This course explores the history of early-modern and modern China, from the seventeenth century to the present. We will examine the rise and fall of China’s last empire, the emergence of a modern nation-state, the sources and development of revolution, and the implications of complex social, political, cultural, and economic transformations in the People’s Republic of China. Course materials include scholarly monographs, a memoir, primary sources, and visual and material artifacts that offer diverse perspectives. We will meet twice a week for a combination of lectures, discussion, and viewing of visual texts.

The search for modern China

This thesis traces the mobilization of Canadian associations helping refugees during the Second World War. The study of this collective mobilization - the refuge - sheds light on Canada's willingness to help in the face of the dangers and persecutions threatening refugees between December 1938 and October 1945. Based on the sources of the two main refugee actors in the refuge - the Canadian National Committee on Refugees (CNCR) and the committees of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) - the thesis provides an intermediate perspective on Canadian assistance and reception throughout the conflict, between the history of migration policy and the study of population movements. By following the rhythm of the refuge, the thesis retraces the complex structure of collective mobilization made up of about ten organizations opposed by ideological, political and territorial rivalries. By pulling the threads out of this "associative knot bag", the study of the refuge highlights the categorization of the refugee in a Canada that does not distinguish them from traditional migrants. Faced with the government's refusal to admit refugees to Canada, collective mobilization does not remain isolated from the rest of the Canadian population and seeks its support to open Canada's borders to persecuted people. The shelter then developed two propaganda messages reflecting internal collaboration in collective mobilization, notably between the CJC's fundraising committee - the United Jewish Refugee and Relief Agencies - and the CNCR. Faced with the restrictive policy of the Canadian government, the shelter develops remote relief, participating in humanitarian aid carried out by American organizations, and determines an assistance strategy based on discretion. Its purpose is to bypass Canadian migration rules and prepare for the reception of potential refugees. The arrival of the refugees then appears as the highest point of the refuge.

Sauver les plus irremplaçables ? Une histoire du refuge canadien par les associations pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale

https://repository.brynmawr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=german_pubs

What is Asian German Studies

Title of Document: “AN UNCERTAIN LIFE IN ANOTHER WORLD”: GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN JEWISH REFUGEE LIFE IN SHANGHAI, 19381950” Elizabeth Rebecca Hyman, Master of Arts, 2014 Directed by: Professor Marsha Rozenblit, History Between 1938 and 1941, 20,000 Eastern and Central European Jews fled to Shanghai. Through a close examination or memoirs and oral histories, I argue that the manner in which the refugees experiences the approximately twelve years (1938-1950) they spent in Shanghai was informed by their nationality, gender, and age. Further, I argue that the twelve years they spent in Shanghai eroded the refugee’s behavioral, material, and emotional connections to their old lives in Germany and Austria until all they had left was language and memories. “AN UNCERTAIN LIFE IN ANOTHER WORLD”: GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN JEWISH REFUGEE LIFE IN SHANGHAI, 1938-1950

/pdf/an-uncertain-life-in-another-world-german-and-austrian-435qjtc6vi.pdf

"An Uncertain Life in Another World": German and Austrian Jewish Refugee Life in Shanghai, 1938-1950

The arrival of about 1000 Polish Jews in Shanghai in 1941 has remained one of the footnotes of the Holocaust, even though most survived the War, unexpectedly trapped in the city. This article argue...

Stopped in flight: Shanghai and the Polish Jewish refugees of 1941

The study discusses the history of the Jewish refugees within the Shanghai setting and its relationship to the two established Jewish communities, the Sephardi and Russian Jews. Attention is also focused on the cultural life of the refugees who used both German and Yiddish, and on their attempts to cope under Japanese occupation after the outbreak of the Pacific War. Differences of identity existed between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, religious and secular, aside from linguistic and cultural differences. The study aims to understand the exile condition of the refugees and their amazing efforts to create a semblance of cultural life in a strange new world.

/pdf/wartime-shanghai-and-the-jewish-refugees-from-central-europe-5e8ro4ep98.pdf

Irene Eber

Papers

Wartime Shanghai and the Jewish Refugees from Central Europe: Survival, Co-Existence, and Identity in a Multi-Ethnic City