Author: alphabex

Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, e-vol. 1, no. 1

Posted on by alphabex

The University of Hawai‘i Press is pleased to announce the debut of Cross-Currents East Asian History and Culture Review. A collaborative effort of the Institute of East Asian Studies at University of California, Berkeley, and Korea University’s Research Institute of Korean Studies, Cross-Currents is a quarterly e-journal dedicated to facilitating “frequent and open communication between Eastern and Western scholars regarding issues related to East Asian studies.” A selection of works featured in the inaugural issue may be accessed via the links below.

Letter from the Co-Editors: Our Vision for Cross-Currents
Sungtaek Cho, Wen-hsin Yeh

Introduction by the Guest Editor: Territoriality and Space Production in China
You-tien Hsing

Photo Essay: Beijing Besieged by Garbage
Wang Jiuliang

Journal of World History, vol. 22, no. 4 (2011)

Posted on by alphabex

ARTICLES

“Sino-Pacifica”: Conceptualizing Greater Southeast Asia as a Sub-Arena of World History
Andrew J. Abalahin, 659

Conventional geography’s boundary line between a “Southeast Asia” and an “East Asia,” following a “civilizational” divide between a “Confucian” sphere and a “Vietnam aside, everything but Confucian” zone, obscures the essential unity of the two regions. This article argues the coherence of a macroregion “Sino-Pacifica” encompassing both and explores this new framework’s implications: the Yangzi River basin, rather than the Yellow River basin, pioneered the developments that led to the rise of Chinese civilization, and the eventual prominence of the Yellow River basin came not from centrality but rather from its liminality—its position as the contact zone between Inner Eurasia and Southeast Asia.

Continue reading “Journal of World History, vol. 22, no. 4 (2011)”

Biography, vol. 34, no. 2 (2011)

Posted on by alphabex

Editors’ Note, v

ARTICLES

Autographics and the History of the Form: Chronicling Self and Career in Will Eisner’s Life, in Pictures and Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life
Rocío G. Davis, 253

Using the notion of “autographics,” this essay examines how Will Eisner, in Life, in Pictures (2007) and Yoshihiro Tatsumi, in A Drifting Life (2009), deploy the graphic form to illustrate the development of graphic art, incorporating the story of their artistic trajectory with a critical look at the development of the medium in their time. The texts become exceptional documents that trace the interconnections among politics, society, art, economy, and idealism in the United States and Japan before and after the Second World War.

Continue reading “Biography, vol. 34, no. 2 (2011)”

Buddhist-Christian Studies, vol. 31 (2011)

Posted on by alphabex

EDITORIAL by Mahinda Deegalle, vii

ARTICLES

Chinese Buddhism and the Threat of Atheism in Seventeenth-Century Europe
Thierry Meynard, 1

A Buddhist Carol
Paul M. Keeling, 25

Hobbits as Buddhists and an Eye for an “I”
Paul Andrew Powell, 31

No-Self, Dōgen, the Senika Doctrine, and Western Views of Soul
Gerhard Faden, 41

THE SCHOLARLY CONTRIBUTIONS OF RITA M. GROSS

Continue reading “Buddhist-Christian Studies, vol. 31 (2011)”

Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 28, no. 2 (2011)

Posted on by alphabex
Kabuki watercolor drawing by A.C. Scott (Courtesy of Martha Johnson)
Kabuki watercolor drawing by A. C. Scott (Courtesy of Martha Johnson)

From the Editor, v

Addendum to Modern Chinese Drama in English: A Selective Bibliography
Siyuan Liu and Kevin J. Wetmore Jr., 279

SYMPOSIUM:
FOUNDERS OF THE FIELD

(First Generation Asian Theatre Scholars in the United States)
edited by Siyuan Liu and David Jortner
Continue reading “Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 28, no. 2 (2011)”

Journal of World History, vol. 22, no. 3 (2011)

Posted on by alphabex

ARTICLES

The Spiritual Journey of an Independent Thinker: The Conversion of Li Zhizao to Catholicism
Yu Liu, 433

Li Zhizao (d. 1630) was one of the most famous early Chinese Roman Catholics intimately associated with Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), the founder of the Jesuit mission in China. In spite of his fame, Li’s religious experience has not so far been adequately investigated. To understand this crucially important aspect of his life and the related early modern East-West intellectual interaction, this article looks closely into questions about his conspicuously late formal entry into the Church, the peculiar circumstances of his agreement to receive baptism in 1610, and the complex implications of his logically deduced theistic belief for both Confucianism and Christianity. Continue reading “Journal of World History, vol. 22, no. 3 (2011)”

Biography, vol. 34, no. 1 (2011): Life Writing as Intimate Publics

Posted on by alphabex

Biography 34-1 cover
Cover image: Julia and the Window of Vulnerability, by Joanne Leonard ©1983

Introduction: Life Writing as Intimate Publics
Margaretta Jolly, v-xi

This special issue of Biography begins from the US cultural critic Lauren Berlant’s term “intimate public” to explore new constituencies of belonging in relation to life writing and life storying across media. Life writing creates affect worlds, where strangers meet through emotional connection, worlds that are economically and politically dynamic. Continue reading “Biography, vol. 34, no. 1 (2011): Life Writing as Intimate Publics”

Journal of World History, vol. 22, no. 2 (2011)

Posted on by alphabex

ARTICLES

Pirates and Kings: Power on the Shores of Early Modern Madagascar and the Indian Ocean
Jane Hooper, 215

This article describes the ways elites in Madagascar benefited from interactions with European and American pirates during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Malagasy leaders expanded their knowledge of global patterns of exchange and used this knowledge to monopolize trade from the island. At the time, the identification and suppression of pirates became a conflict between trade systems in and around the island. The states formed by Malagasy elites challenged British and French influence in the southwestern Indian Ocean and came under attack during the nineteenth century, a period of expanding European power in the region. Continue reading “Journal of World History, vol. 22, no. 2 (2011)”

Pacific Science, vol. 65, no. 3 (2011)

Posted on by alphabex

Ant-Plant Mutualism in Hawai‘i? Invasive Ants Reduce Flower Parasitism but Also Exploit Floral Nectar of the Endemic Shrub Vaccinium reticulatum (Ericaceae)
Richard Bleil, Nico Blüthgen, and Robert R. Junker, 291

Ants had been absent from the Hawaiian Islands before their human introduction. Today they cause severe alterations of ecosystems and displace native biota. Due to their strong demand on carbohydrate-rich resources, they often exploit floral nectar of native Hawaiian plant species with largely unknown consequences for the plants’ reproduction. Continue reading “Pacific Science, vol. 65, no. 3 (2011)”

Philosophy East and West, vol. 61, no. 3 (2011)

Posted on by alphabex

REMEMBERING DR. KENNETH K. INADA

Dr. Kenneth K. Inada (1923–2011), 407

A Memorial Tribute to Kenneth K. Inada
Eliot Deutsch, 408

ARTICLES

Abstract Concept Formation in Archaic Chinese Script Forms: Some Humboldtian Perspectives
Tze-wan Kwan, 409

Starting from the Humboldtian characterization of Chinese writing as a “script of thoughts,” this article makes an attempt to show that notwithstanding the important role played by phonetic elements, the Chinese script also relies on visual-graphical means in its constitution of meaning. In point of structure, Chinese characters are made up predominantly of components that are sensible or even tangible in nature. Out of these sensible components, not only physical objects or empirical states of affairs can be expressed, but also the most subtle and abstract concepts, such as 萬, 它, 言, 災, 仁, 義, 思, 念, 法, 律, 善, 考, 莫, 睘, and 幾, attesting to what Humboldt says about the Chinese script as having “embraced philosophical work within itself.” Humboldt’s idea of “analogy of script” throws light on the mechanism behind this structure to stimulate new reflections on the traditional theory of the “Six Ways” (六書) of character formation to provide a productive platform for interpretation.
Continue reading “Philosophy East and West, vol. 61, no. 3 (2011)”

MENU