New Books in Chinese Studies

Xiaofei Kang, "Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942-1953" (Oxford UP, 2023)

09 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

China’s communist revolution has an intricate relationship with gender and religion. In Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics ...

Psychedelics, Mysticism, Aliens, and the Dao (Pierce Salguero and Dominic Steavu)

08 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Pierce Salguero sits down with Dominic Steavu, a historian of Chinese religion and healing from UC Santa Barbara. We discuss the central role of th...

Andres Rodriguez, "Frontier Fieldwork: Building a Nation in China's Borderlands, 1919-45" (U British Columbia Press, 2022)

06 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1911, as China was beset with challenges, a new generation of scholars considered a new problem: what to do with former imperial borders? How could...

Thomas S. Mullaney, "The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age" (MIT Press, 2024)

29 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The fascinating, untold story of how the Chinese language overcame unparalleled challenges and revolutionized the world of computing. A standard QWERT...

Michael Davis, "Freedom Undone: The Assault on Liberal Values in Hong Kong" (Association for Asian Studies, 2023)

27 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"What happened in Hong Kong is not an anomaly but a warning" - Hong Kong Human Rights defender Chow Hang Tung, speech written from prison upon receivi...

Chia-ling Yang, "Appropriating Antiquity for Modern Chinese Painting" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

27 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The pursuit of antiquity was important for scholarly artists in constructing their knowledge of history and cultural identity in late imperial China. ...

George S. Takach, "Cold War 2.0: Artificial Intelligence in the New Battle between China, Russia, and America" (Pegasus Book, 2024)

24 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A vivid, thoughtful examination of how technological innovation—especially AI—is shaping the tensions between democracy and autocracy during the n...

Jeffrey A. Javed, "Righteous Revolutionaries: Morality, Mobilization, and Violence in the Making of the Chinese State" (U Michigan Press, 2022)

23 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In an era where states and politicians regularly weaponize moral emotions to foment intergroup conflict and violence, understanding the dynamics of vi...

Noo Saro-Wiwa, "Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China" (Canongate Books, 2024)

21 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Just a decade ago, before COVID upended everything, tens of thousands of migrants from African countries traveled to China in search of economic oppor...

Fran Martin, "Dreams of Flight: The Lives of Chinese Women Students in the West" (Duke UP, 2021)

20 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dreams of Flight: The Lives of Chinese Women Students in the West (Duke UP, 2021) explores the significance of transnational educational mobility in ...

Niki J. P. Alsford, "Taiwan Lives: A Social and Political History" (U Washington Press, 2024)

19 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As Taiwan gains prominence on international headlines, often framed in terms of conflict with China, it’s easy to neglect the island nation’s huma...

Amber Worlds: The Global Amber Trade in the China-Myanmar Borderlands

15 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What role do China and other Asian countries play in the global amber trade? And, what can we learn about the big challenges of our time by studying a...

Charlotte Setijadi, "Memories of Unbelonging: Ethnic Chinese Identity Politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)

15 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The ethnic Chinese have had a long and problematic history in Indonesia, commonly stereotyped as a market-dominant minority with dubious political loy...

Angie Chau, "Paris and the Art of Transposition: Early Twentieth Century Sino-French Encounters" (U Michigan Press, 2023)

06 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A brief stay in France was, for many Chinese workers and Chinese Communist Party leaders, a vital stepping stone for their careers during the cultural...

Zhongping Chen, "Transpacific Reform and Revolution: The Chinese in North America, 1898-1918" (Stanford UP, 2023)

04 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the turbulent end of China’s imperial system, violent revolutionary movements, and the fraught...

Peter Harmsen, "Bernhard Sindberg: The Schindler of Nanjing" (Casemate, 2024)

28 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In December 1937, the Chinese capital, Nanjing, falls and the Japanese army unleash an orgy of torture, murder, and rape. Over the course of six weeks...

Mai Corlin, "The Bishan Commune and the Practice of Socially Engaged Art in Rural China" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020)

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On the podcast today, I am joined by Mai Corlin, who is researcher at the department of cross-cultural and regional studies in the University of Copen...

Peter Harmsen, "Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze" (Casemate, 2015)

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Harmsen's book Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze (Casemate, 2015) describes one of the great forgotten battles of the 20th century. At...

Charles B. Jones, "Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s guest is Charles B. Jones, Associate Professor and Director of the Religion and Culture graduate program in the School of Theology and Relig...

The Future of the Chinese Military: A Discussion with James A. Siebens

23 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For all the talk of China being a peaceful country with no aggressive intentions, it has behaved like most other rising powers – spending lots of mo...

Lu Xun, "Wild Grass and Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk" (Harvard UP, 2022)

13 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this captivating translation of the imaginative prose essay collection Wild Grass (1927) and experimental memoir Morning Blossoms Gathered at Du...

Cheow Thia Chan, "Malaysian Crossings: Place and Language in the Worlding of Modern Chinese Literature" (Columbia UP, 2022)

10 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Malaysian Chinese (Mahua) literature is marginalized on several fronts. In the international literary space, which privileges the West, Malaysia is co...

Xuelei Huang, "Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

10 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this vivid and highly original reading of recent Chinese history, Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell (Cambridge University Press, 2023) D...

Anru Lee, "Haunted Modernities: Gender, Memory, and Placemaking in Postindustrial Taiwan" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)

09 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On the podcast today, I am joined by Professor Anru Lee, who is professor of anthropology at John Jay College, the City University of New York. Anru w...

Wendy Cheng, "Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism" (U Washington Press, 2023)

08 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This episode, which is co-hosted with Tandee Wang, features a conversation with Dr. Wendy Cheng, author of Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Camp...

Florence Mok, "Covert Colonialism: Governance, Surveillance and Political Culture in British Hong Kong, c.1966-97" (Manchester UP, 2023)

08 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Florence Mok's book Covert Colonialism: Governance, Surveillance and Political Culture in British Hong Kong, c.1966-97 (Manchester UP, 2023) is tim...

Hedwig Amelia Waters, "Moral Economic Transitions in the Mongolian Borderlands: A Proportional Share" (UCL Press, 2023)

06 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1990s, Mongolia began a transition from socialism to a market democracy. In the process, the country became more than ever dependent on i...

Alex Burchmore, "New Export China: Translations Across Time and Place in Contemporary Chinese Porcelain Art" (U California Press, 2023)

02 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why do so many contemporary Chinese artists use porcelain in their work? How do artists make sense of the legacy that porcelain has in China, and how ...

Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin, "Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy" (Hachette, 2023)

02 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Among the Braves Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battles for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy (Hachette, 2023) Shibani Mahtani and T...

Kiribati in the Chinese Pacific: A Discussion with Rodolfo Maggio

02 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is Kiribati in the American lake, Indo-Pacific or Chinese Pacific? In this Episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen talks to Rodolfo Maggio, a senior researcher at ...

James St. André, "Conceptualising China through Translation" (Manchester UP, 2023)

23 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Conceptualising China through Translation (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. James St Andre provides an innovative methodology for investigat...

Paul D. Barclay, "Kondo the Barbarian: A Japanese Adventurer and Indigenous Taiwan's Bloodiest Uprising" (Eastbridge Books, 2023)

22 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Kondo the Barbarian: A Japanese Adventurer and Indigenous Taiwan's Bloodiest Uprising (Eastbridge Books, 2023) is a gripping and revealing account of...

Comics Journalism in Taiwan: The Reporter File

13 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This episode’s host, Adina Zemanek, invited Sherry Lee, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy CEO of the non-profit, independent media organization The...

Maria Repnikova, “Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism” (Cambridge UP, 2017)

06 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Despite its extraordinary diversity, life in the People’s Republic of China is all too often viewed mainly through the lens of politics, with dynami...

M. Sheehy and K-D Mathes, "The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet" (SUNY Press, 2019)

05 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Michael R. Sheehy and Klaus-Dieter Mathes's edited collection The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet (SUNY Press, 2...

China’s Environmental Footprint in Ghana: Non-State Responses

05 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Musicians and community activists in Ghana have raised their voices to increase awareness of the environmental impact of Chinese activities in the cou...

Timothy Brook, "The Price of Collapse: The Little Ice Age and the Fall of Ming China" (Princeton UP, 2023)

04 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ming China in 1642 had suffered a series of disasters. Floods, and then drought had destroyed successive rice crops, sending the price of grain to ast...

Hongwei Bao, “Queer Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism in Postsocialist China” (NIAS Press, 2018)

31 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hongwei Bao’s book is a thoughtful exploration of gay identity and queer activism in China. This work stems from the term and identity tongzhi, whi...

Denise Y. Ho, “Curating Revolution: Politics on Display in Mao’s China” (Cambridge UP, 2017)

30 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“In Mao’s China, to curate revolution was to make it material.” Denise Y. Ho’s new book explores this premise in a masterful account of exhibi...

Scott D. Seligman, "Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat, and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

28 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On an August night in 1933 Harbin in then-Japanese controlled Manchuria–Semyon Kaspe, French citizen, famed concert musician, and Russian Jew, is ab...

Kristian Petersen, “Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Language, and Scripture in the Han Kitab” (Oxford UP, 2017)

28 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In his monumental new book, Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Language, and Scripture in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017), Krist...

Alyssa M. Park, “Sovereignty Experiments: Korean Migrants and the Building of Borders in Northeast Asia, 1860-1945" (Cornell UP, 2019)

27 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Even in states where borders and sovereignty are supposedly well established, large movements of transnational migrants are seen to present problems, ...

Tamara Venit-Shelton, "Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace" (Yale UP, 2019)

26 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The modern popularity of acupuncture and herbal medicine belies the long history of Chinese medicine in the U.S. In Herbs and Roots: A History of Chin...

Nobuko Ishitate-Okunomiya Yamasaki, "Prostitutes, Hostesses, and Actresses at the Edge of the Japanese Empire" (Routledge, 2023)

25 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Analysing materials from literature and film, this book considers the fates of women who did not or could not buy into the Japanese imperial ideology ...

Jie Li, "Cinematic Guerrillas: Propaganda, Projectionists, and Audiences in Socialist China" (Columbia UP, 2023)

24 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the latest episode of New Books in Chinese Studies! I am your host, Julia Keblinska, and today I will be talking today to Jie Li, about her...

James Cummings, "The Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan: Sociality, Space and Time" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

23 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan: Sociality, Space and Time (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) by Dr. James Cummings explores the everyday lives of ga...

Thomas Kelly, "The Inscription of Things: Writing and Materiality in Early Modern China" (Columbia UP, 2023)

23 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why would an inkstone have a poem inscribed on it? Early modern Chinese writers did not limit themselves to working with brushes and ink, and their te...

Philip Snow, "China and Russia: Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord" (Yale UP, 2023)

22 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Russia and China, the largest and most populous countries in the world, respectively, have maintained a delicate relationship for four centuries. In a...

Wayne Soon, "Global Medicine in China: A Diasporic History" (Stanford UP, 2020)

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Wayne Soon about his book Global Medicine in China: A Diasporic History (Stanford UP, 2020). In 1938, one year into the Second Si...

June Hee Kwon, "Borderland Dreams: The Transnational Lives of Korean Chinese Workers" (Duke UP, 2023)

18 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Migration is a theme intertwined with hopes and dreams. In Borderland Dreams: The Transnational Lives of Korean Chinese Workers (Duke UP, 2023), Jun...

Hugo Wong, "America's Lost Chinese: The Rise and Fall of a Migrant Family Dream" (Oxford UP, 2023)

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Like countless other migrants from China, Hugo Wong’s great-grandfathers–Wong Foon Chuck and Leung Hing–travel across the Pacific to make a life...

Jean Yen-chun Lin, "A Spark in the Smokestacks: Environmental Organizing in Beijing Middle-Class Communities" (Columbia UP, 2023)

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Environmental organising in Beijing emerged in an unlikely place in the 2000s: new gated residential communities. After rapid population growth and ho...

Michael W. Doyle, "Cold Peace: Avoiding the New Cold War" (Liveright, 2023)

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Michael W. Doyle's book Cold Peace: Avoiding the New Cold War (Liveright, 2023) offers an urgent examination of the world barreling toward a new Co...

Tristan G. Brown, "Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China" (Princeton UP, 2023)

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to another episode of New Books in Chinese Studies. I am your host, Julia Keblinska, and I am speaking today to Prof. Tristan Brown about his ...

Grace Lin, "Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods" (Little, Brown Books, 2023)

08 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Newbery and Caldecott honoree and New York Times bestselling author Grace Lin joins New Books Network to talk about her new, groundbreaking, lushly il...

Susan Blumberg-Kason, "Bernardine's Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China" (Post Hill Press, 2023)

07 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1929, Bernardine Szold Fritz left Paris on a train bound for China. She was on her way to her fourth wedding, and her fourth husband: An American i...

Genealogies of Modernity Episode 2: What Is Modernity?

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We often think of modernity as a distinct time period in history – one that is said to start at different places, but which always includes us. Yet ...

Amy Matthewson, "Cartooning China: Punch, Power, & Politics in the Victorian Era" (Routledge, 2022)

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Amy Matthewson's Cartooning China: Punch, Power, & Politics in the Victorian Era (Routledge, 2022) explores the series of cartoons of China and...

Lawrence Zhang, "Power for a Price: The Purchase of Official Appointments in Qing China" (Harvard UP, 2023)

04 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Qing dynasty's office purchase system (juanna) allowed men to legally and openly pay for appointments in the civil service — enabling them to sk...

Book Chat: Eco-translation from Taiwan and Wu Ming-yi’s The Stolen Bicycle 單車失竊記, with Darryl Sterk

02 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, our host, Ti-han, invited Dr Darryl Sterk, a Canadian eco-translator who is now based in Lingnan University in Hong Kong and dedicate...

Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilisation

02 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The “barbarian” nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. T...

Shuchen Xiang, "Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2023)

29 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and difference. Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastr...

Henrietta Harrison, "The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators Between Qing China and the British Empire" (Princeton UP, 2021)

28 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators Between Qing China and the British Empire (Princeton UP, 2021) is a fascinati...

Erin Baggott Carter and Brett L. Carter, "Propaganda in Autocracies: Institutions, Information, and the Politics of Belief" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

19 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A dictator's power is secure, the authors begin in this muscular, impressive study, only as long as citizens believe in it. When citizens suddenly bel...

Huping Ling, "Chinese Americans in the Heartland: Migration, Work, and Community" (Rutgers UP, 2022)

16 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Huping Ling on her two latest books, Chinese Americans in the Heartland: Migration, Work, and Community...

Kimberley Ens Manning, "The Party Family: Revolutionary Attachments and the Gendered Origins of State Power in China" (Cornell UP, 2023)

16 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Kimberley Ens Manning's book The Party Family: Revolutionary Attachments and the Gendered Origins of State Power in China (Cornell UP, 2023) explor...

Emily H. C. Chua, "The Currency of Truth: Newsmaking and the Late-Socialist Imaginaries of China's Digital Era" (U Michigan Press, 2023)

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

China’s news sector is a place where newsmakers, advertising executives, company bosses, and Party officials engage one another in contingent and ev...

Kai Jun Chen, "Porcelain for the Emperor: Manufacture and Technocracy in Qing China" (U Washington Press, 2023)

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Porcelain for the Emperor: Manufacture and Technology in Qing China (University of Washington Press; 2023) looks at the history of court-sponsored p...

A Chinese-American Buddhist Healer (Pierce Salguero and Kin Cheung)

11 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with Kin Cheung, a scholar of contemporary Buddhism at Moravian University. We talk about his research on a Chinese-Amer...

Huwy-min Lucia Liu, "Governing Death, Making Persons: The New Chinese Way of Death" (Cornell UP, 2023)

10 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Governing Death, Making Persons: The New Chinese Way of Death (Cornell UP, 2023) tells the story of how economic reforms and changes in the manageme...

Jieh-min Wu, "Rival Partners: How Taiwanese Entrepreneurs and Guangdong Officials Forged the China Development Model" (Harvard UP, 2022)

09 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Taiwan has been depicted as an island facing the incessant threat of forcible unification with the People’s Republic of China. Why, then, has Taiwan...

Fuchsia Dunlop, "Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food" (Norton, 2023)

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese labourers began to sojourn and settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake...

Timothy Brook, "The Price of Collapse: The Little Ice Age and the Fall of Ming China" (Princeton UP, 2023)

03 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1644, after close to three centuries of relative stability and prosperity, the Ming dynasty collapsed. Many historians attribute its demise to the ...

Mingwei Song, "Fear of Seeing: A Poetics of Chinese Science Fiction" (Columbia UP, 2023)

29 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I am talking today to Mingwei Song about his new book, Fear of Seeing: A Poetics of Chinese Science Fiction (Columbia UP, 2023). The book is a sweep...

Ji Li, "At the Frontier of God's Empire: A Missionary Odyssey in Modern China" (Oxford UP, 2023)

22 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

To a lively cast of international players that shaped Manchuria during the early twentieth century, At the Frontier of God's Empire: A Missionary Ody...

Chris Fraser, "Late Classical Chinese Thought" (Oxford UP, 2023)

20 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Late Classical Chinese Thought (Oxford University Press, 2023) is Chris Fraser's topically organized study of the Warring States period of Chinese ph...

Shellen Xiao Wu, "Birth of the Geopolitical Age: Global Frontiers and the Making of Modern China" (Stanford UP, 2023)

20 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From the 1850s until the mid-twentieth century, a period marked by global conflicts and anxiety about dwindling resources and closing opportunities af...

Cleric, Cadre, Businessman: China’s Development Strategy in Sri Lanka

20 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What does Buddhism have to do with harbors? Find out how China is leveraging religion in its foreign policy and why it is a vital part of China's soft...

Margaret Hillenbrand, "On the Edge: Feeling Precarious in China" (Columbia UP, 2023)

14 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Margaret Hillenbrand’s On the Edge: Feeling Precarious in China (Columbia UP, 2023) examines the negative cultural forms that have emerged in resp...

Parks M. Coble, "The Collapse of Nationalist China: How Chiang Kai-shek Lost China's Civil War" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

14 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Parks M. Coble's book The Collapse of Nationalist China: How Chiang Kai-shek Lost China's Civil War (Cambridge UP, 2023) revisits one of the most st...

The Future of Superstates: A Discussion with Alasdair Roberts

09 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Empires​ are supposed to be a thing of the past but very big countries with global reach are becoming more entrenched. By 2050, almost 40 per cent o...

Christopher P. Atwood, "The Rise of the Mongols: Five Chinese Sources" (Hackett, 2021)

08 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this interview we deep dive into the historiographical issues of the texts in The Rise of the Mongols: Five Chinese Sources (Hackett, 2021), edi...

Angelina Chin, "Unsettling Exiles: Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong and the Southern Periphery During the Cold War" (Columbia UP, 2023)

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The conventional story of Hong Kong celebrates the people who fled the mainland in the wake of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China i...

Albert Welter, "The Future of China's Past: Reflections on the Meaning of China's Rise" (SUNY Press, 2023)

03 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Albert Welter's book The Future of China's Past: Reflections on the Meaning of China's Rise (SUNY Press, 2023) examines how China's traditional cult...

The Future of the EAST: A Discussion of Yasheng Huang

02 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Exams, autocracy, stability, and technology have been hallmarks of Chinese society for centuries — from ancient times through to the present. Is tha...

Globalisation and Glocalisation of Bubble Tea

29 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bubble tea, also known as pearl milk tea, boba or tapioca milk tea is a popular drink in Asia. Wherever there is Asian diaspora, such as in the USA, o...

The Secret History of the Mongols

24 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Secret History of the Mongols is one of the literary wonders of the world. Writing in the thirteenth century, the Secret Historian - whose identi...

Kerry Brown, "China Incorporated: The Politics of a World Where China is Number One" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

21 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How do we talk about China? It’s a question every analyst, academic, policymaker, and reporter probably needs to ask themselves. Is China, as some o...

Hongwei Bao, "Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance" (Routledge, 2022)

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance (Routledge, 2022), Hongwei Bao analyses queer theatre and performance in contemporary China. Boa documents...

Julia C. Schneider, "Nation and Ethnicity: Chinese Discourses on History, Historiography, and Nationalism (1900s-1920s)" (Brill, 2017)

15 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Julia Schneider’s Nation & Ethnicity: Chinese Discourses on History, Historiography, and Nationalism (1900s-1920s), published with Brill in 2017, i...

A Better Way to Buy Books

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has alre...

Tom Culham and Jing Lin, "Daoist Cultivation of Qi and Virtue for Life, Wisdom, and Learning" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020)

10 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Daoist Cultivation of Qi and Virtue for Life, Wisdom, and Learning (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020) explores Daoist philosophies of qi and virtue through i...

Tiantian Zheng, "Violent Intimacy: Family Harmony, State Stability, and Intimate Partner Violence in Post-Socialist China" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

10 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Based on ethnographic research with victims of intimate partner violence since 2014, Tiantian Zheng's Violent Intimacy: Family Harmony, State Stabili...

Tingting Hu, "Victims, Perpetrators and Professionals: The Representation of Women in Chinese Crime Films" (Liverpool UP, 2021)

09 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How are women represented in Chinese crime films? In what ways do the representation reflect traditional Chinese values and contemporary Chinese socia...

Situating Religion and Medicine (with Michael Stanley-Baker)

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I sit down for an in-depth conversation with my good friend, Michael Stanley-Baker, a scholar of Chinese religion and medicine. We talk about Mi...

Altman Yuzhu Peng, "A Feminist Reading of China’s Digital Public Sphere" (Palgrave Pivot, 2020)

06 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In A Feminist Reading of China’s Digital Public Sphere (Palgrave Pivot, 2020), Altman Yuzhu Peng articulates how feminism and pseudo-feminism be...

Beth Tsai, "Taiwan New Cinema at Film Festivals" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

28 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Taiwan New Cinema (first wave, 1982–1989; second wave, 1990 onward) has a unique history regarding film festivals, particularly in the way these fil...

Journalism History in Macau: A Abelha da China in its 200 Years

26 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did the first newspaper in Macau come into being? What was the first foreign language newspaper on Chinese soil about? How was the dynamic between...

Don J. Wyatt, "Slavery in East Asia" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

17 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Don J. Wyatt about his book Slavery in East Asia (Cambridge UP, 2022). In premodern China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, just as in t...

Book Chat: Literature in the Age of the Anthropocene: An Ecocritical Study of the Taiwanese Writer Wu Ming-yi

13 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, our host, Ti-han, invited Dr Gwennaël Gaffric, a French literary translator and a specialist in Taiwanese eco-literature to talk abo...