2017-2018 Williams Prize Award Winners

Charlotte Cotter
May 31, 2018

Charlotte Cotter (Grace Hopper ‘18) and Andrew Weiss (Davenport ‘18) were two winners of the 2018 Williams Prize in East Asian Studies.  Charlotte, for her essay submitted to the East Asian Studies Program, “Alternative Marriage Practices of Wartime Urban China in Discourse and Practice (1937-1949),” and Andrew for his essay, also submitted to the East Asian Studies Program, “Towards a Beautiful Japan: Right-Wing Religious Nationalism in Japan’s LDP.”

The Council on East Asian Studies had a chance to catch up with Charlotte and Andrew shortly before graduation and they kindly answered a few of our questions about their essays.


Charlotte Cotter

To begin, could you please provide an abstract or brief summary of your essay entitled “Alternative Marriage Practices of Wartime Urban China in Discourse and Practice (1937-1949)”?

My paper argues that for urban couples in wartime China, material scarcity, population displacement, and economic inflation led to an increase in alternative marriage practices, namely a rise in “cohabitation” announcements and the proliferation of “war wives” and “war husbands.” Not only did wartime intensify certain practices, but I also argue that the wartime period was crucial in creating space for the urban-middle-class to publically engage with alternative definitions of marriage. It was into this social atmosphere that the PRC began to implement family reform movements when they took power after 1949.

How did you first get interested in your topic of research? 

In my first semester at Yale, I took a survey class on Modern Chinese History entitled “China’s Global 20th Century” with Professor Peter Perdue and CJ Huang, and I became interested in China’s involvement in WWII and the Japanese invasion of China.  The concept of the Japanese occupation of China also fascinated me, especially in Shanghai, a uniquely cosmopolitan city that already been broken up into foreign concessions. For this first class, my final paper attempted to re-position the now beloved Chinese writer Eileen Chang within her original historical context of occupied Shanghai. In a subsequent seminar on Modern Cities in Asia, I explored the idea of the “solitary island” period that the international concessions experienced in the years between when the Japanese took the areas surrounding Shanghai to when they occupied the entire city the morning after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In his groundbreaking work on the re-building of governing institutions in the occupied areas of the Yangtze River Delta entitled Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China, Timothy Brook aptly noted that women were often missing from histories of occupied China and that a social history of occupied Yangtze river delta China had yet to be written. I was interested to see what I could do to try to address this gap in the research. It was about this time that I found Hanna Diamond’s work Women and the Second World War in France, 1939-48: Choices and Constraints documenting women’s lives in occupied Vichy France, which was an initial inspiration for similar work that could be done on the China side. I also drew inspiration from Zhao Ma’s work Runaway Wives, Urban Crimes and Survival Tactics in Wartime Beijing, 1937-1949, which drew on local court cases to paint a picture of the lives, struggles, and survival of lower class women in wartime Beijing. Based on the sources I was able to access, what began as an investigation into women’s lives in occupied Shanghai turned into a look at changing marriage practices as a way for both women and men to cope with wartime population displacement, economic inflation, and material scarcity.   

What would you say was the most interesting finding of your research?  Were there any surprises?

I was looking for a topic where I enjoyed what I was reading about. Stories of wartime marriage, of course, were often fraught with pain and suffering, and I do not want to downplay the difficulty of decisions made under such conditions. However, sometimes, there was also a humorous element to these stories. In one of the stories, a man returns from Kunming to his hometown in Eastern China after the war only to find that his wife had remarried in order to support herself. In a rage, he demands that the new husband repay his original cost of the dowry and wedding. But this new husband does not have the funds to pay such money, and the original man has no choice but to accept a one-way plane ticket back to Kunming. I guess in a larger sense, the more light-hearted tone that was taken definitely surprised me – that was part of my argument that, even if temporarily and with the expectation that things would revert back at the end of the war, wartime opened up space for public discussion of these phenomena.

What was the most challenging part of your research?

For a while I was working primarily with a source called nü sheng 女聲[Women’s Voice], a monthly women’s life and culture magazine published in Shanghai during the occupation. I wanted to see whether it shed light on interesting aspects of women’s daily life in the occupied metropolis. Unfortunately, I found that the articles largely ignored wartime conditions and suffering, like many other periodicals published during the occupation that targeted a war weary public which simply wanted to escape the difficult realities of daily life. That is, in the words of Susan Glosser in her piece “Women’s Culture of Resistance: An Ordinary Response to Extraordinary Circumstances,” “these journals tell us a lot about what women should have been doing about their families and their marriage, but very little about what they actually did.” Finding a source that would reflect experiences of the average urban woman as they adjusted to the complexities and conditions of wartime would prove to be more difficult. When I did find sources that worked, I had to adjust my topic somewhat.

What resources at Yale were the most helpful for your research? 

I mostly relied on the online newspaper databases for which Yale has a subscription.

I’d like to thank the librarians at the East Asian Studies Library, especially Michael Meng, for helping point me in the direction of important databases that became crucial in my research. I also consulted with a number of different Professors and affiliates of Yale, including Professor Denise Ho and Mark Baker, and especially my advisor, Professor Peter Perdue.  I remember that I encountered a lot of trouble with writer’s block when turning from research to writing my paper, and Professor Perdue sent me a detailed and encouraging email with tips from his own experience. As simple as it seems, the most important thing for me to hear was that first drafts do not have to be perfect – that’s why there are drafts!

Were you able to travel to Asia during your time at Yale?  If so, where and when, and what type of program?  Did you go on a Light Fellowship? 

I was very lucky to have the opportunity to travel to Asia multiple times while I was at Yale! I led two Building Bridges trips for Yale students to teach middle-schoolers in rural China, the first in Zhangzhou city, Fujian, and the second in Xinyang city, Henan. Additionally, During the Summer of 2015, I was on Light Fellowship in Harbin, China at the CET Harbin intensive Chinese language program. In the Fall of 2016, the Light Fellowship generously funded a semester of study at the International Chinese Language Program in Taipei.  Of course, all of my language study and experience in China prepared for this thesis, but I’d like to especially single out my time at ICLP. I did not realize it at the time, but my classes at ICLP were crucial in allowing me to read many of the documents that I used for this project. Particularly, I think that working with Yang Laoshi on translating the many classical Chinese passages in Zhongguo jindaishi 中國近代史 was critical, so I’d like to give him a shout-out.

How important would you say your language study at Yale was to your research?

Crucial. All of the language classes and hours of study that I had put into Mandarin were put to the test during this project. My study of classical Chinese at Yale and during Light Fellowships very much helped in reading texts that were more classically informed.

When you had some downtime on campus, what did you like to do for fun?  Any particular interests or hobbies related to East Asia?

I love volunteering and working with kids, and some of my fondest memories of Yale are being involved in the student group CASPY, short for the Chinese Adopted Siblings Program for Youth, which hosts a day-long event at Yale once a semester for Chinese adoptees and their parents to connect with the community and learn about their heritage. As a Chinese adoptee who has benefitted a lot from the support of community and from early exposure to Chinese culture and language, it really meant a lot for me to pay it forward for other Chinese adoptees and their families.

What advice would you offer to rising seniors about how to tackle their senior theses?

I’d say that beginning to write far before you feel ready is very helpful. Writing was crucial in helping me organize what I’d found and formulating coherent arguments about it, and it would have helped if I had been stepping back from the mountain of facts to process the larger picture of my research more along the way. The Senior Essay Handbook for seniors in the Yale History department also provided a wealth of knowledge from many generations of seniors who have written theses, and hearing some of the common pitfalls and some of the most successful strategies was extremely humbling and valuable.

What will you be doing after graduation?

I have always been passionate about building bridges between China and the United States and I want to continue to work toward that.  

I continue to lead an organization that I founded in high school called China’s Children International.  CCI provides programming for Chinese adoptees including: networking opportunities, volunteer trips to China and mentoring programs.  I am also working with a company which works with Chinese students who want to study in the United States. I will be facilitating some trips to the US this summer for those students.  Also, I am doing some research for Yale Professor Denise Ho, which I will continue into the summer.

Eventually, I plan to go to graduate school in an area that will facilitate the type of Chinese American connections that are at the center of my interests.  There are different (and overlapping) ways to build those connections - I would say that my focus would be education.


Andrew Weiss

To begin, could you please provide an abstract or brief summary of your essay entitled “Towards a Beautiful Japan: Right-Wing Religious Nationalism in Japan’s LDP”?

I researched the influence of religious groups, especially Shinto-linked religious groups, on right-wing policy positions in Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, finding a significant role of these groups in crafting certain key areas of policy.

How did you first get interested in your topic of research? 

While studying abroad in Japan on the Light Fellowship, I noticed political material being distributed in Shinto shrines, which I had previously thought of as peaceful, apolitical places. Looking further into the subject revealed a network of religious groups and activists wide enough that I thought it merited further study.

What would you say was the most interesting finding of your research?  Were there any surprises?

I think the most interesting finding was that Japanese public opinion is largely ambivalent about many of the issues that are seen as so important in the international media. I was surprised by how willing many right-wing activists were to speak with me.

What was the most challenging part of your research?

Going alone to Japan and setting up meetings with strangers, some of whom have what I consider to be extreme views, was challenging, especially as I had to do everything in a foreign language.

What resources at Yale were the most helpful for your research? 

The East Asian Library provided me with access while at Yale to essential databases and resources, and also helped me with access to libraries in Japan. My thesis adviser, Frances Rosenbluth also provided me with indispensable introductions.

Were you able to travel to Asia during your time at Yale?  If so, where and when, and what type of program?  Did you go on a Light Fellowship? 

I traveled to Japan twice on Light Fellowships to study Japanese, and twice through the help of the Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership Grant to conduct research.

How important would you say your language study at Yale was to your research?

This research would have been completely impossible without the high level of Japanese instruction I received at Yale and the support of the Light Fellowship to learn Japanese abroad.

What advice would you offer to rising seniors about how to tackle their senior theses?

The earlier you start, the more and better research you will be able to do. Yale provides a huge amount of resources to seniors wishing to do independent research, take advantage of them.

What will you be doing after graduation?

I will be doing management consulting in Tokyo.