About the Chinese School of Comparative Literature

In their article About the Chinese School of Comparative Literature He Lin and Danqing Huang discuss the development of the Chinese school of comparative literature since the 1980s. Lin and Huang describe how based on traditions in Chinese literary history, comparatists constructed a system of theoretical frameworks and methods. They argue that the Chinese School should not be criticized as Chinacentric just for the fact that its practitioners perform Chinese-Western comparative studies within its own historical and cultural context. Further, they defend the Chinese School by examining the achievements it has made in comparative poetics and the study of reception of Chinese literature in English-language cultures

The Poetics of Dwelling: China’s Courtyard Homes

Dwelling is a notion that describes the feeling of returning home to utter belonging and calmness at the end of an endeavour. It is a notion that differentiates a mere shelter versus a home because we develop intimate relationships with the spaces within. The spiritual characteristics that are associated with dwelling exceed the analytical description of space. It is an expression of how we live. In the context of a modern metropolitan such as Shanghai, the city is extremely dense in population and functions at an accelerated pace. During the age of the technological revolution, citizens can network with others on a variety of platforms on a daily basis, causing them to be in a constant state of mobility. The main intention of recent residential developments is to build rapidly to meet the demands of the growing population, and residential architecture often becomes the by-product of modern construction methods. The current housing market consists of monolithic neighbourhood blocks featuring very rigid unit layouts. These units do not allow the resident to appropriate the space, hence prevents them from building a personal connection to their home. In this thesis, I argue that there is a lack of concern for the spiritual aspects of dwelling in the modern housing market of China. Instead, the home should play the role of a touch-down place within this accelerated environment, providing a slow space for rewind at the end of a busy day. There is an extensive philosophy behind the idea of dwelling throughout the Chinese history. The courtyard home as the most iconic type of housing aims to create a versatile home that is appropriable in both elements of architecture and nature. Every family can easily implement their values and preferences into the home and create a personal utopia. The courtyard manages to combine all elements of the earth into one holistic space. The qualities of the traditional courtyard home can potentially fulfil what is lacking in the current housing market of China. This thesis will analyse the qualities of dwelling in its spiritual connotation and how it can be translated into dwellings of the 21st Century Shanghai and propose a contemporary housing project utilising ideologies of dwelling from Chinese courtyard homes

Overprotection and overcontrol in childhood: An evaluation on reliability and validity of 33-item expanded Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ-33), Chinese version

Overprotection and overcontrol from parents or other family members, which are not rare in the Chinese culture, have been suggested to be traumatic experiences for some children. However, research on overprotection/overcontrol is much rarer in China compared with other childhood trauma subtypes. One of the possible reasons for this is the lack of easy and feasible screening tools. In this study, we therefore translated and validated a Chinese version of the 33-item Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ-33), which was expanded from the widely-used 28-item CTQ with an additional overprotection/overcontrol subscale. A total of 248 young healthy participants were recruited and completed the Chinese version of CTQ-33, and 50 of them were retested after an interval of two weeks. At baseline, all participants also completed the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale to assess their depression and anxiety, respectively. Our main findings include that: (1) the Chinese version of CTQ-33 showed a good internal consistency (Cronbach\u27s α coefficient = 0.733) and an excellent test-retest reliability over a two-week period (ICC = 0.861); (2) the previously reported significant associations between the overprotection/overcontrol and other subtypes of childhood trauma (abuse and neglect), as well as psychopathological conditions such as depression can all be replicated using the Chinese version of CTQ-33. These results suggest that the Chinese version of CTQ-33 would be a promising tool for assessing various subtypes of childhood adversities, especially the overprotection/overcontrol experiences in Chinese populations

Cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript promotes the differentiation of mouse bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells into neural cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neural tissue has limited potential to self-renew after neurological damage. Cell therapy using BM-MSCs (bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells) seems like a promising approach for the treatment of neurological diseases. However, the neural differentiation of stem cells influenced by massive factors and interactions is not well studied at present.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this work, we isolated and identified MSCs from mouse bone marrow. Co-cultured with CART (0.4 nM) for six days, BM-MSCs were differentiated into neuron-like cells by the observation of optical microscopy. Immunofluorescence demonstrated that the differentiated BM-MSCs expressed neural specific markers including MAP-2, Nestin, NeuN and GFAP. In addition, NeuN positive cells could co-localize with TH or ChAT by double-labled immunofluorescence and Nissl bodies were found in several differentiated cells by Nissl stain. Furthermore, BDNF and NGF were increased by CART using RT-PCR.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study demonstrated that CART could promote the differentiation of BM-MSCs into neural cells through increasing neurofactors, including BNDF and NGF. Combined application of CART and BM-MSCs may be a promising cell-based therapy for neurological diseases.</p