 |
Associate
Professor
|
Ph.D. with distinction, January 1989, Columbia University, Department of Anthropology.
M.Phil. 1984, Columbia University, Department of Anthropology.
M.A. 1982, Columbia University, Department of Anthropology. Member of the Joint Program in Applied Anthropology with Teachers College.
B.S. with honors, 1980, University of Notre Dame. Major: Biology, and Concentration in Anthropology.
To my utter shock,
after I had been studying anthropology and Chinese and moved to Hong
Kong to teach, two other Joseph Boscos
emerged who also, as improbable as it seems, were interested in Taiwan
and China. (There are still other Joe Boscos,
but
let's not go there…) One is a lawyer who worked for former
Massachusetts Governor John Volpe, then went to Washington as Volpe’s
special assistant when he was named Secretary of Transportation by
President Nixon. That Joe
Bosco has also been a professor at
Georgetown and is a national security consultant. His full name
is Joseph A.
Bosco (I don't have a middle name or
initial). He wrote a few opinion pieces that led some friends to
wonder what had happened to "me"; here is a
Washington
Post
Op-Ed from 2001, and a
Taipei
Times
column that argued against China's legal claims to be able to
use force to unite Taiwan with the mainland. He argued for the
containment of China, and for pressing China on issues of US interest,
thus taking a politically conservative or hawkish point of view.
Here
is
a more recent opinion piece in the LA Times that argues the US
should end the policy of 'strategic ambiguity' and make clear that it
would protect Taiwan from attack, and in return Taiwan should agree to
"forgo formal independence for now." He also makes a point that I tend
to agree with, which is that "Two democratic peoples
could peacefully manage the question of unification, independence or
association." (Still, much work would need to be done to convince
Beijing that this policy is not designed to stealthily promote Taiwan
independence.)
More recent (2010) articles include one in the Washington Times
on the need to contain
China’s
growing
threat and a
call
in
the Christian Science Monitor for Obama to call a summit of
Nobel Peace Prize winners to protest China’s jailing of Liu Xiabo.
The other Joseph Bosco (who like the Georgetown lawyer also had
the middle initial “A”, but did not use it) was a journalist and the
author of a
book
on
the OJ Simpson trial. I only had occasion to meet him once
in November 2006 before he died at a relatively young 61 years of age
in July 2010 (see his
LA
Times
obituary here). He had
his
fans, but seemed to have some enemies (see this
blog
and this LA Times
Boyarsky column). He was very nice in
person when we met, but seemed sometimes pugnacious in his blogs, other
times regretful about unspecified choices in his life. In 2002,
he took a job teaching English in Fujian, and the next year moved to
Beijing where he was Visiting Professor of Journalism at the Beijing
Foreign Studies University. During his time in Fujian, the
journalist Joseph Bosco developed strong
opinions on the Taiwan issue, though unfortunately (for posterity, but
fortunately in other ways), his blog entries
are no longer on the web. The journalist Joseph
Bosco viewed himself as a liberal, but
since he had never been in Taiwan, he viewed the issue exclusively
through PRC eyes. He dismissed and disparaged Taiwanese claims
for independence, noting that the PRC will never accept an independent
Taiwan. He wrote so glowingly of the PRC that he attracted the
attention of the right wing press (see this
Newsmax article for a right-wing attack on
JB). The glowing piece on China was actually an attack on the
other Joseph
Bosco, so I felt caught in battle of Joseph
Boscos!
Needless to say, I am
not them. The Library of Congress knows me as
Bosco, Joseph, 1957- since I don't have a
middle name. I considered taking a middle name or initial, but a
librarian told me that would be even more confusing. So there we
are.
Bosco is not a common surname in Italy;
this site
will show you, however, that the name is not rare and is spread
throughout Italy (for the record, my Bosco
ancestors are from
Vasto, in the
Abruzzi, and 3
generations before that arrived in Vasto
from the Marche according to family tradition, but from Puglia further
south according to government records). Joseph, or Giuseppe, is
probably the most common male given name in Italy; San Giuseppe, on 19
March, was once a national holiday. So that is why there are 3 of
us. But it is still quite some coincidence that there are 3
Joseph Boscos (Boschi?)
who
have written about Taiwan and China.
I am also known by my Chinese name LIN Zhou (林舟). Lin is a common surname and means forest (which is what Bosco means in Italian). Zhou sounds like "Joe." I hope any other Joseph Boscos take different Chinese names (at least a different character, like 周or 州or even 粥 J ) to avoid confusion!
Fall 2015
On Research Leave, Conducting fieldwork in Taiwan
Spring 2015
ANTH 6020
Seminars
in Research Methods
ANTH 5251
Seminars in the Anthropology of China II (coordinator)
| 2004
Making
Anthropology
in
East
and
Southeast
Asia Shinji Yamashita,
Joseph Bosco, and Jerry Eades, eds. Oxford: Berghan Books.
1999 屏東縣萬丹鄉萬惠宮 (The Wanhui Temple of Wandan Township, Pingdong County [Taiwan]). Pingdong: Pingdong Cultural Center. (Bilingual) 1999 Temples of the Empress of Heaven (with Puay Peng Ho). Images of Asia Series. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. |
  |
2015 "Urban Processions: Colonial Decline and Revival as Heritage in Postcolonial Hong Kong." In Peter van der Veer, ed., Handbook of Religion and the Asian City: Aspiration and Urbanization in the Twenty-first Century, pp. 110-130. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
2015 "Chinese Popular Religion and Hong Kong Identity". Asian Anthropology 14(1): 8-20.
2014 "The Problem of Greed in Anthropology: Sumptuary Laws and New Consumerism in China." Economic Anthropology 1: 167-185.
2013 "The Hong Kong Ocean Park Kidnapping Rumor." Ethnology 50(2):135-151.
2012 "The Formula as a Managerial Tool: Audit Culture in Hong Kong". Journal of Workplace Rights 16(3-4) 383-403.
2010 "The Problem with Relativism in the Comparative Study of Religion." In Aspects of Transformation through Cultural Interaction, (bilingual publication in English and Japanese), edited by Shinohara Hirokata, Inoue Mituyuki, Huang Yun, Hino Yoshihiro, and Sun Qing, pp. 3-49. Osaka, Japan: Institute for Cultural Interaction Studies, Kansai University.
2009 “Underground Lotteries in China: The Occult Economy and Capitalist Culture” (with Lucia Huwy-Min Liu and Matthew West). In Research in Economic Anthropology: Economic Development, Integration, and Morality in Asia and the Americas, No. 29, Donald C. Wood, ed. Emerald Publishing. (Winner of Outstanding Author Contribution Award Winner at the Emerals Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2010).
2009 “SEAA 人类学词汇维基辞典的简介”. 西北民族研究 第63期：102-105.
2007 “Young People's Ghost Stories in Hong Kong”. In The Journal of Popular Culture 40(5):785-807.
2004 “Asian Anthropologies: Foreign, Native and Indigenous” (with Shinji Yamashita and J.S. Eades). In Making Anthropology in East and Southeast Asia Shinji Yamashita, Joseph Bosco, and Jerry Eades, eds. Oxford: Berghan Books, p. 1-34.
2004 “Local Theories and Sinicization in the Anthropology of Taiwan.” In Making Anthropology in East and Southeast Asia Shinji Yamashita, Joseph Bosco, and Jerry Eades, eds. Oxford: Berghan Books, pp. 208-252.
2004 "Anthropological Fieldwork in the 1980s: The Final Years of Martial Law." Issues & Studies 40(3-4): 428-439.
2004 "Hong Kong." In Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World, Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember, and Ian Skoggard, eds. NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, pp. 506-514.
2004 "Longer Contemplation." In New Reflections on Anthropological Studies of (greater) China, ed. Xin Liu. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, pp. 71-77.
2003 “The Supernatural in Hong Kong Young People's Ghost Stories.” Anthropological Forum 13(2):141-149.
2003 “Tianhou gong zhi chongjian yu huoli: Taiwan yu Xianggang bijiao yanjiu (The rebuilding and vitality of Tianhou Temples: A Taiwan and Hong Kong Comparison).” In Mazu xinyang de fazhan yu bianqian (Mazu Belief and Modern Society). Lin Meirong, Chang Hsun and Tsai Hsiang-hui, eds. Taipei: Taiwan Association for Religious Studies and Beigang Chaotian Gong.pp. 95-116.
2001 “The McDonald’s Snoopy Craze in Hong Kong” in Gordon Mathews and Lui Tai-lok, eds. Consuming Hong Kong, pp. 263-285. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
2001 “Hong Kong.” In Ember, Melvin and Carol R. Ember, eds. Countries and Their Cultures Volume 2, pp. 991-1000. New York: Macmillan Reference USA.
2001 The Tianhou Temple Ritual and Architecture (CD-ROM) (with Puay Peng Ho). Published by the Depts. of Architecture and Anthropology, Chinese University, and distributed by The Chinese University Press.
1999 “An Anthropological View of the Hong Kong McDonald’s Snoopy Craze.” Hong Kong Anthropologist, No. 12: 23-30.
1998 “Anthropology among the natives: the indigenization of Chinese anthropology.” In Sidney C.H. Cheung, ed. On the South China Track: Perspectives on Anthropological Research and Teaching. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, pp. 23-44.
1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Co-Editor (with Grant Evans) Hong Kong Anthropologist (no. 10, 11, 12, 13).
1996 “Pagers and Culture in Hong Kong.” The Hong Kong Anthropologist No. 9, pp. 16-23.
1996 “Taiwan jiating qiye de wenhua quanshi [On Cultural Explanations for the Development of Family Factories in Taiwan].” (In Chinese) Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan (Chinese Social Sciences Quarterly) vol. 14 (April).
1995 Editor, Taiwan Studies: A Journal of Translation, issue on “Land Issues in Taiwan History” edited by Joseph Bosco and Chiu-kun Chen (vol. 1 no. 1), published by M.E. Sharpe, Armonk NY.
1995 co-editor (with Mau-kuei Michael Chang) of vol. 1 no. 2 of Taiwan Studies: A Journal of Translation, issue on “Ethnic Relations and National Identities.”
1995 “Better the Head of a Chicken than the Tail of an Ox: On Cultural Explanations for the Development of Family Factories in Taiwan.” Taiwan Studies Workshop, Fairbank Center Working Paper No. 12, Harvard University.
1994 “Taiwan Businessmen Across the Straits: Socio-Cultural Dimensions of the Cross-straits Relationship.” Working Paper No. 1, Department of Anthropology, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
1994 “Faction versus Ideology: Mobilization Strategies in Taiwan’s Elections.” China Quarterly 137: 28-62.
1994 “Yiguan Dao: ‘Heterodoxy’ and Popular Religion in Taiwan.” In Murray A. Rubinstein, ed., The Other Taiwan, 1945 to the Present. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., pp. 423-444.
1992 “The Emergence of a Taiwanese Popular Culture.” In American Journal of Chinese Studies 1(1):51-64. Reprinted in Murray A. Rubinstein, ed., 1994, The Other Taiwan, 1945 to the Present. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.. pp. 392-403.
1992 “The Effects of Land Reform on the Political Economy of Wandan Township.” Land Issues in Taiwan History. Chiu K. Chen and Hsueh-chi Hsu, eds. Taiwan History Field Research Office, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.
1992 “Research Note: The Role of Culture in Taiwanese Family Enterprises.” Chinese Business History 3(1):1-4.
1992 “Taiwan Factions: Guanxi, Patronage, and the State in Local Politics.” Ethnology 31(2):157-183. Reprinted in Murray A. Rubinstein, ed., 1994, The Other Taiwan, 1945 to the Present. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.. pp. 114-144.
1992 Approaches to Teaching About Taiwan (background booklet for social science teachers). Published by the East Asian Curriculum Project, Columbia University. Also wrote sections on “Family,” “Social Relations,” and “Taiwan” for China: A Teaching Workbook.
Last revised: 16 June 2015
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