https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/7741 2026-04-11T01:19:07Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/138544 Title: The emergence of Dutch sinology during the 19th century Abstract: This dissertation explores the emergence of Dutch Sinology in Indonesia during the 19th century, driven by Dutch colonialism. It argues that Dutch Sinology arose from practical necessities, particularly the need to oversee and regulate the Chinese community in the Dutch East Indies, rather than as an impartial or purely academic pursuit. The research highlights the government's motivations for investing in Sinological expertise while tracing the development of Chinese language education in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. Furthermore, it details the dialects of Hakka, Hokkien, and Cantonese that students needed to learn for their professional advancement. The study underscores the crucial roles of sinologists as interpreters, advisors, researchers, and educators, along with their contributions to Sinology, including the notable journal T'oung Pao. This investigation also examines how the necessity for skilled translators and officials versed in Chinese culture and language spurred the establishment of Sinology as an academic discipline. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/138543 Title: Gaming narratives : Chinese culture in digital mediums Abstract: This study asks how recent Chinese video games present Chinese culture while operating under state regulation and pursuing global markets. To address this question, it conducts close textual analysis of three landmark titles: Genshin Impact (2020), Naraka: Bladepoint (2021), and Black Myth: Wukong (2024). It examines narrative motifs, visual and architectural design, and music in the context of China’s policy framework and commercial imperatives. The comparison shows that all three games foreground heritage elements such as mythology, imperial architecture, and traditional instruments, yet adopt hybrid aesthetics that make those elements legible to worldwide players. Regulatory guidelines steer developers toward positive heritage themes and away from politically sensitive material, while export ambitions encourage anime- or cinema-inflected styles that broaden appeal. The analysis concludes that contemporary Chinese games function as curated cultural texts: they negotiate ideological boundaries, satisfy market requirements, and offer international audiences vivid, and at times selective encounters with Chinese tradition, thereby extending China’s soft-power reach through interactive media. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/138541 Title: The representation of women in Lu Xun’s “Soap” and Ding Ling’s “Miss Sophia’s diary” Abstract: This thesis examines the spatial dimensions of female subjectivity in twentieth-century Chinese literature, focusing on Soap by Lu Xun and Miss Sophia’s Diary by Ding Ling. Emerging during the transformative period of the May Fourth Movement, both texts grapple with modernity, individualism, and the shifting roles of women within a rapidly changing social landscape. While the May Fourth era is often viewed through the lens of national reform and political awakening, this study attends instead to the nuanced ways in which physical and psychological spaces are constructed and contested in fiction, particularly as they pertain to gender and autonomy. Ding Ling’s Miss Sophia’s Diary offers a rare, introspective portrayal of a young woman negotiating illness, desire, and alienation from within the confines of a rented Beijing apartment. In contrast, Lu Xun’s Soap renders domestic space as a site of performance and agency, especially in relation to class and feminine respectability. Though markedly different in voice and form, both narratives reveal how spatial settings, like the rooms and the house, function not merely as backdrops, but as active participants in the emotional and ideological experiences of their female characters. Through a comparative lens grounded in spatial theory, particularly the work of Henri Lefebvre and feminist scholars such as Virginia Woolf, this dissertation argues that space in these works is gendered, politicised, and deeply entangled with the self. The female body, constrained yet expressive, navigates these spaces in ways that illuminate the broader struggles of modern identity, nationhood, and literary form. In contributing to the growing field of feminist literary studies in modern Chinese literature, this thesis seeks to shed light on the often-overlooked domestic and psychological landscapes within which female subjectivity takes shape, landscapes that are fraught with contradiction, vulnerability, and power Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/138511 Title: Currency as a tool for nation-building : the case of Iraq Abstract: The following dissertation examines the role of currency imagery in the nation-building process in Iraq, highlighting how banknotes and coins have been used as instruments of political messaging and national identity construction. While the study of nationalism often focuses on political discourse, state institutions, or historical narratives, this research shifts the attention to material culture, specifically currency, as a widespread, daily tool through which national identity is projected and reinforced. By examining a wide range of Iraqi banknotes and coins issued from 1931 till the present day, the study explores how symbolic elements such as ancient Mesopotamian motifs, Islamic architecture, industrial progress, and images of political leaders have been employed to convey specific ideologies. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that Iraqi currency serves not only as a means of economic exchange but also as a powerful visual medium through which competing visions of Iraqi identity have been communicated. It contributes to the broader understanding of how everyday objects are used in nationalist projects. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z