A number of East Asian Studies and related UA faculty members will be heading to Denver, CO for the Association for Asian Studies annual conference. Here's what they'll be up to!

EAS faculty:
 
Heng Du
Panel: Beyond Citation: Perspectives on Early Chinese Intertextuality
Paper: Differentiating between Textual Reuse and Intentional Citations in Ancient Texts

Abstract: Due to the growing awareness of the substantial differences between ancient and modern textual practices, scholars no longer presume that textual repetitions in early writings were intended as citations. The overlaps between Hanfeizi 韩非子 and Xunzi 荀子, for instance, can be explained as the result of 'textual reuse,' where two texts draw from shared textual repertoires, without either intending to reference the other. However, since textual reuse and implicit citation resemble each other on the surface, we need to develop methodologies for differentiating them.
I hypothesize that in the case of genuine citations, verbatim repetition of the source text is carefully avoided, with the exception of the cited passage or signature phrases. In contrast, textual reuse is often marked by the prevalence of unattributed and near-verbatim repetitions. I derive this hypothesis from existing studies of two different early contexts: 1) Homeric epics and later imitations such as the Argonautica (3rd century BCE); 2) the Analects (Lunyu 論語) and its echoes in early texts up to 100 CE. In testing out this hypothesis on the canonical poetry anthology, Chuci 楚辭, I show that its early layer exhibits the features of textual reuse, while its later layer those of referential citation and imitation.
Differentiating between citation and textual reuse will significantly affect how we interpret early writings. It will also transform existing conceptions of the relationships among early texts, offering new evidence for reconstructing textual, intellectual, and literary histories.

Kimberly Jones
Roundtable discussant: Diversity, Inclusion, and Professionalism in Japanese Language Education
 
Fabio Lanza
Chair and discussant for panel: “The People Have Spoken”: Sonic Politics in Modern and Contemporary China

Takashi Miura
Panel: Fissures in Discourse: Debating Japanese Modernity
Paper: How a Vengeful Ghost Became a Forerunner of Modernity: Sakura Sōgorō and His Transformation in Meiji Japan
Abstract: This paper examines the ways in which proponents of the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement (Jiyū minken undō) in Meiji Japan retroactively “discovered” Tokugawa peasants who had protested against the feudal government and “transformed” them into forerunners of Japan’s modernity. The most prominent among these “righteous peasants” (gimin) was Sakura Sōgorō, who, according to legend, had sacrificed his life in order to make a direct appeal to the shogunate to protest harsh treatments of his fellow peasants by government officials; Sōgorō was executed for conducting this “illegal” protest and was believed to have become a ghost seeking revenge against corrupt officials. Legends of Tokugawa gimin, as represented by that of Sōgorō, proved to be useful for Meiji ideologues who sought to highlight the “backwardness” of the Tokugawa order and contrast it against the “civilized” vision of Meiji Japan. In their eyes, Sōgorō and other gimin became symbols of early democratic currents in Japan, whose rightful demands were denied due to the barbarism of the Tokugawa feudalism. Had these peasants lived in the “enlightened” world of Meiji, their voices would have been heeded. Accordingly, Meiji Japan witnessed a surge in the “commemoration” (kenshō) of hitherto-forgotten Tokugawa peasants as gimin in many regions, driven in part by representatives of the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement. This paper dissects the intersection between the Meiji modernization agendas and pre-modern (religious/ghost) tales of peasant protest, highlighting in particular the re-discovery of Sakura Sōgorō as a focal point in the construction of a Meiji modernity.

Nathaniel Smith
Panel: Retrospective on the Accomplished Heisei: Decline, Tribulation, Resilience, and Resistance
Paper: Heisei Malaise, the Activist Right, and the Problem of ‘Normal Nationalism’ in Japan
Abstract: At the close of the Showa period Japan was shaken by the end of the Cold War, the death of Hirohito, and the precipitous decline of the Japanese economic juggernaut—each significant foundations for post-WWII rightist activism. Japan in the Heisei period saw an efflorescence of nationalism: growth of domestic revisionist histories and white-collar conservative activism, deeper conflict among rising regional powers fueled by debates over memorialization and new digital proximity, and the emergence of its own internet-fueled wave of xenophobic activism known as the ‘Action Conservative Movement’ (ACM). In active yet ideologically scattered movements over the ‘Lost Decade,’ PM Koizumi’s US-style liberalization, a short lived DPJ rule beset by disasters natural and bureaucratic, and two terms of PM Abe’s blunt attempts to engineer a patriotic and militarily flexible nation, the question of exactly how Japan might become a ‘normal nation’ has led to the puzzle of what constitutes a ‘normal nationalism.’ Based upon ethnographic fieldwork since 2005, this talk will assess how several strains of activism in Japan have engaged the Heisei period and contextualize how street activists engaged debates in the broader landscape of Japanese nationalism over the last thirty years.

Jiang Wu
Chair for panel: Looking Back: New Methods Used in Edo Period Religious Commentaries on Traditional Chinese Sources

Sunyoung Yang
Discussant for panel: Family Conflicts and Solutions: Legal, Familial, and Social Disputes in Northeast Asia

 
Asia-related UA colleagues:
 
David Pietz
Discussant for panel: Between Land and Water: Wetlands, Technology, and Society in Pre-Industrial Asia

Paul Schuler
Panel: Towards a Comparative Asian Communism: Regime Resilience and Collapse in Vietnam, North Korea, China and Mongolia
Paper: Rallying the Faithful or Gathering Information? Testing the Mobilization Theory of Single-Party Elections in Vietnam
Abstract: Do single-party elections benefit autocrats and citizens? Recent work eschews mobilization and co-optation arguments, suggesting that elections provide information on voter preferences. This paper challenges that theory, arguing that “citizen information” theory assumes a modicum of competitiveness and voter attentiveness not likely to exist. Instead, consistent with the classic mobilization view, electoral behavior is driven by party strength. Using unique data from Vietnam, which for the first time combines actual electoral returns with district-level survey data, this paper shows show little evidence of strategic voting, competitiveness driving turnout, or knowledge of candidates. Instead, connection to the party drives participation. The findings and theory have important implications for the burgeoning literature on information acquisition tools and elections in single-party regimes. In short, while single-party regimes have many tools to acquire information, elections should not be included among them. More importantly, elections should not be legitimized as reflective of citizen preferences. 

Caleb Simmons
Panel: Memory, Narrative, and Networks in Tipu Sultan’s Mysore: The Transformation of Political Culture in Eighteenth-Century Southern India
Paper: “Rascally Infidels”: The Construction of Politico-Religious Identity in Ṭipū Sultān’s Mysore
Abstract: In this paper, I will discuss “religious identity” in the political correspondence of Ṭipū Sultān in order to nuance our understanding of his reign and his kingdom as defined through Islam. Particularly, I will examine his construction of religious fidelity and infidelity as it relates to a variety of political and military allies and enemies. For Ṭipū Sultān, the status of other political entities as “believers” or as “infidels” was not constituted through communal identity (i.e. religious tradition) but in their willingness to ally themselves with him and his kingdom. Using the rhetoric of fidelity and infidelity in a series of letters written to French and Ottoman representatives, I will argue that Ṭipū Sultān and his court saw kingship as an office of divine election that was affirmed through martial success and his sovereignty as a fulfillment of divine injunction. By choosing to ally with him and his kingdom, other political bodies could prove their divine election also. Those that did not where labeled as infidels. By considering this unique construction of politico-religious identity, we can see the flexibility and fuzzy boundaries of religious belonging and not-belonging in early modern South Indian political rhetoric.

The Center for Digital Humanities has selected six faculty research projects for development awards.

The projects will  combine research in a humanities discipline with cutting-edge technology, like data visualization, digital storytelling, motion capture, 360-degree immersive video, digital mapping and augmented reality.

Director Bryan Carter describes the Center for Digital Humanities as a “dedicated research and innovation incubator,” purposefully structured with a unique collaborative framework to support research projects by faculty members.

The development awards are for pilot projects that can then be documented as working prototypes in larger external grant application. The projects involve a collaboration between the faculty members and student developers in the Tech.Global program.

The Spring 2019 development awards go to the following projects:

Robert Groves, Assistant Professor of Classics, to create a digital, online visualization using GIS-based mapping of the journeys described in ancient Greek novels. Using the interactive map, students can explore embedded visual and textual resources to learn more about the complicated histories and geographies of these novels and characters who voyaged across the ancient Mediterranean to Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt, and Ethiopia.

Barbara Kosta, German Studies Department Head, to showcase immigration stories of German artists, filmmakers, authors, composers who fled Hitler’s Germany and who sought refuge in the Los Angeles area. The project will create a digital, multilingual platform combining interactive mapping and digital storytelling.

Tani Sanchez, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, to use motion capture, virtual reality and augmented reality to help students identify, compare and analyze how characters are textually structured as “black” in traditionally stereotypical ways in cinema and film.

Robert Stephan, Lecturer in Classics, to construct a database that models the linkages between ancient financial data and a graphical interface that allows users to visualize return on investment results. The project will help make Roman economic history – a field laden with quantification and statistics – intelligible, approachable and engaging for humanities scholars and students.

Sumayya Granger, Assistant Professor of Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, to explore augmented and immersive technologies to enhance interactivity in language learning for the technology-mediated instruction of pragmatics. The research will focus on ways to offer international students English language experiences virtually to prepare them for coming to study in U.S. universities.

Jiang Wu, Professor of East Asian Studies and Director of the UA Center for Buddhist Studies, to update an online database of religious sites in China with current technology and use the revamped site to store, link, and demonstrate GIS data on important Buddhist sites collected from the Hangzhou region in China.

The Chinese Language program held a party on Feb. 15 to celebrate the Year of the Pig. More than 100 students from Chinese language classes, TAs and instructors participated in the event. Students enjoyed a variety of activities in the LSB courtyard: Chinese calligraphy, paper cutting, board games, bean (M&M) picking with chopsticks, a character recognition game and jump rope. The major activity was making jiaozi (dumplings). Students learned how to make jiaozi under the guidance of TAs and instructors. The jiaozi were cooked on site, and students got to enjoy them as soon as they were cooked. Along with jiaozi, students also enjoyed a feast (shown in picture). Many students brought their friends along. Everybody had a great time. This event was sponsored by the Student-Faculty Interaction grant and the East Asian Studies Department. We thank all of the instructors and TAs for their hard work and their contributions. It was a great success.

At the University of Arizona’s Graduate and Professional Student Council Showcase on February 13^th, 2019, Jingyi Li, a second year PhD student in the East Asian Studies department was awarded First Place in the category of Communication and Expression. Her project, “Methods for Teaching Japanese Palaeography,” proposes a new method in the teaching of reading pre-modern Japanese texts written in cursive style. Her presentation garnered the interest of UA President Robert C. Robbins, who greeted her in Japanese. Jingyi’s research focuses on the literary and intellectual history of Tokugawa Japan. She also organizes a weekly palaeography study group that is available to undergraduate students. 

Congratulations Jingyi Li!

College of Humanities double major Rob Lisak is featured as the UA Honors College student of the week. 

Lisak majors in Religious Studies and East Asian Studies and talked with the Honors College about his experiences studying abroad in Hangzhou.  

By Peter Reese, UA Honors College Information Specialist

While no objector to Starbuck's coffee, Rob Lisak would rather explore a more ancient tradition in which liquid refreshment is but one of the outcomes. The creator of a short video reflecting his fascination with the meaning-rich Chinese tea ceremony, Lisak has put himself on a steep learning curve as an Honors College student. Nearly two decades removed from the traditional high school-to-college progression, he is pushing himself back even further into time as well as academic rigor. A Religious Studies and East Asian Studies double major, Lisak has joined Professor Albert Welter and others around the University of Arizona's Hangzhou Buddhist Culture Project.

Fueled by a three-year grant from The Khyentse Foundation, the project has two ambitious goals. "Hangzhou is a global mecca for Buddhism that hasn't been explored as fully as sites in India, Tibet and elsewhere in China," offered Lisak. "This is the China of which Marco Polo spoke." Now embedded in the team, he's offering creative implementation both of the scholarly research as well as teaching resources being produced from the ambitious imitative begun in 2018.

States Dr. Welter, "Rob's participation is instrumental to the development of the second outcome (in particular), the creation of new courses and components utilizing state of the art virtual and audio-visual enhancements that will transform the ways students engage the sources and materials relating to East Asian Buddhism." While The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism center on suffering, Lisak is present to make the path smoother and less painful for faculty, graduate research assistants and student peers. After twenty-five years of living the rock and roll life followed by a move from Chicago, Lisak is finding a new rhythm as part of the Honors College. One that puts his inspired energy into legacy-building outcomes.

"Every interaction I've had with the Honors College has been full of encouragement and concern for me as a student. I really get the sense that they care about their students in the Honors College getting the absolute best experience at the UA. Not only that, they seem proud of all their students' accomplishments. It feels like being on a team,"observes Lisak. When this astronomy minor's destiny moved from a potential scholarship in India to landing in China, he pursued a new course that included producing video training materials on his own time. While clearly not a quote from the scroll-borne texts at the center of the project, Lisak's personal philosophy about the Honors College is more timeless and universal than his five well-chosen words of colloquial English might suggest.

"You're here. Make it happen."

A thought worth contemplating. Over a cup of carefully prepared Chinese tea.

A New History of Medieval Japanese Theatre

This book traces the history of noh and kyōgen, the first major Japanese theatrical arts. Going beyond P. G. O'Neill's Early Nō Drama of 1958, it covers the full period of noh's medieval development and includes a chapter dedicated to the comic art of kyōgen, which has often been left in noh's shadow. It is based on contemporary research in Japan, Asia, Europe and America, and embraces current ideas of theatre history, providing a richly contextualized account which looks closely at theatrical forms and genres as they arose. 

The masked drama of noh, with its ghosts, chanting and music, and its use in Japanese films, has been the object of modern international interest. However, audiences are often confused as to what noh actually is. This book attempts to answer where noh came from, what it was like in its day, and what it was for. To that end, it contains sections which discuss a number of prominent noh plays in their period and challenges established approaches. It also contains the first detailed study in English of the kyōgen repertoire of the sixteenth-century.

Noel John Pinnington is Associate Professor Emeritus of the University of Arizona, USA. He has held appointments at the Universities of Cambridge, Arizona, and Kyushu. His recent work includes 'The Early History of the Noh Play: Literacy, Authorship, and Scriptedness' in Monumenta Nipponica (2014) and collaboration on the film adaptation of the noh play Kinuta, set in Arizona, titled Wind Well (2017).

“Community Regeneration and Public Art, “ international conference co-organized by the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona and Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, China, November 26-27, 2018.