Volume 82
Published on February 2025Volume title: Proceedings of ICSPHS 2025 Workshop: Global Educational Psychology and Covid-19's Impact on Learning Across Cultures
This paper compares depictions of Zheng Chenggong in Dutch, Japanese, and Chinese popular literature, focusing on plays and opera. Zheng's multifaceted identity and historical events have been reinterpreted by writers from these three countries to explore their proto-national identity. Dutch literature portrays Zheng as a barbaric pagan, Japanese literature emphasizes his Japanese ancestry and loyalty, while Han Chinese revolutionaries depict him as an anti-Qing leader. Zheng's complex character, including his loyalty to the Ming, aggressive invasion of Dutch Taiwan, and mixed military tactics, makes him susceptible to various literary reinterpretations. Authors cherry-pick elements from Zheng's life to fit their own proto-national narratives, resulting in diverse and often contrasting images of him.

This research conducts a thematic analysis of The Everlasting Regret based on Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT), aiming to uncover its deeper meanings by exploring the text's discourse structure and rhetorical relations. Unlike traditional literary criticism approaches, this study adopts the SDRT framework, with a focus on analyzing the rhetorical relations between Compound Discourse Units (CDUs). The academic debate surrounding the theme of The Everlasting Regret is extensive, with major perspectives including allegorical, romantic, and dual-theme interpretations. Through detailed analysis, this research argues that The Everlasting Regret does not present a dual theme, but rather a single one. Moreover, this theme is not a celebration of love, but rather a subtle and nuanced form of satire. Additionally, the research offers an in-depth examination of key discourse units within the text, revealing that the rhetorical relations among them can be interpreted as Contrast, Result, and Narration. This not only highlights the complexity of discourse coherence and textual structure, but also suggests a potential intrinsic link among these three rhetorical relations.

Focusing on feminist discourses within the structure of the patriarchal gaze, this paper analyzes the ability of female creators in the K-pop industry to dissolve male-dominated visual pleasure by using the K-pop girl group (G)I-DLE and their self-composed song “Nxde” as a case study. By exploring the song’s promotional strategy, arrangement, music video, lyrics, and social reactions, the study uncovers its unique attempt to subvert traditional gender narratives. The promotional strategy and arrangement critique the objectification of women through satirical elements; the music video deconstructs patriarchal society’s traditional perceptions of beauty and desire through aesthetic choices, homage to classic female figures, and innovative camera language. However, society’s response to “Nxde” reveals a contradiction between feminist ideals and commercial realities, and its stage performance and image remain controversial for catering to the male gaze. Research has shown that while female creators like (G)I-DLE have actively challenged patriarchal structures through their artwork, the complete dissolution of the male gaze in a highly commercialized industry like K-pop remains a complex and unfinished topic. However, works like “Nxde” are an important step forward in redefining the image of women in mainstream media and feminist narratives in pop culture.