New Books in East Asian Studies
Episodes
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,...
Charo B. D'Etcheverry, "Celebrating Sorrow: Medieval Tributes to the Tale of Sagoromo" (Cornell UP, 2022)
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Celebrating Sorrow: Medieval Tributes to the Tale of Sagoromo (Cornell UP, 2022) explores the medieval Japanese fascination with grief in tributes to...
Jerry C. Zee, "Continent in Dust: Experiments in a Chinese Weather System" (U California Press, 2022)
05 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today Julia Keblinska and I had the pleasure of talking to Assistant Professor Jerry Zee about his book, Continent in Dust: Experiments in a Chine...
Vietnam and China: Strange Bedfellows in the Era of Strategic Competition
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the Asia-Pacific becomes the central stage of the US-China rivalry, Vietnam has emerged as one of the key countries to watch. While Vietnam has pos...
Thomas Donald Conlan, "Samurai and the Warrior Culture of Japan, 471-1877: A Sourcebook" (Hackett, 2022)
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In addition to providing excerpts from classic tales of Japan’s warrior past, Samurai and the Warrior Culture of Japan, 471-1877: A Sourcebook (Ha...
Brian DeMare, "Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman: Echoes of Counterrevolution from New China" (Stanford UP, 2022)
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Using rare grassroots archives, Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman: Echoes of Counterrevolution from New China (Stanford UP, 2022) dives deep into f...
Bert Becker, "France and Germany in the South China Sea, c. 1840-1930: Maritime Competition and Imperial Power" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
29 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
France and Germany in the South China Sea, c. 1840-1930 Maritime Competition and Imperial Power (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) explores imperial power ...
Michael Ackland, "The Existentialist Vision of Haruki Murakami" (Cambria Press, 2022)
29 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Haruki Murakami has often been accused of being a feckless, merely popular writer, but in The Existentialist Vision of Haruki Murakami (Cambria Pres...
Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere, "Global China as Method" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
26 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Is China part of the world? Based on much of the political, media, and popular discourse in the West the answer is seemingly no. Even after four decad...
On Inazō Nitobe's "Bushido: The Soul of Japan"
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nitobe Inazō wanted to explain Japan to Westerners, particularly morality as it is taught in Japanese society. He was born a Samurai in 1862. In his ...
James Welker, "Queer Transfigurations: Boys Love Media in Asia" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Queer Transfigurations: Boys Love Media in Asia (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2022), edited by James Welker, brings together twenty-one scholars ex...
Annah Lake Zhu, "Rosewood: Endangered Species Conservation and the Rise of Global China" (Harvard UP, 2022)
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Money does strange things to people, as Annah Lake Zhu notes in her latest book Rosewood: Endangered Species Conservation and the Rise of Global Chin...
Fiona Moore, "Global Taiwanese: Asian Skilled Labour Migrants in a Changing World" (U Toronto Press, 2021)
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Global Taiwanese: Asian Skilled Labour Migrants in a Changing World (U Toronto Press, 2021), Fiona Moore explores the different ways in which Tai...
Angela Ki Che Leung et al., "Moral Foods: The Construction of Nutrition and Health in Modern Asia" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The twelve chapters of Moral Foods: The Construction of Nutrition and Health in Modern Asia (U Hawai’i Press, 2020) are divided into three section...
Anoma Van Der Veere et al., "Public Health in Asia During the Covid-19 Pandemic" (Amsterdam UP, 2022)
15 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Every nation in Asia has dealt with COVID-19 differently and with varying levels of success in the absence of clear and effective leadership from the ...
William Matthews, "Cosmic Coherence: A Cognitive Anthropology Through Chinese Divination" (Berghahn Books, 2021)
15 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I spoke to anthropologist William Matthews about his new book, Cosmic Coherence: A Cognitive Anthropology Through Chinese Divination (Berghah...
Roselyn Hsueh, "Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
12 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Roselyn Hsueh’s Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism (Cambridge, 2022) presents a new framework for understanding how developing countrie...
On "The Great Learning"
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes the oldest texts are the most influential. The Great Learning likely first appeared in the Confucian Book of Rites around 2,000 years ago, a...
Steven B. Miles, "Opportunity in Crisis: Cantonese Migrants and the State in Late Qing China" (Harvard UP, 2021)
09 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Opportunity in Crisis: Cantonese Migrants and the State in Late Qing China (Harvard UP, 2021) explores the history of late Qing Cantonese migration ...
David R. Stroup, "Pure and True: The Everyday Politics of Ethnicity for China's Hui Muslims" (U Washington Press, 2022)
09 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Compared to their Uyghur and Kazakh co-religionists in Xinjiang, China’s largest single Muslim group – the Hui – has received less media and sch...
Michael J. Hathaway, "What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make" (Princeton UP, 2022)
08 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make (Princeton University Press, 2022) by Dr. Michael Hathaway pushes today’s mushroom ...
Ariane Knüsel, "China's European Headquarters: Switzerland and China During the Cold War" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
08 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
During the Cold War, the People's Republic of China used Switzerland as headquarters for its economic, political, intelligence, and cultural networks ...
Christopher Craig, "Middlemen of Modernity: Local Elites and Agricultural Development in Meiji Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)
05 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Christopher Craig’s Middlemen of Modernity: Local Elites and Agricultural Development in Meiji Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2022) is a thoroughly resea...
China’s Role in the Future of Green Energy
05 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How green is green energy really? And what role does Asia, more specifically China play in the transition to green energy? On the 7th of July, Interna...
Ramon Pacheco Pardo, "Shrimp to Whale: South Korea from the Forgotten War to K-Pop" (Oxford UP, 2022)
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If there’s a country that “punches above its weight”, it’s South Korea. It’s home to some of the world’s largest and most important compan...
On "The Story of the Stone"
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The 1750s are remembered as a high point of China's Qing Dynasty: a time of power, prestige, and social harmony. But The Story of the Stone paints a d...
The Future of Korea: A Discussion with Eugene Y. Park
02 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There have been times when Korea has lived in periods of prolonged stability and tranquillity. But there have also been times, such as now, when it se...
Benjamin R. Young, "Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World" (Stanford UP, 2021)
02 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Far from always having been an isolated nation and a pariah state in the international community, North Korea exercised significant influence among Th...
Joshua A. Fogel and Matthew Fraleigh, "Sino-Japanese Reflections: Literary and Cultural Interactions between China and Japan in Early Modernity" (de Gruyter, 2022)
02 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joshua A. Fogel and Matthew Fraleigh's edited volume Sino-Japanese Reflections: Literary and Cultural Interactions between China and Japan in Early M...
Jin Feng, "Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways" (U Washington Press, 2019)
01 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Jin Feng of Grinnell College about her fascinating book Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways (U Washington Press, 2019)....
Peter Kornicki, "Eavesdropping on the Emperor: Interrogators and Codebreakers in Britain's War With Japan" (Oxford UP, 2021)
01 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Japanese signals were decoded at Bletchley Park, who translated them into English? When Japanese soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, who int...
The Implications of the Ukrainian War for Taiwan’s Relations with China
01 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Is a Chinese invasion on Taiwan a storm on the horizon when the West is busy with the Ukrainian war? Will Nancy Pelosi’s plan to visit Taiwan in Aug...
Cole Roskam, "Designing Reform: Architecture in the People's Republic of China, 1970-1992" (Yale UP, 2021)
26 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
China’s urban landscapes are full of radically different architectural styles which memorialise different eras in the country’s political past, fr...
Gonçalo Santos, "Chinese Village Life Today: Building Families in an Age of Transition" (U Washington Press, 2021)
25 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I had the pleasure of talking to Professor Gonçalo Santos (University of Coimbra), about his new book, Chinese Village Life Today: Building ...
Japanese Immigration and the Korean Minority
22 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why does Japanese immigration policy have such a bad name? What are the historical origins of tight immigration policies? Where have these policies le...
Ethan Mark, "Japan’s Occupation of Java in the Second World War: A Transnational History" (Bloomsbury, 2018)
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War: A Transnational History (Bloomsbury, 2018) by Ethan Mark draws upon written and oral Japanese, In...
John Fitzgerald, "Cadre Country: How China Became the Chinese Communist Party" (NewSouth Books, 2022)
20 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since the founding of the Communist Party in China just over a century ago there is much the country has achieved. But who does the heavy lifting in C...
Hsin-I Cheng, "Cultivating Membership in Taiwan and Beyond: Relational Citizenship" (Lexington, 2021)
19 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Citizenship is traditionally viewed as a legal status to be possessed. Cultivating Membership in Taiwan and Beyond: Relational Citizenship (Lexingto...
Publishing in Asian Studies Journals
15 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How can we get our articles in Asian studies published? What criteria should we use in selecting what journals to target? On what basis do journal edi...
Veronica S. W. Mak, "Milk Craze: Body, Science, and Hope in China" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Veronika Mak’s Milk Craze: Body, Science, and Hope in China (U of Hawaii Press, 2021) mixes historical and ethnographic research on milk to unde...
Vivian Jing Zhan, "China's Contained Resource Curse: How Minerals Shape State Capital Labor Relations" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Contrary to intuition, many countries have found that having abundant natural resources such as petroleum or diamonds may be a curse as much as a bles...
Jennifer Lin, "Beethoven in Beijing: Stories from the Philadelphia Orchestra's Historic Journey to China" (Temple UP, 2022)
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1973, the Philadelphia Orchestra boarded a Pan Am 707 plane in Philadelphia for a once-in-a-lifetime journey: a multi-city tour of Maoist China, mo...
The Future of Hong Kong: A Discussion with Ho-Fung Hung
12 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hong Kong has always existed on the edge of empires, providing services and capabilities to powerful nations. And even to this day when the one countr...
Finnish Maritime Interaction with China in the 18th Century
08 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As COVID-19 disrupted maritime trade with China, the world was again reminded of the importance of shipping in global commerce. The roots of Nordic ma...
Sheila A. Smith, "Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power" (Harvard UP, 2019)
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Sheila A. Smith about her book Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power (Harvard UP, 2019). Modern Japan is not only respond...
Meng Zhang, "Timber and Forestry in Qing China: Sustaining the Market" (U Washington Press, 2021)
06 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Focusing on timber in Qing China (1644-1911), Dr. Meng Zhang's (Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University) new book, Timber and Fores...
W. Puck Brecher, "Animal Care in Japanese Tradition: A Short History" (Association for Asian Studies, 2022)
06 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Animal Care in Japanese Tradition: A Short History (Association for Asian Studies, 2022), Brecher offers a brief overview of animals in Japanese ...
Helen Jin Kim, "Race for Revival: How Cold War South Korea Shaped the American Evangelical Empire" (Oxford UP, 2022)
05 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1973, Billy Graham, "America's Pastor," held his largest ever "crusade." But he was not, as one might expect, in the American heartland, but in Sou...
Elsa L. Fan, "Commodities of Care: The Business of HIV Testing in China" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
04 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Commodities of Care: The Business of HIV Testing in China (U Minnesota Press, 2021) examines the unanticipated effects of global health interventions...
The Struggle for Hong Kong: A Conversation with Jeffrey Wasserstrom
01 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why should we view the anti-China protests that began in Hong Kong in 2019 through a comparative lens? How do earlier episodes in Hong Kong’s histor...
Victor Seow, "Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Victor Seow’s Carbon Technocracy: Energy regimes in Modern East Asia (U Chicago Press, 2021) is an account of the modern “world that carbon mad...
Yin Cao, "From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885-1945" (Brill, 2017)
28 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Shanghai became a cosmopolitan hub with communities of Japanese, British, Russians, Jews, and ot...
Rachael Hutchinson and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon, "Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG" (Lexington Books, 2022)
27 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rachael Hutchinson and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon's edited volume Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG (Le...
Japan’s Reaction to Russia’s War in Ukraine
24 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has dramatically affected international politics, and the effects are also felt in East Asia. We have heard a lot abo...
Eli Friedman, "The Urbanization of People: The Politics of Development, Labor Markets, and Schooling in the Chinese City" (Columbia UP, 2022)
20 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Amid a vast influx of rural migrants into urban areas, China has allowed cities wide latitude in providing education and other social services. While ...
Artificial Intelligence with Chinese Characteristics
17 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is artificial intelligence (AI) with Chinese characteristics? Why is the Chinese Government labelling AI as a matter of security? How has AI been...
Juwen Zhang, "The Dragon Daughter and Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales" (Princeton UP, 2022)
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Dragon Daughter and Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales (Princeton University Press, 2022) by Dr. Juwen Zhang brings together forty-two magical Chinese tal...
Michael Berry, "The Musha Incident: A Reader on the Indigenous Uprising in Colonial Taiwan" (Columbia UP, 2022)
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On October 27, 1930, members of six Taiwanese indigenous groups ambushed the Japanese attendees of an athletic competition at the Musha Elementary Sch...
Sarah Teasley, "Designing Modern Japan" (Reaktion Books, 2022)
13 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Teasley's Designing Modern Japan (Reaktion, 2022) unpicks the history of Japanese design from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the twe...
Yi Gu, "Chinese Ways of Seeing and Open-Air Painting" (Harvard UP, 2021)
10 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yi Gu's Chinese Ways of Seeing and Open-Air Painting (Harvard UP, 2020) examines the rise of open-air painting in 20th-century China, showing how th...
Lin Song, "Queering Chinese Kinship: Queer Public Culture in Globalizing China" (Hong Kong UP, 2021)
10 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
China has one of the largest queer populations in the world, but what does it mean to be queer in a Confucian society in which kinship roles, ties, an...
Hentyle Yapp, "Minor China: Method, Materialisms, and the Aesthetic" (Duke UP, 2021)
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Minor China: Method, Materialisms, and the Aesthetic (Duke UP, 2021), Hentyle Yapp analyzes contemporary Chinese art as it circulates on the glo...
English-Language Publishing in Asian Universities and Colleges
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hear from Professor Chris Gerteis, director of the International Publishing Initiative at Tokyo University. Avi and Chris have a fascinating discussi...
Joshua Neves, "Underglobalization: Beijing's Media Urbanism and the Chimera of Legitimacy" (Duke UP, 2020)
03 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joshua Neves’ Underglobalization: Beijing's Media Urbanism and the Chimera of Legitimacy (Duke University Press, 2020) examines the interplay of ...
Jessamyn Abel, "Dream Super-Express: A Cultural History of the World's First Bullet Train" (Stanford UP, 2022)
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jessamyn Abel’s Dream Super-Express: A Cultural History of the World’s First Bullet Train (Stanford UP, 2022) is a history of Japan’s famous ...
Wen Liu, et al., "Reorienting Hong Kong’s Resistance: Leftism, Decoloniality, and Internationalism" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I talk to two of the editors of Reorienting Hong Kong’s Resistance: Leftism, Decoloniality, and Internationalism (Palgrave MacMil...
Nathaniel Isaacson, "Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction" (Wesleyan UP, 2017)
31 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Chinese science fiction has been booming lately through the translation of books like Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, but where did the current...
Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg, "Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World" (Oneworld, 2021)
30 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World (Oneworld, 2021), Dr. Clive Hamilton and Dr. Mareike Ohlberg explore...
Kerry Brown and Gemma Chenger Deng, "China Through European Eyes: 800 Years of Cultural and Intellectual Encounter" (World Scientific, 2022)
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Europeans have been writing about China for centuries–ever since The Travels of Marco Polo described it as a faraway and mystical kingdom. Europea...
Boys Love and Japanese Queer Popular Culture across Southeast Asia
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers across East and Southeast Asia have found themselves turning to Thai soap operas known as “B...
Pandemic Perspectives 12: Politicizing the COVID Pandemic
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Michael Berry, Director of the UCLA Center for Chinese...
Susan Westhafer Furukawa, "The Afterlife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Historical Fiction and Popular Culture in Japan" (Harvard UP, 2022)
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Popular representations of the past are everywhere in Japan, from cell phone charms to manga, from television dramas to video games to young people dr...
Mayfair Yang, "Chinese Environmental Ethics: Religions, Ontologies, and Practices" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021)
24 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An interdisciplinary collection in the new field of environmental humanities, Chinese Environmental Ethics: Religions, Ontologies, and Practices (Ro...
Jiwei Xiao, "Telling Details: Chinese Fiction, World Literature" (Routledge, 2022)
23 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is a detail? How is it different from xijie, its Chinese counterpart? Is "reading for the details" fundamentally different from "reading for the...
Rana Siu Inboden, "China and the International Human Rights Regime: 1982–2017" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
23 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In China and the International Human Rights Regime (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Rana Siu Inboden examines the evolution of China’s posture ...
The “Post-Abe” era, Japan under Fumio Kishida with Paul Midford
23 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Does Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida´s new administration represent the true beginning of the “Post-Abe” era for Japan? After the one-year ...
Andrew D. Morris, "Defectors from the PRC to Taiwan, 1960-1989: The Anti-Communist Righteous Warriors" (Routledge, 2022)
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Defections from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were an important part of the narrative of the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan during the Col...
Elizabeth Oyler and Katherine Saltzman-Li, "Cultural Imprints: War and Memory in the Samurai Age" (Cornell UP, 2022)
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Oyler and Katherine Saltzman-Li's book Cultural Imprints: War and Memory in the Samurai Age (Cornell UP, 2022) draws on literary works, a...
Ethnographic Perspectives on Change and Continuity in China
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The People’s Republic of China has undergone tumultuous and varied sociocultural developments over the course of its history. In this episode, Dr. S...
Corey Byrnes, "Fixing Landscape: A Techno-Poetic History of China’s Three Gorges" (Columbia UP, 2019)
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Corey Byrnes’ Fixing Landscape: A Techno-Poetic History of China’s Three Gorges (Columbia University Press, 2019) is a work of considerable hist...
Glynne Walley, "Eight Dogs, or 'Hakkenden': Part One―An Ill-Considered Jest" (Cornell UP, 2021)
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hakkenden is a classic work of Japanese literature: the story of the eight warriors, born from Princess Fuse and the dog Yatsufusa, has been adapted t...
Hyaeweol Choi, "Gender Politics at Home and Abroad: Protestant Modernity in Colonial-Era Korea" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Postcolonial feminist scholarship on the formation of gender relations primarily uses the analytic of colonizer-colonized dyad. In her new monograph, ...
Christopher Carothers, "Corruption Control in Authoritarian Regimes: Lessons from East Asia" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Political corruption remains … one of the most intriguing and challenging issues in social science research and public policy, perhaps because altho...
The New Political Cry in South Korea?: The History of Feminist Activisms and Politics in South Korea
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The anti-feminist movement in South Korea is gaining global attention. The story has been covered by many western mainstream news outlets including th...
Mark L. Clifford, "Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China's Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this account of the rapid erosion of liberties, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and civil and political rights in Hong Kong, Mark L. Cliffo...
Mikkel Bunkenborg et al., "Collaborative Damage: An Experimental Ethnography of Chinese Globalization" (Cornell UP, 2022)
09 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Collaborative Damage: An Experimental Ethnography of Chinese Globalization (Cornell UP, 2022) is an experimental ethnography of Chinese globalization...