New Books in East Asian Studies
Episodes
David Chai, "Zhuangzi and the Becoming of Nothingness" (SUNY Press, 2018)
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Zhuangzi and the Becoming of Nothingness (SUNY Press, 2018) offers a radical rereading of the Daoist classic Zhuangzi by bringing to light the role ...
Michael C. Davis, "Making Hong Kong China: The Rollback of Human Rights and the Rule of Law" (Columbia UP, 2020)
19 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“Imagine you live in a freewheeling city like New York or London – one of the world’s leading financial, educational, and cultural centres. Then...
Aubrey Menard, "Young Mongols: Forging Democracy in the Wild, Wild East" (PRH SEA, 2020)
19 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mongolia is sometimes seen as one of the few examples of a successful youth-led revolution, where a 1990 movement forced the Soviet-appointed Politbur...
Charlotte Eubanks, "The Art of Persistence: Akamatsu Toshiko and the Visual Cultures of Transwar Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Art of Persistence: Akamatsu Toshiko and the Visual Cultures of Transwar Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2019) examines the relations between art and poli...
Southeast Asian Performance, Ethnic Identity and China’s Soft Power: A Discussion with Dr Josh Stenberg
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From glove puppets of Chinese origin and Hakka religious processions, to wartime political theatre and contemporary choirs and dance groups, the diver...
Amy Stanley, "Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World" (Scribner, 2020)
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“To mother, from Tsuneno (confidential). I’m writing with spring greetings. I went to Kanda Minagawa-chō in Edo—quite unexpectedly—and I ende...
Anne Gerritsen, "The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We think of blue and white porcelain as the ultimate global commodity: throughout East and Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean including the African coas...
Stephen H. Whiteman, "Where Dragon Veins Meet: The Kangxi Emperor and His Estate at Rehe" (U Washington Press, 2020)
11 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1702, the second emperor of the Qing dynasty ordered construction of a new summer palace in Rehe (now Chengde, Hebei) to support his annual tours n...
Tobias Harris, "The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan" (Hurst, 2020)
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Abe Shinzō is seen today through many lenses: as the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Japan; as a pragmatic leader with a consistent ...
Sujung Kim, "Shinra Myojin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian 'Mediterranean'" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)
03 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Shinra Myojin and Buddhist Networks of the East Asian “Mediterranean” (University of Hawaii Press, 2020) is a fascinating study of the transcultur...
Suma Ikeuchi, "Jesus Loves Japan: Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a Brazilian Diaspora" (Stanford UP, 2019)
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1990, the Japanese government introduced the Nikkei-jin (Japanese descendant) visa and since then it has attracted more than 190,000 Nikkei Brazili...
Thomas S. Mullaney, "The Chinese Deathscape: Grave Reform in Modern China" (Stanford UP, 2019)
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the past decade alone, more than ten million corpses have been exhumed and reburied across the Chinese landscape. The campaign has transformed Chin...
Minjeong Kim, "Elusive Belonging: Marriage Immigrants and "Multiculturalism" in Rural South Korea" (U Hawai’i Press, 2018)
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Studies on marriage migration often portray marriage migrants as victims of globalization and patriarchy. Although there are intersecting oppressions ...
Frank Jacob, "Japanese War Crimes during World War II: Atrocity and the Psychology of Collective Violence" (Praeger, 2018)
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When you mention Japanese War crimes in World War Two, you’ll often get different responses from different generations. The oldest among us will ta...
Li Zhang, "Anxious China: Inner Revolution and Politics of Psychotherapy" (U California Press, 2020)
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The breathless pace of China’s economic reform has brought about deep ruptures in socioeconomic structures and people’s inner landscape. Faced wit...
Christopher Lupke (trans.), "A History of Taiwan Literature" (Cambria Press, 2020)
20 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ye Shitao was a Taiwanese public intellectual who rose to prominence in the second half of the twentieth century. His encyclopedic A History of Taiwan...
Alan Chong, "Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020)
16 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Political scientists Alan Chong and Quang Min Pham bring with their edited volume, Critical Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Palgra...
C. Chan and F. de Londras, "China’s National Security: Endangering Hong Kong’s Rule of Law?" (Hart, 2020)
15 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On July 1, 2020, China introduced a National Security Law into Hong Kong partly in an attempt to quell months of civil unrest, as a mechanism to safeg...
John W. Traphagan, "Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan" (Cambria Press, 2020)
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
John W. Traphagan’s Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan (Cambria Press, 2020) presents a serie...
Chris Fenton, "Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, and American Business" (Post Hill Press, 2020)
05 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For seventeen years, Chris Fenton served as the president of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group, a multi-billion-dollar global media company headq...
Takeshi Morisato, "Faith and Reason in Continental and Japanese Philosophy" (Bloomsbury, 2019)
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Faith and Reason in Continental and Japanese Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2019) by Takeshi Morisato is a book that brings together the work of two signifi...
Sam van Schaik, "Buddhist Magic: Divination, Healing, and Enchantment through the Ages" (Shambala Publications, 2020)
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As far back as we can see in the historical record, Buddhist monks and nuns have offered services including healing, divination, rain making, aggressi...
Lorenz M. Lüthi, "Cold Wars: Asia, the Middle East, Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What was the Cold War that shook world politics for the second half of the twentieth century? Standard narratives focus on Soviet-American rivalry as ...
Karl Gerth, "Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Karl Gerth’s new book, Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2020) details how the...
Joshua Esler, "Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese: Mediation and Superscription of the Tibetan Tradition in Contemporary Chinese Society" (Lexington Books, 2020)
24 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While Tibetan Buddhism continues to face restrictions and challenges imposed by the state in contemporary China, it has in fact entered mainstream Chi...
James Carter, "Champions Day: The End of Old Shanghai" (Norton, 2020)
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Shanghai’s status as a bustling, international place both now and in the past hardly needs much introduction, although the centrality of horse racin...
Brian R. Dott, "The Chile Pepper in China: A Cultural Biography" (Columbia UP, 2020)
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In China, chiles are everywhere. From dried peppers hanging from eaves to Mao’s boast that revolution would be impossible without chiles, Chinese cu...
Brian Eyler, "Last Days of the Mighty Mekong" (Zed Book, 2019)
21 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Mekong River is one of the world’s great rivers. From its source in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau it snakes down through southern China and then b...
Zuraidah Ibrahim, "Rebel City: Hong Kong's Year of Water and Fire" (World Scientific, 2020)
21 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In June of 2019, a proposed amendment to Hong Kong’s Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, sparked widespread protests across the region. Protestors saw in ...
Ann-elise Lewallen, "The Fabric of Indigeneity: Ainu Identity, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Japan" (U New Mexico Press, 2016)
17 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Fabric of Indigeneity: Ainu Identity, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Japan (University of New Mexico Press) is a recent addition to the growin...
Sean Roberts, "The War on the Uyghurs: China’s Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority" (Princeton UP, 2020)
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s new episode, we speak with Sean Roberts about his brand new book The War on the Uyghurs: China’s Internal Campaign against a Muslim Mi...
Steven Heine, "Readings of Dōgen's 'Treasury of the True Dharma Eye'"(Columbia UP, 2020)
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shōbōgenzō) is the masterwork of Dōgen (1200–1253), founder of the Sōtō Zen Buddhist sect in Kamakura-e...
Sören Urbansky, "Beyond the Steppe Frontier: A History of the Sino-Russian Border" (Princeton UP, 2020)
08 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The fact that the vast border between China and Russia is often overlooked goes hand-in-hand with a lack of understanding of the ordinary citizens in ...
Harriet Evans, "Beijing from Below: Stories of Marginal Lives in the Capital’s Center" (Duke UP, 2020)
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Between the early 1950s and the accelerated demolition and construction of Beijing's “old city” in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, the resident...
Mary Augusta Brazelton, "Mass Vaccination: Citizens' Bodies and State Power in Modern China" (Cornell UP, 2019)
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While the eradication of smallpox has long been documented, not many know the Chinese roots of this historic achievement. In this revelatory study, Ma...
Adam Broinowski, "Cultural Responses to Occupation in Japan: The Performing Body During and After the Cold War" (Bloomsbury 2016)
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Cultural Responses to Occupation in Japan: The Performing Body During and After the Cold War (Bloomsbury 2016), Adam Broinowski analyzes the emerge...
Philip Thai, "China's War on Smuggling: Law, Illicit Markets, and State Power on the China Coast" (Columbia UP, 2018)
24 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Siobhan talks with Philip Thai about his book, China's War on Smuggling: Law, Illicit Markets, and State Power on the China Coast (C...
Xiaoqiao Ling, "Feeling the Past in Seventeenth-Century China" (Harvard Asia Center, 2019)
18 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As much of the world’s population is currently discovering, living through a historical cataclysm is a more common fact of human existence than one ...
David G. Atwill, "Islamic Shangri-La: Inter-Asian Relations and Lhasa’s Muslim Communities, 1600 to 1960" (U California Press 2018)
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Centering on the Tibetan Muslims (the Khache) from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century, Islamic Shangri-La: Inter-Asian Relations and Lha...
Ting Zhang, "Circulating the Code: Print Media and Legal Knowledge in Qing China" (U Washington Press, 2020)
14 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How could a peasant in Shandong in the Qing dynasty come to know enough about a specific law that he felt confident enough to kill his own wife and hi...
Post Script: A Deep Dive on China
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s begins a new set of podcasts from New Books in Political Science called POST-SCRIPT. Lilly Goren and I invite authors back to the podcast to...
Daniel P. Aldrich, "Black Wave: How Networks and Governance Shaped Japan’s 3/11 Disasters" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Despite the devastation caused by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 60-foot tsunami that struck Japan in 2011, some 96% of those living and working in ...
Nozomi Naoi, "Yumeji Modern: Designing the Everyday in Twentieth-Century Japan" (U Washington Press, 2020)
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nozomi Naoi’s Yumeji Modern: Designing the Everyday in Twentieth-Century Japan (University of Washington Press, 2020) is the first book-length Engl...
Rebecca E. Karl, "China’s Revolutions in the Modern World: A Brief Interpretive History" (Verso, 2020)
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
China’s emergence as a twenty-first-century global economic, cultural, and political power is often presented as a story of what Chinese leader Xi J...
Mark A. Nathan, "From the Mountains to the Cities: A History of Buddhist Propagation in Korea" (U Hawaii Press, 2018)
28 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From the Mountains to the Cities A History of Buddhist Propagation in Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), written by Mark A. Nathan, is a histor...
Mayfair Yang, "Re-enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China" (Duke UP, 2020)
23 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Re-enchanting Modernity: Re-enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China (Duke University Press, 2020), Mayfair Yang examines...
Bo Mou, "Philosophy of Language, Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy" (Brill, 2018)
23 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Contributors to Philosophy of Language, Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy, edited by Bo Mou, professor of philosophy at the San Jose State Univer...
Gregory Afinogenov, "Spies and Scholars: Chinese Secrets and Imperial Russia’s Quest for World Power" (Harvard UP, 2020)
20 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The ways in which states and empires spy on and study one another has changed a great deal over time in line with shifting political priorities, writt...
Eugenia Lean, "Vernacular Industrialism in China"(Columbia UP, 2020)
17 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In early twentieth-century China, Chen Diexian (1879–1940) was a maverick entrepreneur—at once a prolific man of letters and captain of industry, ...
Andreas Fulda, "The Struggle for Democracy in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong" (Routledge, 2020)
17 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The key question in The Struggle for Democracy in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong: Sharp Power and its Discontents (Routledge, 2020), is to what...
Yuhang Li, "Becoming Guanyin: Artistic Devotion of Buddhist Women in Late Imperial China" (Columbia UP, 2020)
14 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How did Buddhist women access religious experience and transcendence in a Confucian patriarchal system in imperial China? How were Buddhist practices ...
Crystal Mun-hye Baik, "Reencounters: On the Korean War and Diasporic Memory Critique" (Temple UP, 2020)
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This interview coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, a war that, as Baik reminds us, has not officially ended. How are the particular...
Takashi Miura, "Agents of World Renewal: The Rise of Yonaoshi Gods in Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this interview, we talk to Takashi Miura, assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Arizona, about his book Agents...
Gina Anne Tam, "Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860-1960" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
07 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The question of how a state decides what its official language is going to be, or indeed whether it even needs one, is never simple, and this may be p...
He Bian, "Know Your Remedies: Pharmacy and Culture in Early Modern China" (Princeton UP, 2020)
02 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
He Bian’s new book Know Your Remedies: Pharmacy and Culture in Early Modern China (Princeton University Press, 2020) is a beautiful cultural histor...
Macabe Keliher, "The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China" (U California Press, 2019)
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bringing attention to the importance of li (an articulated system of social domination and political legitimization, consisting of rituals, ceremonies...
Michael Schuman, "Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World" (PublicAffairs, 2020)
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We stand on the eve of a different kind of world, but comprehending it is difficult: we are so accustomed to dealing with the paradigms of the contemp...
Charlotte Bruckermann, "Claiming Homes: Confronting Domicide in Rural China" (Berghahn Books, 2019)
24 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Charlotte Bruckermann about her new book Claiming Homes: Confronting Domicide in Rural China (Berghahn Books, 2019). Chinese citizen...
John Harney, "Empire of Infields: Baseball in Taiwan and Cultural Identity, 1895-1968" (U Nebraska Press, 2019)
22 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by John Harney, Associate Professor of History and Chair of the Asian Studies Department at Centre College, and author of Empire o...
Brian DeMare, "Land Wars: The Story of China’s Agrarian Revolution" (Stanford UP, 2019)
18 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Many people outside China, and indeed many urbanites living in the country, rarely think about its vast rural areas. Yet today’s People’s Republic...
Frederik H. Green, "Bird Talk and Other Stories by Xu Xu: Modern Tales of a Chinese Romantic" (Stone Bridge Press, 2020)
16 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Xu Xu (1908-1980) was one of the most widely read Chinese authors of the 1930s to 1960s. His popular urban gothic tales, his exotic spy fiction, and ...
Elisheva A. Perelman, "American Evangelists and Tuberculosis in Modern Japan" (Hong Kong UP, 2020)
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Elisheva A. Perelman's new book American Evangelists and Tuberculosis in Modern Japan (Hong Kong University Press, 2020) examines the consequences of...
Roxann Prazniak, "Sudden Appearances: The Mongol Turn in Commerce, Belief, and Art" (U Hawaii Press 2019)
02 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The “Mongol turn” in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries forged new political, commercial, and religious circumstances in Eurasia. This legacy...
Brian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020)
02 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for S...
Chiara Formichi, "Islam and Asia: A History" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
30 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Challenging the geographical narrative of the history of Islam, Chiara Formichi’s new book Islam and Asia: A History (Cambridge University Press, 20...
Katarzyna J. Cwiertka, "Branding Japan’s Food: From Meibutsu to Washoku" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)
29 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Katarzyna J. Cwiertka and Yasuhara Miho’s Branding Japan’s Food: From Meibutsu to Washoku (University of Hawaii Press, 2020) explores historical a...
Ben Nobbs-Thiessen, "Landscape of Migration: Mobility and Environmental Change on Bolivia's Tropical Frontier, 1952 to the Present" (UNC Press, 2020)
28 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Landscape of Migration: Mobility and Environmental Change on Bolivia's Tropical Frontier, 1952 to the Present (UNC Press, 2020), traces the entwined h...
Alexander Bukh, "These Islands Are Ours" (Stanford UP, 2020)
28 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Alexander Bukh’s These Islands Are Ours: The Social Construction of Territorial Disputes in Northeast Asia (Stanford University Press 2020) provides...
Diana Fu, "Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China" (Cambridge UP, 2017)
27 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When advocacy organizations are forbidden from rallying people to take to the streets, what do they do? Diana Fu’s nuanced ethnography of Chinese la...
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, "Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink" (Columbia Global Reports, 2020)
22 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This podcast was recorded on May 21st, 2020 – the same day that the Chinese government proposed new national security laws that would give China gre...
Johan Elverskog, "The Buddha’s Footprint: An Environmental History of Asia" (U Penn Press, 2020)
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Challenging the popular image of Buddhism as a religion intrinsically concerned with the environment, Dr. John Elverskog’s new monograph, The Buddha...
Julia C. Strauss, "State Formation in China and Taiwan: Bureaucracy, Campaign, and Performance" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
State Formation in China and Taiwan: Bureaucracy, Campaign, and Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2019) by Julia C. Strauss is a comparative st...
Courtney J. Fung, "China and Intervention at the UN Security Council: Reconciling Status" (Oxford UP, 2019)
19 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
China is a veto-holding member of the UN Security Council yet Chinese officials have been skeptical of using the powers of the UN to pressure nations ...
Wasana Wongsurawat, "The Crown and the Capitalists: The Ethnic Chinese and the Founding of the Thai Nation" (U Washington Press, 2019)
18 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One can’t understand modern Thailand without understanding the role of the ethnic Chinese. And one can’t understand the role of the ethnic Chinese...
Sarah Schneewind, "Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos" (Harvard Asia Center, 2018)
15 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What recourse did you have in Ming China if your very excellent local official was leaving your area and moving on to a new jurisdiction? You could tr...
Tatiana Linkhoeva, "Revolution Goes East: Imperial Japan and Soviet Communism" (Cornell UP, 2020)
14 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A century ago it wasn’t a virus whose spread was eliciting reactions around the world, but an idea. As Russia’s 1917 October Revolution distended ...
David Ambaras, "Japan’s Imperial Underworlds: Intimate Encounters at the Borders of Empire" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
12 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Through a series of provocative case studies on mobility, transgression, and intimacy, David Ambaras’s Japan’s Imperial Underworlds: Intimate Enco...
Richard McBride II, "Doctrine and Practice in Medieval Korean Buddhism: The Collected Works of Ŭich’ŏn" (U Hawaii Press, 2016)
12 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Richard McBride II about Doctrine and Practice in Medieval Korean Buddhism: The Collected Works of Ŭich’ŏn (University of Hawaii...
Antony Dapiran, "City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong" (Scribe, 2020)
07 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hong Kong in 2019 was a city on fire. Anti-government protests, sparked by an ill-fated extradition bill sparked seven months of protest and civil unr...
Yue Hou, "The Private Sector in Public Office: Selective Property Rights in China" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
30 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In China, roughly 60% of GDP and 80% of employment comes from the private sector – yet half of private entrepreneurs report that they faced expropri...
Leslie M. Harris, "Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies" (U Georgia Press, 2019)
28 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. B...
Chris Courtney, "The Nature of Disaster in China: The 1931 Yangzi River Flood" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
28 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For somewhat unfortunate reasons, many more people in the world now know about the existence and location of a city called Wuhan than was the case at ...
Gregory Scott, "Building the Buddhist Revival: Reconstructing Monasteries in Modern China" (Oxford UP, 2020)
16 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Gregory A. Scott's Building the Buddhist Revival: Reconstructing Monasteries in Modern China (Oxford University Press, 2020) is the first major work i...
Margaret Hillenbrand, "Negative Exposures: Knowing What Not to Know in Contemporary China" (Duke UP, 2020)
02 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The fact that secrecy and the concealment of information is important in today’s China is hardly a secret in itself, yet the ways that this secrecy ...
Jin Y. Park, "Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryŏp" (U of Hawaii Press, 2017)
31 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryŏp (University of Hawaii Press, 2017) by Jin Y. Park, professor of philosophy and religion ...
G. Clinton Godart, "Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine: Evolutionary Theory and Religion in Modern Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2017)
30 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine. Evolutionary Theory and Religion in Modern Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2017), G. Clinton Godart (Associate P...
Matt Cook, "Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy" (MIT Press, 2020)
30 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat....
Margaret E. Roberts, "Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall" (Princeton UP, 2020)
27 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We often think of censorship as governments removing material or harshly punishing people who spread or access information. But Margaret E. Roberts’...
Kunio Hara, "Joe Hisaishi's Soundtrack for My Neighbor Totoro" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020)
26 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A beloved Japanese anime move released in 1988, My Neighbor Totoro tells the story of two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, as they deal with the separation f...
Norman A. Kutcher, "Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule" (U California Press, 2018)
23 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Eunuchs. Nobody liked them, everybody seems to have hated them, but, even so, they were an essential part of many states – even in the Qing. Norman...
D. A. Bell and W. Pei, "Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World" (Princeton UP, 2020)
18 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What are the arguments in favor of social hierarchies? Are there differences in how hierarchy is viewed and valued in China compared with other countr...
Michelle Murray, "The Struggle for Recognition in International Relations: Status, Revisionism, and Rising Powers" (Oxford UP, 2020)
18 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Is a rising power – like China – a threat to the world order? The conventional wisdom in international relations says that power transitions – p...
Kirsten L. Ziomek, "Lost Histories: Recovering the Lives of Japan’s Colonial Peoples" (Harvard Asia Center. 2019)
16 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Using diverse sources well beyond the colonial archive such as photographs, postcards, and even headstones, Dr. Kirsten L. Ziomek reveals the stories ...
Cole Roskam, "Improvised City: Architecture and Governance in Shanghai, 1843-1937" (U Washington Press, 2019)
10 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Shanghai’s role in shaping modern China and indeed the very idea of what modernity is in China can hardly be overstated. Much of this long-lasting i...
Loretta E. Kim, "Ethnic Chrysalis: China’s Orochen People and the Legacy of Qing Borderland Administration" (Harvard Asia Center, 2019)
09 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ethnic Chrysalis: China’s Orochen People and the Legacy of Qing Borderland Administration (Harvard Asia Center, 2019) is the first monograph publish...
Lijun Zhang and Ziying You, "Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice" (Indiana UP, 2020)
27 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The discipline of folkloristics in the People’s Republic of China is robust and well-funded. With thousands of scholars across the country, it is su...
Phillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020)
25 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Philli...
Charlene Makley, "The Battle for Fortune: State-led Development, Personhood, and Power among Tibetans in China" (Cornell UP, 2018)
10 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rebgong, in the Northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau (China’s Qinghai Province), is in the midst of a ‘Battle for Fortune.’ That is, a battl...
Daniel Mattingly, "The Art of Political Control in China" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
04 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tocqueville and Putnam insist that civil society helps individuals flourish and resist authority, but Daniel C. Mattingly’s decade of research in ru...
K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020)
30 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. How...