Volume 3

Volume 3 Spring 2013 is published. Congratulations to our authors. Good luck to everyone finishing up the school year!

- PAR Board

The Literary Value of Sin Ch'ae-ho's Dream Sky: A Marginal Alteration of Dante's Comedy

This talk was a bit different - it was about the translating of an Italian classic, Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia, into Korean. Professor Sangjin Park gave an enlightening overview of the history of Alighieri's work in East Asia. He showed how the Divina Commedia was first translated into Japanese, and subsequently came to Korea in Japanese since Korea was a colony. Yet it was not really received in Korea until later when another author, Sin Ch'ae-ho (also Romanized as Shin Chae-ho) wrote Dream Sky. Sin is known not only by most South Koreans, but also North Koreans as well as being one of the most important contemporary historians for Korea. Born in 1880, his books are still read in schools today.

China's OFDI in US Renewable Energy and Clean Technology

Last Tuesday, I had the opportunity to share dinner with and ask questions of several incredibly distinguished panelists specializing in renewable energy and clean technology, particularly investment by China recently in the green industry. There was an overwhelming sense that despite what some experts say about the unreliability of green energy, it is the place to invest in the coming decades.

"Prewar Revolutionary Writer Kobayashi Takiji and the Fukushima Catastrophe"

Professor Field’s interest lies in the proletarian literature movement of the 1920s and 30s in Japan, and her talk centered on an amalgamation of Marxism, environmentalism, literature, class distinctions, and the repercussions of nuclear disaster. In particular, her lecture hinged on a dichotomy between life and livelihood; those without resources must choose between their personal health and safety and the ability to put food on the table. This is especially relevant in Japan, as the Fukushima catastrophe intensified the gravity of this choice. Through a mixture of anecdotes, statistics and summaries of stories from Kobayashi’s oeuvre, Prof. Field sought to demonstrate that the nuclear disaster has put even more pressure on the lower class people who are already struggling, further exemplifying the idea that the people who most need a movement are in a position of being least able to participate in it. This results in both an inability to escape one’s predicament as well as resentment towards those who do have the luxury to protest the goings-on (specifically, the Tokyo-ites who travel to the Tomari nuclear plant in Hokkaido to hold rallies). Adding to these concerns are of course the health problems following from radiation from the nuclear plants.

China-Japan Relations in the 21st Century

Professors Arthur Waldron and Frederick Dickinson came together for their first co-hosted talk together ever to discuss the ever-more intense topic of relations between Japan and China. Professor Waldron prefaced the talk by emphasizing the fact that Japan is an island nation, and much like Britain, became an island Empire. However, unlike Britain, it does not enjoy the most amicable relationships with its neighbors. Much of this has to do with Japan's colonial past.

New posts for the CSCC by Francis

Check out the new posts by Francis for the CSCC about the future of the internet with Rebecca MacKinnon and the recent documentary film screening of Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.

The Emergence of Social Entrepreneurship in China

Social entrepreneurship has only begun to take hold in China in recent years. According to a report by the “Foundation for Youth Social Entrepreneurship”, the social enterprise movement was catalyzed in 2004 with the publication of the Chinese editions of David Bornstein’s How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, and Charles Leadbeater’s The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur. Both of these books sparked discussion and research on the concept. Also in 2004, the Global Links Initiative, the first membership organization that promotes social enterprises in China, organized a Sino-British Symposium on Social Enterprise and NPO. In 2006, the concept of social enterprise showed up increasingly in magazines, academic journals, and forums. For instance, the 21^st Century Business Review, a leading Chinese business magazine, published about ten articles exploring the concept and practice of social entrepreneurship. In 2007, the Global Entrepreneurship Research Center of Zhejiang University, the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship of Oxford University, and the Entrepreneurs School of Asia organized the first International Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. Comparative Economic & Social Systems published special issues on social enterprise in 2007, 2009, and 2010.