ABSTRACTS - oia - Portland State University

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ASPAC Conference 2010 June 18 – 20, 2010 | Portland, OR the inner sanctuary, in particular, retains a conservative orthodoxy in furnishings and arrangement. However the outer sanctuary undergoes striking adaptations to fit into an American context. The changes in architectural styles can be linked to circumstances of the congregation, influence of the sectarian headquarters, and specific architects. They also reveal the impact of labor strikes and immigration policies, Americanization, internationalization, the decline of sugar and pineapple plantations and the migration of fourth and fifth generation young people away from their temple communities. The temples as text clearly reveal the growth and decline of Japanese Buddhism in Hawai’i. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Robban Toleno Tasteful Tropes: Sweet and Bitter in Pre-Qin Chinese Moral Thought Pierre Bourdieu famously argued that aesthetic preferences are products of social environment and not of universal rational ideals. His thesis has had a major impact on how modern scholars talk about aesthetic experience, but his separation of aesthetic experience from a universalizing discourse on morality leaves a haunting question: Are there no natural links between aesthetic and moral categories of experience? I argue that there are natural links, when we ground our definitions of aesthetics and morality in understandings of how the human body (including the mind) functions. Using a theory of ‘affordances’ from the ecological approach in psychology to help frame a notion of what in ‘natural’ in human experience, I investigate the vocabulary of taste in early Chinese moral philosophy. Noting an early emphasis in the Shi jing (Book of Odes) on gan (sweet) and ku (bitter) as tropes for pleasant and unpleasant experiences, respectively, I trace these two flavors in a selection of Warring States texts, and then focus attention on how taste factors in the moral philosophy of the Mengzi (Mencius), a text that came to have a profound impact on East Asian society following its emphasis within ZhuXi’s system of Neo-Confucian thought in the twelfth century. Results of this investigation suggest that early Chinese thinkers accepted the faculty of taste, and especially the flavors sweet and bitter, as relatively consistent across individuals, but that they also concurred that aesthetic pursuits can have a deleterious effect on the development of moral virtues. Although positing different images of virtue as exemplary and worthy of emulation, these thinkers exhibit a consistent understanding that aesthetic experiences connect with emotions in a powerful way, and that appropriate use of control of emotion is an important part of exemplary moral character. I conclude with a discussion of how these views can help us appreciate Bourdieu without dismissing aesthetic and moral discourses as entirely subjective or socially relative. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Kathleen Tomlonovic Fathers and Sons: Literary Inheritance in the Song Dynasty During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), figures who achieved literary fame desired to transmit respect for learning to their sons. Emphasis on education, even on a family tradition, brought forth strong new contributors to the literary scene. The imperial examinations of the mid-eleventh century proved to be a catalyst for families that had not previously achieved political or economic status. Efforts to bring the next generation into the realm of prestige and power prompted some families to educate sons, while the desire to transmit a family style prompted others. The Su family of the southwest are of Shu exemplifies complex motivating factors in the education of sons. Su Xun, himself unsuccessful in the imperial exams, was able to instruct sons who achieved fame in the examinations of 1057 and who were thus launched into important political positions. Even though upheavals in the affairs of state proved to be an obstacle to the political rise of their children, both Su Shi (1037-1101) and his younger brother, Su Zhe (1039-1112) took a serious interest in the education of their sons and grandsons. A comparison between Su Shi’s education of his son Su Guo (1071-1123) and Su Zhe’s education of his grandsons reveals different motives. The education Su Guo received from his father came primarily when he accompanied his father into exile and gained individual instruction as personal cultivation. During the 40
ASPAC Conference 2010 June 18 – 20, 2010 | Portland, OR final years of his life, Su Zhe, once a prime-minister for the Zhao emperors of the Northern Song, chose retirement and the education of his grandsons as an alternative to personal struggles to regain political power. Nonetheless, he anticipated that success for his sons. The literary heritage of Su Xun, of his two sons and his grandsons, did not extend to the Su descendants of the Southern Song, but the Su Family style and the prominence they accorded literary features of writing had profound influence throughout the Song and subsequent dynasties. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Rebecca L. Twist-Schweitzer Patronage, Devotion and Politics: Royal Women Donors of the Patola Sahi Dynasty The concept of patronage, especially royal, is an important discourse in all visual arts because it bears a direct affect on the construct of the art itself. Buddhist art serves as a primary exemplar of this notion where a royal commission may convey a multitude of purposes such as worship, attaining merit, and political propaganda. When the patronage includes royal women, however, another discipline is added to the discourse – that of Women’s Studies. To illustrate this, I will focus on a number of Buddhist artworks that can be attributed through inscriptions to a donation by members of the royal Patola Sahi dynasty that ruled during the 6th-8th centuries over the country of Bolor, in what is today, Northern Pakistan. In this paper, I will explore how the royal donor women of this dynasty played an integral role in the iconography which constructed a coded visual language through which not only political aspirations of the dynasty were made manifest, but also suggest that the Patola Sahis were devout Buddhist practitioners, some of them adherents of early Vajrayana Buddhism. Specifically, by situating the depicted female donors into the Buddhist iconography and iconology of the images and understanding the specific titles chosen to relate to their level of spiritual practice and devotion, it is evident that many of these female royal donors were initiates into and practitioners of the esoteric teachings of the Vairocana Buddha. As such, when considered within a larger framework of discourses and methodology, the motives and impetus for these royal women donors can be gleaned, helping to fill in the lacuna in the field regarding royal female patronage of Buddhism. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Kiki Verico Does Intratrade Affect Investment Creation in Southeast Asia? Case Study of FTA’s effect on FDI flows in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand ASEAN implemented ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) that generates trade discrimination between its member and non member states. AFTA is supposed to increase intratrade among its members. According to the history of the Customs Union (CU) in Western Europe, trade discrimination will create trade diversion in which members will import goods from a less-efficient member rather than from an efficient non-member. If a non-member requires special treatment of FTA, she has to invest in member states as her product will be classified as a member’s product and received FTA facilities. FTA is less strict than CU. FTA does not regulate equal tariff between members and non-members. It may open trade leakages because non-member states still have a chance to make trade relations with members which have lower tariff barriers. In the case of AFTA, Singapore, Brunei, and the Philippines applied lower tariff barriers than other members such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand (IMT). This study argues that trade and investment relations is the core of regional integration process which is significant to transform a regional cooperation from trade (free flow of goods) to investment cooperation (free flow of capital and people). Free trade and investment liberalization are necessary conditions in achieving financial integration with its ultimate objective: “single currency”. This study focuses on IMT because they still keep relatively high common tariff barriers for nonmembers. Questions to be addressed are: Does AFTA generate intratrade? Does intratrade affect FDI? AFTA has vulnerability in attracting FDI inflows from non-member states compared to CU. Currently ASEAN is facing a serious threat from the double-track agreement, i.e., AFTA and bilateral FTA with non-members. This double-track agreement creates a “spaghetti bowl effect” in ASEAN. AFTA is believed to have become weakened ever since bilateral FTA’s emerged. This study tries to see the recent role of AFTA at the sub- 41
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