“Dead White Male” in the Cornfields: The Great Books Ideal and the Illinois Wesleyan Humanities Program

This paper examines the theory and practice of the general education movement in twentieth century American higher education, especially its influence upon the curriculum development of Illinois Wesleyan University. The paper first delineated the origins of the theory of educational perennialism and its initial application in higher education in America. Then, by noticing the chronological coincidence of the IWU Humanities program with the rise of the general education movement nationwide, the paper argues that the IWU Humanities program was started under the influence of the national general education movement and the theory of educational perennialism. The national phenomenon and the IWU program shared commonality in both their specific policies as well as philosophical foundations. By extensively exploring and examining the primary sources in the Tate Archive of the Ames Library, the author carefully traced the history of the IWU Humanities 301/302 program, from its initiation to its demise. The final section of the paper was dedicated to the discussions to find out the reasons of the decline and fall of the Humanities program. In addition to perusing old university catalogs and faculty curriculum council meeting minutes, the author conducted personal interview with former director of the program and also consulted memoirs of former university presidents, in order to provide a possible answer to the question of why the IWU Humanities program declined in the 1980s and 90s, thus concluding a narrative of the history of the IWU Humanities 301/302 program

Wei Yuan and the Chinese Totalistic Iconoclasm: The Demise of Confucianism in Matter and in Form

This paper attempts to explore the historical origins of the “totalistic iconoclasm” that was characteristic of Chinese intellectual history in the twentieth century. By examining Wei Yuan’s historical writings, the paper argues that the conceptual connection between the civilization of the majority Han ethnicity (“the Chinese tradition”) and the idea of a political entity of China had already broken down by mid-nineteenth century. The Qing Empire’s political adoption and control of Confucianism suffocated its intellectual creativity and thus Confucianism only existed as custom and in form. As an intellectual reaction to these political manipulations, the essentialist thoughts of the late Ming gradually gave way to the pragmatist thoughts of late Qing. This separation of cultural and political entities in the minds of the Chinese intellectual elite as a response to the Qing Empire’s manipulation of Confucianism set up the condition for the total cultural iconoclasm in twentieth century China

Religion and Nationhood in Late Colonial India

This essay examines the relationship between religion and the concept of nationhood in late colonial India. Religion was a crucial element in the formation of modern states in the early 20th century in South Asia. Different religious groups had different opinions about nation: Hindus and Muslims had different ideas of nationhood; even within the Hindu tradition, the Hindus themselves had very different views of nationhood and how to organize a new nation-state in relation to their religion. This essay explores the different points of view concerning the relationship between religion and nation in both Hindu and Muslim communities which led to the Partition of 1947

Volatility Spillovers and Nexus across Oil, Gold, and Stock European Markets

This paper utilises a trivariate VAR-BEKK-GARCH model to investigate the dynamic relationships between global oil price, gold price, and European stock markets. This paper observes weak return spillover effects from the oil market to 6 European stock markets (Netherlands, Lithuania, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, and Slovenia) and from gold to Iceland, while there is no evidence of return spillovers from stock markets to oil and gold. The non-existence of return linkages between gold and stock (oil) suggests that the gold market plays a haven role. With reference to volatility spillovers, the results show obvious asymmetric bidirectional volatility interaction between the European stock markets and the global oil/gold markets. Stronger shock and volatility contagions from the European stock market to both oil and gold markets are observed compared with the opposite direction. For the volatility nexus between oil and gold, weak and moderate evidence of shock and volatility transmission from gold to oil markets is reported. Additionally, the study documents important and effective empirical implications for portfolio management and investment hedge strategies: firstly, adding European stock markets to a diversified oil/gold portfolio can achieve the expected returns while reducing risk; and secondly, the European investors can use the gold and oil markets to hedge against their stock market portfolio