Resisting Marriage and Renouncing Womanhood: The Choice of Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns

The traditional Chinese perception of Buddhist monastics is that they choose to renounce the world out of desperation — after failing in the world such that their only options are suicide or the monastery. That this perception of the monastic life persists in Taiwan today is evident in monastics’ own descriptions of their families’ responses to their choice as well as in several recent scandals related to monastic life. Despite the widespread negative perception of monastics, increasing numbers of women are choosing this life. Drawing on extensive fieldwork with relatively new monastics, the author explores the choice Buddhist nuns make to renounce the world they know (and the possibility of leading lives like their mothers, sisters, and friends) and instead embrace the monastic life despite its negative image. The author argues that the nuns’ choice is but a contemporary manifestation of a long-standing tradition of marriage resistance in Chinese culture and explains that, in the process of rejecting their lives as wives and mothers, Taiwanese Buddhist nuns reject their identities as women altogether

Spartan Daily, October 29, 1998

Volume 111, Issue 43https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9331/thumbnail.jp

Forms of hybrid identity and first person narratives

Maestría en Inglés con orientación en Literaturas AnglófonasThis research paper has two axes of analysis: the protagonists‘ construction of a hybrid identity, and the choice of a hybrid genre by the authors to reflect the identity of the protagonists who narrate their life stories. The House on Mango Street (1984) by Sandra Cisneros shows how Esperanza Cordero fights to accept her identity as a MexicanAmerican woman. In Breath, Eyes, Memory. A Novel (1994) by Edwidge Danticat, Sophie, Haitian-American, tries to adapt herself to a new culture and traditions without leaving aside the culture and traditions passed on by her mother. Finally, in The Woman Warrior. Memoirs of a Girlghood among Ghosts (1981) by Maxine Hong Kingston, its protagonist, a Chinese-American woman attempts to understand her true identity living in a culture which wants to erase her Chinese traditions. The three protagonists construct hybrid identities and can only accept them when they accept their interculturality and can ride on two cultures. At the same time, the three female protagonists tell their life stories in an attempt to build their identities and to make sense of their present. The construction of their hybrid identities is manifested in the choice of a hybrid genre, a mixture of the genres of the autobiography, the novel, and the autofiction. The three novels of the corpus transform, in a way, the autofiction by borrowing some elements of the autobiography and the novel; the choice of this hybrid genre can be considered a narrative strategy to reflect the hybrid identities of the protagonists.Fil: Buteler, María José. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Lenguas; Argentina

Making a Personal Rhizome: Application, Exhibition, and Dreams

This dissertation is my articulation of the on-going dialogue between the art world and my own creativity. I achieve this by describing my digital project called Perceptions where in association with Kenneth Yuen, I designed a virtual gallery. The fundamental principle of this virtual gallery is a place where insider or outsider artists can hone their creative concepts, ideas, perceptions, feelings, aspirations, and tools. In this paper, I analyse some of the entries I have made to this virtual gallery. As a recognized Sydney artist I unfold my practice in an Exhibition held in the Ray Hughes gallery of Surrey Hills. I exhibited paintings in the innovative media of cast resin through linen, glass crystal, and welded steel. I analyse a selection of a piece exhibited in this commercial show. The study also includes a section of my personal dreams. I analyse and interpret the interaction between my conscious life as an artist and my unconscious personal material as a female sculptor, painter, and author of my practice. My objective has been to flesh out the vesicular and multifaceted layers of artistic expression that are generated through my work. To explain in words, the hidden world of the constructed meaning of the un-escaped personal dynamic of my art making. This exercise has implicated the articulation of personal disclosures and explicit interpretations of my artworks and dreams. The virtual gallery Perceptions, the commercial exhibition Pushing Up Daisies, and my recorded dreams together construct my contribution to the rhizome that consists between, within and beyond the visible world of art practice

The sleeping beauty motif in the short stories of D. H. Lawrence

In this thesis, ten tales covering almost the whole of D.H. Lawrence's writing career have been analysed in terms of the 'Sleeping Beauty' motif or "the myth of the awakened sleeper" - a motif which has been noted briefly in Lawrence's fiction by several critics. Chapter one begins with a discussion of the Sleeping Beauty legend, its origins and its variants, and leads on to a comparison and contrast of two early tales. The Mitch a la Mode and The Daughters of the Vicar; these are, respectively, examples of Lawrence's treatment of the motif in symbolic and realistic terms. There is a further contrast in that these stories introduce the two types of 'Sleeping Beauty’ women, respectively - i.e. those who reject the awakening which offers liberation, and those who accept "the lover's kiss that awakens the Sleeping Beauty.” In Chapter Two The Horse-Dealer’s Daughter, You Touched We and The Fox are examined; they possess marked similarities of character and setting, but are sufficiently-varied treatments of the motif to warrant individual analysis. Chapter Three is concerned with The Princess and None of That, both variants on the negative aspect of the theme, in that they deal with 'Sleeping Beauty' heroines who ultimately reject any awakening. The Princess is a mature and skilful treatment of this aspect of the theme, whereas None of That is shown to be technically and artistically a regression. With Sun, Glad Ghosts and The Virgin and the Gipsy, all written during the last period, there is a return to the Sleeping Beauty- women who are awakened to new states of being. Symbolism, particularly in Sun, plays an important role, and it is fully discussed. The thesis concludes with a general discussion of the motif as it appears elsewhere in Lawrence's fiction, and of its relevance to his own life; in this connection, evidence is adduced from the novels and the correspondence

Word upon World: Half a century of John Banville's Universes

There is a clear engagement with theories of time across Banville’s oeuvre, from his earliest published work through to the twenty-first-century novels. I explore how, in their engagement with age and ageing, Banville’s characters adopt and interrogate Albert Einstein’s and Henri Bergson’s competing ideas of the present and the passage of time, sliding from favouring the former to prioritising the latter. Martin Heidegger’s conception of Dasein, a Being-toward-death, allows me to explore how Banville’s characters evoke either Einstein’s spacetime and series of nows, or Bergson’s psychologised Duration (Durée). This is borne out in Gabriel Godkin’s subverted and anti-atavistic narrative in 'Birchwood' (1973), the battle over authenticity between Copernicus and Rheticus in 'Doctor Copernicus' (1976), and how Hermes controls the mortals’ time and tries his best to age in 'The Infinities' (2009). I conclude that Banville’s characters’ evolving preference for Bergsonian over Einsteinian tropes indicates an acceptance and happy engagement with the ageing process

The Old Masters Market and the Salvator Mundi: What did it do, what can be done?

On 3 November 2017, within the Post-War & Contemporary Evening Sale at Christie\u27s auction in New York, nestled between a Vija Celmins and Jean-Michel Basquiat, was a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, the Salvator Mundi (1490-1500.) The work quadrupled the estimated sale price of 100 million USD, hammering at 400 million (for a total of 450.3 million with buyer’s premium.) This work, setting the record for the most expensive work of art ever sold, at auction or private, creates a curious case for the Old Masters category. What appears to be a shrinking, potentially dwindling category of art, now sits at the top of every art sale record - the most expensive work of art is an old master. Why, then, does the category so underperform when compared to the Contemporary, Post-War, Modern, Post-Impressionist, and Impressionist works at auction? This thesis will attempt to analyze how the art market has formed, and what exactly dictates the market today. The supply of Old Masters is limited, and the “Greats” of the Old Masters, such as Titian, Botticelli, and Leonardo - who do continue to smash sale records - is even more scarce. Why does it seem that only certain Old Master works (for the sake of this study, the Italian Renaissance works) stand a chance at competing with the prices set by the other aforementioned categories of art? What do these Italian old masters have that other old masters lack? In addition, this study will examine whether this is the norm for the old masters, or if there is anything that can be done (or has been done) to stay relevant in today’s world. As for the Salvator Mundi, this study concludes that it was an over-performing anomaly, the price more determined by the theatrics around it, though it does serve as a metaphoric example of what the Old Masters market should be following