Geography: GEO 308 | Geography of East Asia
News and Current Events
Web Sites
- CNA - Channel News AsiaEnglish language Asian news network based in Singapore with correspondents in major Asian cities and key Western ones. In addition to news, there is also a lifestyle section and live radio feature.
- BBC World NewsOnce on the main World News page, you have the ability to narrow the news by geographic region, such as Asia and Middle East.
Library Databases
- Factiva This link opens in a new window
This includes full-text coverage of many major U.S. and international newspapers. It also includes television and radio transcripts, and business and trade journals as well as company reports and financial data. Limited to 4 simultaneous users.
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Source for researching news, business, and legal topics. It contains full-text of sources from all over the world, drawn from print, broadcast, and online media.
Databases - Scholarly Articles and Book Chapters
Suggested Databases
- Bibliography of Asian Studies This link opens in a new windowOxford campus users only. Oxford campus users only. Contains citations on all subjects (especially in the humanities and the social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide from 1971 to the present.
- Geobase (Engineering Village) This link opens in a new windowGeobase is a database, within Engineering Village, of indexed research literature unequalled in its coverage of the international geoscience literature. Topics include: earth sciences, ecology, geology, human and physical geography, environmental sciences, oceanography, geomechanics, alternative energy sources, pollution, waste management and nature conservation.
How to Search
Below are videos on using two of the suggested databases.
Geobase is a part of Engineering Village, and the video covers how to do basic searches and locate full text PDFs.
Social Science Citation Index is part of Web of Science, and the video covers how to do basic searches and locate full text PDFs.
Looking for a Particular Journal?
You can check if the library subscribes to a journal, and if so, which database to look for it in.
On the Library's Homepage, the search box defaults to OneSearch, but if you choose E-Journals, you can search by the journal name. If we have a subscription, it will tell you for which years, and which database/s it's available in.
Books
There are many books to choose from (electronic and print). Below is just a select few to help get your research started.
- China: a geographical perspective by China has become a superpower, exerting significant influence globally. This accessible text integrates thematic and regional coverage to provide a panoramic view of China--its physical geography; population, including ethnic diversity; urban development; agriculture and land use; transportation networks; dynamic economic processes; and environmental challenges. Cultural and political geography topics are woven throughout the chapters. The text also offers in-depth assessments of selected regions, capturing the complexity of this vast and populous country. It is richly illustrated with more than 150 maps, tables, figures, and photographs--including 8 pages in full color. Pedagogical Features *Chapter-opening learning objectives. *Chapter-opening key concepts and terms. *Extensive notes pointing students to relevant online resources. *Engaging topic boxes in every chapter.Call Number: e-bookISBN: 9781462533787Publication Date: 2018
- Dryland East Asia: Land Dynamics amid Social and Climate Change by Drylands in East Asia (DEA)are home to more than one billion people with an environment vulnerable to natural and anthropogenic changes. One of the critical needs in the region is to fully understand how dryland ecosystems respond to the changing climate and human activities in order to develop strategies to cope with continued climate change. This book provides state-of-the-art knowledge and information on drylands ecosystem dynamics, changing climate, society, and land use in the region. In addition to the synthesis of the existing research and knowledge of DEA, the book provides a role model for regional ecological assessment. With a wide spectrum of contributions from experts around the globe, the book should be of interest to researchers and students both internationally and in East Asia. Lessons learned from this synthesis effort in DEA should be useful for developing climate adaptation strategies for other similar regions around the globe.Call Number: e-bookISBN: 3110287919Publication Date: 2013
- Fish, Fishing and Community in North Korea and Neighbours by This open access book explores the histories and geographies of fishing in North Korea and the surrounding nations. With the ideological and environmental history of North Korea in mind, the book examines the complex interactions between local communities, fish themselves, wider ecosystems and the politics of Pyongyang through the lens of critical geography, fisheries statistics and management science as well as North Korean and more generally Korean and East Asian studies. There is increasing global interest in North Korea, its politics, people and landscapes, and as such, this book describes encounters with North Korean fishing communities, as well as unusual moments in the field in the People's Republic of China, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). It addresses fish, fishing infrastructure, fishing science and fishing statistics and other non-human elements of North Korean and other nations' developmental regimes as actors and participants within them as much as humans and their technologies. The book enables readers to gain extensive insights into the aspirations and practices of fishing in North Korea and its neighbours, the navigation of difficult political and developmental situations and changing ecological realities in a time of environmental and climate crisis familiar to many across the globe.Call Number: e-bookISBN: 9789811500411Publication Date: 2019
- The Geography of China by With its flourishing metropolises, China has come to be identified with urban life and rapid technological advancement. Yet much of its landscape also boasts communities sustained by wondrous natural resources, which contribute to the scenic and spiritual beauty of the nation as well as its economic productivity. Within these pages, readers are invited to tour Chinas cities, villages, and countryside. Theyll visit the natural and manmade landmarks that reveal as much about the history of this vast nation as its geography.Call Number: e-bookISBN: 9781615301348Publication Date: 2010
- Geography of Religion in Japan by This book discusses modern aspects of Japanese religion in terms of cultural geography. To understand the function of religion, it is essential to examine it in the context of local societies. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Japanese religion is its diversity; indeed, it is often remarked that "Japan is a museum of religions." In this work, the author clarifies some geographical aspects of the complex situation of Japanese religion. Chapter 1 discusses the trend of geographical studies of religion in Japan, of which four types can be identified. Chapter 2 focuses on certain characteristics of Japanese religious traditions by discussing tree worship and the landscape of sacred places. Chapter 3 clarifies regional divisions in the catchment areas of Japanese Shintoism by analyzing the distribution of certain types of believers. The author discusses two case studies: the Kasama Inari Shrine and the Kanamura Shrine. Chapter 4 discusses some modern aspects of sacred places and tourism through two case studies. The first part of the chapter focuses on changes in the types of businesses at the Omotesando of the Naritasan Shinshoji-Monzenmachi, and the following sections examine the revitalization of the local community through the promotion of religious tourism.Call Number: e-bookISBN: 4431545492Publication Date: 2013
- Heritage, Memory, and Punishment by Based on a transnational study of decommissioned, postcolonial prisons in Taiwan (Taipei and Chiayi), South Korea (Seoul), and China (Lushun), this book offers a critical reading of prisons as a particular colonial product, the current restoration of which as national heritage is closely related to the evolving conceptualization of punishment. Focusing on the colonial prisons built by the Japanese Empire in the first half of the twentieth century, it illuminates how punishment has been considered a subject of modernization, while the contemporary use of prisons as heritage tends to reduce the process of colonial modernity to oppression and atrocity - thus constituting a heritage of shame and death, which postcolonial societies blame upon the former colonizers. A study of how the remembering of punishment and imprisonment reflects the attempts of postcolonial cities to re-articulate an understanding of the present by correcting the past, Heritage, Memory, and Punishment examines how prisons were designed, built, partially demolished, preserved, and redeveloped across political regimes, demonstrating the ways in which the selective use of prisons as heritage, reframed through nationalism, leaves marks on urban contexts that remain long after the prisons themselves are decommissioned. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, geography, the built environment, and heritage with interests in memory studies and dark tourism.Call Number: e-bookISBN: 1351810758Publication Date: 2019
- Hong Kong Landscapes by Hong Kong has a largely mountainous terrain, very little flat land, no major rivers, no great forests, and a paucity of mineral wealth. The relative poverty of the place led the British Foreign Secretary to remark, in 1841, that Hong Kong was a barren rock with hardly a house upon it. Prior to that date, the rugged landscape of Hong Kong had evolved, with little human interference, over about 400 million years.Call Number: e-bookISBN: 9789882203877Publication Date: 2010
- Japanese Mandalas by The first broad study of Japanese mandalas to appear in a Western language, this volume interprets mandalas as sanctified realms where identification between the human and the sacred occurs. The author investigates eighth- to seventeenth-century paintings from three traditions: Esoteric Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, and the kami-worshipping (Shinto) tradition. It is generally recognized that many of these mandalas are connected with texts and images from India and the Himalayas. A pioneering theme of this study is that, in addition to the South Asian connections, certain paradigmatic Japanese mandalas reflect pre-Buddhist Chinese concepts, including geographical concepts. In convincing and lucid prose, ten Grotenhuis chronicles an intermingling of visual, doctrinal, ritual, and literary elements in these mandalas that has come to be seen as characteristic of the Japanese religious tradition as a whole. This beautifully illustrated work begins in the first millennium B.C.E. in China with an introduction to the Book of Documents and ends in present-day Japan at the sacred site of Kumano. Ten Grotenhuis focuses on the Diamond and Womb World mandalas of Esoteric Buddhist tradition, on the Taima mandala and other related mandalas from the Pure Land Buddhist tradition, and on mandalas associated with the kami-worshipping sites of Kasuga and Kumano. She identifies specific sacred places in Japan with sacred places in India and with Buddhist cosmic diagrams. Through these identifications, the realm of the buddhas is identified with the realms of the kami and of human beings, and Japanese geographical areas are identified with Buddhist sacred geography. Explaining why certain fundamental Japanese mandalas look the way they do and how certain visual forms came to embody the sacred, ten Grotenhuis presents works that show a complex mixture of Indian Buddhist elements, pre-Buddhist Chinese elements, Chinese Buddhist elements, and indigenous Japanese elements.Call Number: e-bookISBN: 0824820819Publication Date: 1998
- Presence Through Sound: Music and Place in East Asia by Presence Through Sound narrates and analyses, through a range of case studies on selected musics of China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Tibet, some of the many ways in which music and 'place' intersect and are interwoven with meaning in East Asia. It explores how place is significant to the many contexts in which music is made and experienced, especially in contemporary forms of longstanding traditions but also in other landscapes such as popular music and in the design of performance spaces. It shows how music creates and challenges borders, giving significance to geographical and cartographic spaces at local, national, and international levels, and illustrates how music is used to interpret relationships with ecology and environment, spirituality and community, and state and nation. The volume brings together scholars from Australia, China, Denmark, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the UK, each of whom explores a specific genre or topic in depth. Each nuanced account finds distinct and at times different aspects to be significant but, in demonstrating the ability of music to mediate the construction of place and by showing how those who create and consume music use it to inhabit the intimate, and to project themselves out into their surroundings, each points to interconnections across the region and beyond with respect to perception, conception, expression, and interpretation. In Presence Through Sound, ethnomusicology meets anthropology, literature, linguistics, area studies, and - particularly pertinent to East Asia in the twenty-first century - local musicologies. The volume serves a broad academic readership and provides an essential resource for all those interested in East Asia.Call Number: e-bookISBN: 9781000095944Publication Date: 2020
- Taiwan Studies Revisited by This book examines and reviews some of the key figures in Taiwan Studies to plot the development of the field by revisiting their earlier influential books and bodies of work. Often autobiographical in detail, each chapter asks the author to discuss the origins of their research and how their engagement with the field has developed since. The contributors then discuss their methodologies, fieldwork and arguments, as well as how their work was received at the time. They also go on to reflect on their chosen methods and core findings, assessing whether they have stood the test of time. Reflecting the diversity of the Taiwan Studies field, subjects covered in this volume include sociology, musicology, linguistics, comparative politics, international relations and anthropology. As such, this comprehensive overview adopts a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to understanding Taiwan. Painting a picture of the changing state of international Taiwan Studies through the work of leading scholars, this book will be invaluable to students and scholars of Taiwan Studies, Chinese Studies and Asian politics, culture and society.Call Number: e-bookISBN: 9780429535574Publication Date: 2019
