Every year, graduating students in Asian Studies work with a faculty advisor to complete a senior research project on any topic related to Asia.聽Each year, students produce excellent work on a wide variety of topics, and this year was certainly no exception, and we have included five of these theses in the Summer 2014 issue of the Colorado Journal of Asia Studies. This issue features work by Stanley Barnes, Sharon Chang, Joshua Griswold, Dennis Morin, and Kelsey Reed.
Stanley Barnes' essay opens this opens this volume with an investigation of the steps China should take to raise rural incomes in his thesis, "Improving Incomes in Rural China: Investment in Infrastructure and Education."
In "Fresh-Faced Boys and the Cute Boy Next Door: Evolution and Splintering of Masculinity in Japan through Men's Fashion Magazines Men's No-No and Fine Boys," Sharon Chang looks at the construction of masculinity in contemporary Japan.
The theses by Joshua Griswold and Dennis Morin fit nicely with the Center for Asian Studies' annual theme, "Catastrophic Asia." Griswold's "A Fight for the Right: An Analysis of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Island Dispute and the Possibility of Military Escalation" focuses on an ongoing military flashpoint in East Asia, and Morin's "Growing Apart: The Redevelopment and Rehabilitation of Beirut" on the aftermath of a brutal military conflict in West Asia.
Kelsey Reed's essay concludes the volume with her analysis of labor law in China, entitled, "A Close Examination of Chinese Labor Laws and the Issues of Implementation."
Each of these students produced outstanding work. To view the Summer 2014 issue, please click here. For past issues of the Colorado Journal of Asian Studies, please click here.