World Civilization I (GA Southern)

This Grants Collection for Western Civilization I was created under a Round Eight ALG Textbook Transformation Grant. Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process. Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials: Linked Syllabus Initial Proposal Final Reporthttps://oer.galileo.usg.edu/history-collections/1004/thumbnail.jp

The Research Agenda of Zhu Qiqian: A Reframing of Traditional Chinese Craftsmanship

As a researcher, Zhu Qiqian 朱啟鈐 (1872-1964) is commonly known as the founding father of Chinese architectural history. Consequently, his work has been analyzed predominantly by architectural historians and in the context of architectural history. However, this lopsided perception distorts and obscures Zhu’s comprehensive research objectives and his contribution to a variety of fields, in particular his attempt to reframe and thoroughly investigate the history of Chinese traditional crafts. In order to reveal the intended scope and the unique approach of Zhu’s studies, this article analyzes the motivations behind Zhu Qiqian’s engagement with traditional craftsmanship, the far-reaching program of the research group he established, and one of his main research projects, the Zhejianglu 哲匠錄 (Collected Biographies of Master Craftsmen)

How To Live A Good Life And Afterlife: Conceptions Of Post-Mortem Existence And Practices Of Self-Cultivation In Early China

In the field of sinology, a widespread truism is that mind-body holism is a defining characteristic of early Chinese conception of human life. In this dissertation, we wish to demonstrate that contesting notions of life and death co-exist in early China, against the presumption that mind-body dualism never arises in early China. First, through examining elite burials from Western Zhou through the Han, we demonstrate how the diametrically opposed visions of the dead (that of an ancestral spirit who lacks eternal existence and that of an immortal with a transcended physical form) were seamlessly combined in the burial practices from Eastern Zhou to the Han. Second, through studying the visions of life and self-cultivation practices as portrayed in several early Chinese texts, we demonstrate that mind-body holism and mind-body dualism co-exist in early China, with the former prominent in “Neiye,” Mencius and parts of Huainanzi, and the latter prominent in Zhuangzi and the other parts of Huainanzi. Although “Neiye” and Mencius endorse different kinds of self-cultivation, their strands of self-cultivation both involve a transformation of the mental-spiritual as well as physical-physiological aspects of life. In contrast, Zhuangzi has a prominent body-mind dualism, holding that the body disintegrates upon death and joins in the cosmic transformation, but the spiritual entity, if properly attended to, can transcend the physical form and gain an eternal existence through merging with the cosmic ancestor. Self-cultivation in Zhuangzi, therefore, primarily involves the attendance to the spiritual aspect of life. Huainanzi portrays two diametrically opposed views of human life, each of which fits a special type of human exemplar. Parts of it follow the Zhuangzian dualism and hold that the spirit may remain eternally unchanged despite corporeal decay. Parts of it follow the “Neiye” tradition and hold that life is sustained by the union of the spirit and body, both of which are depletable or destructible. With the distinction between the two types of human exemplars predestined in the cosmogonic process, they diverge fundamentally in their impact on the cosmic order, and the boundaries between them can never be crossed through self-cultivation

On the Art of Stick Pictures

Stick picture is a unique form of conveying ideas or feelings by using points, lines and planes. With a few strokes, objects depicted can be vividly displayed in front of us. On the basis of concise brushstrokes, it can convey the most incisive aesthetic taste and emotional experience, concise but not simple. It can not only present the expressive and impressionistic aesthetic characteristics but also express the intuitive and interesting aesthetic experience, which is the charm of concision

Martial Culture and Historical Martial Arts in Europe and Asia

This open access book is the first publication to provide a comparative framework for the study of martial culture and historical martial arts in Europe and Asia, in particular in Italy and China. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of martial studies, contributors to this volume include historians, archeologists, art historians, scholars of fencing literature, metallurgists, as well as contemporary master swordsmiths and masters-of-arms in historical martial arts. Assembling researchers from these diverse fields, this book offers a multi-perspectival and dynamic view of martial culture across time and space. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary significance of this book cannot be overemphasized. Whereas a number of contributors are internationally recognized and, indeed, leading authorities in their respective fields; for example, Jeffrey Shaw has been a world-leading new media artist and scholar since the 1970s, while Ma Mingda is a well-known historian and the contemporary founder of Chinese martial studies; and while there are significant overlaps in their research interests, this book brings their research within a single volume for the first time. Equally significant, the book is structured in such a way to reflect the various core aspects of martial studies, particularly in relation to the study of historic sword culture, including history, culture, philosophy, literature and knowledge transmission, material culture, as well as the technical aspects of historical fencing. As one of the first titles on martial studies, this book becomes a reference not only for scholars taking an interest in this subject, but also for historians; scholars with interest in Chinese and/or Italian history (particularly of the Medieval or early modern periods), the history of international relations in Asia / Far East; anthropologists; scholars of martial (arts) studies and researchers in sword-making and/or historic metallurgy

Design As A Site For Self Realization Through Embodied Practices Of Observation, Making And Performance

We all experience various changes and uncertainties in our lives in both positive and negative ways. This thesis validates different fields of study, interests and lived experience. The Chinese Daoist concept of Zi Ran, a transcultural identity, and an interest in Japanese culture, inform a series of design actions that apply embodied practices of observation, making and performance. This mix of design actions, informed by a particular lived experience, are used to consider western discursive and ontological design theory as well as ArturoEscobar’s call for a pluriverse of design. The Communication Studies term thin-slicing is developed in relation to time and as a means to sort through and validate how past and present personal experiences inform the intuitive actions of a designer. Means for transcultural identity and different cultural perspectives to be applied to approaches and concerns in the design field are explored. This body of work upholds the uniqueness of life experiences as a key contributor to designers and their designs/design(ing). Overall, the intent is to share and validate what others of different experience and non western backgrounds have to offer

Escape from Censorship : The Aesthetics of Reflexivity in Gao Xingjian’s Pre-­Nobel Plays

Censorship and freedom of expression are matters of universal concern. The case of Nobel Laureate and bilingual writer Gao Xingjian, who started his career in China before relocating to France in the late 1980s, offers a most suitable case study for a comparative examination of global regimes of censorship. This project uses an inclusive definition of censorship that considers not only public and institutional censorship, but also structural and internal censorship. While Gao appears to be conditioned by both Chinese realism and Euro- American Orientalism, his plays constitute a productive site of intercultural contact. Drawing on European theatrical modernism and the conventions of Chinese indigenous theatre (xiqu), Gao has developed on the idea of theatrical suppositionality (jiadingxing) and a performance theory that he describes as “tripartite acting” (biaoyan de sanchongxing). This thesis defines suppositionality and tripartite acting as Gao’s “aesthetics of reflexivity,” namely, techniques that Gao deploys to induce reflexivity and self-awareness towards one’s limitations – of actors, audiences, and Gao himself. For Gao, the artist’s ego is always blinded by narcissism and requires not one, but two levels of reflexive observation – “an observation of an observation.” Through close-readings of selected plays by Gao from the pre-Nobel (i.e., pre- 2000) period, this study examines how Chinese realism and Euro-American Orientalism are theatrically and reflexively represented. Overall, this project argues that the foundation of Gao’s “escape from censorship” is not fleeing from external (ie, institutional) censorship, but his capacity of redefining self-censorship into a reflexive expression

Satirizing Empire: Comparing Ancient China and Rome

Comparative scholars of the ancient Mediterranean and East Asian worlds have recently taken a serious interest in the unprecedented and simultaneous emergence of two classical empires: Rome and China. The trend, invigorated by the contemporary geopolitical development of China’s rise as a world empire challenging the post-World War II Western hegemony, has yielded new insights into the many divergences and convergences of the world’s two most enduring political and cultural systems. However, preoccupied with describing the political, cultural institutions and grand narratives of empire, scholarship has largely ignored the detractors of empire, whose ingenious expressions are as enduring as these imperial forms, and integral to their cultural legacies. My dissertation Satirizing Empire: Comparing Ancient China and Rome takes up four iconic works of satire of the ancient world: the writings of Juvenal, Yang Xiong, Lucian and Zhuangzi. The satirical representations of empire not only tell us specific stories about our imperial pasts, but also expose a core issue at the heart of writing literature, namely its complicity in political and cultural forms and institutions. Although modern scholarship largely equates the genre of satire with its political potency and radically democratic notions, the capacious and varied forms of ancient satires are identifiably imperial products. Wielding rhetorical, philosophical, dramatic, and literary tools acquired from classical learning, ancient satires represent the imperial “way of life” in all its absurdities