Dr Imma Di Biase
PhD Candidate (Chinese) Asia Institute |
Background
Dr Imma Di Biase is currently doing a PhD at the Asia Institute. Her research topic deals with the psychological and emotional impact on Chinese society by China's industrial development and growing economic and cultural ties with the Western world. How are Chinese people coping with this new reality? Are there signs of alienation from China's traditional culture in the new and old Chinese generations? Are Western mentality and customs changing the way Chinese look at themselves and at their cultural heritage and if so, to what extent and with what psychological and emotional repercussions?
Dr Imma Di Biase graduated in Sinology at Ca' Foscari University, Venice, Italy where she obtained the title of Doctor in Oriental Languages and Studies with extensive research on Chinese travellers of the Ming-Qing era.
In 2000 Dr Di Biase visited Taiwan where she carried out research on the Taiwanese community of Islamic religion (Hui), a reality that is scarcely known outside Taiwan.
Since 2002 she has been affiliated with Swinburne University as Adjunct Research Fellow in Sinology and her research activity has produced a number of publications including books, book chapters, research papers and articles listed below.
Publications and Papers
- 'Education in Taiwan,' an article on the educational system of Taiwan highlighting the high expectations and demands on Taiwanese students as opposed to the more relaxed criteria applied in Western countries. The article was published in 2003 in the educational journal Horizons
- 'Conquering the New Gold Mountain,' a historical account of Chinese Migration to Australia, as a chapter of a book titled "Social Exclusion - An Approach to the Australian case", published in 2003 by Peter Lang, Frankfurt, Germany.
- 'I Ching, the Chinese Code,' a modern interpretation of the ancient Chinese text with an insight into its origins and an account of its penetration in Europe. A book published in 2005 by Sigma Libri, Naples, Italy.
- 'Migration to Australia - The Chinese Experience,' a series of articles written in Mandarin and published by the Melbourne-based Chinese Review "Bridge", February and March 2005.
- 'Patterns of Chinese settlements in Australia,' a paper written in Mandarin included in a book published by Fudan University, Shanghai, after a conference held in July 2005 which Dr Di Biase attended as a speaker.
Dr Di Biase is currently co-writing with Dr Wu Jen-shu of the Department of History of Academia Sinica, Taipei, a book in Mandarin dealing with the advent of a bourgeois class during the Ming-Qing era and she has been commissioned a book on the history of China by an Italian publisher due to come out in 2007.