already taken over the role of a “vehicle for financing Islam as a society” (M. Hodgson) from giving alms (zakat or sadaqa) in the first few hundred years in the history of Muslim societies. The Islamic endowment system developed thereafter into a phenomenon that is present in virtually all Muslim societies and which has a high prestige in social, religious, political, cultural and economic terms. However it be, the Islamic endowment system declined in most modern Muslim states during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the reasons of this development seems to be the fact that the concern for social welfare, economic enterprises, and investments in infrastructure, which was an important task of the Islamic endowment system in history, have become the responsibility of the state. Beside their decline the awqaf came almost entirely under the control of the modern state during the 20th century. The paper focuses on very recent efforts of Muslim thinkers to revive this Islamic institution and to adapt it to contemporary circumstances. In addition to the main focus on recent developments in Muslim societies in the Middle East, the paper wants to show efforts of Muslims living as a minority in a non-Muslim environment – for instance in Western societies – to establish awqaf within the framework of secular societies and legal settings.
Jon Eugene von Kowallis: Translation and Originality: Lu Xun as Translator
Within the oeuvre of Lu Xun (1881-1936), the creative writer, poet, and essayist generally taken to be the founder of modern Chinese literature, translations from foreign sources make up half his total output, ten out of the twenty volumes of the 1973 edition of his complete works. Contemporary scholar and critic Leo Oufan Lee has recently pointed to the significance of Lu Xun’s translation enterprise within the context of twentieth-century globalization as the future path for research focusing on the question of Lu Xun’s modernity and his relationship to world literature (Mingbao Yuekan, vol. 41, no. 10, October 2006, p. 72). Nevertheless, much has been written and spoken since the 1930s to deride Lu Xun’s translation efforts and theories, particularly by his opponents in the Crescent Moon Society, but also by Leo Lee himself. The focus of this criticism has often been Lu Xun’s theory of ‘hard translation’ (ying yi) versus ‘soft translation’ (ruan yi), which flew in the face of consumer satisfaction, and the fact that he is said to have worked principally from ‘third-rate’ Japanese versions in translating European literary works and theory. To what extent are these criticisms valid and to what extent are they not? How great an import did Lu Xun place on his work as a translator? This paper, based in part on archival research at the Lu Xun Museum in Beijing, intends to shed new light on these and other questions about Lu Xun’s work as a translator.
Nirmal Kumar: Aligarh Historians and the Writing of Medieval Indian History in India
India was both made independent and partitioned at the same time. that made the job of historians even more difficult and worse if he/she was also a Muslim. The historians of Aligarh Muslim University(then Muslim University) were the most progressive lot. despite being a predominantly Muslim university and founded with the specific purpose of serving the Muslim community, by and large it remained unaffected by the partition of India. Rather it tried to resist all attempts to lure the scholars to Pakistan. The historians led by redoubtable Professor Muhammad Habib decided to stay on in India. And thus started the very progressive and bold journey to secularism which most did not just preach but practised as well. for Aligarh school of historians (as they are collectively called now) it was easier said than done. while Muslim fundamentalists called them to be loyal to faith. the Hindu majority in India doubted their loyalty, secularism and often called them names. Suffer they did, but not silently. Under Muhammad Habib and KA Nizami in the early years, the Aligarh historians concentrated in speaking through their writings. They started giving secular and objective analysis of the historical events of 13th and 14th centuries in order to remove the misconceptions and biased interpretations of the coming of the Turks/Muslims in to India. Habib's masterly analysis of Mahmud of Ghazna betrayed a complex craft of the historian. He placed Mahmud in right perspective- from Mahmud the murderer and anti Hindu Muslim invader to just an invader with lust for money. Suddenly how simple was the secular history writing had become. Similarly Habib wrote on Sufi movement. Amir Khusrau, historian Ziauddin Barani and all.
The burden of secular history writing was carried further ably by the second generation historians of University. Led by Irfan Habib (son of Muhammad Habib) this school flourished, wrote scientific history and not just secular history, faced the communal forces amongst Muslims and Hindus, became activists cum historians and established a very distinct school of secular-Muslim-historians in India. today they are most respected for their contribution to Indian history and much honoured for their secular approach.
Wing Keung Lam: Sekai no Nihon: The Cultural Philosophy of Nishida Kitarō
The paper attempts to explore the discourse, ‘sekai no nihon’, Japan of the World, that posited by the father of modern Japanese Philosophy, Nishida Kitarō. In one of his writings, Nihon Bunka no Mondai, The Problem of Japanese Culturem Nishida exceptionally touched on the cultural issue of Japan that somewhat differs from his lifelong dialogue and confrontation with Western philosophy, of which it has caught extensive and critical attentions by scholars in the West. Ideas like ‘sekai no nihon’, ‘daitōakōeiken’, ‘Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere’ and the supporting attitude towards the imperial family are somewhat conceived as towards the contemporary rightwing government or the imperial family for promoting nationalism, expansionism and the Second World War. This paper would like to argue, however, that the discourse, ‘sekai no nihon’, does not in fact carry the so-called ‘nationalist’ orientation. On the contrary, Nishida would like to warn those ‘nationalist’ parties by emphasizing that ‘nihon’ should not be taken as a ‘shutai, subject’, a notion that would be easily be picked up as flavour for ‘nihonshugi’, Japanism, an ‘agent’ for negating or overwhelming other ‘subjects’ of ‘sekai’ . Nishida reiterated that ‘nihon’ should be taken as a ‘tokushuteki sekai’, particular world) , one out of the many other ‘particular worlds’, that not only its ‘particularity’ of ‘nihon’ should not be singled out or overstressed, but also should be ‘trespassed’ or ‘overcome’ by ‘sekai’, or to put in a much definite way, ‘sekaiteki sekai, worldly world. Questions are, however, how far would it be possible to preserve (even without emphasizing) the ‘particularity’ of ‘nihon’--‘tokushuteki sekai’ on the one hand, but would be able to reach the ideal state of ‘sekaiteki sekai’ by transcending the ‘particularity’ on the other? How far would the cultural discourse, ‘sekai no nihon’ attain a kind of universality, that philosophy itself and the philosophical journey of Nishida are opted for? Instead of segregating the cultural elements, it is believed that some basic philosophical concepts of Nishida, including ‘ippan soku kobutsu’, universal-qua-individual’, ‘shutai soku kankyō’, ‘subject-qua-environment’ and ‘zettai mujunteki jiko dōitsu’, absolute contradictory self-identity should not be overlooked. Not only the latter serves as philosophical ground for the former, but also constitutes an indivisible relationship with the former.
Lily Xiao Hong Lee: The gender issue of the authors of Yunyao ji, a collection of songs discovered at Dunhuang
The documents discovered in a cave in Dunhuang contain a rich source of historical, social, religious and literary materials among them is an anonymous collection of songs (quzi ci) entitled Cloud Folksongs Collection (Yunyao ji). Many of the songs in it are in a woman’s voice, however, with the long tradition of men writing in a woman’s voice in China, one cannot assume they were written by women. This paper purports to analyse these songs and compare them with signed women’s poetry of earlier and contemporary times in attempt to determine the gender of the authors of the songs contained in the Yunyao ji.
Claire Lowrie: Sold and Stolen: Domestic “slaves” and the rhetoric of
“protection” in Darwin and Singapore during the 1920s and 1930s. There are strikingly parallels in the stories of the Aboriginal girl servants who worked for European families in Darwin and the mui tsai (girl slaves) of Singapore who worked for Chinese families. These girls share a common experience of being removed from their families, trafficked a great distance from their homes and forced in domestic service. Both the mui tsai and the Aboriginal girl servants remember their working lives in terms of “slavery”. In the 1920s and 1930s the plight of these girls captured the public’s attention and calls for “protection” ensued. However, the intention was not necessarily to protect them from slavery. Instead, they were imagined as in need of protection from the “polluting” influences of their culture of origin, be it Chinese or Aboriginal. The response of the government and European society to these girls was in line with colonial notions of the “civilising mission”. In the different contexts of Singapore and Darwin, however, such ideology had very different consequences. For these girls it resulted alternatively in rescue from coerced labour or enlistment into coerced labour. The different manifestations of “protection” in Darwin and Singapore resulted from the different needs, interests and legacies of their distinct colonial experiences. An analysis of the working lives, representations and responses toward these girls allows for reflection on the value and limitations of comparative colonial projects.
Kama Maclean: Madan Mohan Malaviya: a Political Biography
Historians are beginning to turn their attention to the extent to which the Indian National Congress as an organisation struggled with conducting politics in a Hindu idiom. An investigation into the political career of Madan Mohan Malaviya (1861-1946), whose political allegiance changed from Congress to Mahasabha as a result of this struggle, brings further clarity to the debate on the early Congress and Hindu politics. A publicist and lawyer educated in Allahabad, Malaviya offers an interesting contrast to his London-returned contemporaries, who brought a Victorian sensibility to their nationalist politics, such as Motilal Nehru a fellow townsman and competitor in provincial elections in the 1920s. As a Congressman on the moderate side of the early split, Malaviya spent his early career engaged in social work targeting the Hindu community. He was the driving force behind the creation of Banaras Hindu University, he spearheaded Hindi agitations, supported cow protection campaigns and organised seva samitis to provide relief to Hindu pilgrims. These forms of activity gave him a political legitimacy and a constituency embedded in vernacular , broad-based social formations, which other forms of nationalism were ill-equipped to do. A political biography of Malaviya may provide some insight on the problematic intersection of religion and politics today.
Megumi Makino: Japan’s History War and the Development of the Japanese-Korean Citizens’ Alliance Against Right-Wing Historical Revisionism
The history war in contemporary Japan has double fronts. It is taking place simultaneously as international and domestic conflicts. Currently, one of the most conspicuous frontlines in Japan’s history war is the field of history education in which the battle has intensified since the rise of right-wing historical revisionism in the mid-1990s. As an international issue, the war is manifested in diplomatic rows with other Asian nations, especially China and Korea, because of the way the Japanese government and right-wing historical revisionists try to whitewash modern Japan’s imperialist past in school history textbooks. At the same time, the war is fiercely fought between those who hold contrary views of wartime history within Japan. However, there has been a complete lack of academic interest in this aspect of Japan’s history war in which conscientious individuals and groups fight hard against the right-wing historical revisionists.
Those who are active in the anti-historical revisionist movement are also committed to the practice of the critical remembering of the nation’s militarist and colonialist past. Such a historical enterprise of musing on the nation’s wrongdoings and responsibility for them has led to the promotion of a dialogue about historical issues with other peoples in Asia. This has resulted in the creation of close ties between Japanese and Korean citizen activists over the last five years. This paper argues that the role of civic activism deserves proper attention in the study of Japan’s history war. To support this view, it discusses the developmental process of the trans-Japan Sea anti-historical revisionist citizens’ movement which has been successful in preventing the spread of the controversial middle-school history textbook produced by a group of extremely conservative intellectuals who have enormous support from right-wing nationalist politicians.
Sakuko Matsui: The Diary of Hirao Hachisaburô, a Modern Samurai who Strove for a World without Walls.
Born in an impoverished samurai family just before the Meiji Restoration, Hirao Hachisaburô was imbued with the spirit of samurai and was a passionate royalist worshipping the Emperor Meiji. However, as a business leader who pioneered Japan’s marine insurance industry, he was an “internationalist” and advocated free trade. His diary often reveals his liberal views and criticisms of the government’s economic measures and the collusion between the political and business worlds in Tokyo. Dissatisfied with the Japanese education system and encouraged by the trend of Taishô democracy, he founded the Konan School that was modelled after some English public schools. “Be a gentleman that passes in the world” was his motto. Believing that the last one-third of his life should be dedicated to the services to the people and the nation, he was actively involved in various organizations, and acceding to the government requests, served as Member of the House of Peers (1935-), Minister of Education (1936-37), Chief Economic Adviser to the Japanese Army Headquarters in Northern China (1938-39), President of the Greater Japan Industrial Patriotic Association (1940-), President of Iron and Steel Control Association (1941-) and Privy Councillor (1943-). His patriotism seemed to override the earlier liberalism and cosmopolitanism. Hirao kept a detailed diary for over thirty years from 1913. In view of the extraordinary scope and variety of his activities, its publication has long been awaited, but because of Hirao’s notoriously difficult handwriting and its volume, a team of Japanese language specialists completed the first typescript only recently. Some pages from the manuscript will be introduced in this presentation.
Ian D. McArthur: Adaptive translation and transmutation in the Meiji era – how an English mystery novel reached the kabuki stage
For thirty years from the 1880s, many European mystery novels were translated and serialised in Japanese newspapers. Many were adaptive translations (hon’an mono), taking liberties with the original material through use of Japanese names for characters and places. As cheap and widely read popular novels blending European and Japanese sensibilities, they helped familiarise readers with European notions of modernity. Between October 1894 and July 1895, Kuroiwa Ruikô published his adaptive translation of the Mary Braddon mystery novel Diavola as Sute obune (abandoned small boat) in 156 episodes in his newspaper Yorozu chôhô. The Braddon original was published in the London Journal between October 1866 and July 1867. The popularity of the Kuroiwa version led to its commissioning as a kabuki play written by Kawatake Shinshichi III which premiered in a New Year performance at the Kabukiza Theatre in Tokyo in 1898. The play was later adapted in shingeki form at the Hongoza Theatre in 1906. Through an exploration of this rare early example of intertextual transmutation between European novel and Japanese stage, this paper illustrates the role of the adaptive translation in the reform debate within the performance arts in the Meiji period.
Edward McDonald: The "metrosexual" in Chinese men's magazines: the globalization and localization of male images in popular culture
The term "metrosexual" was coined in 1994 by British social commentor Mark Simpson to reflect a very specific Anglo-American phenomenon – that of straight men adopting aspects of gay fashion as well as a concern with beauty-care traditionally associated with women. This label has recently been taken up in a Chinese context by men's magazines, a fairly new genre in the PRC, some being localized versions of international staples like Men's Health, others locally-devised productions like T.O.M. (The Outlook Magazine) or Menbox (in Chinese Shishang Junzi or "Fashionable Gentleman"). An examination of how such magazines borrow and adapt the identity label of "metrosexual" shows that the term itself and the social reality it reflects take on very nearly the exact opposite of the connotation it held in its original context. Through a close analysis of some representive verbal and visual texts from different men's magazines, this paper examines how this localization of a global image is carried out, and reveals a delicate balancing act being played out between commercial and ideological pressures.
Bruce McFarlane (with Miomir Jaksic): Notes on Soviet scholarship concerning the ancient societies of Asia
In the strong reactions in the West to the end of the Soviet Union, it would be wrong to be blind to the very real and useful scholarship achieved by Soviet scholars. As is known, Soviet results in the physical sciences and mathematics were very considerable; cybernetics, linear programming and astrophysics can be added to this list, but there are also anthropology, ethnography, archaeology and history. The impeccable work published in English in the 1950’s in the British journal Economic History Review by Kosminsky and Lavrovsky on the Manorial system should have alerted us to the high quality of the leading Soviet historians. In fact the English translations of the historical studies by Pokrovsky (1933), Grechkov (1959) and Kluychevski (1960) only reinforce this observation. Selecting some of the Soviet contributions on Asian history and historiography, I have outlined, in relation to studies on Ancient Asia, six areas of attention: 1. The influence of geography and climate on historical trends; 2. Social formations and the role of economic surplus; 3. The centralised State and the bureaucracy; 4. Problems of periodisation; 5. Ancient China; 6. Re-evaluation of the thinking of Marx and Engels on the “Asiatic Mode of Production”.
To neglect this corpus of work would not only be to miss useful insights, but would constitute a disservice to many Soviet scholars who had a long struggle against the views of the academic “Establishment” so that more varied and honest interpretations of past societies could be worked through and published. The leaders of this trend—insisting on freedom to think and an “open” approach—Danilova (1965; 1968), Ter-Akopian (1965; 1968; 1976) and Nikiforov (1968; 1977) did succeed in their aims—these are names to be remembered with honour.
I would like to mention that some earlier Soviet history debates were covered by Wittvogel in the book that came out in 1957—Oriental Despotism. My paper, on the other hand, deals mainly with Soviet work published after that date.
Anne McLaren: Making Heaven Weep: Wailed Performances (ku) in Chinese Culture
Since ancient times in China, expressions of grief, mourning and protest have been enacted publicly in performances known as ku or “performances of weeping and wailing”. This paper will focus on ku performances associated with mourning for the deceased. Classic Chinese ritual codes called for key family members to wail at specific intervals in the funeral and mourning process. During the first millennium CE more elaborate performances developed in regions of China along and to the south of the Yangzi River, possibly as the result of a blending of northern conventions of wailing with native choral or sung performances. A little studied type of funeral lament known as kusang or “weeping for the dead” was performed in late imperial times in many regions of south China. This study will focus on the kusang performed into the twentieth century in the modern day region of Nanhui, adjacent to Shanghai. This study of kusang seeks to illuminate the distinction between Chinese vernacular and elite practices with regard to mourning, and to further our understanding of Chinese ritual practices associated with women.
Pankaj Mohan: The Impact of China’s Sinocentric Historiography and the Rise of Cultural Nationalism in Korea
The Northeast Project (dongbuk kongjeong), launched by China in 2003, constitutes the most formidable irritant in Sino-Korean relations since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1992. The Northeast project is aimed at achieving strategic goals of the Chinese state by providing ideological underpinning to its political and economic agenda, and owes its genesis primarily to the pressure of contemporary political realities of China. The paper will examine the nature of the project by testing the hypothesis that the indigenisation of Koguryo as a powerful ‘ethno-symbolism’ may work as a device to meet the threat of irredentist nationalism that may either originate in the region or spread from across the border.
In this paper I also propose to examine and explain the real character of Koguryo as an early Korean state. I will demonstrate how Chinese historians belonging to the Northeast Project perform the task of depicting Koguryo kings as dependent vassals of China by using Chinese sources selectively and discriminately and disregarding epigraphic evidence. Chinese historians associated with the project engage mostly in mechanical interpretation of the investiture and tribute system, and their scholarship obfuscates rather than elucidates the historical character of these institutions. I will point out how tribute and investiture were the forms of China’s relationship not only with Koguryo, but also with the entire “Tianxia” (All Under Heaven), including India. After the fall of Han, when China was politically divided and its ability to control the states on its border was considerably undermined, the Chinese diplomatic institutions were premised on the concept of superordination and subordination only nominally. I will also discuss in the paper how this project caused an upsurge of cultural nationalist sentiment in Korea in recent times.
Selen B. Morkoc: City and Self in Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul: Hüzün and the Other’s Gaze
Being the stage-set of world empires such as Byzantines and Ottomans throughout history, Istanbul has always attracted the attention of Orientalist travellers. These included artists, poets, writers and architects such as Melling, Nerval, Gautier, Flaubert and Le Corbusier to name a few. From 18th century onwards, Istanbul was a curious spot in the grand route of a European traveller where (s)he could get closest glimpses of the exotic-Islamic world through daily scenes of a diminishing empire. Apart from contributing to the rich literature of the ‘other worlds’ rendered through the eye of the Europeans, these travelogues provide the most substantial literary-historical evidence to the physical state of the city at those times.
Turkish author Orhan Pamuk grounds his recent book Istanbul: Memories of a City on this rich literature. He builds on how it felt to construct the past image of the city from the perspective of the European traveller for the emerging authors of the Turkish Republic. The concept of hüzün (~melancholy) is the common denominator that helps Pamuk interrelate works of distinct authors with his own memories. This paper argues that there is existential symmetry between the city and the self in the book perpetuated through the agency of hüzün which presents the Other’s gaze as a critique of early Orientalist literature.
Leith Morton: Postwar Poetry and the Legacies of War.
This paper will discuss the complex legacies arising from Japanese poetry produced during World War 2. What do I mean by legacies? In postwar Japan, two climactic moments occurred when Japanese poetry came under intense scrutiny. The first was in the immediate aftermath of the war, when patriotic literature written during the war came to be reevaluated as a result of the postwar debate over wartime literature; "evaluation" mostly meant a repudiation of the values espoused during the war. At the same time, the writers who produced this literature were subjected to extreme criticism, in some cases amounting to a witch hunt. The second moment came a decade or so later when the New Left headed by Yoshimoto Takaaki came to question this very process itself as part of a more multifaceted debate over what constituted fascist poetry or literature. These, and other issues, will be addressed by a study of the verse written by two or three famous poets in support of Japan during World War II.
Wan Kamal Mujani: The Commercial Situation During The Mamluk Period in Egypt (1468-1517)
Trade and commerce were among the main sources of income for the Mamluk economy. Because of its geographical and strategic location, the country played an important role as middleman for transactions in and the exchange of western and oriental merchandise, and the Mamluk regime gained considerable revenue from the transit and export trade. The Mamluks had trade relations with several foreign countries and many ports and markets in Egypt became centres of commerce. While the activities of local and international commerce in Egypt were still in evidence during the period under review, several changes were taking place in this sector. These changes can be seen from the situation of commercial centres (such as the ports and markets in Egypt) which had previously been very active and provided the main source of income for the Mamluks, and also from the volume of European and Eastern trade with the Mamluks. Some ports were in a state of languor and the markets and trading activities there were not so vigorous compared to the period of Turkish Mamluks. In general, trade between the Mamluks and Western and Eastern countries also became less busy. Exports and imports of local as well as foreign goods were not so frequent and extensive as before. Several factors may be identified as having an adverse effect on commerce. For example, the Mamluks frequently adopted severe policies such as ihtikar (monopoly) and tarh al-bada’i (forced purchase) and imposed heavy taxes on trade and commerce in order to cover the expense of military expeditions and the army. The contribution of the karimi (spice) merchants to the economic strength of Egypt and its stability was also affected by pressure from the government and its monopolistic policy. Their commercial activities were disrupted and they lost their privileged status. When the diwan (treasury) ran short of cash, the karimi merchants certainly faced the pressure for funds. Thus, their role in developing Mamluk commerce was somewhat limited during the period under consideration.
It is the aim of this article to examine the situation of commerce in Egypt during the half century before the fall of the Mamluk kingdom. An overview of this sphere of activity is provided. This is followed by a discussion of the economic climate within which it was took place and the factors which effected it.
S.N.Mukherjee (1): Sir William Jones in the twenty-first Century
We now live in an academic world which is dominated by postmodernist and post Said era, when the word ‘Orientalist or Orientalism’ has taken a derogatory and often menacing meaning. And yet here we are celebrating our Oriental Society ‘s 50th anniversary. A large number of so called Australian Asianists have not joined our Society and are not present at our celebrations; to commemorate the birth of the oldest academic association devoted to Asian studies. We have support from a younger generation and from abroad, Japan and India particularly. This is a paradox; perhaps we can explain this if we were to reconsider the role of Sir William Jones (1746-1794) and the first generation of Orientalists. The ideas, institutions, and arguments are still valid. The works of these pioneers are still relevant in our time, when humanity is so fragmented and in strife. The paper will deal with this and speculate on further research on the Scottish Enlightenment, Sir William Jones and ‘the Bengal Renaissance’: Ideas, Institutions and Connections.
S.N.Mukherjee (2): The Bhadralok of Calcutta in the Nineteenth Century: A Note from the Twenty-first Century Perspectives
Calcutta was the second city of the British Empire; it was politically, economically and strategically a very important port city in the Empire, only second to London.
In the history of Bengal however, Calcutta was the centre of modernity. Modern India started in Calcutta, all experiments in modern literature, journalism, language, science, arts, music, education, social reform and modern politics started in Calcutta in the nineteenth century. This phenomenon is known as ‘the Bengal Renaisance’; Calcutta was the centre of this ‘Renaissance’ and the Bhadralok were the agent of this movement for modernity. An attempt is made here to understand the origin and the nature of the Bhadralok, - were they a new class or an old elite who assumed a new name. This is an introductory short essay for a discussion of modern Bengal Studies.
Keizo Nanri: Specific Protagonist, Exhaustive Antagonist
It has been said that the Asahi Shimbun is anti-government whereas the Yomiuri Shimbun is pro-government (e.g., Hara et al. [2003, 2004]). This characterization of the two national newspapers, however, is simplistic and misleading. The reality appears to be more complex than this. In the present paper, through an analysis of the two newspapers’ 130 commentaries on two political struggles in the Diet that occurred in 2004 and 2005, I suggest
(1) that Asahi commentaries tend to adopt the ‘extirpation’ theory or the theory that any defective part of the society must be removed completely, and/or a theory that the existence of defective parts is attributed to the working of a large context in which those defective parts can be found. The commentaries adopting one or both of the theories are typically realized in hortatory texts, taking anti-government stance. The extirpation theory, however, may allow Asahi commentaries to take pro-government stance, creating expository texts.
(2) Yomiuri commentaries tend to adopt the ‘conservation’ theory or the theory that the gradual change of the status quo is the best way to resolve issues under discussion. The conservation theory is normally employed to support the government’s policies but at times employed to criticize them, when Yomiuri commentaries tend to present a long list of issues to be resolved, criticising the government exhaustively. Yomiuri commentaries prefer expository texts. The conservation theory does not appear to allow Yomiuri commentaries to be politically flexible.
The textual analysis is carried out within the theoretical framework of the linguistic semiotic model proposed by Martin (1985, 1992).
Ayako Ochi: Evaluation in language of news – a systemic functional approach
The present paper is concerned with media discourse in society, more specifically with the role hard news plays in evaluating the events that are reported. Against the background of the inter-disciplinary field of media studies, this paper will contribute to a language-based analysis, complementing other forms of analysis. It will provide an account of the linguistic construction of the “reporter voice” in hard news reports, comparing and contrasting English and Japanese reports of the same event. As suggested by Iedema et al. (1994), media claim ‘objectivity’ for their news reports and employ specific rhetorical techniques in their language in order to present them as based on reliable news sources. This kind of strategy has been studied more recently within a particular tradition in linguistics, systemic functional linguistics in terms of the semantic system of APPRAISAL by White (2003) as a part of developing description of this system as a resource for evaluating, assessing, and positioning (e.g. Martin, 2000; Martin & Rose, 2003; Martin & White, 2005). Drawing on this systemic functional linguistic body of research, on Halliday & Matthiessen’s (2004) systemic functional description of the grammar of English and on Teruya’s (in press) systemic functional description of the grammar of Japanese, I will explore how the reporter voice deploys the meaning-making resources of English and Japanese to achieve the rhetorical goals of hard news reporting. I will show how the meaning making resources are deployed in two ways – on the one hand, how the reporter voice is enacted interpersonally through exchange patterns; and on the other hand, how it is construed ideationally through patterns of reported speech (cf. Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, Ch.10). Then I will compare and contrast the reporter voices in English and Japanese hard news reporting, showing differences in the choices of kinds of interpersonal assessments (including modality and evidentiality). Through this comparison, I will reveal differences between the English reporter voice and the Japanese reporter voice, suggesting that these differences can be related to differences in the value systems of the two media cultures.
Peter Oldmeadow: Approaches to the problem of dualism in Heidegger and Yogacara Buddhism
This paper examines the approach of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger to the problem of dualism and explores the usefulness of his approach to comparative religion and philosophy in general and, more particularly, to the study of dualism in Buddhism. Heidegger was, of course, operating within a Western philosophical tradition and his focus was on Western metaphysics and its implications. His critique of the Western philosophical tradition however provides a clearing in which important aspects of other traditions and cultures may come to light. This is particularly so in the case of Buddhism, especially of East Asian Mahayana, with which his work has an obvious affinity.
Analysis of the problem of dualism finds its clearest expression in Buddhism in the Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism which analyses the human predicament and our entanglement in the cycle of ongoing unsatisfactoriness in terms of subject-object duality. This is not so much a radical new departure within Buddhism but rather a way of presenting core Buddhist ideas in the experiential or phenomenological framework which is tied to the soteriology of the Yogacara or Vijnanavada (doctrine of Consciousness) school.
Heidegger, for his part, sees the dualist orientation in the Western metaphysical tradition as fundamentally distorting and a cause of cultural and personal alienation. He struggled against the effects of this heritage. In attempting a deconstruction of the dominant epistemological and metaphysical stance of the Western tradition Heidegger hoped that that the grip of the modern Western way of "enframing" reality might be loosened and new attunement to Being might occur. This, in turn, opens up new ways of revisioning our past and understanding other worlds.
Azusa Omura: Paul Morand and Japan
Paul Morand is a famous French novelist and travel writer. He visited Japan and stayed at Paul Claudel’s house in 1925. He wrote of this experience in Rien que la terre (1926). In this work, Morand makes his adieu to the West.
My aim is to make clear the relationship between Morand and Japan. It focuses on two issues, how he accepted Japanese culture and how he was accepted by the Japanese. In the 1920s and 1930s, Daigaku Horiguchi introduced him to Japan. Through an analysis of Horiguchi’s essay, the second issue becomes clear.
To analyze the first issue, it is useful to compare Morand’s experience of Japan with that of New York. Morand visited New York in 1929. He wrote about New York in his work, Champions du Monde (1930) and New York (1930). His works focus on anonymity and racial issues in urban life.
Through these analyses, we will draw a broad sketch of the relationship between Morand and Japan, and thus contribute to an empirical study of cross-cultural influence between the West and Japan, and also discover how literature is a product of this cross cultural connection—in a larger sense, we will analyze the emergence in the 20th century of cosmopolitanism in culture and literature.
Anthony Parel: Gandhi's reconstitution of the theory of the purusharthas
The major contribution that Gandhi has made to the development of modern Indian political philosophy is to make the theory of the purusharthas its framework of analysis. Artha--politics, economics, and social reform—in particular, was given its original dignity, and made into a path for karma yoga, or the pursuit of spiritual liberation. The paper examines the evidence for this by examining his writings--from his letter of 1894 to Rajchandbhai to his Introduction to the Bhagavad Gita, and other sources in between.
Ian Paterson: A peripatetic between religious schools
Having left Knox Grammar School after 29 years as Headmaster, I was singularly fortunate to be a consultant at Yeshiva Jewish College, then Principal at King Abdul Aziz Islamic School and now Principal of St Bishoy Coptic Orthodox College.These experiences in religious schools in Sydney have given me significant insights into their cultures and their "fit" into Australian society. My talk will comment on these insights as a contribution to achieving tolerance and understanding of the differences and similarities amongst these cultures in Australia.
Tyler Pike: Du Fu's Four Poems on Rain and an Early Tang Encyclopedia
This paper argues that the encyclopedic "theme categorization manuals" (leishu) written in the Early Tang are treasure-houses of literary conventions, particularly those conventions regulating the tasteful use of historical allusion. As such they afford us a touchstone for evaluating the achievements of poets in the High Tang, who created great poetry by (ab)using convention. In order to perceive greatness in poems by writers such as Du Fu - the acknowledged master of allusive poetry - the reader must be well versed in what was common knowledge concerning the function of allusions in Tang poetry. Traditional readers of Du Fu achieved this essential knowledge of convention by digesting great swathes of texts from all corners of the Chinese canon, but the leishu may serve us, as they served aspiring literati in the Tang, with a shortcut.
We read the "Rain" section of the Chuxue ji ("Records of Initial Learning") for the allusive conventions that are present there, and recognize the presence and reconfiguration of some of these conventions in Du Fu s frequently anthologized Four Poems on Rain. The result is a clear picture of how these poems allude, as well as what they allude to. The paper concludes by demonstrating the presence of mysterious and sexual undertones in these poems, a reading possibilty that is surpressed in centuries of mainstream Du Fu commentary.
Sanjivee Premkumar: Asian media in transition: media discourse and society an Indian perspective
Media in Asia has transformed completely and has become more electronic rather than verbal and printed matters . In this context it is reaching every nook and corner of society either through , TV, radio news or printed matters like news papers and magazines. More particularly the Indian media has transformed into completely a new phenomenon.
For example if you take TV as source of communication, the media has reached far and wide through satellite communication and advanced electronic development, this in turn educating people on different aspects of life on a day to day basis.
In the process of transition people able to interact and communicate their feeling through participation in the TV.debates and other constructive interactive methods, like public debate etc.etc.
In India we have a multiple TV Stations running 24 hours pouring out messages on a wide variety of subjects which are of national importance. This communication is because of radical changes that have taken place in the media by way satellite communication and other advanced techniques and transmission procedures.
The public debate can be had in full view on TV. And the subject in question could be dissected thread bare and analysed. These are all changes which has brought transition in media communication, which was not possible some 30 years back.
The public disourse and interaction in media may range from a wide variety of subjects ranging from political discourse , environmental subjects, sports, languages religion, WTO affairs, UN charters and other important things in all walks of life.
Hence I feel the media has transformed our society or for that matter the entire Asian society a new vibrative one than the sluggish one in the past. Where people have to wait for the news to be communicated through agencies like Reuters, PTI, UNI, Aksai Shimbun etc. etc.
The modern media through electronic development has transformed our societies very much, which is beyond the levels of imagination. Believe me in ten years from now the news very important in the national interest will wake you up in the middle of night: this will be a real transition.
David Reeve: Indonesian teaching - boom and bust.
Indonesian language teaching was started in Australian schools forty years ago. Since then the story has been of a rollercoaster, "boom and bust". The first boom was in the period of the Vietnam war, when interest in our Asian neighbours peaked. By the late 1970s there was a marked downturn lasting for a decade.The second boom in Indonesian began in 1987, with government sponsored enthusiasm for Australia's Asian future. Numbers rose through the 1990s, until the Asian monetary crisis of 1997. The death and destruction around President Suharto's fall in 1998 made Indonesia seem a frightening place. Student numbers fell sharply. A series of bombings in 2002, 2003 and 2004 strengthened the image of Indonesia as frightening. The study of Indonesian is now in a critical state, without much hope of improvement in the short term, without government intervention.
Roman Rosenbaum: The Anaphoric Postwar
Oda Makoto’s novel gyokusai stands as a universal metaphor for the repetition of suicide attacks in the contemporary world. Following the swelling tide of recent world-wide broadcasts of large scale suicide attacks in Bali, London, and Madrid after the cataclysm of 9/11, this paper will investigate the meaning of gyokusai as a transcendental allegory in the contemporary globalised world. Oda Makoto is a member of the postwar Japanese generation who has experienced the traumatic final days of the war and has come of age during the ‘burned-out ruins’ after the war. This generation which is collectively referred to as the yakeato generation grew up surrounded by suicide attacks. To them, death was immanent and it was only a matter of time until they would also be called upon to defend their country with their lives and fall like cherry blossoms. It was a world with uncanny similarities to the contemporary status quo. Most people belonging to this era were also born as part of the Showa hitoketa generation who have attempted to exorcise the memories of this disturbing era from their lives by way of repeatedly writing about these traumatic events in a contemporary setting. Arguably, it is the special perceptive power of these traumatised visionaries, projected onto the literature of Japan’s long-lasting postwar period that defines the very essence of contemporary literature. My paper discusses the reiteration of the traumatic events which occurred at the dawn of the postwar age in the works of its most prolific narrators, with a primary focus on Oda Makoto (b.1932). Oda has reworked the events of the final days of the war and their influence upon the postwar throughout his prolific literary career until the present day. His technique of intertextualising the spectre of ‘war’ within the ‘post-war’ have made him one of the most active survivors of a generation for whom peace was an enigma and ‘war was’ and still appears to be ‘the more natural thing’.
Suzuki Sadami: The recent trend of the ‘postwar-debate’ in Japan
The Yasukuni shrine visits by the former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi have became an internationally predicament. Slipshod discussions are taking place as a result of the escalating deliberations surrounding the enshrinement of Class A war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine. The current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is using the catch phrase of ‘Beautiful Country’ and talks about a ‘parting from the postwar balance’. But this amounts to no more than the incitement of patriotism and we should examine these issues through the source of Japanese Nationalism.
Nolan Sharkey: The economic benefits of the use of guanxi and business networks in a jurisdiction with strong formal institutions: Minimisation of Taxation
The current academic status quo on the use of guanxi and business networks by Chinese entrepreneurs in both China and parts of South East Asia is that it is a response to the weak formal institutional environment. It is argued that weak institutional environments create an economic rationale for the use of guanxi and business networks. From this base, it is further asserted that the use of guanxi and business networks will reduce and disappear with the strengthening of formal institutions in China and other jurisdictions. This paper will challenge this latter assertion by arguing that there are strong economic benefits to those that are able to operate through guanxi and business networks in a jurisdiction with strong formal institutions. The primary benefit that will be examined is the reduction or elimination of income taxation which is a very significant issue in most jurisdictions with strong institutional environments. This paper will demonstrate how guanxi and business networks can be used to avoid taxation in the strong formal institutional environment represented by Australia.
W. Donald Smith: Japanese Nationalism and the Internet: an Examination of the 2 Channel Bulletin Board
This paper will examine Japan's largest Internet bulletin board, 2 Channel, as an expression of and vehicle for resurgent nationalism. The site's some 700,000 daily postings include vigorous debate on ties with the United States and (generally derisive) commentary on Japan's Asian neighbors by 2 Channel's largely male, relatively young participants. The paper will compare and contrast postings on the United States, China, and the Korean Peninsula in July-August 2004 and October-November 2006 for indications of changes in the nature of nationalism among younger Japanese, and consider whether the ugly invective often hurled at Chinese and Koreans on 2 Channel is simply a harmless way of letting off steam or has more disturbing implications.
Adrian Snodgrass: Heidegger and Buddhist Non-duality
This paper argues that non-duality in Far Eastern Buddhist thought does not refer to a fusion of the terms of dichotomies, but to a middle space in which the opposites retain their separate identities. This differs from Western notions of non-duality, in which the terms of an opposition are subsumed or transcended in a superior Unity. In the light of these Buddhist insights, it is proposed that it is possible to interpret Heidegger's thought in ways that do not require any mystical or metaphysical reference.
Judith Snodgrass: Defining Dharma: 150 years of Buddhist Studies
A survey of studies in Buddhism from the high Orientalist period of the mid nineteenth century to the present, showing how changing paradigms of academic research have changed the shape of what we know as Buddhism . Early Buddhist studies which focused exclusively on the philological study of original texts original both in the sense of being primary sources and the earliest possible presented an object quite different from that of current multidisciplinary studies which investigate Buddhism through its practices, its art, and its contemporary manifestations in cultures around the world, including Europe, Australia and America. Changes in Buddhist studies map the transition in oriental studies serious engagement with cultures of Asian and Middle Eastern origin from Orientalism to the global focus of a world without walls.
Yuri Takahashi: Mr. San Shar, The Burmese Detective Appears -- A brief look at the acceptance of the Sherlock Holmes stories in Myanmar
In accepting foreign literature, what sort of cross-cultural interests might be looked at among local readers and their society? In Myanmar, during the colonial period, a number of English books including detective stories were introduced and numerous episodes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Sherlock Holmes stories’ have since been translated into Burmese. However it is noteworthy that Burmese people love this fictitious hero detective in a special manner.
Sherlock Holmes was first introduced to Burmese readers in 1917 through a short story ‘the Boscombe Valley Mystery,’ but relocating the original setting to colonial Burma. It was the first detective story written in Burma and also marked the debut of the Burmese hero detective ‘Mr. San Shar.’ The author, Shwe U-Daung (1886-1973), a distinctive writer, novelist and translator, is considered one of the key persons in the development of Burmese popular literature. His translations included some episodes of Sherlock Holmes, but ‘San Shar’ became more popular than Sherlock Holmes, which encouraged him to keep writing new episodes, eventually continuing for half a century.
Shwe U-Daung’s literary world often reflects thoughts on modernity as held by Burmese-English bilingual intellectuals of that era. The ‘San Shar’ stories also show British colonial life as seen from a local point of view. In this research I intend to explore Shwe U-Daung’s acceptance of western culture as well as his thoughts on modern Burmese society through the analysis of some episodes of the ‘San Shar’ stories, adapted from Doyle’s original works.
McComas Taylor: What enables discourse to function as 'true'? Textual authority in the brahmanical archive
India has an eminent history as an intellectual and cultural powerhouse. The ‘master texts’ of Indic civilisation, the Vedas, the Epics, the Puranas, the Shastras and the Katha cycles have exerted enormous discursive influence at various times over the past two to three millennia, across the Indic ‘cosmopolis’, from Afghanistan to Java. How have they been able to do this? Why have they been so effective? What enables the master texts of the brahminical archive to function, in Foucauldian terms, as ‘true discourse’? How is textual authority constituted in this body of work? The idea for this paper evolved from my last book, The Fall of the Indigo Jackal: Discourse of Division in Purnabhadra’s Pañcatantra, in which I suggested how the discourse of caste was able to function as ‘true’. I posited a ‘regime of truth’ for the Pañcatantra, incorporating the use of the authoritative voice, universalisation, adherence to the shastric paradigm (sensu Pollock), intertextuality and naturalisation. In this paper take the methodology that I devised for the Pañcatantra, and apply it in a much more ambitious way to a much more diverse body of Sanskrit narrative literature in an attempt to formulate a regime of truth for the archive as a whole. I will begin with an examination of the authority inherent in the Puranas.
Reiko Tomatsu: Script variation in the works of Kawabata and Mishima
This paper is a corpus linguistic analysis of script in Kawabata’s Yukiguni and Mishima’s Kinkakuji. The script used in these works are hiragana, katakana and kanji. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the differences between Kawabata and Mishima in their use of script variation and to identify significance of script-variation as a stylistic feature. Previous studies of Yoshizawa, Maekawa and Yamazaki confirmed Japanese writers’ use of script-variation and positively evaluated this stylistic feature in the writings of Kawabata. The present research examines Kawabata’s Yukiguni and Mishima’s Kinkakuji to explore the proportion of kana to kanji in direct speech and narrative separately.
Corpora used for this study comprise electronic text files, and the analysis is based on quantitative data derived from computational analysis. The computational model established in the present research can also be used to analyse a range of Japanese literary texts and provide more detailed insights.
Pei-Ying Peggy Tsai: News workers in new media environment—human resource management and competitive advantage of media organisations