Browsing by Author "Smith, Richard J."

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
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    Chen Duxiu's early years: The importance of personal connections in the social and intellectual transformation of China 1895--1920
    (2009) Chao, Anne Shen; Smith, Richard J.
    Chen Duxiu (1879-1942), is without question one of the most significant figures in modern Chinese history. Yet his early life has been curiously neglected in Western scholarship. In this dissertation I examine the political, social and intellectual networks that played such an important role in his early career---a career that witnessed his transformation from a classical scholar in the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), to a reformer, to a revolutionary, to a renowned writer and editor, to a university dean, to a founder of the Chinese Communist Party, all in the space of about two decades.
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    I. Chinese History and Ch'ing Institutions: A Brief Overview
    (Rice University, 1978-11) Smith, Richard J.; Electronic version made possible with funding from the Rice Historical Society and Thomas R. Williams, Ph.D., class of 2000.
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    II. Classical Chinese: The Medium and the Message
    (Rice University, 1978-11) Smith, Richard J.; Electronic version made possible with funding from the Rice Historical Society and Thomas R. Williams, Ph.D., class of 2000.
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    III. The "Three Teachings": Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism
    (Rice University, 1978-11) Smith, Richard J.; Electronic version made possible with funding from the Rice Historical Society and Thomas R. Williams, Ph.D., class of 2000.
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    Introduction
    (Rice University, 1978-11) Smith, Richard J.; Electronic version made possible with funding from the Rice Historical Society and Thomas R. Williams, Ph.D., class of 2000.
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    IV. Expressing the Tao (Way): Chinese Art and Literature
    (Rice University, 1978-11) Smith, Richard J.; Electronic version made possible with funding from the Rice Historical Society and Thomas R. Williams, Ph.D., class of 2000.
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    Rhetoric and reality: The making of Chinese perceptions of the United States, 1949-1989
    (1995) Li, Jing; Smith, Richard J.
    When the people of a given society contemplate the outside world, they do so with inherited but constantly changing values, assumptions, preoccupations, and aspirations. Who they are, one might say, largely determines what they perceive. For a variety of reasons, the Chinese have long had a fascination with the United States--a country which has not only been an active participant in Chinese affairs for well over a century, but which has also served as an idea and an example. Naturally, China's direct and indirect experiences with America, together with the vast cultural and political differences that still separate the two countries, have shaped Chinese perceptions. In China's search for a new political, social and economic order, America, as both a world power and as a concept, has played a major role. This dissertation examines the way images of America were transmitted to China in the twentieth century, and how these images were debated and represented (or misrepresented) by three main social groups of Chinese--the Chinese state, Chinese intellectuals, and the Chinese masses. Although America has unquestionably played a part in shaping modern China, the Chinese, for various reasons and in different ways, have constructed their own distinctive "America."
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    Table of Contents for the Rice University Studies, Volume sixty four, Special Issue, 1978: Traditional Chinese Culture: An Interpretive Introduction
    (Rice University, 1978-11) Smith, Richard J.; Electronic version made possible with funding from the Rice Historical Society and Thomas R. Williams, Ph.D., class of 2000.
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    Time and change: A comparative study of Chinese and Western almanacs
    (1993) Wang, Nan; Smith, Richard J.
    Almanacs (tongshu in Chinese) were a ubiquitous feature of the social landscape in both China and the West from at least the seventeenth century onward, offering a rich topic for comparative analysis. They serve as a valuable index of popular beliefs, moral values, and cultural priorities. They also provide a window on the processes of social, political, and intellectual change in both environments. Using a comparative approach, this study tries to illustrate how the almanacs in both China and the West have mirrored their respective cultural environments and how the history of almanacs in both societies reflects the powerful changes brought about by the scientific and philosophical revolutions of seventeenth-century Europe. At the same time, it also seeks to show the limits of these revolutionary developments, the ways in which traditional beliefs and practices have persisted up to the present in each society, and the reasons for their persistence.
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    V. Chinese Society and Traditional Chinese Culture
    (Rice University, 1978-11) Smith, Richard J.; Electronic version made possible with funding from the Rice Historical Society and Thomas R. Williams, Ph.D., class of 2000.