Author Archives: emnewton

Thursday, March 9 : Jessa Dahl

Please join us next week as the East Asia: Transregional Histories Workshop welcomes our own

 

Jessa Dahl

PhD Student, University of Chicago

“After Dejima: Nagasaki’s ‘Heroic Women’ and Networks of International Exchange, 1827-1899”

Thursday, March 9th

4:00PM – 6:00PM

John Hope Franklin Room (SSR 224)

 

Jessa will be presenting an early draft of her dissertation proposal, which centers on personal and professional networks managed by women in nineteenth century Nagasaki. Jessa describes her project as follows:

 

As a treaty port community, Nagasaki experienced the dynamism of Japan’s entry into the nineteenth century international system first hand. Unlike the other treaty ports, however, Nagasaki was built upon already extant personal and professional networks of intercultural exchange that were over two hundred years old. It was also the only treaty port in which a small cohort of women participated prominently the most vital networks of exchange including international trade, the exchange of ideas and technology, diplomacy and even prostitution. My research will show that these two developments are not coincidental. I will argue that Nagasaki’s history as an established site of international exchange provided a base for the subsequent dynamic transformation that allowed these women to capitalize on the opportunities that were afforded to them. By showing how these women and their networks adapted to and transformed under the new treaty port system, I hope to explore what conditions made their success possible and illustrate how kaikoku (lit. “opening of the country”) and Japan’s subsequent modernization transformed local sites of international exchange.

 

As always, first-time attendees are welcome. Light refreshments and snacks will be served.

 

If you have any questions or require assistance to attend, please contact Jessa Dahl at jdahl@uchicago.edu or Erin Newton at emnewton@uchicago.edu.

Thursday Nov 17 at 4PM : Liping Wang

Liping Wang

Assistant Professor, University of Hong Kong

“Legal Pluralism or Jurisdictional Nexuses: The Transformation of Jurisdictional Boundaries in China-Inner Mongolia, 1900-1930”

Thursday, November 17 4:00-6:00 PM

John Hope Franklin Room, (SSR 224)

Discussant:

Yuan Tian (PhD Student, Department of History)

The East Asia: Transregional Histories workshop is delighted to host Professor Liping Wang of the University of Hong Kong next Thursday, November 17. Please see the below abstract for the work.

“This presentation comes from one chapter in my book under work. In this chapter, historical examples from eastern Inner Mongolia will illustrate the hazy jurisdictional boundaries between Mongol banners and Han Chinese migrant communities, a structure that formed under the Qing Empire. Multiple frontier agents, including banner nobles, civilian county magistrates, frontier governors, and local representatives of Lifan yuan, all participated in judicial processes that sometimes involved Mongols and sometimes mixed ethnic groups. Frontier legal jurisdiction was therefore not a whole cloth. Frontier agents, who represented the state or the local Mongolian interests to varying degrees, diversified the expression of legal authority. This structure evokes the question: can we conceptualize the multiple legal orders operating/cooperating in the Qing Empire as a case of legal pluralism? Legal pluralism is a term introduced in colonial studies and reformulated to stress the multiplicity of legal practices in empires as opposed to the legal uniformity characterizing nation-states. Moreover, these rather diversified legal jurisdictions in the frontier were being shattered in the early twentieth century. System decay started with the transformation of Lifan yuan, which destabilized the balance between different agents, and triggered their competitions to augment their respective jurisdictional scopes. Based upon a variety of sources (including the official memorials, local gazetteers, the archives of the Department of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs, and sources collected from the Archives of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region), this chapter pinpoints the most important changes that transformed the frontier jurisdictional divisions, which directly propelled the formation of confrontational ethnic relationship in China-Inner Mongolia in the early 20th century.”

As always, first-time attendees are welcome. Light refreshments and snacks will be served.

If you have any questions or require assistance to attend, please contact Jessa Dahl at jdahl@uchicago.edu or Erin Newton at emnewton@uchicago.edu.

November 11 4PM–David Andrew Knight (Co-sponsor with APEA)

David Andrew Knight

“Plain Becomes Patterned: Li Deyu and the White Lotus”

Friday, November 11, 4-6 PM

CEAS 319 (1155 E 60th St)

Discussant:

Yiren Zheng (EALC)

The East Asia: Transregional Histories Workshop, in conjunction with the Art and Politics of East Asia Workshop, is delighted to host David Andrew Knight next Friday, 11/11. Below is a brief abstract of the work:

This paper is part of a larger project that situates the fu 賦 poetry of the ninth century minister Li Deyu 李德裕 (787-850) within the context of his life. Through the focal point of a fu poem about a white lotus flower written by Li Deyu, one of the most powerful men of his day, I will demonstrate how this poem captures a retrievable moment of poetic creation. I have discovered that Li Deyu’s fu poem on the white lotus is a literary recreation of his encounter with the fifteen year old Xu Pan who was soon to become his concubine. By analyzing a key stanza in the poem, I will illuminate the links between Li’s literary life and his real life.

The paper can be found at the East Asia: Transregional Histories workshop website at this link. The password is “lotus”. Please do not cite or circulate this paper without express permission of the author.

As always, first-time attendees are welcome. Light refreshments and snacks will be served.

If you have any questions or require assistance to attend, please contact Jessa Dahl at jdahl@uchicago.edu or Erin Newton at emnewton@uchicago.edu.

Friday, November 4 at 4PM: Jamie Monson

Jamie Monson

Professor, Michigan State University

“Learning by Heart: Practice as knowledge building along the TAZARA Railway in late Twentieth Century Mang’ula”

Friday, November 4, 4:00 – 6:00 PM

CEAS Room 319 (1155 E 60th St)

Professor Monson’s presentation will include photographs and video clips demonstrating her ethno-historical methodology. Her paper can be found on the East Asia: Transregional Histories Website. 

This paper explores the transmission of knowledge from Chinese experts to African workers during the construction of the TAZARA railway in Mang’ula, Tanzania. Using a practice called shou ba shou (literally “hand holding hand”), the Chinese experts taught local workers how to use drills and lathes to build railroads. Monson’s ethno-historical research reveals that such processes “spanned and charted major upheavals of the mid-twentieth century in the global history of work, technology and politics.” This railway project bridged the divide between China’s socialist internationalism and Cultural Revolution, on the one hand, and Tanzania’s socialist experiment on the other. As Monson states, “the meeting of Chinese experts and African workers in the secluded mountain stronghold of Mang’ula formed a connection between two frontline landscapes of railway building during the Cold War – from the frontiers of Sichuan and Yunnan to the rugged escarpment of the Udzungwa mountains.“

As always, first-time attendees are welcome. Light refreshments and snacks will be served.

If you have any questions or require assistance to attend, please contact Jessa Dahl at jdahl@uchicago.edu or Erin Newton at emnewton@uchicago.edu.

Reminder: TODAY 4:00PM — Kickstarting Your Research: Advice on Starting a Seminar Paper and Masters’ Thesis [EAT Histories]

Please join the East Asia: Transregional Histories Workshop TODAY for:

Kickstarting your Research: Advice on Starting a Seminar Paper and Masters’ Thesis in the History Department

TODAY from 4:00-6:00 PM

John Hope Franklin Room, SSD 224

 

Panelists: Kyle Pan (Japanese history, PhD)

Carl Kubler (Chinese history PhD, MAPSS alumni)

Thomas Gimbel (Japanese History, PhD)

 

How do I define a research question? Where should I start the research process? How can my current research contribute to my dissertation?  To help address these questions and more, we will be joined by a panel of current students who have successfully (and sometimes with great suffering) completed a seminar paper. After a brief introduction of their early experiences with research we will move onto a discussion of research methods and challenges specific to the seminar paper experience in the history department. While this event is specially designed for MA and early stage PhD students, students of all stages and from all fields of study are encouraged to attend.

 

There is no pre-circulated paper for this event, and first-time attendees are welcome. Light refreshments will be served.

 

If you have any questions or require assistance to attend, please contact Jessa Dahl at jdahl@uchicago.edu or Erin Newton at emnewton@uchicago.edu.

TOMORROW: Kickstarting your Research: Advice on Starting a Seminar Paper and Masters’ Thesis in the History Department

Please join the East Asia Transregional Histories Workshop TOMORROW for:

Kickstarting your Research: Advice on Starting a Seminar Paper and Masters’ Thesis in the History Department
4:00-6:00 PM
John Hope Franklin Room, SSD 224

Panelists: Kyle Pan(Japanese history, PhD)
Carl Kubler (Chinese history PhD, MAPSS alumni)
Thomas Gimbel (Japanese History, PhD)

How do I define a research question? Where should I start the research process? How can my current research contribute to my dissertation? To help address these questions and more, we will be joined by a panel of current students who have successfully (and sometimes with great suffering) completed a seminar paper. After a brief introduction of their early experiences with research we will move onto a discussion of research methods and challenges specific to the seminar paper experience in the history department. While this event is specially designed for MA and early stage PhD students, students of all stages and from all fields of study are encouraged to attend.

There is no pre-circulated paper for this event, and first-time attendees are welcome. Light refreshments will be served.

If you have any questions or require assistance to attend, please contact Jessa Dahl at jdahl@uchicago.edu or Erin Newton at emnewton@uchicago.edu.