New Books in East Asian Studies
Episodes
Andrew B. Kipnis, "The Funeral of Mr. Wang: Life, Death, and Ghosts in Urbanizing China" (U California Press, 2021)
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today I spoke to Professor Andrew Kipnis about his book on social change in urban China from the perspective of funerals. In rural China funerals are...
Hannah Kirshner, "Water, Wood, and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town" (Viking, 2021)
08 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Water, Wood, and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town (Viking, 2021) is memoir, ethnography, cookbook, and ske...
Chia-Rong Wu, "Remapping the Contested Sinosphere: The Cross-Cultural Landscape and Ethnoscape of Taiwan" (Cambria Press, 2020)
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the past four hundred years, the cultural position of Taiwan has been undergoing a series of drastic changes due to constant political turmoil. Fro...
Machiko Ōgimachi, "In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan" (Columbia UP, 2021)
04 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the early eighteenth century, the noblewoman Ōgimachi Machiko composed a memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, the powerful samurai for whom she had ser...
Carlos M. Piocos, "Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration" (Routledge, 2021)
04 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration (Routledge, 2021), Carlos M. Piocos explores the politics of gendered labor migrati...
Hongjian Wang, "Decadence in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture: A Comparative and Literary-Historical Reevaluation" (Cambria Press, 2020)
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
European Decadence, a controversial artistic movement that flourished mainly in late-nineteenth-century France and Britain, has inspired several gener...
Rebecca Copeland and Linda C. Ehrlich, "Yamamba: In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch" (Stone Bridge, 2021)
25 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alluring, nurturing, dangerous, and vulnerable, the yamamba, or Japanese mountain witch, has intrigued audiences for centuries. What is it about the ...
Gary Bettinson, "The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai: Film Poetics and the Aesthetic of Disturbance" (Hong Kong UP, 2014)
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The widely acclaimed films of Wong Kar-wai are characterized by their sumptuous yet complex visual and sonic style. This study of Wong’s filmmaking ...
Nick R. Smith, "The End of the Village: Planning the Urbanization of Rural China" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today I spoke to Nick R. Smith to talk about how China's expansive new era of urbanization threatens to undermine the foundations of rural life, which...
Emily Mokros, "The Peking Gazette in Late Imperial China: State News and Political Authority" (U Washington Press, 2021)
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), China experienced far greater access to political information than suggested by the blunt measures of control and cen...
Laurence Coderre, "Newborn Socialist Things: Materiality in Maoist China" (Duke UP, 2021)
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Laurence Coderre’s Newborn Socialist Things: Materiality in Maoist China (Duke UP, 2021) is an exciting book that considers Chinese socialist cul...
David J. Mozina, "Knotting the Banner: Ritual and Relationship in Daoist Practice" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)
18 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mozina’s Knotting the Banner: Ritual and Relationship in Daoist Practice (U Hawaii Press, 2021) weaves together ethnography, textual analysis, pho...
Robert Hellyer, "Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America's Tea Cups" (Columbia UP, 2021)
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Hellyer’s Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America's Tea Cups (Columbia UP, 2021) is a tale of American and Japanese teaways, s...
Elizabeth Lacouture, "Dwelling in the World: Family, House, and Home in Tianjin, China, 1860-1960" (Columbia UP, 2021)
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
To call the hundred years that straddle the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries as a radical period of change for China is an understatement, moving f...
Timon Screech, "The Shogun's Silver Telescope: God, Art, and Money in the English Quest for Japan, 1600-1625" (Oxford UP, 2020)
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An English mission to Japan arrives in 1613 with all the standard English commodities, including wool and cloth: which the English hope to trade for J...
Orion Klautau and Hans Martin Krämer, "Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2021) is a welcome new collection of twenty sources on ...
Susanne Klien, "Urban Migrants in Rural Japan: Between Agency and Anomie in a Post-growth Society" (SUNY Press, 2020)
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Susanne Klien's book Urban Migrants in Rural Japan: Between Agency and Anomie in a Post-growth Society (SUNY Press, 2020) provides a fresh perspecti...
Gideon Fujiwara, "From Country to Nation: Ethnographic Studies, Kokugaku, and Spirits in Nineteenth-Century Japan" (Cornell UP, 2021)
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From Country to Nation: Ethnographic Studies, Kokugaku, and Spirits in Nineteenth-Century Japan (Cornell UP, 2021) tracks the emergence of the modern...
Ying Jia Tan, "Recharging China in War and Revolution, 1882-1955" (Cornell UP, 2021)
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Recharging China in War and Revolution, 1882–1955 (Cornell University Press, 2021), Ying Jia Tan explores the fascinating politics of Chinese ...
Yan Liu, "Healing with Poisons: Potent Medicines in Medieval China" (U Washington Press, 2021)
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
At first glance, medicine and poison might seem to be opposites. But in China’s formative era of pharmacy (200–800 CE), poisons were strategically...
Elaine Yuan, "The Web of Meaning: The Internet in a Changing Chinese Society" (U Toronto Press, 2021)
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is the impact of Internet technology communication in China? How do Chinese people view "privacy" differently from the western perspective? How i...
Jeevan Vasagar, "Lion City: Singapore and the Invention of Modern Asia" (Pegasus Books, 2022)
30 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone looks to Singapore as a role model for what they want their country to be. Several countries from China to Rwanda hope to emulate its high ad...
Erica Baffelli et al., "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Japanese Religions is edited by Erica Baffelli, Fabio Rambelli, and Andrea Castiglioni published by Bloomsbury, 2021. The...
Minhua Ling, "The Inconvenient Generation: Migrant Youth Coming of Age on Shanghai's Edge" (Stanford UP, 2019)
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the podcast today, I am joined by Minhua Ling, Assistant Professor in the Centre for China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong to talk a...
Kimiko Tanaka and Nan E. Johnson, "Successful Aging in a Rural Community in Japan" (Carolina Academic Press, 2021)
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kimiko Tanaka and Nan E. Johnson's Successful Aging in a Rural Community in Japan (Carolina Academic Press, 2021) discusses population aging in rur...
Kyokutei Bakin, "Eight Dogs, or 'Hakkenden': Part One—An Ill-Considered Jest" (Cornell UP, 2021)
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kyokutei Bakin's Nansō Satomi hakkenden is one of the monuments of Japanese literature. This multigenerational samurai saga was one of the most popul...
Erin Y. Huang, "Urban Horror: Neoliberal Post-Socialism and the Limits of Visibility" (Duke UP, 2020)
26 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Erin Y. Huang’s Urban Horror: Neoliberal Post-Socialism and the Limits of Visibility (Duke UP, 2020) is an expansive and ambitious book that expl...
Grace C. Huang, "Chiang Kai-Shek's Politics of Shame: Leadership, Legacy, and National Identity in China" (Harvard UP, 2021)
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Once a powerful figure who reversed the disintegration of China and steered the country to Allied victory in World War II, Chiang Kai-shek fled into e...
Anthony J. Barbieri-Low, "Ancient Egypt and Early China: State, Society, and Culture" (U Washington Press, 2021)
23 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One would think that comparing civilizations as far removed in time and space as Ancient Egypt and Ancient China might not reveal much. Yet Professor ...
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: Chinese-Inspired Architecture
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Howard chats with Dang Qun, one of the three founding partners of Beijing-based MAD architects, about aesthetics, history, cultural distinctiveness an...
M. W. Shores, "The Comic Storytelling of Western Japan: Satire and Social Mobility in Kamigata Rakugo" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rakugo, a popular form of comic storytelling, has played a major role in Japanese culture and society. Developed during the Edo (1600–1868) and Meij...
Dafydd Fell, "Taiwan's Green Parties: Alternative Politics in Taiwan" (Routledge, 2021)
21 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Examining the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) since its establishment through the aftermath of the most recent national elections in January 2020, Dafydd Fel...
Liang Luo, "The Global White Snake" (U Michigan Press, 2021)
17 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Liang Luo's book The Global White Snake (U Michigan Press, 2021) examines the Chinese White Snake legends and their extensive, multidirectional tra...
Hoyt Long, "The Values in Numbers: Reading Japanese Literature in a Global Information Age" (Columbia UP, 2021)
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In The Values in Numbers: Reading Japanese Literature in a Global Information Age (Columbia UP, 2021), Hoyt Long offers both a reinterpretation of m...
Shen Yang, "More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter" (Balestier Press, 2021)
13 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
'I broke a law simply by being born.' In the late 1980s, Shen Yang was born during the fiercest years of China's One-Child Policy. As the second daugh...
Porn, Privacy and Pain: The Rise of Image-based Abuse in Asia
10 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is image-based abuse? Why has it been on the rise in Asia, especially amid the Covid-19 pandemic? What has been done to tackle the issue? Raquel...
Su Yun Kim, "Imperial Romance: Fictions of Colonial Intimacy in Korea, 1905-1945" (Cornell UP, 2020)
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As in colonial situations elsewhere, Korean experiences of Japanese empire featured many attempts by the imperial authorities to regulate intimate asp...
Jan Bardsley, "Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan" (U California Press, 2021)
06 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan (University of California Press, 2021) explores Japanese representations of the maiko, or appre...
Anthony S. Rausch, "Resolving the Contemporary Tensions of Regional Places: What Japan Can Teach Us" (2021)
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Resolving the Contemporary Tensions of Regional Places: What Japan Can Teach Us offers a fresh and unique view of regional society, regional economie...
Lindsey Miller, "North Korea: Like Nowhere Else" (September, 2021)
02 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a cliche to call North Korea the most isolated country in the world. Those of us living outside the country often have very little idea of what...
Austin Dean, "China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937" (Cornell UP, 2020)
01 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using s...
Zachary M. Howlett, "Meritocracy and Its Discontents: Anxiety and the National College Entrance Exam in China" (Cornell UP, 2021)
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Every year millions of high school seniors in China take the gaokao, China’s standardized college entrance exam. Students, parents, and head teache...
Jagjeet Lally, "India and the Silk Roads: The History of a Trading World" (Oxford UP, 2021)
26 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When we think about modern trade, we tend to think about the sea: port cities and large ships carrying goods back and forth. It’s a story that tends...
Jason M. Kelly, "Market Maoists: The Communist Origins of China's Capitalist Ascent" (Harvard UP, 2021)
19 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We think we know the history of China’s opening to the outside world. Maoist China was closed off, until Deng Xiaoping decided to reform the economy...
Grace M. Cho, "Tastes Like War: A Memoir" (Feminist Press, 2021)
18 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The US military camptowns were established shortly after the Second World War in 1945, appropriating the Japanese comfort stations. The Korean governm...
Jeremy Black, "Strategy and the Second World War: How the War Was Won, and Lost" (Robinson, 2021)
18 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A concise, accessible account of strategy and the Second World War, Strategy and the Second World War: How the War Was Won, and Lost (Robinson, 2021...
Tom Phuong Le, "Japan's Aging Peace: Pacifism and Militarism in the Twenty-First Century" (Columbia UP, 2021)
18 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Since the end of World War II, Japan has not sought to remilitarize, and its postwar constitution commits to renouncing aggressive warfare. Yet many i...
Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim, "ReOrienting Histories of Medicine: Encounters Along the Silk Roads" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
16 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There's been a lot of resurgent interest in the Silk Routes lately, particularly looking at the cultural, political, and economic connections between ...
Kah Seng Loh and Li Yang Hsu, "Tuberculosis: The Singapore Experience, 1867-2018" (Routledge, 2021)
16 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tuberculosis: The Singapore Experience, 1867-2018 (Routledge, 2021), co-written by Dr. Loh, a historian and Dr. Hsu Li Yang, a medical doctor offers ...
Hanno Jentzsch, "Harvesting State Support: Institutional Change and Local Agency in Japanese Agriculture" (U Toronto Press, 2021)
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Agriculture has been among the toughest political battlegrounds in postwar Japan and represents an ideal case study in institutional stability and cha...
Katie Cummer and Lynne D. DiStefano, "Asian Revitalization: Adaptive Reuse in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore" (Hong Kong UP, 2021)
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Adaptive reuse, or using a building for a new purpose, has become popular around the world, but discussion about adaptive reuse in Asia is relatively ...
Hoyt Long, "The Values in Numbers: Reading Japanese Literature in a Global Information Age" (Columbia UP, 2021)
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ideas about how to study and understand cultural history—particularly literature—are rapidly changing as new digital archives and tools for search...
Brian Masaru Hayashi, "Asian American Spies: How Asian Americans Helped Win the Allied Victory" (Oxford UP, 2021)
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Spies deep behind enemy lines; double agents; a Chinese American James Bond; black propaganda radio broadcasters; guerrilla fighters; pirates; smuggle...
Daryl R. Ireland, "John Song: Modern Chinese Christianity and the Making of a New Man" (Baylor UP, 2020)
02 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dubbed the "Billy Sunday of China" for the staggering number of people he led to Christ, John Song has captured the imagination of generations of read...
Chris Miller, "We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin" (Harvard UP, 2021)
29 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Russia’s position between Europe and Asia has led to differing conceptions of “what Russia is” to its leaders. Russia’s vast holdings east of ...
Jennifer Pan, "Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for Its Rulers" (Oxford UP, 2020)
29 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Development economists have been doing intensive research in recent years on conditional cash transfer programs as a tool to help get people out of po...
David Veevers, "The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600–1750" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This is an important, revisionist account of the origins of the British Empire in Asia in the early modern period. In The Origins of the British Emp...
Chenshu Zhou, "Cinema Off Screen: Moviegoing in Socialist China" (U California Press, 2021)
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
At a time when what it means to watch movies keeps changing, this book offers a case study that rethinks the institutional, ideological, and cultural ...
The Renewable Energy Revolution in East Asia and the Nordics
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The world is in a midst of a renewable energy revolution, with the price of utility scale photo-voltaic solar power falling by nearly 90% between 2009...
Popular Protests in the Age of #MilkTeaAlliance
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What influence can online and visual activism have on protest movements? With a wave of anti-establishment protests sweeping over East and Southeast A...
Tonio Andrade, "The Last Embassy: The Dutch Mission of 1795 and the Forgotten History of Western Encounters with China" (Princeton UP, 2021)
22 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On January 10th, 1795, a very tired caravan arrives in Beijing. The travelers have journeyed from Canton on an accelerated schedule through harsh terr...
Kailing Xie, "Embodying Middle Class Gender Aspirations: Perspectives from China’s Privileged Young Women" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today I interviewed Kailing Xie on her recently published book, Embodying Middle Class Gender Aspirations: Perspectives from China's Privileged Youn...
Yujie Zhu and Christina Maags, "Heritage Politics in China: The Power of the Past" (Routledge, 2020)
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Heritage Politics in China: The Power of the Past (Routledge, 2020) studies the impact of heritage policies and discourses on the Chinese state and ...
China's New Data Security Law and Cyber Sovereignty with Rogier Creemers
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is China's new vision for regulating cyberspace? What does its new Data Security Law intend to do? Is China's Personal Information Protection Law...
Michael Berry, “China, Culturally Speaking” (Open Agenda, 2021)
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
China, Culturally Speaking is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Michael Berry, Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cult...
Andrew F. Jones, "Circuit Listening: Chinese Popular Music in the Global 1960s" (U Minnesota Press, 2020)
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Music from East Asia has recently been making its way round the world on waves created and mediated by new technologies and global interconnections. T...
Yurou Zhong, "Chinese Grammatology: Script Revolution and Literary Modernity, 1916-1958" (Columbia UP, 2019)
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1928 linguist Yuen Ren Chao had reason to celebrate. The Nationalist government had just recognized his system for writing Chinese, Gwoyeu Romatzy...
Christian C. Lentz, "Contested Territory: Ðien Biên Phu and the Making of Northwest Vietnam" (Yale UP, 2019)
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why is Vietnam's modern history so closely associated with a place that lies only just within the country's borders? What was at stake in the contest ...
Brooke McCorkle Okazaki, "Shonen Knife’s Happy Hour" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Brooke McCorkle Okazaki’s Shonen Knife’s Happy Hour, part of the 33 1/3 music history and culture series, is a joyful romp through the career of ...
Eric C. Rath, "Oishii: The History of Sushi" (Reaktion Books, 2021)
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sushi and sashimi are by now a global sensation and have become perhaps the best known of Japanese foods—but they are also the most widely misunders...
Arunabh Ghosh, "Making It Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People's Republic of China" (Princeton UP, 2020)
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The first historical study of the development of statistics in Mao-era China, Making It Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People’s Repu...
Cees Heere, "Empire Ascendant: The British World, Race, and the Rise of Japan, 1894-1914" (Oxford UP, 2020)
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1902, the British government concluded a defensive alliance with Japan, a state that had surprised much of the world with its sudden rise to promin...
Allison Alexy, "Intimate Disconnections: Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In many ways, divorce is a quintessentially personal decision—the choice to leave a marriage that causes harm or feels unfulfilling to the two peopl...
Yanzhong Huang, "Toxic Politics: China's Environmental Health Crisis and its Challenge to the Chinese State" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Popular discussions of China’s growth prospects often focus on the success or failure specific industries. They might address the challenges rising ...
The State of the Hong Kong Labor Movement: A Discussion with Bill Taylor
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is happening to the labor movement in Hong Kong? Why was May Day this year such a muted commemoration? And how have recent political upheavals in...
C. Patterson Giersch, "Corporate Conquests: Business, the State, and the Origins of Ethnic Inequality in Southwest China" (Stanford UP, 2020)
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tenacious patterns of ethnic and economic inequality persist in the rural, largely minority regions of China's north- and southwest. Such inequality i...
Marie Favereau, "The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World" (Harvard UP, 2021)
29 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Mongols are widely known for one thing: conquest. Through the ages, word "horde" has entered the English lexicon with a negative connotation, conj...
Peter E. Hamilton, "Made in Hong Kong: Transpacific Networks and a New History of Globalization" (Columbia UP, 2021)
29 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1949 and 1997, Hong Kong transformed from a struggling British colonial outpost into a global financial capital. Made in Hong Kong: Transpac...
April D. Hughes, "Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is the relationship between Buddhism and politics? How might Buddhism be realized in this world? And how might Buddhist texts help legitimate new...
Emily Ng, "A Time of Lost Gods: Mediumship, Madness, and the Ghost after Mao" (U California Press, 2020)
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If China’s Mao era is seen by many as a time of great upheaval and chaos, there are also people and places for whom things appear quite different. W...
In China’s Shadow: China and Southeast Asia
21 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Does Southeast Asia face a stark choice between aligning with China or the United States? Can we understand domestic developments in the region as dri...
Susan Blakeley Klein, "Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory in Japanese Noh Theater" (Harvard UP, 2020)
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dancing the Dharma: Religious and Political Allegory in Japanese Noh Theater (Harvard UP, 2020) examines the theory and practice of allegory by explo...
Ecological Civilization: Chinese Dream or Global Strategy?
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How seriously should take the Chinese government’s discourse about ‘ecological civilization’? Mette Hansen argues that whatever the shortcomings...
Manfred Elfstrom, "Workers and Change in China: Resistance, Repression, Responsiveness" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Post-socialist China has seen extensive labor unrest in the form of strikes, protests, and riots. The party-state has responded, sometimes with greate...
William A. Callahan, "Sensible Politics: Visualizing International Relations" (Oxford UP, 2020)
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How can we theorize international relations by looking at how nose sizes are depicted in Asian art and literature? Why are Vietnamese immigration offi...
Matthew Carl Strecher, "The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami" (U Minnesota Press, 2014)
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In an “other world” composed of language—it could be a fathomless Martian well, a labyrinthine hotel, or forest—a narrative unfolds, and with ...
Yao Li, "Playing by the Informal Rules: Why the Chinese Regime Remains Stable despite Rising Protests" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the developing world, political turmoil often brings an end to promising economic growth stories. During its period of rapid economic growth in the...
Sven Saaler, "Men in Metal: A Topography of Public Bronze Statuary in Modern Japan" (Brill, 2020)
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In his pioneering study, Men in Metal: A Topography of Public Bronze Statuary in Modern Japan (Brill, 2020), Sven Saaler examines Japanese public ...
The Politics of Chinese Media: A Discussion with Bingchun Meng
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Feeling betrayed by liberal ideals in the US and UK, how are Chinese international students dealing with rising racism during the pandemic? Bingchun M...
Fei-Hsien Wang, "Pirates and Publishers: A Social History of Copyright in Modern China" (Princeton UP, 2019)
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Pirates and Publishers: A Social History of Copyright in Modern China (Princeton University Press, 2019) is a detailed historical look at how copyri...
Eric Schluessel, "Land of Strangers: The Civilizing Project in Qing Central Asia" (Columbia UP, 2020)
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Schluessel’s Land of Strangers: The Civilizing Project in Qing Central Asia (Columbia UP, 2020) looks at what happened when, at the end of th...
Women Singer-Songwriters of 1970s Japan: A Discussion with Satoko Naito
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lasse Lehtonen speaks to Satoko Naito about his research on Japanese women singer-songwriters of the 1970s and 1980s. Focusing on popular pioneers lik...
William P. Brecher, "Japan's Private Spheres: Autonomy in Japanese History, 1600-1930" (Brill, 2021)
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Japan's Private Spheres: Autonomy in Japanese History, 1600-1930 (Brill, 2021) traces the shifting nature of autonomy in early modern and modern Jap...
Hsiao-wen Cheng, "Divine, Demonic, and Disordered: Women Without Men in Song Dynasty China" (U Washington Press, 2021)
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Divine, Demonic, and Disordered: Women Without Men in Song Dynasty China (University of Washington Press, 2021), Cheng Hsiao-wen’s monograph ...
Emei Burell, "We Served the People: My Mother's Stories" (Archaia, 2020)
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During the Cultural Revolution, many young Chinese in the cities were encouraged — if not ordered — to move to the countryside. Millions of young ...
Yinghong Cheng, "Discourses of Race and Rising China" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Yinghong Cheng's book Discourses of Race and Rising China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) is a critical study of the development of a racialised national...
John Person, "Arbiters of Patriotism: Right-Wing Scholars in Imperial Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)
20 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John Person’s Arbiters of Patriotism: Right-Wing Scholars in Imperial Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2020) narrates the struggle for ownership...
How China Loses: A Discussion with Luke Patey
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Western media accounts often suggest that China is rising inexorably as a global economic and political powerhouse. A new book by Luke Patey offers a ...
John Wong, "Global Trade in the Nineteenth Century: The House of Houqua and the Canton System" (Cambridge UP, 2016)
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Global Trade in the Nineteenth Century: The House of Houqua and the Canton System (Cambridge University Press, 2016), John D. Wong examines the ...
Opening Australia's Multilingual Archives to Rethink Australian Identity in the Asia-Pacific
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Australia has always been multilingual. Yet English language sources have dominated political and popular discourses over the last few centuries, over...