Ms Aliya Abdukadir Ali
Supervisor: Professor Andrew Marsham
Thesis topic: Networks of power in Iran and Iraq under the Umayyads
Mr 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
Mr Maan Aldabbagh
Supervisor: Professor Amira K Bennison
Thesis topic: The Scholarly Community of the Hijaz in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
Ms Avetisyan Ani
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: Early Modern Judaeo-Arabic medical manuscripts
Miss Estara Arrant
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: Non-standard Hebrew Bible manuscripts from the Genizah
Mr Vincent Beiler
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: Masorah in the Hebrew Bible manuscripts from the Genizah
Mr Thomas Booth
Supervisor: Professor Mikael Adolphson
Thesis topic: Understanding the Causes and Motivations of the Tokusei Protests 1428-1467.
Understanding the Causes and Motivations of the Tokusei Protests 1428-1467
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.
Ms Lina Brüssel
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: The Medieval Karaite Transcriptions of Hebrew into Arabic Script Preserved in the Firkovitch Collections
Miss Maria Bugno
Thesis topic: Humour, sex education and intertextuality: erotic rewritings in Early-modern Japan
Mr James Char
Supervisor: Professor Hans van de Ven FBA
Thesis topic: Reassessing the Chinese Communist Party’s War Decision-making: Mao Zedong, the People’s Liberation Army and Strategic Risk Taking, 1935-1948
Mr 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
Miss Zi Chen
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: Paper-offerings craftsman households in contemporary rural Shandong Province
Ms Mi Kwi Cho
Supervisor: Professor Barak Kushner
Thesis topic: Post-war immigration and discrimination in Japan, focussing on zainichi Koreans.
My research interest lies in the study of the Japanese minority groups, with a focus on the zainichi Korean community. The period of my research is the end of the Meiji era to the beginning of the Taisho era where the migration of zainichi Koreans to Japan became apparent.
Mr John Donegan-Cross
Supervisor: Prof. Roel Sterckx FBA
Thesis topic: A Study of the Literary and Material Culture of Early China through the lens of the fenghuang 鳳凰
Mrs Hajnalka Elias
Thesis topic: Sichuan in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 - 220 C.E.): A Study of Regional Identity and Memory in Material Culture and Textual Sources
Mr Rashaad Eshack
Supervisor: Professor Barak Kushner
Thesis topic: Japanese migrant, Nikkei, diasporic identity in the Americas
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.
Mr Ahmed Ezzat
Supervisor: Professor Khaled Fahmy FBA
Thesis topic: History and politics of modern law in Egypt
Xi Fang
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: Cultural Impact of the Silk Road on the Lives of Women in Tang Dynasty
Mr Frederick Feilden
Supervisor: Dr Laura Moretti
Thesis topic: From A to B and Back Again? Picturebook Adaptations in Nineteenth-Century Japan
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.
Ms Jing Feng
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: The Making of Codices: Codicological Research on Codices from Dunhuang and Turfan
Miss Alexandra Forrester
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: Constructing authenticity in the case of Chinese Zhengyi Daoist priests
Miss Maria Gajewska
Supervisor: Professor Andrew Marsham
Thesis topic: Networks of Trust in the First Global Economy
Jiankang Gao
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: Development of Chinese Clan Associations in Southeast Asia
Ms Giulia Garbagni
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: Japan's Postwar Envoy Diplomacy in Southeast Asia
Giulia’s PhD research topic will be looking at Japan's envoy diplomacy and its role in regional conflict mediation post-1945.
Mr Wiktor Gebski
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: The Arabic dialect of the Jews of Gabes (Tunisia)
Kelsey Granger
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: Gifts from Afar: The Creation of an Imperial Lapdog in Tang-Song China
Mr Joseph Habib
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: Accents, Vocalization, and Qere/Ketiv in Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Bible Commentaries
Mr Choongil (Peter) Han
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: North Korea’s Unification Policy
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.
Mr Christoph Hess
Supervisor: Professor Hans van de Ven FBA
Thesis topic: Institutions and Small-Scale Industry in China: War, Revolution and Reform
Mr Calum Humphreys
Supervisor: Professor Khaled Fahmy FBA
Thesis topic: Petitioning in Nineteenth-Century Egypt
Ms Armaghan Khosravi Nia
Supervisor: Professor Christine van Ruymbeke
Thesis topic: The Work and Theoretical Views of Nima Yushij
Mr Cody Kingham
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: Time and Verb Collocations in Biblical Hebrew: A Statistical and Constructional Study
Mr Kan Lee
Supervisor: Professor Hans van de Ven FBA
Thesis topic: Ho Hsi-lai and the China Mission to SCAP (Supreme Command of the Allied Powers) in Tokyo
Miss Yizhuo Li
Supervisor: Dr Noga Ganany
Thesis topic: Unfeminine Heroines: The Woman Warrior on Stage in Nineteenth Century China
Mr Ko-Hang Liao
Supervisor: Professor Barak Kushner
Thesis topic: Rethinking Defeat: Japan, Chiang Kai-shek and the 'White Group' in Taiwan, 1949-1969
Ms Zhenru Lin
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: The commemoration of Kuomintang veterans in Mainland China.
Ms 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
Mr Tongkun Liu
Supervisor: Professor Boping Yuan
Thesis topic: Interfaces in the Chinese ba Construction and Their Representations in Second Language Learners' L2 Chinese Mental Grammars
Miss Manyun Liu
Supervisor: Professor Boping Yuan
Thesis topic: Chinese Reflexive 'ziji' in Second Language Acquisition, Heritage Language, and First Language Attrition
Mia (Ye) Ma
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: Title: Court, Monastery and Workshop: Refashioning Water-moon Avalokiteśvara Paintings in late Goryeo Korea and Yuan China.
Bio: 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.
Ms Helen Magowan
Supervisor: Dr Laura Moretti
Thesis topic: Nyohitsu - the construction of femininities through writing
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. My 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
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.
Mr Marc Michaels
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: Towards a better understanding of the scribal manual Sefer Tagin.
Mr William Moriarty
Supervisor: Professor Hans van de Ven FBA
Thesis topic: Tuning In: Nationalist Radio in China
Mr Peter Myers
Thesis topic: Mr Myers has now completed his PhD.
The Text and Grammar of Hebrew/Aramaic Transcriptions in the Manuscript Tradition of 2 Esdras
Miss Susannah Pearce
Supervisor: Prof Yaron Peleg
Thesis topic: Modern Hebrew Literature and the Environment
Mr Guy Pinnington
Supervisor: Dr Victoria Young
Thesis topic: 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.
Rev Phra Kiattisak Ponampon
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: Dunhuang Manuscript Pelliot chinois 2078: A Study of Meditative Praxis and Visionary Experiences
Mr Nicholas Posegay
Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Khan
Thesis topic: Relationships between medieval Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac in the fields of vocalization and phonology.
Mr Rishi Rajpopat
Supervisor: Dr Vincenzo Vergiani
Thesis topic: Reworking Notions of the Structure and Functioning of Pāṇinian Sanskrit Linguistics
Paul Rodrigue
Supervisor: Dr Michael Rand
Thesis topic: Working title: Jerome’s translation of the Book of Daniel
Ms Avital Rom
Thesis topic: Polyphonic Thinking: A Rereading of Early Chinese Texts Through the Lens of Music
Mr Ido Rosen
Supervisor: Prof Yaron Peleg
Thesis topic: The Influence of Social Media on Film Aesthetic and Production: A Paradigm Shift?
Miss Ria Roy
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: Charismatic leadership; North Korea; religion versus secularism.
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.
Mr Colton Runyan
Supervisor: Professor Mikael Adolphson
Thesis topic: Ascending via Awase: Competitions in Heian Japan
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.
Mr Samir Saad
Supervisor: Professor Khaled Fahmy FBA
Thesis topic: Arabism, Islamism and legislative politics in Jordan, 1950-1978
Ms Polina Serebriakova
Supervisor: Professor Mikael Adolphson
Thesis topic: Petals of paulownia: sources of aristocratic legitimacy for warrior leaders in Medieval Japan.
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.
Mr Iqan Shahidi
Supervisor: Dr Assef Ashraf
Thesis topic: The concept of decline and decadence in the writings of the contemporary intellectuals of Iran.
Mr Daniel Sheridan
Supervisor: Professor Imre Galambos
Thesis topic: Masters of Ceremony: Studies in Chinese Primary Source Descriptions of Sogdian Customs and Ceremonies
Miss Bingbing Shi
Supervisor: Dr Heather Inwood
Thesis topic: Repeating and Recreating History: Adaptations of Literature in Contemporary Chinese Cinema
Nick Stember
Supervisor: Dr Heather Inwood
Thesis topic: Low Culture Fever: Chinese Comic Books after Mao 1976-1983
Miss Jun Tham
Supervisor: Professor Mikael Adolphson
Thesis topic: 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.
Mr Luigi Ivan Triola
Supervisor: Professor Mikael Adolphson
Thesis topic: The role of charisma in shaping New Japanese Religions
Ivan's PhD research focuses on the role of charisma in the development of New Japanese Religions, especially on Oomotokyo's off-shoot movements, under the supervision of Prof. Mickey Adolphson.
Miss 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."
Ms Hsiaoching Wang
Supervisor: Professor Boping Yuan
Thesis topic: L2 Acquisition of Wh-indeterminants in Mandarin by English and Korean Speakers.
Jie Wang
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: The Arabic Language and Transnationalism amongst the Chinese Muslims
Miss Xiran Wang
Supervisor: Professor Adam Yuet Chau
Thesis topic: Foodie Culture (吃貨) in Contemporary Chinese Media Landscape
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
Miss Jingting Xiang
Supervisor: Professor Boping Yuan
Thesis topic: Definiteness and Specificity in L2/L3 Mandarin Grammars
Mr Chuanlong Xiang
Thesis topic: Sino-Korean Trade in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
Mr Weijun Xu
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: Regime Legitimacy, Nationalism, and Foreign Policy Choices in Disputes
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.
Miss Lilong Xu
Supervisor: Professor Boping Yuan
Thesis topic: Chinese Null and Covert Arguments and their Behaviors in L2 Chinese Grammars
Miss Yang Jie
Supervisor: Dr John Nilsson-Wright
Thesis topic: Morality in East Asian Politics
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.
Mr Sheung Chun Jonathan Yeung
Supervisor: Professor Barak Kushner
Thesis topic: Sino-Japanese interactions in the context of early 20th-century Chinese students in Japan
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.
Mr Fei Yuan
Supervisor: Professor Boping Yuan
Thesis topic: The Third Language Acquisition of English Negative Polarity Items by Ethnic Koreans in China
Chenyang Zhang
Supervisor: Professor Boping Yuan
Thesis topic: L2 acquisition of empty verbs in Mandarin Chinese by English-speaking learners