Yao Jiang

Independent bookstores (often called "indies" or "independents") as named are retail bookshops owned independently, contrasting with chain bookstores. Since an indie is always established by one or few owners, particular genres and editions can be found from bookstore to bookstore, such as new books and used books (also called "second-hand books"). Benefiting from its exclusive collections, an indie could always develop strong connections between readers, publishers, authors, and space itself. Guest Column once notes that indie is "a place for like-minded individuals to gather together and exchange ideas … [it is also a place for] supporting core values of community, creativity, convening, civility and contact." This argument is reminiscent of Paul Groth's identification of Landscape as "the interaction of people and place: a social group and its spaces, particularly the spaces to which the group belongs and from which its members derive some part of their shared identity and meaning." Therefore, it is interesting to situate an independent bookstore in the discussion of cultural landscape, to explore how an independent bookstore is shaped by its geographical contexts, but creates its own cultural landscape actively within the broader socio-cultural networks.

Emerging from the discourse of environmental humanities, plant humanities debuted at Dumbarton Oaks in 2018 as an interdisciplinary field. As living species, plants possess both biological and cultural attributes, holding unparalleled socio-cultural significance. This article recollects the author’s journey of encountering plant humanities in the 2020 Plant Humanities Summer Program, and co-initiating an action group in China, Plant South Salesroom, to promote the burgeoning plant-matters idea among
wider audience. Plant South Salesroom raised the phrase “Zhiwu Shimin” (植物世民, Plant Inhabitant) to get rid of the ingrained plant blindness and open potential dialogues between scientific and humanities studies. It makes the modified research framework of plant humanities more accessible. Rooted in the plant humanities studies, Plant South Salesroom has conducted diverse public-engaged practices at local cultural space, combined with culture-oriented creation and spread. The activities of Plant Walk, Plant Life Interview, Local Plant Post, and Plant Tabloid facilitate the participants start to appreciate plants in the original form and be kin with them. Reciprocally, the feedback received during the practices and the insights captured under the perspective of plants also enriched the existing plant humanities studies.

The referral of Historic Monuments and Sites of Ancient Quanzhou (Zayton) in 2018 is a sudden brake for China in the rapid-developing field of cultural heritage inscription. And the key reason for the referral given by ICOMOS and the World Heritage Committee is about “further refinement and focus on the justification for associated criteria”, which alludes to the reinterpretation on how the statement of Zayton as a representative of the Maritime Silk Road could match up with the conception of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV). But it also raises out the continuous argument about whether the conception of OUV is still a Eurocentric idea or not. So this paper aims to use the case of the referral of Zayton as a lens through which two questions would be examined. On the one hand, based on the comparisons among each documentation published by the World Heritage Committee over time, crucial turning points on the definition and criteria of OUV could be figured out, which might be an answer to whether or not OUV
has paid attentions to local diversities to amend its Eurocentric origin. While on the other hand, it is also of great significance to reveal who the major actors are through the generation of the “Maritime Silk Road” idea and how these local actors reinterpret the definition and criteria of OUV in different periods according to their indigenous cognitions and the general social backgrounds. Once bringing these two aspects into a conversation about each acknowledge on the definition and criteria of OUV, the term which is firstly constructed in a Eurocentric discourse could be reevaluated from a non-European region‟s perspective. Besides, this conversation could also help to make a reflection on the reasons for China‟s referral in a deeper situation rather than superficially blaming on the notion of OUV as a Eurocentric idea.

After 1911's Xinhai Revolution, with the prevalence of constructions of public parks in the Republic of China era (1912-1949), the history of Chinese Garden started to be noticed by Chinese scholars. Especially in the 1930s and 1940s, during which time The Society for the Study of Chinese Architecture (yingzao xueshe) was founded, and Chinese architectural history was introduced into the modern global discourse by the Chinese First Generation of architects, the historical writings of Chinese history became an instrument to explore the rebirth of an ancient nation. It was a period that rethinking Chinese traditions and embracing new Western knowledge always occurred as a dichotomy, which provides an interesting scope to examine Chinese scholars' approaches to the historical writings of traditional Chinese Garden at that time. This comparison and analysis of different Chinese groups in the historical writings of Chinese Garden are vital not only to the understandings of varied methodologies applied in the scholarly writings, but also to the glimpse of how these scholars consider China as a nation with its history. Furthermore, it is also crucial to bring some of the Chinese groups into conversations with Western scholars from the English-writing field, to see how different or similar their approaches and cognitions could be, in a lens through which the interventions of western knowledge into the self-process of rethinking Chinese traditions could be revealed and delineated.

This thesis focuses on the Astor Chinese Garden Court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, interrogating how this “neo-historical garden” has transformed Americans’ understanding of the Chinese Garden since its opening in 1981. Three interlocking moments and historical scales are covered in this study: the history of Astor Court’s design and construction, the broader construction history of gardens inspired by Chinese examples in the United States, and the historiography of English-language accounts of the Chinese garden study. Applied methods in this study include archival research, video-based research, field research, historical analysis, material culture study, and case study.

Accordingly, this thesis underscores three pivot points catalyzed by the creation of the Astor Court as the first Ming-style Chinese garden installation in the United States. Firstly, the Astor Court has offered an unprecedented instance of creating an overseas Chinese garden from scratch. Secondly, the realization of Astor Court was a watershed moment in the construction of gardens in the US inspired by Chinese models; one that shifted from collecting fragments to a new interest, beginning in the early 1980s, in constructing cohesive replicas—the Simulacrum Era. Thirdly, the creation of Astor Court has provided a “tangible form” through which the American audience might better understand the Chinese Garden and associated foundational garden treatises. The Astor Court constructed a paradigmatic Ming-style Chinese Garden type that catalyzed a broader shift in the 1980s and 1990s US from generalized conceptions of the Oriental Garden to closer documentary studies of the Chinese Garden, a shift that solidified the predominant focus on Ming gardens.