New Books in East Asian Studies

Nicole Elizabeth Barnes, "Intimate Communities: Wartime Healthcare and the Birth of Modern China, 1937-1945" (U California Press, 2018)

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When China’s War of Resistance against Japan began in July 1937, it sparked an immediate health crisis throughout China. In the end, China not only ...

Terry Lautz, "Americans in China: Encounters with the People's Republic" (Oxford UP, 2022)

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Americans in China: Encounters with the People’s Republic (Oxford, 2022) tells the stories of men and women who have lived and worked in China from...

Ayelet Zohar and Alison J. Miller, "The Visual Culture of Meiji Japan: Negotiating the Transition to Modernity" (Routledge, 2021)

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Visual Culture of Meiji Japan: Negotiating the Transition to Modernity (Routledge, 2021) examines the visual culture of Japan's transition to mod...

Szu-Wen Kung, "Translation of Contemporary Taiwan Literature in a Cross-Cultural Context" (Routledge, 2021)

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Translation of Contemporary Taiwan Literature in a Cross-Cultural Context (Routledge, 2021) explores the social, cultural, and linguistic implicatio...

Isabella M. Weber, "How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate" (Routledge, 2021)

15 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country's rise without leading to its wholes...

Karen Cheung, "The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir" (Random House, 2022)

14 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Hong Kong is almost impossible to explain to those not from the city. Too often, the city has had to struggle with shorthand used by those writing abo...

Takeshi Morisato, "Tanabe Hajime and the Kyoto School: Self, World, and Knowledge" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

14 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This introduction to Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962), the critical successor of the “father of contemporary Japanese philosophy” Nishida Kitaro (1870–...

Robert Barnett et al., "Conflicting Memories: Tibetan History Under Mao Retold : Essays and Primary Documents" (Brill, 2020)

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, history under him was retold: for example, the Cultural Revolution was rebranded as “Ten Years of Chaos” an...

Darren Byler, "Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City" (Duke UP, 2022)

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The continuing crisis in Xinjiang has, thanks to the work of many scholars and reporters, led to greatly increased awareness of the region's hist...

Why Is Eileen Gu the New Poster Child in China?

08 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What is “binary nationalism” and what has it got to do with free-style skiing? The explosive popularity of Eileen Gu’s is an excellent case for ...

Pamela Kyle Crossley, "Hammer and Anvil: Nomad Rulers at the Forge of the Modern World" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019)

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This groundbreaking book examines the role of rulers with nomadic roots in transforming the great societies of Eurasia, especially from the thirteenth...

Melissa M. Lee, "Crippling Leviathan: How Foreign Subversion Weakens the State" (Cornell UP, 2020)

04 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Policymakers worry that "ungoverned spaces" pose dangers to security and development. Why do such spaces exist beyond the authority of the state? Earl...

Sherzod Muminov, "Eleven Winters of Discontent: The Siberian Internment and the Making of a New Japan" (Harvard UP, 2022)

31 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of the Second World War, about 600,000 Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner after the Soviet Union swept through Manchuria in the very fin...

China, Buddhism and the Belt and Road Initiative in Mainland Southeast Asia

31 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Launched in 2013 by Chinese President XI Jinping, China’s Belt and Road initiative has manifested throughout Southeast Asia in the form of multibill...

Ayşe Zarakol, "Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

29 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ayse Zarakol, Professor of International Relations at the University of Cambridge, is the author of Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern Wor...

The Security Dilemma in the Korean Peninsula: Foreign Policy of Yoon Seok-youl, the Incoming President of South Korea

28 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

South Korean presidential election ended and the conservative party candidate, Yoon Suk-yeol won the election. How will he balance the relationships b...

Eiren L. Shea, "Mongol Court Dress, Identity Formation, and Global Exchange" (Routledge, 2020)

25 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Mongol period (1206-1368) marked a major turning point of exchange - culturally, politically, and artistically - across Eurasia. The wide-ranging ...

Liora Sarfati, "Contemporary Korean Shamanism: From Ritual to Digital" (Indiana UP, 2021)

25 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Once viewed as an embarrassing superstition, the theatrical religious performances of Korean shamans--who communicate with the dead, divine the future...

China’s International Relations and the Ukraine Crisis

25 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken the ground of global politics, and one of the key questions has been China’s position in the situation. In...

Ken Chih-Yan Sun, "Time and Migration: How Long-Term Taiwanese Migrants Negotiate Later Life" (Cornell UP, 2021)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Based on longitudinal ethnographic work on migration between the United States and Taiwan, Time and Migration: How Long-Term Taiwanese Migrants Negot...

Tao Jiang, "Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China: Contestation of Humaneness, Justice, and Personal Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2021)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When we think of pre-Buddhism Chinese philosophy, ideas such as filial piety and “the Dao” might come to mind. But what was at stake in the philos...

Jing Tsu, "Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern" (Riverhead Books, 2022)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Tens of thousands of characters. Countless homonyms. Mutually unintelligible dialects across an entire country. This is what faced the Chinese thinker...

Daniel Y. Kim, "The Intimacies of Conflict: Cultural Memory and the Korean War" (NYU Press, 2020)

22 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I talk with Daniel Y. Kim, Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Brown University, about his 2020 book Intimacies o...

Peter B. Lavelle, "The Profits of Nature: Colonial Development and the Quest for Resources in Nineteenth-Century China" (Columbia UP, 2020)

22 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Profits of Nature: Colonial Development and the Quest for Resources in Nineteenth-Century China (Columbia UP, 2020), Peter Lavelle offers a f...

Susan Chan Egan and Pai Hsien-yung, "A Companion to the Story of the Stone: A Chapter-By-Chapter Guide" (Columbia UP, 2021)

21 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A Companion to The Story of the Stone: A Chapter-by-Chapter Guide (Columbia UP, 2021), co-authored by Susan Chan Egan and Pai Hsien-yung (Columbia U...

De-Min Tao and Gary P. Leupp, eds., "The Tokugawa World" (Routledge, 2021)

21 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

With over 60 contributions, The Tokugawa World (Routledge, 2021) presents the latest scholarship on early modern Japan from an international team o...

Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell, "Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

15 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the glittering skyline in Shanghai seemingly attests, China has quickly transformed itself from a place of stark poverty into a modern, urban, tech...

Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey, "On the Edge: Life Along the Russia-China Border" (Harvard UP, 2021)

14 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The border between Russia and China winds for 2,600 miles through rivers, swamps, and vast taiga forests. It's a thin line of direct engagement, extra...

Friederike Assandri, "The Daode jing Commentary of Cheng Xuanying: Daoism, Buddhism, and the Laozi in the Tang Dynasty" (Oxford UP, 2021)

14 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This book presents for the first time in English a complete translation of the Expository Commentary to the Daode jing, written by the Daoist monk ...

Silvia M. Lindtner, "Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation" (Princeton UP, 2020)

10 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation (Princeton University Press, 2020) reveals how a growing distrust in Western models o...

On the Resurgence of Taoism and Christianity in China

09 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Ian Johnson is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the New York Times; his work has also...

Edward Tyerman, "Internationalist Aesthetics: China and Early Soviet Culture" (Columbia UP, 2021)

08 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

I am joined for my interview with Edward Tyerman by Ed Pulford, another host on our channel. Together, we discuss Edward’s new book, Internationali...

Olivia Milburn, "The Empress in the Pepper Chamber: Zhao Feiyan in History and Fiction" (U Washington Press, 2021)

01 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Zhao Feiyan (45-1 BCE), the second empress appointed by Emperor Cheng of the Han dynasty (207 BCE-220 CE), was born in slavery and trained in the perf...

The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan

28 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang is Associate Professor of East Asian History, Department of History, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA . His book “The G...

Aminta Arrington, "Songs of the Lisu Hills: Practicing Christianity in Southwest China" (PSU Press, 2020)

28 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The story of how the Lisu of southwest China were evangelized one hundred years ago by the China Inland Mission is a familiar one in mission circles. ...

Hiroko Matsuda, "Liminality of the Japanese Empire: Border Crossings from Okinawa to Colonial Taiwan" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)

25 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Okinawa, one of the smallest prefectures of Japan, has drawn much international attention because of the long-standing presence of US bases and the pe...

Alexa Alice Joubin, "Shakespeare & East Asia" (Oxford UP, 2021)

23 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Shakespeare’s plays enjoy a great deal of popularity across the world, yet most of us study Shakespeare's local productions and scholarship. Shakes...

Yunxiang Gao, "Arise Africa, Roar China: Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century" (UNC Press, 2021)

22 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Arise Africa, Roar China: Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) explores the c...

Understanding Authoritarianism: Deepening Autocratization, Dynamic Dictatorships, and China

21 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Authoritarian regimes have often been discussed in contrast to democratic governments and defined in terms of what they lack--namely, democratic featu...

Shameen Prashantham, "Gorillas Can Dance: Lessons from Microsoft and Other Corporations on Partnering with Startups" (Wiley, 2021)

17 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Shameen Prashantham about his book Gorillas Can Dance: Lessons from Microsoft and Other Corporations on Partnering with Startups ...

Peggy Wang, "The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)

14 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking to Peggy Wang about her new book, The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art (Minnesota Universi...

Dagmar Schwerk, "A Timely Message from the Cave" (2020)

14 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Following the globalization of Tibetan Buddhism in the second half of the twentieth century, Indo-Tibetan Buddhist teachings such as Mahāmudrā have ...

Jun Liu, "Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age: Mobile Communication and Politics in China" (Oxford UP, 2020)

11 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How has digital communication technologies impacted the dynamics of political contention in China? What is the role of mobile technology in the countr...

David S. Roh, "Minor Transpacific: Triangulating American, Japanese, and Korean Fictions" (Stanford UP, 2021)

11 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Minor Transpacific: Triangulating American, Japanese, and Korean Fictions (Stanford University Press, 2021), David S. Roh brings Asian Americanis...

Paul French, "Bloody Saturday: Shanghai's Darkest Day" (Penguin, 2018)

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Thirties and Forties were some of the first instances of aerial bombardment of civilian populations—and an indication of their destructive power...

Leilei Chen, "Re-Orienting China: Travel Writing and Cross-Cultural Understanding" (U Regina Press, 2016)

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Re-Orienting China: Travel Writing and Cross-Cultural Understanding (U Regina Press, 2016) challenges the notion of the travel writer as imperialisti...

Liz P. Y. Chee, "Mao's Bestiary: Medicinal Animals and Modern China" (Duke UP, 2021)

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Controversy over the medicinal uses of wild animals in China has erupted around the ethics and efficacy of animal-based drugs, the devastating effect ...

Susan Jolliffe Napier, "Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art" (Yale UP, 2018)

08 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A thirtieth‑century toxic jungle, a bathhouse for tired gods, a red‑haired fish girl, and a furry woodland spirit—what do these have in common? ...

Peilin Liang, "Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese Contemporary Theater" (Routledge, 2021)

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Proposing the concept of transformance, a conscious and rigorous process of self-cultivation toward a reconceptualized body, Liang shows how theater p...

Colin Thubron, "The Amur River: Between Russia and China" (Harper, 2021)

03 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It’s a great pleasure to welcome Colin Thubron to the Asian Review of Books podcast. Travel writer and novelist, Colin has written countless books...

Joseph W. Ho, "Developing Mission: Photography, Filmmaking, and American Missionaries in Modern China" (Cornell UP, 2021)

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Joseph W. Ho’s book Developing Mission: Photography, Filmmaking, and American Missionaries in Modern China (Cornell University Press, 2021) offers...

Yajun Mo, "Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912-1949" (Cornell UP, 2021)

31 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912-1949 (Cornell UP, 2021), Yajun Mo explores how early twentieth century Chinese sightseers descri...

Neil J. Diamant, "Useful Bullshit: Constitutions in Chinese Politics and Society" (Cornell UP, 2022)

31 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Useful Bullshit: Consitutions in Chinese Politics and Society (Cornell University Press, 2022) Dr. Neil Diamant pulls back the curtain on early c...

James Heisig, "Of Gods and Minds: In Search of a Theological Commons" (Chisokudō Publications, 2019)

27 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

One of the trailblazers in the field of Japanese philosophy, James W. Heisig, delivered his five lectures in 2019 at Boston College as the Duffy L...

Catherine S. Chan, "Macanese Diaspora in British Hong: A Century of Transimperial Drifting" (Amsterdam UP, 2021)

27 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Hong Kong’s Ice House Street, in the heart of the city’s Financial District, is Club Lusitano: one of the city’s premier social clubs, nestle...

Howard Chiang, "Queer Taiwanese Literature: A Reader" (Cambria Press, 2021)

24 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in Asia and host the first annual gay pride in the Sinophone Pacific, Taiwan is a historic center of ...

Heidi Wang-Kaeding, "China's Environmental Foreign Relations" (Routledge, 2021)

21 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Environmental protection and climate actions has embedded in China’s foreign policy and the Chinese government has recently pledged to make the Belt...

Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey, "On the Edge: Life Along the Russia-China Border" (Harvard UP, 2021)

20 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The border between Russia and China is one of the world’s longest, spanning thousands of miles. It’s one of the few extended land borders between ...

Erin M. Cline, "The Analects: A Guide" (Oxford UP, 2021)

20 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Probably the most well-known Chinese philosopher around the world is Kongzi, typically called by his Latinized name, “Confucius.” And yet he did n...

Ziying You, "Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China: Incense Is Kept Burning" (Indiana UP, 2020)

18 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China: Incense Is Kept Burning (Indiana UP, 2020), Ziying You explores the role ...

Rebecca Corbett, "Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)

17 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The overwhelming majority of tea practitioners in contemporary Japan are women, but there has been little discussion on their historical role in tea c...

Ruth Mostern, "The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural History" (Yale UP, 2021)

14 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A three-thousand-year history of the Yellow River and the legacy of interactions between humans and the natural landscape From Neolithic times to the ...

COVID-19 and Vaccine Hesitancy in Japan

07 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Anti-vaccination movements pose an increasing threat to global public health, but what of vaccine hesitancy? Join us for a discussion on the effects o...

Export China: Reimagining Chineseness through the Ceramics Trade in Southeast Asia

07 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2021, a team of divers led by renowned maritime archaeologist Dr Michael Flecker and sponsored by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute surveyed two hist...

Cheng Li, "Middle Class Shanghai: Reshaping U.S.-China Engagement" (Brookings Institution Press, 2021)

06 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In mid-November, Washington and Beijing mutually agreed to start granting journalist visas again, putting an end to months of reciprocal visa reject...

Dominique Townsend, "A Buddhist Sensibility: Aesthetic Education at Tibet's Mindröling Monastery" (Columbia UP, 2021)

03 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Founded in 1676 during a cosmopolitan early modern period, Mindröling monastery became a key site for Buddhist education and a Tibetan civilizational...

Viktoriya Kim et al. "The Politics of International Marriage in Japan" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

03 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Viktoriya Kim, Nelia Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto's book The Politics of International Marriage in Japan (Rutgers UP, 2021) provides an in-de...

Takashi Saitō, "Ghastly Tales from the Yotsuya Kaidan" (Chisokudo, 2020)

28 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Ghastly Tales from the Yotsuya Kaidan (Chisokudo, 2020) is a newly revised and corrected translation of what is perhaps the most famous and oft told...

East Asian Cold War History with a Maritime Twist

27 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When did the Cold War in East Asia really begin? According to ADI-NIAS researcher Kuan-Jen Chen, the answer is 1945 – if we view the Cold War throug...

Shelly Chan, "Diaspora’s Homeland: Modern China in the Age of Global Migration" (Duke UP, 2018)

24 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Diaspora’s Homeland: Modern China in the Age of Global Migration (Duke University Press, 2018) by Shelly Chan provides a broad historical study of ...

Ian Reader and John Shultz, "Pilgrims Until We Die: Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku" (Oxford UP, 2021)

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Ian Reader and John Shultz's Pilgrims Until We Die: Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku (Oxford University Press, 2021)" explores the Shikoku pilgrimage ...

Michael K. Bourdaghs, "A Fictional Commons: Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literature" (Duke UP, 2021)

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Modernity arrived in Japan, as elsewhere, through new forms of ownership. In A Fictional Commons: Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literat...

Yeling Tan, "Disaggregating China, Inc.: State Strategies in the Liberal Economic Order" (Cornell UP, 2021)

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Once you understand that markets require public institutions of governance and regulation in order to function well, and further, you accept that nati...

Hua Li, "Chinese Science Fiction During the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw" (U Toronto Press, 2021)

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The late 1970s to the mid-1980s, a period commonly referred to as the post-Mao cultural thaw, was a key transitional phase in the evolution of Chinese...

Timothy D. Amos and Akiko Ishii, "Revisiting Japan's Restoration: New Approaches to the Study of the Meiji Transformation" (Routledge, 2021)

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Revisiting Japan's Restoration: New Approaches to the Study of the Meiji Transformation (Routledge, 2021) presents the reader with thirty-one short c...

Stephen Vines, "Defying the Dragon: Hong Kong and the World’s Largest Dictatorship" (Hurst, 2021)

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What sequence of events led Hong Kong to lose its long-held status as a liberal enclave of China? What drove its population to rise up against its gov...

Understanding South Korea’s Taegukgi Rallies

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Why did so many of South Korea’s senior citizens take to the streets between 2016 and 2019? What motivated their participation in rallies? And what ...

Timothy M. Yang, "A Medicated Empire: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Modern Japan" (Cornell UP, 2021)

17 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Timothy Yang’s A Medicated Empire: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Modern Japan (Cornell 2021) is a case study of Hoshi Pharmaceutical, a Japanese...

Rayna Denison, "Anime: A Critical Introduction" (Bloomsbury, 2015)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rayna Denison’s Anime: A Critical Introduction (Bloomsbury, 2015) uses genre as a window into the evolving global phenomenon of Japanese animatio...

Eike Exner, "Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Japanese comics, commonly known as manga, are a global sensation. Critics, scholars, and everyday readers have often viewed this artform through an Or...

Chun-Yi Peng, "Mediatized Taiwanese Mandarin: Popular Culture, Masculinity, and Social Perceptions" (Springer, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mediatized Taiwanese Mandarin: Popular Culture, Masculinity, and Social Perceptions (Springer, 2021) explores how language ideologies have emerged fo...

The #MeToo Movement in China and the Case of Tennis Star Peng Shuai

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Several high-profile cases of sexual harassment and assault have helped the #MeToo movement in China continue to make impacts on a society that is hig...

Karl Gerth, “China: Up Close and Personal” (Open Agenda, 2021)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

China: Up Close and Personal is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Karl Gerth, Hwei-Chih and Julia Hsiu Chair in Chine...

Alisa Freedman, "Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost" (Association for Asian Studies, 2021)

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Alisa Freedman's book Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost (Association for Asian Studies, 2021) explore...

Negotiated Environmentalism: Influences of Domestic Interest Groups in China’s Environmental Foreign Relations

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

COP26 was billed as the make or break event in the fight against climate change. In conversation with Quynh Le Vo, Sharon Seah, coordinator of the ISE...

Rethinking China's Humanitarian Diplomacy before and during Covid-19

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As the Covid-19 pandemic spread to Europe and other parts of the globe in spring of 2020, the Chinese government started reporting donations of Person...

Margherita Zanasi, "Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Margherita Zanasi argues that basic...

Shao-yun Yang, "The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China" (U Washington Press, 2019)

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Shao-yun Yang's The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China (University of Washington Press, 2019) challenges as...

John Maraldo, "Japanese Philosophy in the Making 2: Borderline Interrogations" (Chisokudo, 2019)

29 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The second of three volumes of essays that engage Japanese philosophers as intercultural thinkers, this collection critically probes seminal works for...

Sunhee Koo, "Sound of the Border: Music and Identity of Korean Minority Nationality in China" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When faced with some of the complex identity questions which often arise in borderlands, Koreans in China – known as Chosonjok in Korean, Chaoxianzu...

Marc Gallicchio, "Unconditional: The Japanese Surrender in World War II" (Oxford UP, 2020)

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Signed on September 2, 1945 aboard the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay by Japanese and Allied leaders, the instrument of surrender for...

Melissa Macauley, "Distant Shores: Colonial Encounters on China's Maritime Frontier" (Princeton UP, 2021)

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“The Europeans raise all the cattle, but the Chinese get all the milk.” This joke, told in colonial Singapore, was indicative of the importance of...

Darryl Sterk, "Indigenous Cultural Translation: A Thick Description of Seediq Bale" (Routledge, 2020)

23 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Indigenous Cultural Translation: A Thick Description of Seediq Bale (Routledge, 2020) is about the process that made it possible to film the 2011 Ta...

Chinese Digital Vigilantism: The Mediated and Mediatised Justice-Seeking

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What is digital vigilantism? How do Chinese citizens seek justice online? How does digital vigilantism reflect contemporary Chinese technological and ...

James Garrison, "Reconsidering the Life of Power: Ritual, Body, and Art in Critical Theory and Chinese Philosophy" (SUNY Press, 2021)

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Reconsidering the Life of Power: Ritual, Body, and Art in Critical Theory and Chinese Philosophy by James Garrison (SUNY Press 2021), argues that the...

Xavier Naville, "The Lettuce Diaries: How A Frenchman Found Gold Growing Vegetables In China" (Earnshaw Books, 2021)

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Many Western entrepreneurs and businesses have foundered in trying to set up shop in China. Different expectations, different ways of doing business, ...

Gabriella Lukács, "Invisibility by Design: Women and Labor in Japan's Digital Economy" (Duke UP, 2020)

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of labor market deregulation during the 2000s, online content sharing and social networking platforms were promoted in Japan as new sites ...

Nicole Willock, "Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhist Polymaths of Socialist China" (Columbia UP, 2021)

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What happened to the Buddhist scholars who stayed behind in Tibet and China after the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans fled from the Pe...

Hiromu Nagahara, "Tokyo Boogie-Woogie: Japan's Pop Era and Its Discontents" (Harvard UP, 2017)

11 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tokyo Boogie-Woogie: Japan's Pop Era and its Discontents (Harvard University Press, 2017) by Hiromu Nagahara is the first English-language history o...

Jeffrey J. Hall, "Japan's Nationalist Right in the Internet Age: Online Media and Grassroots Conservative Activism" (Routledge, 2021)

11 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Japan's nationalist right have used the internet to organize offline activism in increasingly visible ways. Jeffrey J. Hall, investigates the role of...