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The Archives of the Royal Asiatic Society, China
In September 2024 the Humanities Research Center launched its pilot partnership program with the Royal Asiatic Society, China (RAS). Under the supervision of DKU Associate Dean James Miller and DKU Archivist Ryder Kouba, students William Tran (DKU’28) and Elliot Aung (DKU’28) undertook the work of digitizing the library’s archives and catalog respectively.
Background
The RAS Library was founded in 1868 with the purchase of Alexander Wylie’s collection of 718 books on “various subjects related to China.” Over the next seventy years it grew to become one of the most complete collections of English language books on Asia in the world.
By 1937 it contained over 30,000 books and was housed on the third floor of the RAS building on Museum Road near the Bund (now the Rockbund Art Museum on Huqiu Road). During the late 1930s with thousands of refugees flooding into Shanghai, it was a tranquil haven for the residents of the International Settlement. It was recorded that over 6000 people would visit the library each month.
The RAS Library survived the Japanese occupation and the Civil War, but was forced to close its doors in 1951. Most of its original collection now resides at the Xujiahui Library (The Bibliotheca Zi-ka-wei).
The Royal Asiatic Society, China was refounded as a community-based organization in 2007, and has been rebuilding its collection ever since. Like the original RAS Library, its focus is on material related to China, and contains some 4,000 books and archival materials, many of which are old and not available elsewhere. Approximately ten percent of the collection was published prior to 1945; the oldest book was published in 1857.
Digitization Project
The digitization project consisted of two elements. The first was the digitization of the library’s catalog, using the open source Koha platform. DKU freshman Elliot Aung undertook the installation of the webserver, software, and the data migration, and the building of a new website where anyone can search the catalog and learn more about the library.
Secondly, DKU freshman William Tran has begun the process of digitizing the RAS archives. These include rare journals from the pre-liberation period, as well as the personal archive of Tess Johnston, a US citizen who collected a wide range of material related to Shanghai’s history, architecture, and expatriate life. Kouba noted:
As a newcomer to China, the Johnston collection provided a great overview of the history of Westerners in Shanghai through her collection of various publications. More interestingly for me was the changes in how historic architecture was perceived and preserved over time here, which Johnston thoroughly documented in her role as the “Patron Saint” of Shanghai architectural preservation.
The Johnston archives were transported box by box from Shanghai to Kunshan, where Tran set about scanning them in the DKU library archive room. Altogether 7158 pages of material have been digitized so far, with topics varying from architecture, history, immigrant and expat communities to dogs in Shanghai’s parks. Digitization, however, it not so simple as putting an object under a scanner. Tran said:
The digitization process involved many challenges from rust imprinted onto the materials or newspaper clippings that were so fragile a touch can make them disintegrate. Lighting was also a challenge, and sometimes I had to completely turn off the lighting in the archive room and work in the dark.
Kouba, Tran and Miller presented this work on April 25, 2025 at the Symposium on Heritage in the Digital Age at NYU Shanghai, together with Julie Chun, an art historian and member of the RAS council.
Future Research
Much, however, remains to be done. The archives have finally been uploaded to the RAS China library website. A detailed finding guide needs to be written. And then the process of analyzing the archive in detail can begin, which should be a great research project for a future DKU humanities major. Those who are interested in working with the archive are invited to contact Professor Miller.
Event Report on Female + Film: Women: Their voices, and the stories we shared
Reported by Yuqing Wang (Class of 2025)
On the evening of May 7th, we gathered at the second-floor screening room of the DKU Library to watch the documentary Woman. Directed by Anastasia Mikova and Yann Arthus-Bertrand, this film doesn’t follow a traditional narrative—it offers no commentary or storyline. Instead, it invites 2,000 women from over 50 countries to simply face the camera and speak. About childhood. About motherhood. About freedom, violence, identity, and dreams. Each story uninterrupted. Every silence respected.
Throughout the hour-long screening, the room remained still. We sat quietly, watching the screen fill with women’s faces—some firm, some tired, some smiling, and some in tears. They spoke of loss, of resilience, of love and anger. Their words felt raw and unfiltered, and at the same time, incredibly gentle. No one whispered. No one moved. But eyes turned red, and heads bowed low in thought. Something deep was settling in the room.
After the film, a few students stayed for discussion, but everyone’s face showed reflection. There weren’t many words—but the shared silence felt heavy and warm. It was the kind of moment where we didn’t need to explain—we simply understood.
Woman wasn’t made to teach or convince. It was made so we could see—see women’s bodies, their emotions, their fears and desires, how they’ve survived in pain, and how they’ve quietly, stubbornly lived on. What lingers most are perhaps those ordinary women’s eyes—honest, direct, and unapologetic.
In a time when everything is fast, scattered, and constantly “explained,” we still need these spaces of quiet witnessing. We still need stories that are simply told.
This wasn’t just a film about them. It was—quietly and completely—about us.
Eco-Emancipation Conference
Date: April 10 -12
Location: Lib1115
As climate change accelerates and ecosystems face unprecedented threats, rethinking humanity’s relationship with nature has never been more urgent. Eco-emancipation brings together leading scholars from around the world to explore new frameworks for environmental justice, biocultural rights, and the political and legal recognition of non-human life. This conference will examine the legacies of environmental domination and consider pathways toward more just and sustainable communities of life.
Hosted at Duke Kunshan University, this two-day event will feature speakers from institutions such as Brown University, the University of Melbourne, UC Santa Cruz, and Duke University. Through keynote talks, panel discussions, and workshops, scholars will engage with pressing topics including environmental non-domination, biocultural rights, and post-growth futures. By challenging traditional human-nature relationships, Eco-Emancipation aims to inspire bold ideas and concrete solutions for a more just and ecologically responsible world.
Harmony Lab Conference – “Confucianism, Family, and Women”
May 9 (Friday) 9:00-12:00 AB (Academic Building) 1087
Harmony Lab is holding its first conference on Friday, May 9, 2025, sharing a year-long project.
The Harmony Lab is a nexus of philosophical research undertaken by Duke University, Duke Kunshan University, and Wuhan University. It builds on and extends the Harmony Lab at Duke University’s Franklin Humanities Institute. Under the broad theme of harmony, our DKU project focuses on the subtheme of gender and family harmony. We have four Co-PIs, Profs Hwa Yeong Wang and James Miller from DKU and Profs. Yong Li and Qin Liu from Wuhan University.
Four of the co-PIs aim to investigate the role of Confucian philosophy, ethics, and values with respect to the changing gender norms and family structures that are emerging in contemporary East Asian societies. As the first step to achieve this aim, we explore having a nuanced understanding of how Confucians have historically understood family structures and how contemporary Confucian philosophers are paying attention to contemporary issues such as gender diversity and declining birth rates.
<Schedule>
Moderator: Halla KIM (Sogang University, Korea)
09:00-10:00 Opening
09:15-10:00 <Keynote Speech> Prof. Roger Ames (Peking University)
“Making Yourself at Home: The Familial Roots of Confucian Philosophy”
10:00-10:30 LI Yong (Wuhan University)
“Mainland Confucianism and the Ideal Family”
10:30-11:00 LIU Qin (Wuhan University)
“Differences, Roles, and Fluidity: Exploring the Feminist Potential of Neo-Confucianism”
11:00-11:30 Hwa Yeong WANG (Duke Kunshan University)
“Metaphysics, Ritual, and Gender: The Integrated System of Korean Neo-Confucianism and Its Feminist Challenges”
11:30-12:00 James MILLER and Sue WANG (Duke Kunshan University)
“A Comparative Investigation of the Confucian Philosophy of Family”
Event Report: Unnatural Rain: Legitimizing Weather Modification in the Cold War U.S.
Archives and History Initiative, by Disty Mahmud ‘26 and Yuruo Zhang ‘27
On April 30th, the Archives and History Initiative hosted Professor Joseph Giacomelli, who presented on his research paper, Unnatural Rain: Legitimizing Weather Modification in the Cold War U.S. The talk explored how weather modification, especially cloud seeding, was framed and justified during the mid-20th century in the United States, despite scientific uncertainty and widespread public skepticism. Eleven students and four professors attended the event.
Professor Giacomelli opened with a personal anecdote about his introduction to the world of weather modification when he was a college student. There, he encountered weather practitioners, who piqued his curiosity in the subject. Afterwards, he attended a panel in Wyoming that discussed cloud seeding, which further sparked his interest.
Rather than focusing solely on the technological aspects of weather modification, Giacomelli emphasized the intellectual rationale behind it. He drew extensively from The Journal of Weather Modification. His central research question: how was weather modification legitimized amid unreliable results and public controversy?
Professor Giacomelli explained key strategies for gaining legitimacy, as well as some of the challenges to the credibility of weather modification research. During the Cold War, weather modification was part of a broader “techno-solutionist” ethos. However, it faced significant obstacles. Firstly, there was significant scientific uncertainty. The results of the weather modification were inconsistent. Even more, its effectiveness could not be established due to the absence of “control” weather conditions. Secondly, the public blamed some natural disasters on weather modification, raising ecological and ethical concerns and even lawsuits. Moreover, religious groups also opposed the modification, as a defence for the divinity of God. Resistance was so strong that some practitioners recommended secrecy: “Let sleeping dogs lie,” as one source put it in 1973.
Next, Professor Giacomelli delved deeper into several strategies of legitimization. To gain public and institutional support, cloud-seeding advocates employed several strategies. Practitioners framed weather modification as an extension of nature itself. This view likened environmental intervention to moral or social order. Also, some of the practitioners combined technocratic authority with a wild-west and frontier-style experimentation. Though skeptical of computational modeling, citing the chaotic nature of weather systems, they claimed it was easier to control the weather than predict it. Lastly, Weather modification was portrayed as essential in the geopolitical conflict with the Soviet Union. Advocates used euphemisms to veil militaristic motives, while also promoting free enterprise and private experimentation. This was alongside emphasized capitalist rhetoric, positioning weather modification as an entrepreneurship.
Professor Giacomelli concluded by reflecting on the broader implications of his research. He posed open questions about parallels with contemporary geoengineering and its potential ethical, environmental, and justice-related concerns. Prof. Giacomelli received questions and comments from both students and faculty. One audience member suggested that legitimization often happens at the margins, and that it would be worthwhile to consider the divide between the urban and rural.
The talk offered insights into how Cold War ideologies, environmental ethics, and scientific uncertainty come together in the history of weather modification.
Superdeep #33: “Ti (體 essence) and yong (用 function) in Korean Buddhism and Confucianism” (Halla Kim, Sogang) | May 8, 5:28pm
5:28pm | IB 2026
Concluding another Superdeep academic year, get your essence and function into shape once more with Prof. Halla Kim (Sogang University) sharing eponymous work on “Ti (體 essence) and yong (用 function) in Korean Buddhism and Confucianism”.
Thu May 8 | 5:28pm | IB 2026.
Snacks & drinks will be served at the Workshop.
The event is co-sponsored by DKU’s Division of Arts & Humanities.
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The Workshop is Superdeep‘s venue for philosophical work-in-progress research & practice. For more info or to submit proposals for the Workshop, follow this link; for more info on Superdeep more generally, follow this one.
Superdeep is sponsored by DKU’s Humanities Research Center.
Event Report – Beyond the Birthing Chamber: Alternative Public Services of Midwives in the Ming and Qing Dynasties
Reported by Yuting Zeng, class of 2026.
On the evening of April 25, 2025, the “Female+__” reading group sponsored by DKU Humanities Research Center hosted a lecture titled “Beyond the Birthing Chamber: Alternative Public Services of Midwives in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,” delivered by Professor Yue Gu from the History Department at Shanghai University and attended by over 30 students and faculty members. Professor Gu holds a B.S. degree from Northeastern University (NEU) in Boston, as well as MPhil and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on gender history, social medical history, and the history of emotions in Ming-Qing China.
The lecture sought to expand the conventional understanding of midwives in late imperial China. Existing scholarship has primarily framed midwives within the context of childbirth and reproductive care, often overshadowed by male physicians’ writings on women’s health. In contrast, Professor Gu shifted the focus beyond the birthing chamber, revealing the wide array of public services midwives provided, including verifying chastity, determining sex, conducting autopsies, and caring for female criminals.
Professor Gu began by addressing the gendered construction of medical knowledge, noting that despite the dominance of male-authored medical texts, female practitioners occupied crucial spaces of practical authority. She traced the historical record of midwives back to the Yuan dynasty, referencing Nancun chuogenglu 南村辍耕录 (Notes from the Southern Village After Laying Down the Plow), and explained the classification of midwives (wenpo 稳婆 in Chinese) among the so-called sangu liupo 三姑六婆 (lit. three aunties and six mother-in-law), a phrase that reflects their entrenched role in community life.
Moving into specific examples, Professor Gu detailed the procedures midwives performed in legal and forensic contexts. In cases of verifying chastity for deceased women, as recorded in Xiyuan jilu洗冤集录 (Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified) by Song Ci 宋慈 (1186–1249), midwives were entrusted with delicate examinations whose outcomes could significantly affect familial and social reputations. Additionally, midwives served in judicial contexts involving pregnant female criminals; according to The Great Ming Code, if a condemned woman was found pregnant, her execution would be postponed until 100 days after childbirth, a process that necessitated midwives’ expert intervention.
Throughout her lecture, Professor Gu highlighted the paradox inherent in midwives’ societal position: while their authority derived from their intimate knowledge of the female body, their professional legitimacy was often undermined by deeply ingrained gender hierarchies. Their labor straddled the boundary between private and public realms, medical and legal spheres, revealing the complex negotiations of gender, expertise, and social trust in late imperial Chinese society.
The lecture concluded with a dynamic and thought-provoking Q&A session. Participants from diverse academic backgrounds engaged in lively discussions that expanded the lecture’s core themes. Questions explored issues such as the intersection of gendered labor and professional recognition, comparisons between midwifery practices in China and other cultural contexts, and the broader implications of bodily authority in historical and contemporary frameworks. Professor Gu offered incisive responses, further deepening the audience’s understanding of the material.
The event not only illuminated the alternative roles midwives played in history, but also opened a vibrant interdisciplinary dialogue about how bodily knowledge, gendered professions, and public service intersect and evolve across time. Through her insightful lecture and engaged conversation, Professor Gu invited the audience to reconsider the boundaries between medicine, law, and society in the Ming and Qing dynasties—and beyond.
Nighthawks screening: Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
When: Thursday May 1, 8:08 pm
Location: IB 1008
Nighthawks will screen Fantastic Mr. Fox by the American filmmaker Wes Anderson. Come see the adventures of Mr. Fox through a world of farms run by his human neighbors.
Snacks & light refreshments will be served!
Student Report on Having it All: Understanding Work & Family Dynamics in Contemporary Korea
By Nathan Franco, Class of 2028.
On Monday, April 15th, 2025, two DKU faculty and 32 students gathered in person or via Zoom for a discussion on Work and Family Dynamics in Contemporary Korea, a research paper conducted by Hyeyoung Woo, a Professor of Sociology at Portland State University, in collaboration with colleagues from Seoul University, Pennsylvania University, among other Universities. The research aimed to determine the gap in health in age groups 18-29, 30-49, and 50-65 (working age) considering three factors: education, employment, and family formations. The research question is, does the association between gender and Self-Reported Health (SRH) vary across Korea, the United States, and Finland? The discussion began with background information.
Professor Woo first explains Korea’s educational background: Tertiary education is beyond secondary education. Overall, there has been an increasing trend in education in Korea over time. Professor Woo then showed a graph that showed education attainment in Korea going from 20% to 70%. In addition, Professor Woo shared that from the 1970s to 2020, the employment trend of men and women increased. But when you look at the rate of married males and females, women fall short compared to men. However, the increase of unmarried individuals in 2020 is almost equal among males and females. Globally, Korea also “excels” in the gender wage gap, which the OECD graph shows is about 30%, which means women make 70% less than employed males. Furthermore, Korea’s total fertility rate is below 1, which means that Korean females are expected to have less than one child. The size of the population over time will, therefore, continuously shrink. A low total fertility rate isn’t unique to Korea, but Korea is the only country below 1 in fertility rate. That said, when Koreans have children, they tend to put a lot of work into that child (expenditure on private education and more).
After conducting her research, Professor Woo made the following findings:
- In Korea, the highest gender gap in SRH is observed, especially among young and middle-aged Koreans.
- Women in the United States also experience a health disadvantage relative to men. However, this disadvantage in the United States is smaller than the disadvantage in Korea, and covariates, including family formation and employment, explain the disadvantage among middle-aged and older American women.
- In Finland, the health disadvantage among women is only observed among young adults, and in fact, among middle-aged and older adults, women tend to have higher levels of health than men do.
Professor Woo concluded that gender differences in health are highly contingent on an individual’s social location within a specific country and cross-national variations in work cultures, family practices, and work-family policy.
However, after conducting her research, Professor Woo felt that another round of research, specifically on Korea, was needed. Her summary of her findings is as follows.
Most young adults in Korea tend to work first and have a family later, or work without a family. A conclusion from the findings is that both employed men and women that marry later in their life and remain married, in addition to having children tends to lead to the best health outcomes. On the other hand, those with limited employment and negligible family formation pathways appear to be the most vulnerable. However, despite high work-family incompatibility and the rise of being single and childless in recent years, both work and family are still protective for health. For men, marriage and children provide additional health advantages beyond employment.
Lastly, we wrapped up with a short Q&A.
Q&A:
Q: This research is wide in scope; how can we explore the causal relationship (social factors and health outcomes) between the factors in Korea?
A: This is a challenging problem in the social sciences. There is a tendency that when you have a higher education, you will also make a greater amount of money, but this isn’t necessarily causation. When considering current health outcomes, we consider the past because we know that education comes first. So, health isn’t going to cause education, but rather, education may be a cause of health.
Student Report on Reading Group for “Embracing Diversity: Developing Cultural Competence for Inclusive Education”
By Yaxuan Wang, Class of 2027
On April 17 2025, DKU faculty, staff, and students convened for our latest reading group session focusing on “Embracing Diversity: Developing Cultural Competence for Inclusive Education.” This session fostered an important dialogue centred on the intersections of disability and LGBTQ+ identities.
The session began with a reflection on the DKU’s recent Disabilities Week, providing context for the ensuing discussion. Participants then engaged with the week’s reading, “Because it’s who I am’: self-determination of LGBTQ adults with intellectual disability”, exploring themes relevant to the experiences of individuals navigating both disability and LGBTQ+ identity.
Facilitated by Dr. Zhenjie Weng and Dr. Yanan Zhao, the conversation covered a range of related topics. Participants discussed current issues surrounding disabilities, including challenges related to ADHD. The discussion then broadened to encompass the experiences of the LGBTQ+ community, specifically considering the unique perspectives and challenges faced by individuals at the intersection of these identities. An important part of the conversation focused on understanding and supporting the partners of individuals with disabilities within the LGBTQ+ context. The group emphasized the need for greater understanding, empathy, and inclusive support systems.
The event was organized by Dr. Zhenjie Weng, Assistant Professor of English Language Education, and Dr. Yanan Zhao, Senior Lecturer of English for Academic Purposes, from the Language and Culture Center, and was sponsored by the Humanities Research Center. Student worker Yaxuan Wang contributed to the planning and success of the event.
