Aliya Abdukadir Ali
Supervisor: Professor Andrew Marsham
Thesis topic: Networks of power in Iran and Iraq under the Umayyads
Research Summary:
Aliya Ali is a currently undertaking her DPhil under the supervision of Professor Andrew Marsham and Professor Amira Bennison.
Aliya's DPhil is an important study of three revered figures of Islamic history: ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān AH 24-36/644-656CE, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib AH 36/656 CE and Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān AH 41-52/661-680 CE. She compiles a large database consisting of detailed biographical information of governors and their families. These figures are important because of their legacies. They shaped the religious and political landscape of the Modern Middle East and they are a point of contention for several factions and sects that have emerged since their deaths.
The main source for her project is the work of al-Ṭabarī (d. 311/923) who was a celebrated historian and scholar known for writing Tārīkh al-Rusul wa-l-Mulūk (the History of Prophets and Kings). She also consults the works of the ʿAbbāsid historian al-Balādhurī (d. 279/892) who authored the famous Futūḥ al-Buldān (Book of Conquests) and Ansāb al-Ashrāf (Genealogies of the Nobles).1 Another two important reference pieces are al-Zubayrī and Ibn Saʿd’s Kitāb Nasab Qūraysh and Kitāb Ṭabaqāt al-Kabīr as well as the works of Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ otherwise known as Ibn Khayyāṭ al-ʿUṣfurī. Zakkar. Ibn Khayyāṭ's work, esepcially the Tārīkh (History) is one of the most important extant sources on the study of early Islamic governance.
Aliya previously completed her MPhil in Islamic Culture and History at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies in 2019-2020 and completed her BA in History at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Mohammed Ahmed
Supervisor: Professor Andrew Marsham
Thesis topic: Early Muslim-Jewish Relations through Late Texts: An Analysis of Al-Tabari's Tafsir on the Medinan Period
Research Summary:
Mohammed’s PhD research focusses on tafsīr/exegetical literature. Analysing the role of Jews in tafsīr literature can uncover the key method in which attitudes towards Jews (presented as a knowledgeable but misguided people) develops within the Islamic tradition. To this end, his research evaluates three key tafsīr works, Muqātil (the earliest known tafsīr), al-Ṭabarī (the first encyclopaedic tafsīr) and Ibn Kathīr (the most popular tafsīr currently), in order to examine developing religious attitudes towards Jews. His main thesis posits that Jews were a 'non-exemplar' group in Islamic literature (and tafsīr literature more specifically). In other words, Qur'anic exegetes used Jews as a literary scapegoat in order to demonstrate 'what not to do' to the Islamic audience. Jews fulfilled the role of being sufficiently similar to Muslims (in their monotheistic and prophetic beliefs), but also sufficiently different from Muslims (in their rejection of the prophecy of Muhammad) in order to fulfil this role of the ‘non-exemplar’. Mohammed’s research has thus far won the Bernard Lewis Prize, Marguerite Plate and the Gibb Memorial Trust Award, and has been noted for its originality and lone voice in an untapped niche of early Islamic studies.
Forthcoming publications include: Muslim-Jewish Harmony: A Politically Contingent Reality, Islam and Judaism: Religious Identity in the Early Islamic Era, Judaeo-Islamic Scriptural Heritage: 'Isma and Sharaf in Ibn Kathir's Stories of the Prophets.
Saleh Alkhulaifi
Supervisor: Dr Assef Ashraf
Thesis topic: The modern history of the Gulf and the emergence of Gulf states in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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Ani Avetisyan
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: Early Modern Judaeo-Arabic medical manuscripts
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Zaki Bahrami
Supervisor: Dr Saussan Khalil
Thesis topic: Evaluating Arabic Instructional Materials Used in ASL/ AFL Context in UK
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Qingyang Bai
Supervisor: Dr Heather Inwood
Thesis topic: Flowers in the Crevice: Misty Poetry, Literary History Writing, and the Emotional Individual in 1970s’ and 1980s’ China
Research Summary:
I attempt to understand two broad questions about Misty Poetry and the literary ‘atmosphere’ that surrounded it. First, by scrutinising both the content of the poems and the historical context behind their popularisation, I aim to determine the reasons behind the young generations’ choice of this particular genre of poetry as their language after the Cultural Revolution. This study seeks to uncover what informed the emergence of Misty Poetry in late 1970s and 1980s China, and the social, cultural, and emotional mechanisms through which these literary works achieved such popularity. Second, upon understanding that the current mainstream historical interpretation of 1980s China’s literary scenes is selected, written, and narrated by scholars who participated in the Misty Poetry movement, we examine how they incorporate Misty Poetry into modern Chinese literary history and the ways in which their chosen narrative impacts the cultural, political, and emotional spheres of contemporary China.
Vincent Beiler
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: Masorah in the Hebrew Bible manuscripts from the Genizah
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James Bejon
Supervisor: Dr Aaron D. Hornkohl
Thesis topic: Semantico-Prosographical Connections in Profane Names in the Hebrew Bible
Research Summary:
My thesis will examine the names of the people referred to in the Hebrew Bible and will seek to identify and analyse patterns in the apparent semantic content of those names. Of particular interest to me are case where the semantics of a name can be shown to be related to the circumstances of its bearer. Names from the Near East more broadly are also considered.
Thomas Booth
Supervisor: Professor Mikael Adolphson
Thesis topic: Understanding the Causes and Motivations of the Tokusei Protests 1428-1467.
Research Summary:
The tokusei protests (lit. virtuous governance) were a series of rural protests that occurred throughout the Kinai region of Japan between 1428 and 1467. Rural communities marched on Kyoto and Nara demanding a clearance of personal debts and a reduction in annual tax; when refused, they destroyed the property of temples and moneylenders. Military intervention by the shogunate against the protesters ignited a series of uprisings throughout the region. The origins of these protests have exclusively been understood in structural terms: socio-economic deprivation, political opportunity and the mobilising force of the packhorse drivers have been highlighted as the principle causes of the protests. This methodology has downplayed considerations of agency: what motivated, rather than stimulated, the rural population to rise up? Using insights from social psychology, this project aims to shed light on the identity of the tokusei protester and question how they articulated and interacted with the context of fifteenth century rural Japan.
Lina Brüssel
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: The Medieval Karaite Transcriptions of Hebrew into Arabic Script Preserved in the Firkovitch Collections
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Yusuf Chaudhary
Supervisor: Dr Assef Ashraf
Thesis topic: Islamic Intellectual History in the Mongol Ilkhanate (1258-1358); Theological Works of Rashid al-Din al-Hamadhani; Ilkhanid Intellectual Networks
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Madhulika Chebrol
Supervisor: Professor Vincenzo Vergiani
Thesis topic: Critical analysis of the confluence of Mīmāṃsā hermeneutics and Dharma texts
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Critical analysis of the confluence of Mīmāṃsā hermeneutics and Dharma texts in order to evaluate whether the former had the effect of restricting the meaning and rules related to dharma rules through exclusive use of specific interpretative techniques; understanding how much influence and of what kind Mīmāṃsā interpretative techniques had on restricting injunctive texts to certain specific meanings to the exclusion of others. This research is specific to the duties and rights of women and different castes.
Xinyi Chen
Supervisor: Professor Yaron Peleg
Thesis topic: Literary encounters of Hebrew and Arabic, the case of Mifgash-Liqa’
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James Dawson
Supervisor: Professor Hans van de Ven FBA
Thesis topic: Third Front Construction
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John Donegan-Cross
Supervisor: Professor Roel Sterckx FBA
Thesis topic: A Study of the Literary and Material Culture of Early China through the lens of the fenghuang 鳳凰
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Rashaad Eshack
Supervisor: Professor Barak Kushner
Thesis topic: Japanese migrant, Nikkei, diasporic identity in the Americas
Research Summary:
Rashaad’s research examines the ways that education impacts Japanese diasporic identity construction in Japanese-American, Nikkei, communities. He aims to develop a transnational, historical dissection of the international, national, and community forces that influence the formation of education systems available to Japanese-American children, and the ways in which those schools impact migrant identity. To that end, and in order to transcend a bilateral US-Japan focus in Japanese diaspora studies, he incorporates sources from the US, Japan, and Latin America.
Ahmed Ezzat
Thesis topic: History and politics of modern law in Egypt
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Frederick Feilden
Supervisor: Professor Laura Moretti
Thesis topic: From A to B and Back Again? Picturebook Adaptations in Nineteenth-Century Japan
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Freddie is looking at strategies of adaptation in 19th-century Japanese popular literature, with a particular focus on picturebook genres such as yomihon and gōkan. Through analysing the transformations in content and format, he aims to clarify the connections between narrativity, temporality, text and image on the page - ultimately as a means of considering what these creative rewritings may tell us about the relationship between commercial publication and the evolution of readership from late Edo through into the Meiji period.
Andrew Fischer
Supervisor: Professor Mikael Adolphson
Thesis topic: Trusted Turncoats: Loyalty and Lordship in Sixteenth-Century Japan
Research Summary:
Andrew’s research project is concerned with loyalty and lordship in sixteenth-century Japan. His primary subjects are the Hosokawa, who served under the Ashikaga shoguns as well as all three of the so-called “unifiers,” Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Andrew is a Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholar and completed his undergraduate studies in Japanese Language and Culture at Washington University in St. Louis. He also studied at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Yokohama as a Nippon Foundation Fellow.
Maria Gajewska
Supervisor: Professor Andrew Marsham
Thesis topic: Networks of Trust in the First Global Economy
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Tian Gao
Supervisor: Professor Laura Moretti
Thesis topic: Exploring a Uniquely Portable Magic: A Cognitive approach to Japanese Reading Materials for Children
Research Summary:
This research investigates a selection of 'mamehon', commercially printed ‘picturebooks’ packaged for children from late Edo period to early Meiji period, in order to explore how these texts functioned as cognitive tools for enculturation and socialisation within the social context. By focusing on the study of the epistemic, entertaining and educational function of these texts, Tian intends to foster a better understanding of children and childhood in the late Edo period and the Meiji period.
Jiankang Gao
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: Development of Chinese Clan Associations in Southeast Asia
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Giulia Garbagni
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: Presidential, Post-Imperial and Personal: Envoy Diplomacy in Japan, 1960s-1980s
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Bridging diplomatic history and politics, Giulia’s dissertation is a case-study-led analysis of the role of special envoys in Japanese post-1945 diplomacy incorporating archival research in Japan, the UK, the US and South Korea. It examines how and why, in the early postwar period, Japanese prime ministers often relied on trusted individuals with no diplomatic experience or official affiliation as their personal ‘special envoys’ (technically, ‘executive agents’) – an informal, extra-institutional tool of diplomacy operating outside of established, accountable bureaucratic channels. By exploring the promises and pitfalls of ‘one man diplomacy’, her work grapples with questions that range from the nature of prime ministerial leadership (and its presidentialisation) in Japanese foreign policy making, to the postwar repurposing of imperial-era personal capital and strategic thinking on Japan’s role vis-à-vis Southeast and Northeast Asia. A former AHRC IPS fellow at the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress (Washington, DC), Giulia is a fellow of the Wilson Center's Cold War Archival Research (CWAR) Institute and an incoming Japan Foundation doctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo.
Ilay Golan
Supervisor: Dr Noga Ganany
Thesis topic: Popular Religion and the Chinese Conceptualisation of Weather
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Chae Kyoun Ha
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: Japan and Korea's Regional Diplomacy vis-à-vis Southeast Asia during the Cold War
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Choongil (Peter) Han
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: North Korea’s Unification Policy
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Peter’s research interest is on the Korean unification question with a specific focus on North Korea’s unification program in the 1980s. His PhD research investigates how international, domestic and South Korean situation influenced Pyongyang’s approach toward unification. Peter is a Gates Cambridge scholar and serves as a member of the National Unification Advisory Council UK.
Monica F He
Supervisor: Dr Heather Inwood
Thesis topic: The censored transmedia storytelling of queer narratives in contemporary China
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Christoph Hess
Supervisor: Professor Hans van de Ven FBA
Thesis topic: Institutions and Small-Scale Industry in China: War, Revolution and Reform
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Armaghan Khosravi Nia
Supervisor: Professor Christine van Ruymbeke
Thesis topic: The Work and Theoretical Views of Nima Yushij
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Elisabeth Kwan
Supervisor: Professor Amira K Bennison
Thesis topic: Sacred sites, Identity, and Revivalism: Local responses to modernity in the Mzāb, Algeria (c. 1850-1920)
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On I Lam
Supervisor: Professor Barak Kushner
Thesis topic: Sewing the Red Flag: The Inter-Party Relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and the Japanese Communist Party (1950-1958).
Research Summary:
My doctoral project researches the inter-party relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) in the 1950s by investigating the 1950 issue within the framework of the history of Sino-Japan relations, the international communist movement and the Cold War. The study aims to explore details of the CCP-JCP interactions and consider if there existed a pattern of interactions. Furthermore, it reveals the roles of the United States and the Soviet Union in consolidating and splitting the two parties and explores the heritages the Cold War left to East Asia and the world.
David Jun Lee
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: Policymaking & strategy formulation; national security strategy; South Korea & Northeast Asian Context.
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Yizhuo Li
Supervisor: Dr Noga Ganany
Thesis topic: Unfeminine Heroines: The Woman Warrior on Stage in Nineteenth Century China
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Ko-Hang Liao
Supervisor: Professor Barak Kushner
Thesis topic: Rethinking Defeat: Japan, Chiang Kai-shek and the 'White Group' in Taiwan, 1949-1969
Research Summary:
Ko-Hang’s research analyses the history of the ‘White Group’ – Chiang Kai-shek’s secret Japanese military advisory group consisting of former imperial Japanese officers – as part of what might be loosely termed two consecutive waves of militarisation which shaped Taiwan’s modern trajectory. First, as part of Japan’s mobilisation of its militarised domains in the late-1930s and early 1940s; and second, as part of the Nationalist government’s Total Defence Mobilisation system after 1949. Ko-Hang’s concerns are twofold: first, the impact (or stickiness) of the Japanese imperial military ideas on the development of post-1949 Republic of China military culture and ethos; and second, how was the overlay of Imperial Japanese Army culture forged on the drill grounds of Sagamihara and the battlefields of China in the 1930s became ingrained in aspects of Taiwanese politics, economy, society, and culture? Put simply, the aim of this work is to trace the genealogy and impact of the ‘White Group’ over time and to argue for its centrality to the Nationalist nation-building and developmental state forged in Taiwan after 1949.
Di Liu
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: Pristine Dignity in Troubled Times: The Connoisseurs and Connoisseurship of Ming Furniture in Peking from 1930 to 1950
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Silvia Lodi
Supervisor: Dr Saussan Khalil
Thesis topic: Teaching and Learning Vocabulary in the Arabic (on-line) classroom through technology-supported material (TBC)
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Fuyuan Luo
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: Working title: Beyond Polarities: The (Re)making of Tibetan Buddhism in Contemporary Chengdu
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Mia (Ye) Ma
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: Court, Monastery and Workshop: Refashioning Water-moon Avalokiteśvara Paintings in late Goryeo Korea and Yuan China.
Research Summary:
Mia Ye Ma received her B.A. in Art History from University of St-Andrews and M.A. in Art and Archaeology from SOAS. She is broadly interested in Dunhuang art, 11th-14th century East Asian Buddhist paintings, and the social, cultural and intellectual exchanges among China, Japan and Korea during the Song and Yuan period.
Giorgia Maffioli Brigatti
Supervisor: Professor Christine van Ruymbeke
Thesis topic: Zan-i farangi and women's agency on self-representation in Qajar Iran
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Helen Magowan
Supervisor: Professor Laura Moretti
Thesis topic: Nyohitsu - the construction of femininities through writing
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Helen is investigating women’s writing in premodern Japan. Japanese writing, its calligraphic scripts, letterforms, vocabulary and expression, had gendered aspects which affected - and continue to affect - the manner and form in which people express themselves. Her research focusses on manuals published in the 17th century teaching women how to write in a ‘feminine’ mode, asking what they tell us about femininities in the early-modern period.
Mina Marković
Supervisor: Professor Barak Kushner
Thesis topic: Imperial and Post-imperial Japan and population policies
Research Summary:
Mina’s research will look at connections between Japanese political and legal history and demographics. The research aims to show how Japan’s rapid modernisation post-1868 affected the livelihood of individuals in terms of migration and reproduction. Japanese history will be examined from the perspective of state and nation building during imperial times and through government plans for reconstruction and population in post-war Japan.
Samuel Martin
Supervisor: Dr Charis Olszok
Thesis topic: Reading the Oil City and the Emergence of the Urban Nomad in Saudi Arabian Film and Literature
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Marc Michaels
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: Towards a better understanding of the scribal manual Sefer Tagin.
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Ashton Ng
Supervisor: Professor Roel Sterckx FBA
Thesis topic: Han Fei's Ideal Polity
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Guy Pinnington
Supervisor: Dr Victoria Young
Thesis topic: Attitudes to Zainichi Koreans in postwar Japan; paying particular attention to 2nd generation Zainichi author Yang Seok-il.
Research Summary:
Guy’s research uses literature to address attitudes to Zainichi Koreans in postwar Japan; paying particular attention to 2nd generation Zainichi author Yang Seok-il.In his PhD Guy will expand on this and examine the interrelationship between three writers: Yang Seok-il, Kim Sok-pom, and Yi Hoesong, and scrutinise the ways in which they have come to create the canon of Zainichi Korean literature through writings.
Phra Kiattisak Ponampon
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: Dunhuang Manuscript Pelliot chinois 2078: A Study of Meditative Praxis and Visionary Experiences
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Peichao Qin
Supervisor: Professor Roel Sterckx FBA
Thesis topic: Pyromancy and Epigraphy in Late Shang China: A Study of the Hopkins Collection of Oracle Bones in Cambridge University Library
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Jake Rinaldi
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: China–North Korea Security Relations
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Paul Rodrigue
Thesis topic: Working title: Jerome’s translation of the Book of Daniel
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Ido Rosen
Supervisor: Professor Yaron Peleg
Thesis topic: The Influence of Social Media on Film Aesthetic and Production: A Paradigm Shift?
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Theo Rossi
Thesis topic: The transformation of mental healthcare institutions and conceptions of mental illness in 19th-century Egypt
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Ria Roy
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: Charismatic leadership; North Korea; religion versus secularism.
Research Summary:
As a Gates Cambridge scholar and a PhD candidate in Korean history with a broader academic interest in Japan and East Asia, I am eager to delve deeper into the question of the manufacture of charisma in North Korea and to trace its transformation from a state committed to Marxist-Leninist views to one that propagates a semi-mystical view of leadership.
Colton Runyan
Supervisor: Professor Mikael Adolphson
Thesis topic: Ascending via Awase: Competitions in Heian Japan
Research Summary:
Colton’s PhD research topic concerns the world of premodern sumo wrestling. Specifically he will be looking into the role of the sumo at court, the motivation of the wrestlers, and how sumo was viewed by its spectators. Using sources from the twelfth century onwards Colton’s research will examine the rise, fall and subsequent rise again of sumo; from popularity as a court spectacle, through relative obscurity, to a cultural phenomenon of the Modern era.
Gabrielle Russo
Supervisor: Professor James Montgomery
Thesis topic: Representation of the Turkic military guard in third/ninth-century Arabic praise writing
Research Summary:
Gabrielle’s research looks at the impact of praise forms on the representation of the Turkic military guard under the ʿAbbāsids. She is specifically working with al-Jāḥiẓ’s epistle The Merits of the Turks and the poetry of al-Buḥturī to see how praise impacts the creation and perpetuation of a Turkic image in the third century AH/ninth century CE.
Samir Saad
Thesis topic: Arabism, Islamism and legislative politics in Jordan, 1950-1978
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Polina Serebriakova
Supervisor: Professor Mikael Adolphson
Thesis topic: Petals of paulownia: sources of aristocratic legitimacy for warrior leaders in Medieval Japan.
Research Summary:
The apex of the Muromachi shogunate is usually attributed to the late fourteenth – first half of the fifteenth century and is strongly associated with the rule of three Ashikaga shoguns: Yoshimitsu, Yoshimochi, and Yoshinori. Each of them went down in history as a warrior leader whose political success was owed much to military force. However, non-military frameworks of subjugation, such as Buddhist ritual, courtly ceremonial, and diplomatic protocol, that allowed the Ashikaga shoguns to establish their legitimacy amongst the elites, are often being overlooked. By analysing these political rituals, this dissertation investigates how the Ashikaga warrior leaders acquired recognition and authority equal to the top-tier aristocracy of Medieval Japan.
Iqan Shahidi
Supervisor: Dr Assef Ashraf
Thesis topic: The concept of decline and decadence in the writings of the contemporary intellectuals of Iran.
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Daniel Sheridan
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: Herbs, Codices and Homilies: Sogdian Christians and Christian ‘Networks’ along the 'Silk Roads'
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While the image of the Sogdian trader par excellence has been revived in the popular imagination after centuries of obscurity, the Sogdians were, of course, not only successful merchants. Through both the material and literary cultures, my research investigates the ubiquitous, though often inconspicuous, Sogdian Christian presence within Christian ‘networks’ along the so-called Silk Roads.
Bingbing Shi
Supervisor: Dr Heather Inwood
Thesis topic: Repeating and Recreating History: Adaptations of Literature in Contemporary Chinese Cinema
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Reyhan Silingar
Supervisor: Professor Barak Kushner
Thesis topic: Rethinking the emperor as symbol of the state: the “imperial house diplomacy” through the lenses of the Showa emperor’s overseas missions, 1952-75
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Hershini Soneji
Supervisor: Professor Vincenzo Vergiani
Thesis topic: Polemical Rhetoric in the Post-Bhāṣya Vedānta Tradition
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Nick Stember
Supervisor: Dr Heather Inwood
Thesis topic: Low Culture Fever: Chinese Comic Books after Mao 1976-1983
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Jun Tham
Supervisor: Professor Mikael Adolphson
Thesis topic: A history of spirit pacification as a mentality and an ideology
Research Summary:
Spirit pacification was a practice that reinforced the ruler’s role as protector of the polity from all threats, including the supernatural, and in Japan, also served to put blame for societal ills on the ruler’s enemies. Due to questions of terminology within and between the fields of scholarship on spirit pacification in China and Japan, the persistent and important link between spirit pacification practice and regime legitimation in the years c.1350-1650 has been overlooked. By setting aside terminology and redefining spirit pacification according to the core features of the practice, the proposed dissertation seeks to write a history of spirit pacification as a mentality and an ideology. In doing so, it has two aims: to investigate how spirit pacification played into regime legitimation, and how its role changed, but did not disappear entirely across the late medieval and early modern periods; and to explore the existence of a common, regional imaginary regarding the dead in East Asia.
Mengyuan Tian
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: The contemporary cult of the Yellow Emperor in Henan
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Veronica (Jingyi) Wang
Supervisor: Dr Heather Inwood
Thesis topic: Coming from the People? Renegotiating the ‘Folk’ in 21st Century Chinese Urban Culture: case studies on 'folk' song, poetry and online short videos."
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Hsiaoching Wang
Supervisor: Professor Boping Yuan
Thesis topic: L2 Acquisition of Wh-indeterminants in Mandarin by English and Korean Speakers.
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Jie Wang
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: The Arabic Language and Transnationalism amongst the Chinese Muslims
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Junfu Wong
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: Transethnical and Transcultural Patronage: Ethnic Interaction and Structural Organization in Local Communities of Guanzhong Region Northern Wei China
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Jingting Xiang
Supervisor: Professor Boping Yuan
Thesis topic: Definiteness and Specificity in L2/L3 Mandarin Grammars
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Chuanlong Xiang
Thesis topic: Sino-Korean Trade in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
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Weijun Xu
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: Regime Legitimacy, Nationalism, and Foreign Policy Choices in Disputes
Research Summary:
My research focuses on the influence of nationalism on foreign policies. I’m trying to explain why a country/region whose regime legitimacy largely depends on nationalism sometimes adopt policies that are not in line with nationalist opinions when it falls into disputes with another country/region? And I mainly concern about the countries and regions in East Asia.
Jie Yang
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: Morality in East Asian Politics
Research Summary:
Jie’s research explores whether morality plays a role in state interaction with one another in the East Asian region; and if it does, what are the specific moral principles and whether they are different with moral principles discussed in conventional (Western) International Relation Theory.
Sheung Chun Jonathan Yeung
Supervisor: Professor Barak Kushner
Thesis topic: Sino-Japanese interactions in the context of early 20th-century Chinese students in Japan
Research Summary:
Jonathan intends to investigate how nationalistic identities developed amongst a Chinese student community in Tokyo of the early 20th century. By examining student publications as well as official documents and records, Jonathan hopes to place the students’ explorations of identity in a global context, and elucidate the impact of the students’ experience of Japan on wider events happening in China.
Andreas Nabil Younan
Thesis topic: The history of parliamentary life in 1970s and 1980s Egypt
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Fei Yuan
Supervisor: Professor Boping Yuan
Thesis topic: L2 Acquisition and Processing of Chinese Nominal Phrases
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Manjun (June) Zhang
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: Religions in Medieval China
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Gabriella Wangmu Zhaxi
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: China-North Korean Relations
Research Summary:
China-North Korean Relations; Northeast Asia security dynamics; North Korea’s propaganda strategy; US-China relations