New Books in East Asian Studies

Richard Overy, "Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945" (Viking, 2022)

04 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Overy sets out in Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945 (Viking, 2022) to recast the way in which we view the Second World War a...

Iza Ding, "The Performative State: Public Scrutiny and Environmental Governance in China" (Cornell UP, 2022)

03 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What does the state do when public expectations exceed its governing capacity? The Performative State: Public Scrutiny and Environmental Governance i...

Robert O'Mochain and Yuki Ueno, "Sexual Abuse and Education in Japan: In the (Inter)National Shadows" (Routledge, 2022)

01 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bringing together two voices, practice and theory, in a collaboration that emerges from lived experience and structured reflection upon that experienc...

Matthew Galway, "The Emergence of Global Maoism: China's Red Evangelism and the Cambodian Communist Movement, 1949-1979" (Cornell UP, 2022)

30 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How do ideas manifest outside of their place of origin, and how do they change once they do? The Emergence of Global Maoism: China’s Red Evangelism...

Benedict Rogers, "The China Nexus: Thirty Years in and Around the Chinese Communist Party's Tyranny" (Optimum Publishing, 2022)

28 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party's Tyranny (Optimum Publishing, 2022) brings together Benedict Rogers' 30 ye...

Shaping Civilisations: The Sea in Asian History

26 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The ocean is more connective device than barrier, bringing together diverse topics, time-periods and geographies. It has linked and connected the vari...

South Korea, Technology, and Globalization

16 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Patrick Chung, assistant professor of history at the University of Maryland, talks about his research on the rise of shipping and manufacturing in Sou...

Xiang Biao and Wu Qi, "Self as Method: Thinking Through China and the World" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

15 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I had the pleasure of talking to Professor Xiang Biao on his new book, Self as Method: Thinking Through China and the World, which was origin...

Hung-Yok Ip, "Grassroots Activism of Ancient China: Mohism and Nonviolence" ( Lexington Books, 2022)

09 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hung-Yok Ip's Grassroots Activism of Ancient China: Mohism and Nonviolence ( Lexington Books, 2022) examines Mohism as a movement in early China, fo...

Daniel White, "Administering Affect: Pop-Culture Japan and the Politics of Anxiety" (Stanford UP, 2022)

07 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Administering Affect: Pop-Culture Japan and the Politics of Anxiety (Stanford UP, 2022), Daniel White draws on extensive fieldwork in government ...

Between the Streets and the Assembly: South Korean Social Movements before and after Democratization

06 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the third NIAS-Korea episode! In this episode, we invite Prof. Yoonkyung Lee to discuss social movements in South Korea. Since its founding...

Ronald H. Spector, "A Continent Erupts: Decolonization, Civil War, and Massacre in Postwar Asia, 1945-1955" (Norton, 2023)

05 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On September 2, 1945, Japan surrendered to the United States, ending the Second World War. Yet the Japanese invasion had upended the old geopolitical ...

Magnus Fiskesjö, "Stories from an Ancient Land: Perspectives on Wa History and Culture" (Berghahn Books, 2021)

01 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, the Journal of Burma Studies published an article titled “An Introduction to Wa Studies.” It seems that even within the last decade t...

Tarun Khanna and Michael Szonyi, "Making Meritocracy: Lessons from China and India, from Antiquity to the Present" (Oxford UP, 2022)

29 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be a meritocracy? Ask an ordinary person, and they would likely say it means promoting the best and brightest in today’s societ...

Daniel Barish, "Learning to Rule: Court Education and the Remaking of the Qing State, 1861-1912" (Columbia UP, 2022)

27 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The late Qing was a time of great turmoil and upheaval but also a time of great possibility, as scholars, officials, the press, and revolutionaries al...

Lucy Fraser, "The Pleasures of Metamorphosis: Japanese and English Fairy Tale Transformations of "The Little Mermaid"" (Wayne State UP, 2017)

25 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“The Little Mermaid” has become popular around the world since the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen published it almost two centuries ago. Lu...

Jonathan Dil, "Haruki Murakami and the Search for Self-Therapy: Stories from the Second Basement" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

24 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Haruki Murakami, a global literary phenomenon, has said that he started writing fiction as a means of self-therapy. What he has not discussed as much ...

Wendi L. Adamek, "Practicescapes and the Buddhists of Baoshan" (Hamburg Buddhist Studies, 2021)

23 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How should one dwell in endtime? In this SPIDER-spun web of a book, Wendi Adamek guides readers to the visual and textual traces left by Buddhist nu...

Stevie Suan, "Anime's Identity: Performativity and Form Beyond Japan" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)

23 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A formal approach to anime rethinks globalization and transnationality under neoliberalism Anime has become synonymous with Japanese culture, but its ...

The Future of Global Trade: A Discussion with Shannon K. O'Neil

22 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Critics of globalisation come in many forms from environmentalists to trade unionists and many others in between. In the midst of all the controversy ...

John D. Wong, "Hong Kong Takes Flight: Commercial Aviation and the Making of a Global Hub, 1930s-1998" (Harvard UP, 2022)

22 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On July 6, 1998, the last flight took off from Kai Tak International Airport, marking the end of an era for Hong Kong aviation. For decades, internati...

Kathe Geist, "Ozu: A Closer Look" (Hong Kong UP, 2022)

21 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Based on a close reading of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s extant films, this book provides insights into the ways the director created narrative ...

Dan Slater and Joseph Wong, "From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia" (Princeton UP, 2022)

17 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why some of Asia’s authoritarian regimes have democratized as they have grown richer—and why others haven’t Over the past century, Asia has been...

Elaine Pearson, "Chasing Wrongs and Rights: My Experience Defending Human Rights Around the World" (Simon & Schuster, 2022)

16 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Chasing Wrongs and Rights: My Experience Defending Human Rights Around the World (Simon & Schuster, 2022) by Elaine Pearson, the Asia Director at Hum...

Michael X. Wang, "Lost in the Long March" (Overlook Press, 2022)

15 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1934, tens of thousands of Communist guerillas fled Jiangxi, in an extended retreat through hazardous terrain to Shaanxi in the north, while under ...

Ying-Chen Peng, "Artful Subversion: Empress Dowager Cixi's Image Making" (Yale UP, 2023)

15 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ying-chen Peng’s Artful Subversion: Empress Dowager Cixi’s Image Making is a beautiful new volume on late Qing imperial art practice from Yale U...

Nicholas de Villiers, "Cruisy, Sleepy, Melancholy: Sexual Disorientation in the Films of Tsai Ming-Liang" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A critical figure in queer Sinophone cinema—and the first director ever commissioned to create a film for the permanent collection of the Louvre—T...

Amanda Wangwright, "The Golden Key: Women Artists and Gender Negotiations in Republican China (1911-1949)" (Brill, 2021)

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The first monograph devoted to women artists of the Republican period, The Golden Key: Women Artists and Gender Negotiations in Republican China (191...

Scott Moore, "China's Next Act: How Sustainability and Technology Are Reshaping China's Rise and the World's Future" (Oxford UP, 2022)

13 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything, it is that the world is bound together by shared challenges—and that at the center of those challenges ...

Is China's Communist Party Threatened by the Protests?

12 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This week, RBI Director John Torpey talked with William Hurst, Professor of Political Science at Cambridge University, about the origins of the protes...

Annika A. Culver, "Japan's Empire of Birds: Aristocrats, Anglo-Americans, and Transwar Ornithology" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

09 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Annika Culver’s Japan's Empire of Birds: Aristocrats, Anglo-Americans, and Transwar Ornithology (Bloomsbury Academic 2022) uses a previously unava...

David O’Brien and Melissa Shani Brown, "People, Place, Race, and Nation in Xinjiang, China: Territories of Identity" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

09 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Entitled People, Place, Race, and Nation in Xinjiang, China: Territories of Identity (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022), David O’Brien and Melissa Shani ...

Max Haiven, "Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire" (Pluto Press, 2022)

08 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Palm oil is a commodity like no other. Found in half of supermarket products, from food to cosmetics to plastics, it has shaped the world in which we ...

Ayelet Zohar, "The Curious Case of the Camel in Modern Japan: (De)Colonialism, Orientalism, and Imagining Asia" (Brill, 2022)

07 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ayelet Zohar’s The Curious Case of the Camel in Modern Japan: (De)Colonialism, Orientalism, and Imagining Asia (Brill, 2022) traces the use of ca...

John Delury, "Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China" (Cornell UP, 2022)

04 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China (Cornell University Press, 2022) by Dr. John Delury reconstructs t...

Adam Brookes, "Fragile Cargo: The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China's Forbidden City" (Atria Books, 2022)

02 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The two parallel Palace Museums in Beijing and Taiwan, and their separate collections of thousands of precious artworks and artifacts from imperial ti...

Chris McMorran, "Ryokan: Mobilizing Hospitality in Rural Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)

02 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Chris McMorran about his new book Ryokan: Mobilizing Hospitality in Rural Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2022). Amid the decline of many ...

The Future of Xi and China: A Discussion with Sue Lin Wong

30 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What will a Chinese-dominated world look like? And since Xi Jin Ping will probably rule China for life, what does he want to do; what does he believe ...

Viren Murthy, "The Politics of Time in China and Japan: Back to the Future" (Routledge, 2022)

29 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing on a wide range of texts and using an interdisciplinary approach, The Politics of Time in China and Japan: Back to the Future (Routledge, 20...

Wei Yu Wayne Tan, "Blind in Early Modern Japan: Disability, Medicine, and Identity" (U Michigan Press, 2022)

29 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

While the loss of sight—whether in early modern Japan or now—may be understood as a disability, blind people in the Tokugawa period (1600–1868) ...

The Assassination and Legacy of Shinzo Abe

25 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The brutal assassination of Prime Minister Abe in July this year shocked Japan and has produced large and unexpected consequences for the nation´s po...

Paul D. Barclay, "Outcasts of Empire: Japan's Rule on Taiwan's 'Savage Border,' 1874-1945" (U California Press, 2018)

24 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Outcasts of Empire: Japan’s Rule on Taiwan’s “Savage Border,” 1874-1945 (University of California Press, 2018) by Paul D. Barclay unveils the...

Aynne Kokas, "Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty" (Oxford UP, 2022)

22 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On August 6, 2020, the Trump Administration issued a ban on TikTok in the United States, requiring that the owner, Beijing-based Bytedance, sell the c...

Sarah Dauncey, "Disability in Contemporary China: Citizenship, Identity and Culture" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

18 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Disability in Contemporary China: Citizenship, Identity and Culture (Cambridge UP, 2022), Sarah Dauncey offers the first comprehensive explorati...

Alexander Des Forges, "Testing the Literary: Prose and the Aesthetic in Early Modern China" (Harvard UP, 2021)

18 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The eight-legged essay (bagu wen) was the one genre of writing that dominated in late imperial China. As the primary mode of expression in which men...

Towards a Green China

18 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What does the concept of ecological civilisation mean in practice? And how can we understand the relationship between grand visions, legal systems, gr...

Lynette H. Ong, "Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China" (Oxford UP, 2020)

18 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How do states coerce citizens into compliance while simultaneously minimizing backlash? In Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contempora...

Eric Tagliocozzo, "In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds from Yemen to Yokohama" (Princeton UP, 2022)

17 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the nineteenth century, one group of American merchants reported an odd request from the Vietnamese emperor. An envoy asked if the traders could he...

Steve Kemper, "Our Man In Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor" (Mariner Books, 2022)

17 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A gripping, behind-the-scenes account of the personalities and contending forces in Tokyo during the volatile decade that led to World War II, as seen...

Sisi Sung, "The Economics of Gender in China: Women, Work and the Glass Ceiling" (Routledge, 2022)

16 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Alongside rapid socio-economic development, China has achieved remarkable gains in gender equality on metrics like health, education, and labor forc...

Christopher Marquis and Kunyuan Qiao, "Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise" (Yale UP, 2022)

15 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise (Yale University Press, 2022) by Dr. Christopher Marquis & Dr. Kunyuan Qiao presents a tho...

Natali Pearson, "Belitung: The Afterlives of a Shipwreck" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)

15 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1998, the Belitung, a ninth-century western Indian Ocean–style vessel, was discovered in Indonesian waters. Onboard was a full cargo load, likel...

Howard Chiang, "Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific" (Columbia UP, 2021)

14 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As a broad category of identity, “transgender” has given life to a vibrant field of academic research since the 1990s. Yet the Western origins of ...

Meredith Schweig, "Renegade Rhymes: Rap Music, Narrative, and Knowledge in Taiwan" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

11 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Like many states emerging from oppressive political rule, Taiwan saw a cultural explosion in the late 1980s, when nearly four decades of martial law u...

Jianglin Li, "When the Iron Bird Flies: China's Secret War in Tibet" (Stanford UP, 2022)

09 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In When the Iron Bird Flies: China's Secret War in Tibet (Stanford University Press, 2022), Jianglin Li presents an untold story that reshapes our u...

Morgan Pitelka, "Reading Medieval Ruins: Urban Life and Destruction in Sixteenth-Century Japan" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

08 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Japanese provincial city of Ichijōdani was destroyed in the civil wars of the late sixteenth century but never rebuilt. Archaeological excavation...

Ghassan Moazzin, "Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

07 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Using previously unexplored and meticulously analyzed sources from China and to a lesser extent Japan, combined with those of Germany and the UK, Gh...

Brian A. Wong, "The Tao of Alibaba: Inside the Chinese Digital Giant That Is Changing the World" (PublicAffairs, 2022)

01 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This podcast features Brian A. Wong, discussing his new book, The Tao of Alibaba: Inside the Chinese Digital Giant That is Changing the World (Publ...

Yuhua Wang, "The Rise and Fall of Imperial China: The Social Origins of State Development" (Princeton UP, 2022)

01 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How social networks shaped the imperial Chinese state China was the world’s leading superpower for almost two millennia, falling behind only in the ...

Ksenia Chizhova, "Kinship Novels of Early Modern Korea: Between Genealogical Time and the Domestic Everyday" (Columbia UP, 2021)

01 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the face of a Korean cultural world preoccupied with newness, literary output from the more measured and regulated Choson period (1392-1910) can se...

Kathleen Burkinshaw, "The Last Cherry Blossom" (Sky Pony, 2020)

28 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Yuriko was happy growing up in Hiroshima when it was just her and Papa. But her aunt Kimiko and her cousin Genji are living with them now, and the fam...

Anthony J. Barbieri-Low, "The Many Lives of the First Emperor of China" (U Washington Press, 2022)

27 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the strategy game Civilization VI, where players choose world leaders to be their avatar, Qin Shihuang, the First Emperor of China, has one goal in...

Hongwei Bao, "Queer China: Lesbian and Gay Literature and Visual Culture Under Postsocialism" (Routledge, 2020)

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Queer China: Lesbian and Gay Literature and Visual Culture Under Postsocialism (Routledge, 2020), associate professor of media and cultural studi...

A. Carly Buxton, "Un-Thinking Collaboration: American Nisei in Transwar Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I will be talking to Carly Buxton about her book Unthinking collaboration: American Nisei in transwar Japan, which came out this year [2022] wi...

Yoshiko Okuyama, "Reframing Disability in Manga" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)

24 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Reframing Disability in Manga (University of Hawaii Press, 2020) analyzes popular Japanese manga published from the 1990s to the present that portra...

Michael Keevak, "On Saving Face: A Brief History of Western Appropriation" (Hong Kong UP, 2022)

21 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In On Saving Face: A Brief History of Western Appropriation (Hong Kong UP, 2022), Michael Keevak traces the Western reception of the Chinese concept...

Sabine Frühstück, "Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

21 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan (Cambridge University Press 2022) is a new addition to a list of publications by Sabine Fruhstuck, one of the le...

Reflections on Chinese Sexuality: A Conversation with Weiyi Hu

21 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How is sexuality experienced in contemporary China? What are the connections and tensions between China and the West in producing knowledges of sexual...

Jennifer S. Prough, "Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)

21 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2022) looks at the uses and effects of heritage in tourism in Kyoto today ...

Leah Kalmanson, "Cross-Cultural Existentialism: On the Meaning of Life in Asian and Western Thought" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

20 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Does human existence have a meaning? If so, is that meaning found in the world outside of us, or is it something we bring to our experience? In Cross...

Matthew W. King, "In the Forest of the Blind: The Eurasian Journey of Faxian's Record of Buddhist Kingdoms" (Columbia UP, 2022)

19 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What would an “anti-field history” of Buddhist Studies look like? What does the social history of knowledge look like when it both includes and ex...

The Future of Cold War: A Discussion with Sergey Radchenko

18 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Are we in a new cold war? And if so, is the US up against China or Russia? Join Owen Bennett Jones for a discussion with Sergey Radchenko, the Wilson ...

Maria Adele Carrai and Jennifer Rudolph, "The China Questions 2: Critical Insights Into US-China Relations" (Harvard UP, 2022)

14 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For decades Americans have described China as a rising power. That description no longer fits: China has already risen. What does this mean for the U....

Scott Moore, "China's Next Act: How Sustainability and Technology Are Reshaping China's Rise and the World's Future" (Oxford UP, 2022)

13 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“We’ll compete with confidence; we’ll cooperate wherever we can; we’ll contest where we must.” That’s the new China strategy as outlined b...

Thomas Baudinette, "Regimes of Desire: Young Gay Men, Media, and Masculinity in Tokyo" (U Michigan Press, 2021)

11 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Shinjuku Ni-chome is a nightlife district in central Tokyo filled with bars and clubs targeting the city's gay male community. Typically understood ...

Carles Prado-Fonts, "Secondhand China: Spain, the East, and the Politics of Translation" (Northwestern UP, 2022)

07 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I spoke with Carles Prado-Fonts on his recently published book Secondhand China: Spain, the East, and the Politics of Translation (Northweste...

Virtual Reality as Immersive Enclosure, with Paul Roquet (EF, JP)

06 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Roquet is an MIT associate professor in media studies and Japan studies; his earlier work includes Ambient Media. It was his recent mind-bendin...

4.3 Strange Beasts of Translation: Yan Ge and Jeremy Tiang in Conversation

06 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Yan Ge and Jeremy Tiang are both writers who accumulate languages. Sitting down with host Emily Hyde, they discuss their work in and across Chinese...

John Saeki, "The Last Tigers of Hong Kong: True Stories of Big Cats That Stalked the Hills Beyond the City" (Blacksmith Books, 2021)

06 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Most Hong Kong residents nowadays only have to worry about a wandering boar or an aggressive monkey in their day-to-day lives. But for much of its...

On Murasaki Shikibu's "The Tale of Genji"

06 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We don’t even know the real name of the 11th century author Murasaki Shikibu. But we do know that her book, The Tale of Genji, is arguably one of th...

Carlos Rojas on Translating Yan Lianke

05 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Carlos Rojas shares with us his experience as a translator. He has translated several renowned authors in the Chinese-speaking world,...

Alison Melnick Dyer, "The Tibetan Nun Mingyur Peldrön: A Woman of Power and Privilege" (U Washington Press, 2022)

04 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Born to a powerful family and educated at the prominent Mindröling Monastery, the Tibetan Buddhist nun and teacher Mingyur Peldrön (1699–1769) lev...

NBN Classic: Jennifer Hubbert, "China in the World: An Anthropology of Confucius Institutes, Soft Power, and Globalization" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)

02 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This episode proved remarkably popular, so we're reposting it as an NBN classic for those who missed it the first time. In recent years, Confucius Ins...

Juliane Noth, "Transmedial Landscapes and Modern Chinese Painting" (Harvard UP, 2022)

30 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Juliane Noth’s Transmedial Landscapes and Modern Chinese Paintings, coming very soon from the Harvard University Asia Center (2022), tracks a rela...

Beyond Meat? Dietary Shifts and Meat Contestations in China, India and Vietnam

30 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What explains the uneven meatification of diets in three of Asia’s core ‘emerging economies’? How and why is meat consumption changing today, an...

95 Intercultural Buddhism and Philosophy: A Discussion with Jin Y. Park

30 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the new season of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast. After a well-earned and challenging summer filled with drought, war, political strife and r...

Johanna O. Zulueta, "Okinawan Women's Stories of Migration: From War Brides to Issei" (Routledge, 2022)

30 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The phenomenon of “war brides” from Japan moving to the West has been quite widely discussed, but this book tells the stories of women whose lives...

Murasaki Yamada, "Talk to My Back" (Drawn & Quarterly, 2022)

27 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Manga historian Ryan Holmberg introduces the influential alternative manga artist Murasaki Yamada (1948-2009) to English readers through a scholarly t...

David Max Moerman, "The Japanese Buddhist World Map: Religious Vision and the Cartographic Imagination" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)

23 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries Japanese monks created hundreds of maps to construct and locate their place in a Buddhist world. ...

"Riding the Wild Horse in Chinese Literature”: Translation and Research on "Jin Ping Mei"

23 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What is the oral tradition of Chinese storytelling about and what is the connection to the great Chinese novels? How to translate a Chinese classic su...

Hannah Kirshner, "Water, Wood, and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town" (Penguin, 2022)

22 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A young sake bar owner, Yusuke Shimoki, arrives on the doorstep of Hannah Kirshner’s Brooklyn apartment “with a suitcase full of Ishikawa sake,”...

Andrew Grant, "The Concrete Plateau: Urban Tibetans and the Chinese Civilizing Machine" (Cornell UP, 2022)

21 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Concrete Plateau: Urban Tibetans and the Chinese Civilizing Machine (Cornell UP, 2022), Grant examines how China’s urban development polic...

John Kieschnick, "Buddhist Historiography in China" (Columbia UP, 2022)

16 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since the early days of Buddhism in China, monastics and laity alike have expressed a profound concern with the past. In voluminous historical works, ...

Transcendence and Sustainability: Asian Visions with Global Promise

16 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Can spiritually and religiously inspired environmental movements in Asia help reach the global goal of environmental sustainability? This question lie...

Caleb Swift Carter, "A Path Into the Mountains: Shugendō and Mount Togakushi" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Often represented as a tradition of ancient origins, Shugendō has retained a quality of mystery and nostalgia in the public imagination and scholars ...

Chinese Outbound Tourism: Leisure or Political Tool?

09 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How did Chinese tourism grow from almost non-existent to being the largest outbound travel source market in the world over a couple of decades? Is the...

Josh Chin and Liza Lin, "Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)

09 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As we build the AI-powered digital economy, how far do we want to go? Surveillance State: Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control ...

Jini Kim Watson, "Cold War Reckonings: Authoritarianism and the Genres of Decolonization" (Fordham UP, 2021)

08 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How did the Cold War shape culture and political power in decolonizing countries and give rise to authoritarian regimes in the so-called free world? ...

Joseph Torigian, "Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China After Stalin and Mao" (Yale UP, 2022)

07 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Unfortunately, one takeaway for readers of this book should be the difficulty that not only outside analysts but even party insiders face when trying ...

Morgan Pitelka and Reiko Tanimura, "Letters from Japan's Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" (IEAS, 2021)

07 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Cultural historians Morgan Pitelka and Reiko Tanimura partner with one of Japan’s premier experts in calligraphy and letter writing, Takashi Masuda,...