Asian History Research Articles

Reviewer Acknowledgements for Asian Culture and History, Vol. 12, No. 1

Reviewer Acknowledgements for Asian Culture and History, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2020

A Cross-Border Life and Legacy: Zheng Lücheng

Zheng Lücheng (1914–1976) is famed in China as the composer of “March of the People’s Liberation Army” (C. Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jinxingqu). Less well known, but of more interest to readers of this paper, is his “March of the [North Korean] People’s Army” (K. Inmin’gun haengjin kok), the official army march of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea until the late 1950s. Zheng was a transnational musician, crossing the shifting borders of Korea, Manchuria and China during turbulent years of war. Zheng’s is a fascinating story of revolution, migration, music, romance and diplomacy at a crux in East Asian history. In the 1930s, Zheng left southern Korea to join anti-Japanese forces in China; he studied and then worked in the Lu Xun Arts School in Yan’an—the crucible of Maoist cultural policy; he married a Han Chinese cadre; returned to North Korea to compose for the army, establish orchestras and conservatoires; was repatriated to China and almost immediately returned to Pyongyang with the Chinese forces. Finally, he returned for good to China as an army composer. A literate and wellconnected musician, he was adept at negotiating the power of nation states. Since Zheng’s death in 1976, his legacy has continued to cross borders. He is celebrated in a North Korean biographical film, The Musician Zheng Lücheng (K. Ŭmakka Chŏng Ryulsŏng; 1992) and in a Chinese film Going towards the Sun (C. Zouxiang taiyang; 2005). He is commemorated in exhibition halls, memorials and festivals in both China and in his birthplace in Kwangju, South Korea. Zheng’s story and music evoke nationalist sentiment, and at the same time are used in cultural diplomacy between these states. Drawing on interviews, archival documents and more recent materials, this examination of Zheng, who played such a central part in the creation of East Asian musical modernity in the mid-twentieth century, illustrates a fascinating interaction of nationalism, internationalism and, now, soft power.

Bağımsızlık Dönemi Kırgız Tarih Yazımına Kısa Bir Bakış

The Kyrgyz people, one of the oldest Turkic tribes mentioned in written sources, have an important place in Central Asian history. It is understood that the Kyrgyz people, about whom the first information comes from Chinese sources, lived in a wide geographic region and did not write their own history. The Kyrgyz were the first Turkic tribe to obey Cenghis Khan. It is thought that immigration to Kyrgyzstan, which is almost entirely mountainous, began in the 9th and 10th centuries. For this reason, we believe that the Kyrgyz historiography started very late, considering their late appearance on the scene of history. The subject of the first works written in the Marxist-Leninist line during the period of the Soviet Union in Kyrgyzstan was often shaped within the framework of the universal development of humanity, class struggle, popular uprisings, progressive and reactionary forces. After Kyrgyzstan declared its independence on 31 August 1991, a new free era of historiography began. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, four topics have come to the fore in the historiography of Kyrgyzstan. We can list these topics as historical persons, the origin of the Kyrgyz, special occasions and celebrations and oral traditions. This study will focus on the Kyrgyz historiography from its independence to the present. The sources of our study are research works written about the history of Kyrgyzstan. 

Women and Buddhism in East Asian history: The case of the Blood Bowl Sutra, Part II: Japan

AbstractPart II turns to Japan, the other major East Asian region where beliefs and practices related to blood hells became commonplace, especially in the early modern period. This article traces Japanese reception of cults to the Blood Bowl Sutra, examining the particular ways in which blood hell cults developed there. As was the case in China, Japanese cults to the Blood Bowl Sutra often emphasized postmortem care for women and were disseminated largely through entertaining storytelling traditions. The cult also came to be associated, as it had been in China, with rites for safe childbirth. After examining the cults' historical development in Japan, this article will consider some of the larger insights made possible through a broadly conceived comparison of Chinese and Japanese cults to the blood hells.

The Rise of ‘Asian History’ in Mainland China in the 1950s: A Global Perspective

ABSTRACT With the decolonization of Asia since the late 1940s, ‘Asian History’ quickly rose to a prominent position in some countries. Although the People's Republic of China reformed its higher education system by following the USSR model in the 1950s, ‘Asian History’ was an exception. A Harvard-trained historian Zhou Yiliang played the leading role in developing Asian History programmes and curriculum. He re-oriented ‘Asian History’ by combining both the late imperial Chinese historiographical and educational tradition and the revolutionary historiography embedded in contemporary ideology. He introduced this new designation in Leiden in 1955 when the PRC historians were confronted with the Western Sinologists for the first time since the beginning of the Cold War. The newly designed ‘Asian History’ programme in the PRC not only served the new regime for its state building project as a rising Asian power, but also demonstrated its de-Orientalizing intellectual vigour, which undermined the USSR's Orientalist approach. Due to the Sino-Soviet split in 1960, the PRC replaced ‘Asian History’ with Asian-African History since it posited itself as a leader of African and Asian countries.

The East Asian History of Science Library/Needham Research Institute as an intellectual hub in the late 1970s and 1980s

During its first decade and a half, the East Asian History of Science Library/Needham Research Institute served both as the centre of the Science and Civilisation in China project and as a meeting point for discussions involving a wide range of researchers. Some of these were working on the history of science, technology and medicine; some were members of Joseph Needham’s and Lu Gwei-Djen’s broader networks; and some came seeking the views, guidance or assistance of the institute’s founders on diverse topics. In the institute’s first 6 years in particular, a series of delegations from China visited as that country embarked on re-expanding academic relations abroad in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. This article recalls the institute’s ambiance during those years, key individuals who were involved and some of the kinds of interactions that took place there.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Women and Buddhism in East Asian History: The Case of the Blood Bowl Sutra, Part I: China

AbstractThis two‐part series examines an often‐overlooked aspect of Buddhist practice that was ubiquitous in late medieval and early modern China and Japan: cults to the Blood Bowl Sutra. According to the logic of this indigenous Chinese sutra, women are destined for a special hell composed of uterine blood, where they are to be punished for the pollution they produce during childbirth and/or menstruation. While cults to the Blood Bowl Sutra have mostly disappeared in modern times—and despite the fact that they have been largely forgotten, even by historians of East Asia—they were, by the 16th and 17th centuries, a common part of women's religious lives in both China and Japan. Cults to the Blood Bowl Sutra comprised a diverse set of practices that engaged concerns about female bodies, motherhood, filial piety, and suffering in hell. Part I focuses on the development of such cults in China, and Part II focuses on the cults' spread in Japan.

Postcolonialism, Racial Political Fields, and Panethnicity: A Comparison of Early “Asian American” and “Hispanic” Movements

Recent work has called for sociologists to incorporate postcolonial theory into their toolkits to better understand the mechanics of race in the United States. The authors answer this call by showing how postcolonial and field theories can be bridged to explain how movements of the 1970s developed distinct visions of panethnicity. Drawing on published case studies, as well as a unique data set of pioneering “Asian American” and “Hispanic” movement magazines from the 1970s, the authors systematically compare how community leaders framed panethnic identities before they became widely institutionalized. The authors show that although Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans could have developed a panethnic narrative centered on American imperialism, it was Asian Americans who constructed a postcolonial panethnic politics. In contrast, “Hispanic” stakeholders of the 1970s framed panethnicity more conservatively and at times patriotically. The authors contend that the different visions of panethnicity reflect the distinct colonial and imperial history of Asians and Hispanics in the United States as well as the position of Asian American and Hispanic panethnic leaders within and across the racial fields of the 1970s. This study suggests that panethnicity as a mobilizing identity narrative is politically flexible and amenable to different visions of racial equality. Moreover, the authors show how postcolonialism and field theory can be further synthesized to advance the study of panethnicity.

Национально-освободительное движение в Египте в период британского колониального господства в конце XIX – первой четверти XX в.

The study deals with the history of the national liberation struggle in Egypt which has not only scientific but also political and practical importance. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Egypt was the most developed part of the Ottoman Empire and served as a link between the Arab countries of Asia and Africa. Egypt faced a full range of social and economic, political, and ideological contradictions between the Arab countries and European powers. The study of the national liberation movement reveals British colonial policies in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. The novelty of the research is to introduce the particular historical material on the content, trends, contradictions, and issues of the national liberation movement in Egypt and new historical sources unavailable to most researchers. The methodological basis involves the principles of historicism and scientific objectivity which imply a critical attitude to the sources. Besides, the events of the national liberation movement are considered from a perspective of the cause-and-effect relationship and interaction between each other. The findings may be useful in delivering lectures and seminars on the history of Asian and African countries.

Editorial: Disasters and the Making of Asian History

Editorial: Disasters and the Making of Asian History

Asian Americans by Renee Tajima-Peña

Reviewed by: Asian Americans by Renee Tajima-Peña Melissa Phruksachart (bio) Asian Americans. Series Producer: Renee Tajima-Peña. PBS/WETA, 2020. 275 minutes. $29.99 DVD and $12.99 streaming. ISBN: 9781531712099. This five-part PBS documentary series on the history of Asians in the United States will become an essential part of the curriculum for ethnic studies and American history courses from high school to higher education. The team behind Asian Americans has produced a lively history combining archival footage, family stories, animations, and interviews with scholars, journalists, artists, descendants, and history-makers themselves. The series' engagement with knowledge is expository and fact-based, departing from the archival poetics of Loni Ding's documemoir approach in Ancestors in the Americas or the experimental approaches to truth and memory in Richard Fung's Dirty Laundry and Marlon Fuentes's Bontoc Eulogy. Supplementing screenings with readings and discussions would help disentangle the contradictions and implicit values presented by the narrative. Its five episodes run approximately fifty-five minutes each and are organized chronologically. Episode one, "Breaking Ground," covers the nineteenth century to pre-World War II, and emphasizes that Asian migration to the United States in this period was driven by a demand for labor. It begins not with the construction of the transcontinental railroad, but with U.S. colonial expansion into the Philippines. The Igorots at the St. Louis World's Fair Philippine exhibition are not portrayed as sad, unidentified victims here, but hustling ancestors with their own goals. The episode follows a multilingual young man named Antero as he puts his language skills to use and pursues a transnational life between the United States and the Philippines. The episode then transitions to Chinese laborers on the transcontinental railroad and the racism and cruelty they faced as they became a threat to the white American workforce. This presents the opportunity to discuss the Chinese Exclusion Act, birthright citizenship in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, and racial prerequisite cases such as United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind. The remainder of this jam-packed episode addresses the "second generation"—the [End Page 511] children born of these nineteenth-century immigrants, who want to assert their Americanness, play baseball, and be in the movies. Episode two, "A Question of Loyalty," focuses on World War II, the Japanese American incarceration, and Asian American communities' varied responses. In particular, it follows the war's impact on the children of the Japanese American Uno family. One son, Buddy, feeling scorned by his country of birth, starts to investigate the appeal of Japanese imperial ambitions. He eventually travels to Japan to join its army news corps, while other members of his family move in and out of concentration camps across the United States. The episode follows the divided loyalties in the Uno family, as well as the pain and silence that covered up their story for several generations. Refreshingly, the episode refuses Asian American World War II history as simply Japanese American history. It also touches upon Japanese imperialism in Korea and Manchuria, which allied Korean and Chinese nationalists with the United States, and considers the impact of enlisting in the U.S. military for Chinese and Filipino Americans. By way of closing, the episode connects the legacy of the internment to descendants' contemporary activism against the ongoing incarceration of Mexican and Central American migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Episode three, "Good Americans," addresses Asian American communities' reactions to the Cold War and the growth of the model minority stereotype after World War II. Asian American soldiers, having fought for democracy and freedom against fascism abroad, now expect equality at home. The episode notes how both racist policy and racist sentiment prevent integration from becoming a material reality. This impact is worsened by the Red Scare, when any Chinese Americans who contradicted the official U.S. position on China or who were simply contributing to Chinese diaspora newspapers came under FBI scrutiny. The story then shifts focus to Hawai'i and Hawaiian statehood to celebrate it as a platform from which the first Asian American members of Congress gain a foothold. The episode follows the careers of Hawaiian-born Representative Patsy Mink...

Thinking Regionally in Early Medieval Studies: A Manifesto

In a recent leading article in the Journal of Asian Studies, Hugh Clark critiques the teleological construct of a unified China, arguing that, at least up through the tenth century, the unified regimes of Qin/Han and Sui/Tang were a “superficial overlay” atop an East Asia comprised of many diverse cultural regions. I believe that scholars should take up Clark’s critique as an invitation: to write meaningful histories of East Asian cultural regions, their distinctive peoples, and their diverse cultural and political identities, without relying on the teleological construct of “China” and the “Chinese” (or Han) people and culture. Scholars of the early medieval period have exceptionally rich opportunities to do this sort of work, yet we mostly have not taken sufficient advantage of them. This essay uses my own work on the Wuren as a case study to propose some useful frameworks and methodologies available to us, such as re-thinking the concept of “empire,” and writing regional histories. Thinking regionally, especially when done in collaboration with scholars of other periods of fragmentation, will allow scholars of the early medieval era to make distinctive and important contributions to the broader fields of East Asian and comparative World history.

A Brief Analysis on the Development of Visual Arts in Central Asian History

世界科学出版社（World Science Publishing-WSP）立足国际，积极配合中国“走出去”出版战略，大力推进版权输出与引进，并不断拓展国际间的交流与合作，取得显著成绩。WSP国际图书出版项目力倡中国科研人员出版英文图书，出版社具有丰富的国际传播资源与雄厚的编辑、翻译、出版力量，拥有一批著名的中外翻译专家、出版专家，及一支精通国际出版的编辑、翻译和国际营销队伍。探索“科学进步”与“社会进步”是人类永恒主题，WSP推崇以科学信仰引领学术方向，遵循各国法律和地方法规，能够协助您优质、快捷、低

Rohan Debroy Guy AttewellLocating the Medical: Explorations in South Asian History

Rohan Debroy Guy AttewellLocating the Medical: Explorations in South Asian History

동아시아 역사상, 자본주의 이행 논쟁과 유럽중심주의 — 대분기 연구, 세계체계 분석과 역사의 표준 문제

동아시아 역사상, 자본주의 이행 논쟁과 유럽중심주의 — 대분기 연구, 세계체계 분석과 역사의 표준 문제

Tracing the Unsteady Relationship between Asia Education Policy Discourse and History Curriculum in Australia

ABSTRACTIn Australia, Asia-related history has been part of secondary school history curriculum since the 1960s and Asia engagement has been an education policy imperative for decades. At the national level, different governments have attached competing rationales to the study of Asian histories and cultures. However, little is known about the extent to which these policy discourses influence state-based history curriculum. This article examines the Asia education policy/history curriculum nexus by analysing the relationship between the broader socio-historical policy contexts in which senior secondary curricula were created and the ways Asia-related histories are positioned within the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE). Framed as a history of the present it considers how these contexts constitute the discursive conditions of possibility for the representation of Asia. It argues that although VCE History was influenced by national Asia education policy discourses in the mid-1990s in particular, more recently Asia-related history has not expanded or diversified, even though Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia has been prioritised in the Australian Curriculum. It is important to investigate these inconsistencies to better understand the complexities that shape curriculum and the study of Asia-related history, and to trace the historical development of Australia–Asia relations through education policy.

Revision and Development of the "East Asian History" Curriculum in 2011

Revision and Development of the "East Asian History" Curriculum in 2011

A Soundtrack for Reimagining Pakistan? Coke Studio, Memory and the Music Video

Since 2007, Coke Studio has rapidly become one of the most influential platforms in televisual, digital and musical media, and has assumed a significant role in generating new narratives about Pakistani modernity. The musical pieces in Coke Studio’s videos re-work a range of genres and performing arts, encompassing popular and familiar songs, as well as resuscitating classical poetry and the musical traditions of marginalised communities. This re-working of the creative arts of South Asia represents an innovative approach to sound, language, and form, but also poses larger questions about how cultural memory and national narratives can be reimagined through musical media, and then further reworked by media consumers and digital audiences.This article considers how Coke Studio’s music videos have been both celebrated and criticised, and explores the online conversations that compared new covers to the originals, be they much loved or long forgotten. The ways in which the videos are viewed, shared, and dissected online sheds light on new modes of media consumption and self-reflection. Following specific examples, we examine the larger implications of the hybrid text–video–audio object in the digital age, and how the consumers of Coke Studio actively participate in developing new narratives about South Asian history and Pakistani modernity.

Conceptual History and South Asian History

This review article provides an overview of important, recent approaches to conceptual history from scholarship on South Asia. While conceptual history is not a consolidated field in South Asia, the colonial encounter has greatly stimulated interest in conceptual inquiries. Recent scholarship questions the uniformity even of well-researched concepts such as liberalism. It is methodologically innovative in thinking about the influence of economic structures for the development of concepts. Rethinking religious and secular languages, scholars have furthermore stressed the importance of smaller communicative units such as genre or hermeneutical practices to shape ideas e.g. of the political. As part of global and imperial formations, scholars are well aware of the link between power and colonial temporalities. Lastly, they have suggested new sources for conceptual history, such as literature, film, and sound.