Asian languages and literature

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/19650

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(In)visible Voices, (In)audible Disability: The Narrated Other in Sakaguchi Ango’s “The Idiot”
(2026-04-20) Hung, Tzu-Lu; Bhowmik, Davinder
Published just after World War II, Sakaguchi Ango’s novella “The Idiot” (Hakuchi 1946) is set against the backdrop of the Bombing of Tokyo and unfolds with a close-up of an anarchic alley where animals and madmen reside. Among them lives Izawa, an apprentice director of wartime propaganda film, and a “feeble-minded” woman whose name is Osayo. Exempt from the responsibilities of a good wife, wise mother (ryōsai kenbo) due to her mental limitations, Osayo, whom the narrator consistently refers to as the “idiot,” is neither expected to be economically productive nor reproductively fertile. Cast as “feeble-minded,” Osayo’s gendered and disabled body is rendered a spectacle and an object of sexual desire both by Izawa and the narrator. As such, her sexuality, along with a perceived absence of interiority, undermines the occurrence of her voice and agency—she can be narrated and described, but she cannot narrate herself as the speaking subject (le sujet parlant). Despite being overshadowed by the protagonist-narrator both within the narrative and in critical discourse, Osayo’s imposed silence can be read as a site or resistance that grapples with the struggle for identity and agency. Throughout the text, Osayo disturbs the boundaries between sanity and madness, normal and abnormal, and rationality and irrationality, especially challenging what it means to be human. Contrary to Osayo who reified her will with embodied communication, Izawa’s dependence on contingency and the fear of death exposes his preexisting anxiety about an incoherent self and his reliance on degrading the “idiot” to affirm his own rational, independent, able-bodied identity. This paper seeks to recognize and restore the contagious silence of the narrated Other. It contributes to the larger theme of representations of disability in modern Japanese literature by examining how perception and depiction of disability are shaped by arbitrary acts such as name-calling and labeling, and by exploring how voices and disability can be made audible and visible through a reading strategy that recovers the rippling effect of silenced characters.
Beyond Grief: Dirge Writing in the Han China (206 BCE-220 CE)
(2026-02-05) Zhu, Avery W.; Wang, Ping
The dirge (lei 誄) was a funerary text composed to commemorate sociocultural elites in Han funerary practices. However, it became obsolete after the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) and receives limited scholarly attention today, leaving a significant aspect of Han memorial culture understudied. After an overview of the current scholarship on the dirge, this study aims to provide a cultural history of the dirge during the Han. Instead of answering “what is a dirge” with a static definition, this study questions the conventional understanding of genre and examines the interaction between the function and textual structure of the dirge. By analyzing the writer-mourner-deceased power dynamics, this study will pay specific attention to the role of the writer in dirge production. The first two chapters will examine the structure and function of the dirge. In addition to providing a standardized paradigm of dirge writing during the Han, Chapter 1 plans to elucidate the orality and materiality that destabilized the text. I will challenge the conventional idea of genre by offering a function-centered perspective. I will analyze the composite texture of the dirge to further explain its textual instability. Chapter 2 will examine the function of dirge by comparing the dirge with functionally and textually similar texts. I try to answer whether the function of the dirge lies in conferring the posthumous name. By elucidating the changing role of scholar-officials as dirge writers in late Eastern Han, this study will delve into the power dynamics between the writer, the mourners, and the deceased in the production of the dirge. Chapter 3 will focus on the shifting communal identity of scholars and its reflection in their archetypical reconstruction of the deceased. Chapter 4 will elaborate the interplay between funerary practice and personal expression in Han-Wei period dirges. I will examine Cao Zhi’s 曹植 (192-232 CE) “Dirge for Wang Zhongxuan” in terms of the interaction between his identity and the text, and how this demonstrates the distinctive state-scholar relationship in that sociocultural context. This study aims to dismiss the teleological narrative of the dirge and situate the dirge as a textual product of the funerary practice within its sociocultural context. This study will also enrich scholarly understanding of the relationship between text, writer, and context in dirge production. Through the lens of the dirge, this study will contribute to the understanding of genre, authorship, and identity against the backdrop of Han memorial culture.
The Virtue of Writing: Issues of Writing in the Literary Mind of Lu Ji's 陸機 (261-303 CE) "Wenfu" 文賦
(2025-10-02) Shimonagane, Haruki; Wang, Ping
The "Wenfu" 文賦 is a fu-style writing composed by Lu Ji 陸機 (261-303 CE) around 300. Born into a prominent family of the State of Wu during the Three Kingdoms period, Lu Ji experienced the tragic loss of his home country at the age of twenty. After a decade of retreat, Lu Ji moved to the capital of the Western Jin dynasty and, in just a little more than ten years he had before his execution at the age of forty-three, produced numerous literary works, earning a place among the great literary figures of the Six Dynasties. The Wenxuan 文選, an anthology of poetry and prose from the Southern Liang Dynasty, preserves 61 of his works, and among these, the most famous is the "Wenfu," a treatise on literary creation which proclaims the principles of literary art in a highly ornate language. 3 This paper discusses the "Wenfu" in the context of literary criticism in Early Medieval China. After reviewing the biography of Lu Ji and the textual history of the "Wenfu" (Chapter 1), I will the trace the changes in the concepts of "wen" 文 and "writing" in Ancient China from the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han through the end of the Eastern Han, which culminate in the "Wenfu" (Chapter 2). Specifically, this chapter aims to elucidate the nature of the traditional Chinese literary historical discourse of the "self-consciousness" and the "independence" of literature in the Wei and Jin periods, a view that has been widely accepted since Lu Xun 魯迅. It also aims to identify the shift from "text" to "writing/literature" in Early China around the turn of the first century CE, collating recent scholarship. The purpose of this paper is to place the "Wenfu"—and not Cao Pi's "Lunwen"—as hallmark of the completion of this transition. For this purpose, this paper focuses on the concepts of "yongxin" 用心 and "xuanlan" 玄覧 in Chapter 3, discussing them through comparison with literary theories found in the Han dynasty's Huainanzi 淮南子 and Lunheng 論衡 and the so-called "xuanxue" 玄學 of the time. It will then discuss the issue of intertextuality and anxiety of writers in Early Medieval China (Chapter 4). In conclusion, this paper points out that the Ru-ist virtue is evident in the "Wenfu," and argues that the conventional view that literature became independent from Confucianism (morality) during the Wei and Jin periods requires some reservation (Chapter 5). The rhyme scheme and textual variations of the "Wenfu" are presented at the end (Appendixes).
The Acquisition of Disyllabic Word Collocations by Intermediate- to Advanced-Level Learners of Chinese as a Second Language
(2025-10-02) Zhou, Jieyu; Lü, Chan
This dissertation investigates the learning and teaching of verb-noun disyllabic word collocations (DWCs), a key marker of formal language in Chinese that facilitates effective communication in formal contexts, among intermediate and advanced Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) learners. First, it examines the distribution of DWCs in widely used textbooks across North American CSL programs and assesses their authenticity in reflecting real-world usage. A corpus analysis revealed that DWCs appear late in elementary-level textbooks; as proficiency levels increase, both the number and diversity of DWCs grow, while their repetition rates decline. Most DWCs corresponded to authentic language use, though a small subset—predominantly in advanced-level textbooks—did not. Second, the dissertation evaluates CSL learners' collocational competence, operationalized as receptive and productive knowledge of DWCs. Four online tasks revealed that even advanced learners were significantly outperformed by native speakers. Learners demonstrated stronger receptive than productive knowledge, struggled most with semantic constraints and least with prosodic constraints, and showed that vocabulary size reliably predicted task accuracy, while proficiency predicted processing speed. Third, the study investigates whether textbook input influences learners' knowledge. Results indicate that DWC token frequency (i.e., frequency of occurrence) facilitated learner automaticity, consistent with the Usage-Based Approach (UBA). However, DWC type frequency (i.e., the number of distinct collocates for a given node word) did not significantly enhance creative production and even increased generalization difficulty. Finally, the study explores whether targeted training can enhance learners' understanding and use of DWCs. Findings show that implicit input flood in the training significantly improved learner performance, whereas explicit instructor-guided generalization did not yield additional benefits. The dissertation concludes with pedagogical implications for material design, instructional strategies, and task development for Chinese as a second language.
Mapping the Literary Landscape in the Late Tang: Interpreting the Intellectual World through the Prose of Luo Yin, Lu Guimeng, and Pi Rixiu
(2025-08-01) Zhou, Shiwei; Wang, Ping
The dissertation delves into the often overlooked, underestimated, and misunderstood writers of ninth and tenth-century China. Within the declining years of the Tang dynasty, these scholars have been overshadowed by their predecessors and successors. From imperial China to modern scholarship, their literary contributions have only been recognized as a continuation of the literary legacy from the earlier Tang periods, a transition before a literary renaissance in the Northern Song dynasty, and a representation of the political and social issues of the chaotic time. The dissertation challenges this longstanding conventional view by highlighting the unique qualities of the prose written by Lu Guimeng (d. 881), Pi Rixiu (838-883), and Luo Yin (833-910). By analyzing the collective and individual themes and styles present in their prose, as well as their mastery of literary tradition and innovative approaches, this dissertation illustrates the indispensable value of late Tang prose. The dissertation is structured into two primary sections: textual and contextual analyses, followed by annotated translations. The first section is dedicated to providing an in-depth discussion of the topic, comprising six main chapters. Each chapter explores a distinct topic within the literary world, including remonstrance, reclusion, identity construction, historical writing, political views, philosophical ideology, hobbies, and religious beliefs. The second section serves not only as a reference and appendix to the discussion but also aims to lay valuable groundwork by paying attention to literary allusions, rhetorical devices, grammatical nuances, textual variations, and reception history.
A Relativistic Gaze: A Multimedial Exploration of Cultural Participation
(2025-08-01) Niver-Johnson, Jordan; Bhowmik, Davinder L
A plethora of media are readily available that paint a picture of the Ainu and their culture –a recognized Indigenous population within modern-day Japan. For instance, we can read about one of their ceremonies, the Iomante (in which a bear is ritually “killed” and sent back to the land of the gods) in Netsugen (Heat Source) by Kawagoe Sōichi, visualize it in the manga Golden Kamuy by Noda Satoru, and engage with it both auditorily and visually in the anime (and now live action) adaptation of Golden Kamuy, The Ainu Bear Ceremony a documentary by Gordon M. Neil in 1931, and in the modern drama film Ainu Mosir. No two media represent the ceremony in the same way, and after one has consumed all these disparate representations, they are left with a multifaceted concept of the ceremony itself which is made up of various visual, auditory, and linguistic sources. This study explores how multimediality shapes our modern perception of the Iomante and by extension Ainu culture. I hope to underscore the significance of fictional characters who exhibit a non-prescriptive and ethnorelativistic relationship with culture. Non-prescription herein will mean refraining from imposing rules, expectations or specific ways of being on oneself in relation to cultural expectations. Characters with this approach to culture observe and interact with it without insisting that they themselves or other members need to conform to that culture completely. Ethnorelativism herein will mean the ability to see one’s own beliefs and behaviors as just one reality among many possibilities. Characters who fit into this category approach cultural practices with a willingness to understand them from within that culture’s cultural framework.Central to the current study are the following questions: what is Ainu culture, especially when viewed through a modern lens? How has multimediality shaped, albeit sometimes through negative example, our view of the Iomante ceremony as a part of that culture? And finally, what significance may this media have for those who consume it? I hope to show how media figures have been portrayed in ways that encourage us to rethink the concepts of cultural prescription and involvement. In Ainu Mosir, Netsugen and Golden Kamuy we connect to characters who show agency in how they navigate their culture, a model of agency which may eventually prove beneficial to modern people and how they relate to Ainu culture in contemporary settings.
A Bundle of Charcoal, Volume I
(2025-08-01) Arroyave, Juan Felipe; Atkins, Paul S; Mack, Edward
This thesis presents the first English translation of the first volume of Sumidawara (translated as “A Bundle of Charcoal” here), Matsuo Bashō’s (1644-1694) last published linked verse anthology, and part of the poet’s “Seven Great Haikai Collections”. A distinctive aspect of Sumidawara is that it is the work that best exemplifies karumi (“lightness”), the poetic style that Bashō envisioned and disseminated among his followers in the last years of his life. However, the lack of familiarity with this work and its closeness to other aesthetic principles associated with Bashō’s poetics, such as zoku (“folk”), make this a hazy concept for most Western readers. Moreover, while some critics have traditionally associated karumi with formal aspects such as simplicity in diction and structure, the sociopolitical implications of this style have been largely ignored. In sum, Sumidawara stands as a missing link in Basho’s repertoire to readers in the West but, perhaps more importantly, it denotes a significant conceptual gap in our understanding of Japanese poetry.
Exploring Self through Female-Female Bond—Himuro Saeko and Her Early Stories
(2025-08-01) Ding, Jamie; Jesty, Justin
This paper explores the theme of self-identity formation through female-female bonds in Japanese shōjo fiction, with a particular focus on the works of Himuro Saeko from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Rather than providing a comprehensive history of the genre, this study analyzes how Himuro, building upon the tradition of prewar female-female bond fiction, reexamines and explores teenage girls’ reflections on and pursuit of self-actualization within the context of everyday school life. Through close readings of key texts, including “Goodbye, My Harlequin” and The White Paper of Clara, the paper examines how Himuro constructs an alternative narrative that resists patriarchal norms and mainstream romantic scripts. Drawing on historical context, feminist criticism, and narrative theory, this research argues that Himuro’s contribution to the new wave of shōjo fiction lies in her revival and transformation of the female-female bond tradition to inspire self-realization and personal growth in a brand-new era.
ACQUISITION IN A TRILINGUAL ENVIRONMENT AND PHILOLOGICAL EDUCATION: A RE-EXAMINATION OF REGULAR, UNIQUE AND UNUSUAL SINO-VIETNAMESE INITIAL FEATURES
(2025-05-12) Lanneau, Grainger; Handel, Zev
This dissertation is a re-examination of Sino-Vietnamese (SV) initial consonants in light of major developments regarding our understanding of SV definitions, comparisons with Chinese pronunciations, narratives regarding the origin of Sino-Vietnamese, and recent developments in Chinese as well as Vietic historical phonology. I focus on three layers of SV: Early Sino-Vietnamese ESV, Late Sino-Vietnamese LSV and Hán-Việt Việt-Hóa HVVH. Example Sino-Vietnamese words from each initial type and layer are compared with Old Chinese, Late Han Old Chinese, Early Middle Chinese and Late Middle Chinese pronunciations. I discuss the historical and areal linguistic implications behind SV initial consonant features that are regular, unusual, and unique within the context of SV compared to other Sino-Xenic initial features. For initial features that are unique and unusual, I compare those SV morphemes with cognates in modern Southern Chinese varieties, Tai languages such as Tày and Zhuang, and occasionally with cognates in Sino-Japanese and Sino-Korean. I also compare those SV features to cognates and phonetic components in Sino-Xenic scripts such as Chữ Nôm, Chữ Nôm Tày and Zhuang Sawndip. I also compare SV morphemes to alternate Fǎnqiè 反切 spellings and discuss the effects and nuances of graphic analogy. This re-examination shows that the transmission of SV words of every layer was a complicated process that involved trade, small scale as well as large scale migration, and political interference that gave rise to premodern philological practices and an environment that hosted Vietic, Tai and Chinese. This trilingualism involves successive waves of Chinese speaking communities that were affected by their linguistic environment. Tai languages such as Tày and Zhuang can reveal more information on what John Phan (2010;2013) calls Annamese Middle Chinese (AMC), as well as the trilingual environment. I also explore the utility of Baxter & Sagart's (2014) Old Chinese (OC) reconstruction as a tool for researching ESV and SV initial lenition. This dissertation finds that some SV words with initial lenition such as v-, d- and g- indeed had OC pre-initials at the time of borrowing, but many SV words with lenited initials were not influenced by OC pre-initials or clusters. There are alternate causes for lenition such as sporadic betacism, phonological interpretation in Vietic and medial interference, thus many cases of lenition should be understood as Hán-Việt Việt-Hóa instead. I also offer nuance to the education vs. acquisition hypothesis; some features of SV, Chinese varieties, Zhuang and Sino-Tày provide implications for acquisition of loanwords through multilingualism. Some unusual pronunciations are also due to pronunciation prescriptions. In the medieval period, some older pronunciations became codified as the standard pronunciation, some Fǎnqiè 反切 spellings were preferred over others, and some pronunciations were prescribed via graphic analogy. Furthermore, some examples of graphic analogy were common across the empire, some were common across other Sino-Xenic varieties and other instances only occurred in the Red River Delta.
Tracing the Origin: Formation of Zuo zhuan's composition
(2024-10-16) Fu, Siyuan; Knechtges, David
This dissertation addresses the critical question of “how did the Zuo zhuan come to be composed in this unique way?” As one of the most well-known Pre-Qin texts, the Zuo zhuan has received a great amount of attention from scholars in various fields since the Han dynasty. While existing scholarship often emphasizes narrative features, my research shifts its focus toward understanding the specific conditions and rationales that led to Zuo zhuan’s final form. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, my study integrates elements of literary analysis, textual criticism, etymology, and Western narrative theory. I pay particular attention to a unique subset of commentaries, described as “commentaries without main text correspondences,” and offer a comprehensive analysis of how text, historical context, and scribal practices have converged to shape the Zuo zhuan. My research challenges conventional narrative approaches that overlook these intricate factors, thus aiming to redefine our understanding of this text and its role in early Chinese narrative traditions.
Inoue Enryō and the Development of Monsterology in Early Modern Japan
(2024-09-09) Zhang, Kai Yin; Jesty, Justin JJ
This thesis explores Monsterology (yōkaigaku, 妖怪学), one of Inoue Enryō's seminal works on the study of monsters, first published in 1891. This work signifies a pivotal shift in the Meiji period’s understanding of supernatural phenomena, presenting a modern, rationalist perspective on monsters that integrates Western scientific thought. Inoue’s approach, which aimed to demystify superstition through applied psychology, positioned him as a key figure in the modernization and Westernization of Japanese religious thought. Inoue’s writing also reflects a convergence of classical Japanese and modern academic essay formats, indicative of the broader linguistic and cultural shifts of the period. This work includes an English translation of Monsterology by Inoue Enryō, excluding the chapter “Collection of Secret Techniques and Their Explanations” due to the complexities of translating its Buddhist terms and explanations.
Fiction as a Site of ‘Self’ Mourning: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Hayashi Kyōko and Her Atomic Bomb Literature
(2024-09-09) Xu, Jinyue; Jesty, Justin
As one of the most prolific atomic bomb writers in Japan, Hayashi Kyōko’s oeuvre demonstrates the ongoing negotiation of her positionality in relation to the hibakusha identity. Adopting a psychoanalytic framework to interpret her narratives, this paper divides Hayashi’s four-decade-long writing career into three stages and closely examines representative works from each phase. Her early writings heavily focus on her past experiences surviving the bombing, fulfilling a cathartic need. In the transitional stage, Hayashi undergoes a symbolic pilgrimage around and beyond her hibakusha self, leading to her ‘self’-less final works dedicated to conveying anti-nuclear messages to a general audience. Despite the rich dynamics, Hayashi Kyōko’s works remain underexplored in the English-speaking world. Nevertheless, as we continue to live in the nuclear era, the genre of atomic bomb literature warrants further interpretation.
Referential Choices in Oral Narratives of Chinese among Immersion Learners
(2024-02-12) Wu, Yifan; Lu, Chan
Much research has investigated the production of referring expressions made by bilingual children in terms of referential functions. Few studies have focused on bilingual Chinese-English children. This thesis explores the referring expressions (nominal forms, pronominal forms, and null forms) used under different referential functions (reference introduction, reference maintenance, and reference reintroduction) by bilingual Chinese-English children. The research questions are (1) What are the developmental patterns across grades for the three referential functions and referential forms for Chinese? (2) What are the developmental patterns across grades for the three referential functions and referential forms for English? (3) Are referential choices made by the schooled bilinguals differ from monolingual language learners? To answer these questions, the Bilingual and Biliteracy Research Lab at the University of Washington collected Chinese and English oral narratives from a Chinese Dual Immersion elementary school. The research assistant at the lab used the wordless picture book Frog Goes to Dinner (Mayer, 1974) to test first and fifth graders narrative skills. After collecting the data, I compared the referring expressions in Chinese between first-grade and fifth-grade students of bilingual Chinese-English children to speculate the developmental patterns. As for within groups, I calculated and compared the percentage of definite and indefinite noun phrases used by first and fifth graders to investigate their referential ability. Finally, I compared the percentage of referring expressions used by first and fifth graders between bilingual Chinese-English and monolingual Chinese children. The results suggested a striking finding on reference maintenance. When comparing the referring expressions used in the three referential functions between the first and fifth-grade bilingual students, the results indicated that the fifth graders preferred nominal forms. In contrast, first graders tended to use pronominal forms for reference maintenance. When comparing the referring expressions under three referential functions, respectively, in first and fifth-grade students, both grade students tended to use the pronominal form to maintain a referent. With mutual knowledge, both groups preferred definite noun phrases, while in no mutual knowledge condition, fifth graders tended to use indefinite noun phrases. In conclusion, fifth graders developed more appropriate referential ability, and nine might be a critical age for children to become aware of mutual knowledge and acquire the reference maintenance function.
Rediscovering Sound in Tao Yuanming’s (365-427?) Poetry: A Data-based Study of Jin Phonology and Poetic Patterns
(2024-02-12) Liu, Hung-Yun; Wang, Ping
Tao Yuanming, an outstanding Chinese poet, utilized exceptional sound patterns in his poetry. However, due to the evolution of Chinese phonology over time, these sound effects are often overlooked in contemporary readings of his work. This paper aims to rediscover the significance of sound in Tao’s poetry by reconstructing its phonology based on both Axel Schuessler’s Late Han Chinese and Middle Chinese reconstruction, and analyzing the sound patterns, such as rhyming, alliteration, assonance, and reduplication, employed by Tao in his poetic compositions. The study reveals that Tao’s poetry demonstrates a careful and deliberate use of sound patterns to enhance its emotional resonance and thematic depth. By examining Tao’s application of these sound patterns, the paper highlights the poetic devices that create rhythm, reinforce content, and produce pleasurable responses in readers. Through this exploration, the paper seeks to reestablish the importance of sound as an indispensable component of Tao Yuanming’s poetry and Chinese poetry. By offering a comprehensive review of the sound patterns in Tao Yuanming’s poetry and reconstructing the original phonology, this paper provides a fresh perspective on the richness and complexity of his works. It not only enhances our understanding of Tao Yuanming’s poetic mastery but also sheds light on the broader significance of sound in the realm of Chinese poetry, emphasizing its importance as an integral aspect of poetic expression.
Sentimental Letters in the Postal Age: Media, Communication, and Emotion in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Epistolary Literature and Culture
(2024-02-12) Sheng, Zhifan; Hamm, John Christopher
This thesis seeks to understand the discursive emergence of the intimate relationship between letters and sentimental feelings by examining various texts that are either composed of or about “sentimental letters” in early twentieth-century Chinese popular literature. Theories from media studies will be employed to understand letters as a form of media and the exchange of letters as a process of communication. Based on this distinction, I respectively analyze the multiple mediations of emotion in Xu Zhenya’s Jade Pear Spirit (1912), the transmission of sorrowful feelings in Bao Tianxiao’s “Soaring Wild Goose” (1915) and Zhou Shoujuan’s “Returning Wild Goose in the Netherworld” (1921), and the undelivered sentimental letters in Jiang Hongjiao’s postal stories (1921-1925). This thesis proposes that the sentimental letters embody heightened consciousness and sensibilities around media, communication, and postal delivery in relation to the overflowing expression of emotion. The specific ways in which emotion is mediated and communicated by letters offer rich insights into a series of intersubjective issues, including gender relations, in the face of the postal age.
A Philological, Text Critical Reading of Sections of Chapter Five of the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, Basic Questions
(2024-02-12) Aguilar Jr., John; Handel, Zev
The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic is the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) medical text at the center of professional, literature-based medical practice in China for the last two-thousand years. Since the Song dynasty, roughly one thousand years ago, a single government sanctioned version of the first of the two books of the Inner Classic, “Basic Questions”, has acted as the authoritative version until modern times, the vast majority of scholars referencing it exclusively. This authoritative Song version took as its master copy an eighth century version which had undergone extensive changes. A seventh century text, the Grand Basis, contains most of “Basic Questions” and that in a state that did not get altered during the eighth century. This suggests Grand Basis is a closer reflection of the original Han “Basic Questions” than that which has acted as the authoritative version for the last thousand years. This research makes a close, critical comparison of portions of chapter five of “Basic Questions”. The goal was to determine the existence and nature of differences between the Song version and Grand Basis. Though too small a sample to arrive at definitive conclusions several differences were revealed suggesting, tentatively, an attempt on the original Han authors’ part to make their intent clear, this lost or concealed in the Song version. Enough differences of a meaningful type were found to warrant further, more complete investigation.
Crown-jewel of the Jain Canon:The Kalpa Sūtra in Mūrtipūjaka Jain Scholastic and Spiritual Life
(2023-09-27) Costello, Corbett Lane; Mack, Ted
My dissertation project traces the textual tradition of the Kalpa Sūtra, a scripture sacred to the Jain religious community in India. For well over a millennium this work—more than any other single sacred document in the tradition—has been ritually reproduced, worshipped, and studied by both monastics and members of the devotional public. Given its rich and enduring religious value to the community, I look at the Kalpa Sūtra as a case to study intersecting issues relating to textual, material, and ritual culture that developed from the ancient to early modern period. Within this socio-religious context, my research focuses on the salvic sponsorship and worship of this scripture by the largest community of Śvetāmbara” (“white-robed”) Jains known as the Mūrtipūjakas (or “image-worshippers”), especially those who identify as members of the Kharatara Gaccha and Tapā Gaccha communities. In this milieu of the Mūrtipūjaka tradition, then, I reconstruct the long history of the Kalpa Sūtra’s production and reception and accordingly analyze the impact it had on their social, scholastic, and religious life. I document the religious professionals who were instrumental in the development of the Kalpa Sūtra as well as the regimes of ecclesiastical power which made its production possible. Such an archeology, historiography, and ethnography of the Kalpa Sūtra textual tradition entails giving careful attention to its various modes of material being (sacred scripture, illustrated manuscript, performed text) as well as connected codes of discursive meaning (scriptural, literary, pedagogical, popular). In short, by analyzing the patronage, production, and performance of this scripture across the centuries, I show how the Kalpa Sūtra was carefully crafted by its redactors as a charter document central to the self-fashioning of Mūrtipūjaka Jain community.
Character Amnesia: A Sociolinguistic Study on the Different Effects in the Decline of Handwriting Literacy of Chinese Characters
(2023-09-27) Chesbro, Christopher Kyle; Handel, Zev
In the past few years, researchers have begun to empirically study character amnesia, finally providing trial-tested answers for the phenomenon and relieving many from the reliance on anecdotal evidence, which was previously the only kind available. The recent studies, however, have all focused on variables in relation to character amnesia on the lexical level with little attention paid to the participants themselves. The current study presents a first-of-its-kind empirical investigation of the effects of sociolinguistic variables and the degree to which they predict character amnesia in L1 Chinese speakers of varying ages living in the Pacific Northwestern United States. Using a dictation task, the study had 84 participants handwrite a range of 24 to 106 Chinese characters. The results showed that length of residency in the US, age, gender, and input method editor (IME) preference are among the most important predictors of character amnesia. Key behavioral variables that were assumed to yield significant results, such as handwriting frequency and keyboarding frequency, showed no significance in the data set prompting suspicion. These variables will require deeper exploration in future studies to verify their non-significance in predicting character amnesia in individuals.
Constructions of Gender Identity in Kurahashi Yumiko's Seishōjo
(2023-08-14) Tanahashi, Ami; Bhowmik, Davinder
Kurahashi Yumiko’s use of transgressive themes and her experimentalism in content and form throughout her works have been points of both controversy and scholarly interest. In Seishōjo (1965), Kurahashi takes the taboo theme of incest and places it at the center of the novel. In terms of form, she also experiments with a layered, multi-vocal narrative. The novel moves back and forth through the eyes and voices of two narrators, “I” and Miki. While the incests of “I” and Miki and the unique narrative style of the novel have been the subjects of academic discourse, there has been little attention dedicated to discussing the relationship between the two narrators and the construction of their gender identities. In my paper, I will use Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity to analyze the ways in which Kurahashi parodies pre-existing gender identities to construct her hero and her heroine. By imitating two popular genres of Japanese literature—the I-novel and shōjo literature—Kurahashi caricaturizes the gender identities of the rational, smart, elite male writer and the flowery, beautiful, innocent shōjo. This caricaturization reveals the arbitrary nature of attributes like “masculine” or “girly,” thereby destabilizing the long held ideas that serious male writers write highbrow literature and that girlhood is a time of innocence, soft beauty, and friendship.
The Sinitic Poetry of the Zen Abbess Taisei Shōan (1668-1712)
(2023-08-14) Horikawa, Nobuko; Atkins, Paul S
This dissertation is the first-ever in-depth study of the collection of Sinitic poetry composed by the Japanese Zen nun Taisei Shōan 大成聖安 (1668-1712). She was an imperial princess, an abbess of a prestigious Zen convent called Donkein 曇華院, and a skilled poet. In the previous scholarship, Taisei’s life is written only in summaries, but this work provides the most comprehensive chronological account of her life, in which the imperial court, Zen Buddhism, and literature are complexly intertwined. 276 Sinitic poems of her survive, but, except for one poem, no others have been translated, annotated, or analyzed in publication. Her Sinitic poetry incorporates various literary and religious materials learned from classical Japanese literature, classical Chinese literature, and Buddhist literature, specifically in the Zen tradition, reflecting the intersectionality of her life. She acquired multiple poetic voices of a Zen abbess, a Japanese female poet, a Chinese poet, and a Zen poet. Taisei inherited the courtly literary tradition and Gozan poetry tradition, which makes her stand out among other Edo-period Sinitic poets because links to these two literary traditions are not readily visible in the works of other poets of the time. This dissertation reveals how gender, class, religion, and language are intricately intersected in Sinitic poetry by this understudied yet significant Japanese female poet. One of the most important contributions of this work is the excavation and interpretation of the poetic voice of a female poet who was marginalized both in Buddhist literature and Sinitic poetry study in Japan. This historical and literary analysis of the life and poetry of Taisei provides novel perspectives on religious, historical, and literary frameworks surrounding Sinitic poetry composition in Edo period Japan.

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