New Books in East Asian Studies
Episodes
Ying Qian, "Revolutionary Becomings: Documentary Media in Twentieth-Century China" (Columbia UP, 2023)
17 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to another episode of New Books in Chinese Studies. Today, I will be talking to Columbia University professor Ying Qian about her new book, R...
Sino-Pacific Relations: A Discussion with Rodolfo Maggio
15 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The 2024 Solomon Islands elections were surprisingly peaceful. The deepening economic inequalities, widespread corruption, rogue demagogues manipulati...
Alfred Peredo Flores, "Tip of the Spear: Land, Labor, and US Settler Militarism in Guåhan, 1944–1962" (Cornell UP, 2023)
14 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Tip of the Spear: Land, Labor, and US Settler Militarism in Guåhan, 1944–1962 (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. Alfred Peredo Flores argue...
Viren Murthy, "Pan-Asianism and the Legacy of the Chinese Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
13 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Recent proposals to revive the ancient Silk Road for the contemporary era and ongoing Western interest in China’s growth and development have led to...
Huan Jin, "The Collapse of Heaven: The Taiping Civil War and Chinese Literature and Culture, 1850-1880" (Harvard UP, 2024)
13 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Collapse of Heaven: The Taiping Civil War and Chinese Literature and Culture, 1850-1880 (Harvard UP, 2024) investigates a long-neglected century ...
Anri Yasuda, "Beauty Matters: Modern Japanese Literature and the Question of Aesthetics, 1890-1930" (Columbia UP, 2024)
12 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The notion of beauty is inherently elusive: aesthetic judgments are at once subjective and felt to be universally valid. In Beauty Matters: Modern Ja...
Wendy Matsumura, "Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan's Empire" (Duke UP, 2024)
11 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan's Empire (Duke UP, 2024) Wendy Matsumura interrogates the erasure of...
Joanne Leow, "Counter-Cartographies: Reading Singapore Otherwise" (Liverpool UP, 2024)
10 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Counter-Cartographies: Reading Singapore Otherwise (Liverpool UP, 2024) draws from a body of Anglophone and multilingual cultural texts created in co...
Michelle T. King, "Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food" (Norton, 2024)
03 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1971, the New York Times called the Taiwanese-Chinese chef, Fu Pei-Mei, the “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” But, as Michelle T. King no...
Feng-Mei Heberer, "Asians on Demand: Mediating Race in Video Art and Activism" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Asians on Demand: Mediating Race in Video Art and Activism (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) explores a multilingual archive of contemporary quee...
Jin Feng, "The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China" (Association for Asian Studies, 2024)
27 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2009, Fudan University launched China’s first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of ...
J. Megan Greene, "Building a Nation at War: Building a Nation at War: Transnational Knowledge Networks and the Development of China during and after World War II" (Harvard UP, 2022)
27 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Building a Nation at War: Building a Nation at War: Transnational Knowledge Networks and the Development of China during and after World War II (Harv...
Living with Digital Surveillance in China
24 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do Chinese citizens make sense of digital surveillance and live with it? What narratives do they come up with to deal with the daily and all-encom...
Judith Vitale et al., "Drugs and the Politics of Consumption in Japan" (Brill, 2023)
22 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In early modern Japan, upper status groups coveted pills and powders made of exotic foreign ingredients such as mummy and rhinoceros horn. By the earl...
The Religious Landscape of Taiwan: A Discussion with Yushuang Yao
21 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How is Buddhism seen and practiced in Taiwan? And how do neighbouring countries influence Taiwanese Buddhism? In this episode we explore the religious...
Jorge Almazán et al., "Emergent Tokyo:: Designing the Spontaneous City" (Oro Editions, 2024)
19 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If ancient Kyoto stands for orderly elegance, then Tokyo, within the world’s most populated metropolitan area, calls to mind–– jam-packed chaos....
Joanna Siekiera, "21st Century as the Pacific Century: Culture and Security of Oceania States in Great Power Competition" (Warsaw UP, 2023)
18 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With the ever-greater shift of the balance of global power towards the Pacific region, what does this have implications for the geopolitics of the reg...
Qian Wei, "The Governance of Philanthropic Foundations in Authoritarian China" (Routledge, 2022)
18 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Chinese philanthropic foundations navigate a uniquely challenging terrain shaped by authoritarian governance. The Governance of Philanthropic Foundat...
John Keane and Baogang He, "China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century" (Oxford UP, 2023)
17 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century (Oxford University Press, 2024), authors Dr. John Keane and Dr. B...
Sidney Xu Lu, "The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
14 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sidney Lu’s The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism: Malthusianism and Trans-Pacific Migration, 1868-1961 (Cambridge 2019) places the concept o...
Casey James Miller, "Inside the Circle: Queer Culture and Activism in Northwest China" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
11 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After the end of the Maoist era in the People's Republic of China, the rise of queer communities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has generat...
Youngna Kim, "Korean Art Since 1945: Challenges and Changes" (Brill, 2024)
08 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this beautiful new book, Dr. Youngna Kim draws on her vast understanding of Korean art to provide an overview of the peninsula’s contemporary art...
Miles M. Evers and Eric Grynaviski, "The Price of Empire: American Entrepreneurs and the Origins of America's First Pacific Empire" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
07 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The United States was an upside-down British Empire. It had an agrarian economy, few large investors, and no territorial holdings outside of North Ame...
Thomas Larkin, "The China Firm: American Elites and the Making of British Colonial Society" (Columbia UP, 2024)
07 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What roles did Americans play in the expanding global empires of the nineteenth century? In The China Firm: American Elites and the Making of Britis...
Scott Crawford, "The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC-89 AD: The Struggle of China and a Steppe Empire Told Through Its Key Figures (Pen & Sword, 2023)
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For two centuries, the Xiongnu people–a vast nomadic empire that covered modern-day Siberia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang—were one of the Ha...
Vivien Marsh, "Seeking Truth in International TV News: China, CGTN, and the BBC" (Routledge, 2023)
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Seeking Truth in International News: China, CGTN and the BBC (Routledge, 2023) Dr Vivien Marsh analyses the differences between journalistic tr...
Jonathan A. Seitz, "Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024)
03 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With a focus on Robert Morrison, Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology (U Notre Dame Press, 2024) evaluates the role ...
Cathal J. Nolan, "The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost" (Oxford UP, 2019)
02 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could...
Thersa Matsuura, "The Book of Japanese Folklore: An Encyclopedia of the Spirits, Monsters, and Yokai of Japanese Myth" (Adams Media, 2024)
01 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Discover everything you’ve ever wondered about the legendary spirits, creatures, and figures of Japanese folklore including how they have found thei...
Kazushi Minami, "People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations During the Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2024)
31 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations During the Cold War (Cornell UP, 2024), Kazushi Minami shows how th...
Yi-Han Lin, "Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise" (HarperVia, 2024)
31 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Jenna Tang shares with us her translation of Lin Yi-Han's Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise: A Novel (HarperVia, 2024), one of the...
Gary J. Bass, "Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia" (Knopf, 2023)
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In December 1948, a panel of 12 judges sentenced 23 Japanese officials for war crimes. Seven, including former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, were senten...
Rebecca Copeland, "Handbook of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Women Writers" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Handbook of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Women Writers (MHM Limited and Amsterdam University Press, 2022) offers a comprehensive overview of ...
Peter Wetzler, "Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War: The Collapse of an Empire" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Informed Western understanding of Imperial Japan still often conjures up images of militarism, blind devotion to leaders, and fanatical pride in the c...
Peter Harmsen, "Bernhard Sindberg: The Schindler of Nanjing" (Casemate, 2024)
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In December 1937, Bernhard Sindberg arrives at a cement factory outside of Nanjing. He’s one of just two foreigners, and he gets there just weeks be...
Benjamin Brose, "Embodying Xuanzang: The Postmortem Travels of a Buddhist Pilgrim" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Xuanzang (600/602–664) was one of the most accomplished and consequential monks in the history of East Asian Buddhism. Celebrated for his sixteen-ye...
Christine Abigail L. Tan, "Freedom's Frailty: Self-Realization in the Neo-Daoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang's Zhuangzhi" (SUNY Press, 2024)
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Christine Tan argues that the most fruitful way to read the Zhuangzi, if one is seeking political and ethical insight, is through the Jin Dynasty com...
Jennifer Liu, "Indoctrinating the Youth: Secondary Education in Wartime China and Postwar Taiwan, 1937-1960" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)
18 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Indoctrinating the Youth: Secondary Education in Wartime China and Postwar Taiwan, 1937-1960 (U Hawaii Press, 2024) examines how the Guomindang (GMD ...
En Li, "Betting on the Civil Service Examinations: The Lottery in Late Qing China" (Harvard UP, 2023)
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the Qing dynasty in China, a wide variety of people participated in a lottery game named weixing (“surname guessing”), which had particip...
Wei Wu, "Esoteric Buddhism in China: Engaging Japanese and Tibetan Traditions, 1912–1949" (Columbia UP, 2023)
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the Republican period (1912–1949) and after, many Chinese Buddhists sought inspiration from non-Chinese Buddhist traditions, showing a partic...
Joan E. Cho, "Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea's Democracy" (U Michigan Press, 2024)
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
South Korea is sometimes held as a dream case of modernization theory, a testament to how economic development leads to democracy. Seeds of Mobilisat...
Jennifer Dorothy Lee, "Anxiety Aesthetics: Maoist Legacies in China, 1978-1985" (U California Press, 2024)
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today I had the great pleasure of talking to Associate Professor Jennifer Dorothy Lee on her new book, Anxiety Aesthetics: Maoist Legacies in China, ...
Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson, "Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade" (Harvard UP, 2024)
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, the vastness of the Chinese market tempted foreign companies in search of customers. But in the 1970s, when the United States and China...
Ban Wang, "At Home in Nature: Technology, Labor, and Critical Ecology in Modern China" (Duke UP, 2022)
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In his latest book At Home in Nature: Technology, Labor, and Critical Ecology in Modern China (Duke UP, 2022), Ban Wang uses an ecocritical lens to ...
Scott W. Gregory, "Bandits in Print: The Water Margin and the Transformations of the Chinese Novel" (Cornell UP, 2023)
13 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bandits in Print: "The Water Margin" and the Transformations of the Chinese Novel (Cornell UP, 2023) uses the classic novel The Water Margin (Shuih...
South Korea after the 2024 Parliamentary Elections
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do election campaigns in South Korea look like? Why have satellite parties become an important instrument of power politics? What do the election ...
Jeremy Garlick, "Advantage China: Agent of Change in an Era of Global Disruption" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
China’s rise to global prominence is a pretty good contender for the most important world development in the past 30 years. But now the question is ...
Ian Johnson, "Sparks: China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future" (Oxford UP, 2023)
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Even as most contemporary states look to history in order to legitimize their existence in some way or other, the past – and narrations of it – ho...
Kristine Ohkubo and Kanariya Eiraku, "Talking About Rakugo 1: The Japanese Art of Storytelling" (2022)
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Rakugo is a live performance art that has penetrated the borders of Japan and continues to gain popularity overseas. The rakugo stage once dominated b...
Richard M. Jaffe, "Seeking Sakyamuni: South Asia in the Formation of Modern Japanese Buddhism" (U Chicago Press, 2019)
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Though fascinated with the land of their tradition’s birth, virtually no Japanese Buddhists visited the Indian subcontinent before the nineteenth ce...
Reiki and the Subtle Body, with Justin B. Stein
04 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Pierce Salguero sits down with Justin B. Stein, a specialist in modern Japanese religion and the preeminent historian of Reiki. We discuss Justin’...
Shu Yang, "Untamed Shrews: Negotiating New Womanhood in Modern China" (Cornell UP, 2023)
02 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you are familiar with traditional Chinese literature, you have likely come across the figure of the “shrew,” a morally threatening woman who is...
Bryan K. Miller, "Xiongnu: The World's First Nomadic Empire" (Oxford UP, 2024)
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Xiongnu: The World’s First Nomadic Empire (Oxford UP, 2024), Bryan K. Miller weaves together archaeology and history to chart the course of t...
Melody Yunzi Li, "Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the Contemporary Chinese Diaspora in the United States" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the Contemporary Chinese Diaspora in the U.S. (Rutgers University Press, 2023) examines how contemporary Chine...
Andre Schmid, "North Korea's Mundane Revolution: Socialist Living and the Rise of Kim Il Sung, 1953-1965" (U California Press, 2024)
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Histories of North Korea typically focus on one man — Kim Il Sung — and one narrative — his grand rise to absolute power. Andre Schmid’s new ...
Hiromi Ito, "Tree Spirits Grass Spirits" (Nightboat Books, 2023)
28 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A collected series of intertwined poetic essays written by acclaimed Japanese poet Hiromi Ito--part nature writing, part travelogue, part existential ...
Philipp Demgenski, "Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City" (U Michigan Press, 2024)
22 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City (U Michigan Press, 2024), Philipp Demgenski examines the complexities...
Stephen Morillo, "War and Conflict in the Middle Ages" (Polity Press, 2022)
20 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In War and Conflict in the Middle Ages (Polity, 2022), Dr. Stephen Morillo offers the first global history of armed conflict between 540 and 1500 or...
Jonathan Chatwin, "The Southern Tour: Deng Xiaoping and the Fight for China's Future" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 Southern Tour has become a milestone in Chinese economic history. Historians and commentators credit Deng’s visit to Guangzho...
Robin Visser, "Questioning Borders: Ecoliteratures of China and Taiwan" (Columbia UP, 2023)
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Indigenous knowledge of local ecosystems often challenges settler-colonial cosmologies that naturalize resource extraction and the relocation of nomad...
Cathy Yue Wang, "Snake Sisters and Ghost Daughters: Feminist Adaptations of Traditional Tales in Chinese Fantasy" (Wayne State UP, 2023)
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Contemporary Chinese film and literature often draw on time-honored fantastical texts and tales which were founded in the milieu of patriarchy, parent...
Astrid Møller-Olsen, "Sensing the Sinophone: Urban Memoryscapes in Contemporary Fiction" (Cambria, 2022)
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Through an original framework of literary sensory studies, Sensing the Sinophone: Urban Memoryscapes in Contemporary Fiction (Cambria, 2022) provid...
Adam Kabat, "The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales: Monster Comics from Edo Japan" (Columbia UP, 2023)
14 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Kabat’s The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales: Monster Comics from Edo Japan (Columbia UP, 2023) is an in-depth introduction to ...
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...
Kyokutei Bakin, "Eight Dogs, Or Hakkenden: Part Two--His Master's Blade" (Cornell UP, 2024)
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Glynne Walley, translator of classic Japanese novel Hakkenden, joins us on the podcast again to talk about his second translated volume: Hakkenden, P...
Paul Hansen, "Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of Otherness and Security on the Frontiers of Japan" (SUNY Press, 2024)
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As an ethnography of a Japanese dairy farm while having theoretical values going beyond the specific context, Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of O...
Ya-Wen Lei, "The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China" (Princeton UP, 2023)
30 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Since the mid-2000s, the Chinese state has increasingly shifted away from labor-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing to a process of socioeconomic...
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...
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. ...
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...
Emily Conroy-Krutz, "Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations" (Cornell UP, 2024)
24 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations (Cornell University Press, 2024) illuminates the crucial place of re...
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...
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...
Thomas D. Conlan, "Kings in All But Name: The Lost History of Ouchi Rule in Japan, 1350-1569" (Oxford UP, 2024)
17 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the sixteenth century, members of the Ouchi family were kings in all but name in much of Japan. Immensely wealthy, they controlled sea lanes stretc...
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...
Diego Javier Luis, "The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History" (Harvard UP, 2024)
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1565 and 1815, the so-called Manila galleons enjoyed a near-complete monopoly on transpacific trade between Spain’s Asian and American colon...
Bryan Mark Rigg, "Japan's Holocaust: History of Imperial Japan's Mass Murder and Rape During World War II" (Knox Press, 2024)
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Japan's Holocaust: History of Imperial Japan's Mass Murder and Rape During World War II (Knox Press, 2024) combines research conducted in over eighte...
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...
Jinying Li, "Anime's Knowledge Cultures: Geek, Otaku, Zhai" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
03 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With comics franchises getting turned into multi-billion dollar revenue opportunities and consumer technology companies dominating daily headlines —...
Fynn Holm, "The Gods of the Sea: Whales and Coastal Communities in Northeast Japan, c.1600-2019" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
29 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. In The Gods of the Sea: Whales and Coastal Communities in Northeast Japan, c.1600...
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...
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...
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...
Sandra Fahy, "Dying for Rights: Putting North Korea’s Human Rights Abuses on the Record" (Columbia UP, 2019)
24 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“The things that are happening to North Korea are happening to all of us…they are part of the human community. To say that this is just a problem ...
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...
Simon Partner, "Koume's World: The Life and Work of a Samurai Woman Before and After the Meiji Restoration" (Columbia UP, 2023)
22 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1864, on a midsummer’s day, Kawai Koume, a 60-year old matriarch of a samurai family in Wakayama, makes a note in her diary, which she had dutifu...
Max Ward, "Thought Crime: Ideology and State Power in Interwar Japan" (Duke UP, 2019)
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Max Ward’s Thought Crime: Ideology and State Power in Interwar Japan (Duke University Press, 2019) analyzes the trajectory and transformations of th...
Ricky W. Law, "Transnational Nazism: Ideology and Culture in German Japanese Relations, 1919-1936" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Transnational Nazism: Ideology and Culture in German Japanese Relations, 1919-1936 (Cambridge University Press, 2019), associate prof...
Gwyn McClelland, "Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests and Catholic Survivor Narratives" (Routledge, 2019)
19 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On 9th August 1945, the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Of the dead, approximately 8500 were Catholic Christians, representing over six...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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 ...