Author: stephchun

2012 Ka Palapala Pookela Awards

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The annual Ka Palapala Po‘okela Awards, presented by the Hawai‘i Book Publishers Association, honor Hawai‘i’s best books, authors, and illustrators. This year’s award ceremony will be held on Friday, May 11, 2012, at 6 pm, at Bishop Museum’s Atherton Halau. A reception and book signing will follow at 7:30 pm., in the museum’s Hawaiian Hall Atrium and Courtyard.

Tickets are $25 and include heavy pupu buffet and cocktails, gourmet chocolate truffles by Choco le‘a, and entertainment by Ka ‘Eha. Book sale and author signing proceeds to benefit Bishop Museum. Tickets can be purchased at Native Books/Na Mea Hawai‘i at Ward Warehouse (596-8885). For more information, email aloha@hawaiibooks.org.

This year’s UH Press nominees are:

Links to the Past: The Work of Early Hawaiian Artisans, by Wendy S. Arbeit
(Excellence in Hawaiian Culture, Excellence in Text or Reference, Excellence in Special Interest)

Backstage in a Bureaucracy: Politics and Public Service by Susan Chandler and Richard C. Pratt
(Excellence in Nonfiction)

No Nā Mamo: Traditional and Contemporary Hawaiian Beliefs and Practices by Malcolm Nāea Chun
(Excellence in Hawaiian Culture, Excellence in Nonfiction, Excellence in Design)

Hawaiian Surfing: Traditions from the Past by John R. K. Clark
(Excellence in Hawaiian Culture, Excellence in Text or Reference, Excellence in Nonfiction, Excellence in Design)

Conservation of Pacific Sea Turtles by Peter Dutton, Dale Squires, and Mahfuzuddin Ahmed
(Excellence in Natural Science)

Fighting in Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawai‘i by Gerald Horne
(Excellence in Nonfiction)

Murder Leaves Its Mark by Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl
(Excellence in Literature)

People and Cultures of Hawai‘i: The Evolution of Culture and Ethnicity edited by John F. McDermott and Naleen Naupaka Andrade
(Excellence in Text or Reference)

I Ulu I Ke Kumu: The Hawai‘inuiākea Monograph edited by Puakea Nogelmeier
(Excellence in Hawaiian Culture)

Big Happiness: The Life and Death of a Modern Hawaiian Warrior by Mark Panek
(Excellence in Nonfiction)

Shore Fishes of Easter Island by John E. Randall and Alfredo Cea
(Excellence in Natural Science)

Living Spirit: Literature and Resurgence in Okinawa edited by Frank Stewart and Katsunori Yamazato
(Excellence in Literature)

Waves of Resistance: Surfing and History in Twentieth-Century Hawai‘i by Isaiah Helekunihi Walker
(Excellence in Nonfiction, Excellence in Design)

Cultures of Commemoration Wins Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize

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Native Paths to Volunteer TrailsCultures of Commemoration: The Politics of War, Memory, and History in the Mariana Islands, by Keith L Camacho, was recently awarded the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. The prize is awarded to works that contribute to the development of “the Pacific Basin Community Concept” and to regional studies of the Pacific Basin region. Cultures of Commemoration is part of the Pacific Islands Monograph Series (PIMS), published in association with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i.

Another PIMS title, The Pacific Theater: Island Representations of World War II, edited by Geoffrey M. White and Lamont Lindstrom, received the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize in 1990.

Hiking and Trail Building on Oahu

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Native Paths to Volunteer TrailsO‘ahu has a varied, extensive, and distinctive network of mountain hiking trails. In Native Paths to Volunteer Trails: Hiking and Trail Building on O‘ahu, Stuart M. Ball, Jr., author of The Hikers Guide to O‘ahu, explores the history behind many of the island’s trails, beginning with early Hawaiians who blazed routes for traveling, plant and wood gathering, and bird catching. Sugar plantations constructed paths to access ditches that tapped stream water for thirsty cane. The U.S. Army built trails for training and island defense, while those developed by the Territorial Forestry Division and the Civilian Conservation Corps were mainly for reforestation and wild pig control. Most recently, volunteers and hiking clubs have created additional routes solely for recreation. The result of all this varied activity is a large network of just over a 100 mountain trails, a precious resource on a small, populous island. The book compiles the history of 50 of these trails.

April 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3560-6 / $21.99 (PAPER)

Evil and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Medieval Japanese Buddhism

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The Seven Tengu ScrollsThe Seven Tengu Scrolls: Evil and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Medieval Japanese Buddhism, by Haruko Wakabayashi, is a study of visual and textual images of the mythical creature tengu from the late Heian (897–1185) to the late Kamakura (1185–1333) periods. Popularly depicted as half-bird, half-human creatures with beaks or long noses, wings, and human bodies, tengu today are commonly seen as guardian spirits associated with the mountain ascetics known as yamabushi. In the medieval period, however, the character of tengu most often had a darker, more malevolent aspect. Wakabashi focuses in this study particularly on tengu as manifestations of the Buddhist concept of Māra (or ma), the personification of evil in the form of the passions and desires that are obstacles to enlightenment. Her larger aim is to investigate the use of evil in the rhetoric of Buddhist institutions of medieval Japan. Through a close examination of tengu that appear in various forms and contexts, Wakabayashi considers the functions of a discourse on evil as defined by the Buddhist clergy to justify their position and marginalize others.

“Haruko Wakabayashi gives us a meticulously researched, entertaining, and thought-provoking study of the image of the tengu. Using a wealth of written and visual sources, she is able to show that this odd long-nosed or bird-like figure, often avoided in scholarship as a sort of hobgoblin of marginal folk belief, was in fact an important figure, absolutely essential to the polemics and self-conception of central institutions and actors in medieval Japanese Buddhism.” —Hank Glassman, Haverford College

April 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3416-6 / $50.00 (CLOTH)

Art, Production, and Display in Edo Japan

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Obtaining ImagesThe Edo period (1603–1868) witnessed one of the great flowerings of Japanese art. Towards the mid-seventeenth century, the Japanese states were largely at peace, and rapid urbanization, a rise in literacy and an increase in international contact ensued. The number of those able to purchase luxury goods, or who felt their social position necessitated owning them, soared. Painters and artists flourished and the late seventeenth century also saw a rise in the importance of printmaking. Obtaining Images: Art, Production, and Display in Edo Japan, by Timon Screech, introduces the reader to important artists and their work, but also to the intellectual issues and concepts surrounding the production, consumption and display of art in Japan in the Edo period.

April 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3613-9 / $50.00 (CLOTH)

New Edition of Remembering the Kanji 2 Now Available

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Remembering the Kanji 2Following the first volume of James W. Heisig’s popular series of textbooks Remembering the Kanji, this new edition of Volume 2 provides students with helpful tools for learning the pronunciation of the kanji. Behind the notorious inconsistencies in the way the Japanese language has come to pronounce the characters it received from China lie several coherent patterns. Identifying these patterns and arranging them in logical order can reduce dramatically the amount of time spent in the brute memorization of sounds unrelated to written forms.

The 4th edition has been updated to include the 196 new kanji approved by the government in 2010 as “general-use” kanji. A new edition of Remembering the Kanji 3, which completes the series, will be available in Fall 2012.

April 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3669-6 / $32.00 (PAPER)

A Conversation about the American Immigrant Experience

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Mary Yu Danico, author of The 1.5 Generation: Becoming Korean American in Hawai‘i and co-editor of the recently published Transforming the Ivory Tower: Challenging Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in the Academy, participated in a discussion on the 1.5 immigrant experience at the Crawford Family Forum in Pasadena on March 27. The forum was sponsored by Southern California Public Radio.

The 1.5 generation—comprising immigrants who arrive in the U.S. as children and younger teens—holds a unique place within the immigrant diaspora experience. What roles do they play at home or outside it? What languages do they speak in given situations? Does 1.5-ness affect who gets their votes—or their hands in love or marriage?

Listen to the forum here: http://www.scpr.org/events/2012/03/27/being-15-intergenerational-ness-day-day-life/.

On the Human and Divine

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Almost HeavenEach of the stories, poems, and essays in Almost Heaven: On the Human and Divine, edited by Frank Stewart, is about the appearance of a divine moment or presence—which may take many forms and names. One such presence is depicted here in the play Damien, by Aldyth Morris, based on the Belgian priest who cared for victims of leprosy on the island of Moloka‘i. Some moments of goodness are large and celebrated, as in the lives of saints such as Father Damien. Some occur in the seemingly modest works of people who choose to regard those around them with extraordinary compassion. Sometimes goodness can seem inexpicably courageous and even miraculous.

Also included are extraordinary images reproduced from glass-plate negatives made at Kalaupapa, Moloka‘i, in the early twentieth century, from the collection of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts United States Province.

Manoa 23:2
March 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3675-7 / $20.00 (PAPER)

Of related interest: Leper Priest of Molokai: The Father Damien Story (Richard Stewart); Holy Man: Father Damien of Molokai (Gavan Daws); Damien (Aldyth Morris).

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