Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan, by Lori Meeks, has been awarded the Association for Asian Studies’ (AAS) 2012 John Whitney Hall Prize. The award was announced at this month’s AAS annual meeting in Toronto.
Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan is a volume in the Kuroda Institute’s Studies in East Asian Buddhism series.
Sunday, March 18, 2-3:30 pm, Native Books/Nā Mea Hawai‘i: Wendy Arbeit, author of Links to the Past: The Work of Early Hawaiian Artisans, will give a free talk on how she researched Links, what she discovered, and why drawings can offer more information than photographs. The discussion will be preceded by live demonstrations by cultural practitioners and followed by a book-signing by the author and light refreshments. Books will be available for purchase at the shop, located at the ‘ewa end of Ward Warehouse, 1050 Ala Moana Blvd. (phone: 596-8885).
Monday, March 19, 6:30-7:30 pm, Thinking Out Loud: Talking Issues, Taking Action (KZOO-AM 1210): Don Hibbard, coauthor of Hart Wood: Architectural Regionalism in Hawai‘i and other books on architecture, will be interviewed by radio host Willa Tanabe. The program is sponsored by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i.
Corruption is a popular topic in the Pacific Islands. Politicians are accused of it and campaign against it. Fiji’s coup leaders vowed to clean it up. Several countries have “leadership codes” designed to reduce corruption, and others have created specialized anti-corruption agencies. But what counts as corruption in the Pacific and what causes it? How much is really going on? How can we measure it? What types are present? Are gifts really bribes? Is “culture” an excuse for corruption? Is politics—in particular, democracy—intrinsically corrupt? In clear and concise language, Interpreting Corruption: Culture and Politics in the Pacific Islands, by Peter Larmour, attempts to answer these questions.
“This book performs a hat trick (for those unfamiliar with upper-latitude sports, three goals by an ice hockey player is a hat trick) by explaining the meaning of corruption in the Pacific Islands, clarifying the central concepts in the study of public integrity, and deftly guiding the reader on a journey through coups, scams, and a plethora of ideas about an age old problem.” —Frank Anechiarico, Hamilton College
Topics in the Contemporary Pacific
March 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3514-9 / $49.00 (CLOTH)
As part of the University of Hawai‘i’s Green Days initiative, University of Hawai‘i Press will be closed March 26-30, 2012. The Press will reopen on Monday, April 2, 2012. Mahalo for your support!
Launched in January 2012, Project MUSE’s University Press Content Consortium (UPCC) e-book collections feature more than 14,000 electronic titles from 66 university press and scholarly publishers, including UH Press. The collections provide libraries, researchers, and students access to high quality book-length scholarship, including both new and classic titles, fully integrated with over 500 journal titles. Visit http://muse.jhu.edu for more information.
Glenn Wharton will hold a book launch for The Painted King: Art, Activism, and Authenticity in Hawai‘i at 6:00-7:30 pm, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University, 20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor. Presenters at the event will also include Mitchell Duneier (Professor of Sociology, Princeton University), John Haworth (Director, George Gustave Heye Center, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian), Harriet Senie (Professor of Art History, CUNY Graduate Center), and John Kuo Wei Tchen (Founding Director, Asian/Pacific/American Institute).
Victoria Kneubuhl will be one of the featured writers at the Friends of Waialua Library’s annual Authors Night, 6:30-8:30 pm. Her new mystery, Murder Leaves Its Mark, will be of special interest to area residents since the old Haleiwa Hotel is a setting for the novel.
The Association for Asian Studies annual meeting is UH Press’ biggest scholarly exhibit/conference: 300 new and recent Asia books and journals will be on display and editorial and marketing staff will be attending. The Press’ publishing partners Ateneo de Manila University Press, Cornell University East Asia Program, KITLV Press, NIAS Press, NUS Press (Singapore), and University of the Philippines Press will be exhibiting in neighboring booths, in addition to newcomer MerwinAsia. See you in Toronto!
People outside and within colleges and universities often view these institutions as fair and reasonable, far removed from the inequalities that afflict society in general. Despite greater numbers of women, working class people, and people of color—as well as increased visibility for LGBTQ students and staff—over the past fifty years, universities remain “ivory towers” that perpetuate institutionalized forms of sexism, classism, racism, and homophobia. Transforming the Ivory Tower: Challenging Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in the Academy, edited by Brett C. Stockdill and Mary Yu Danico, builds on the rich legacy of historical struggles to open universities to dissenting voices and oppressed groups. Each chapter is guided by a commitment to praxis—the idea that theoretical understandings of inequality must be applied to concrete strategies for change.
March 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3526-2 / $39.00 (CLOTH)
Shōjo manga are romance comics for teenage girls. Characterized by a very dense visual style, featuring flowery backgrounds and big-eyed, androgynous boys and girls, it is an extremely popular and prominent genre in Japan. Why is this genre so appealing? Where did it come from? Why do so many of the stories feature androgynous characters and homosexual romance? Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girl’s Culture in Japan, by Deborah Shamoon, answers these questions by reviewing Japanese girls’ print culture from its origins in 1920s and 1930s girls’ literary magazines to the 1970s “revolution” shōjo manga, when young women artists took over the genre. It looks at the narrative and aesthetic features of girls’ literature and illustration across the twentieth century, both pre- and postwar, and discusses how these texts addressed and formed a reading community of girls, even as they were informed by competing political and social ideologies.
“In this engaging account, Deborah Shamoon forwards an innovative argument for taking the long view of girls’ culture. Rather than focusing narrowly on prewar or postwar production, she convincingly demonstrates the connections in theme, image, and tone that produce a genealogy of the Japanese girl (shōjo). With a keen eye to the visual representations of the shōjo, she points to the ways graphic artists express interiority, affection, and a frankly charming girlishness. She at the same time guides readers through the debates over readers’ and writers’ intentions, alleged subtexts of repression, and disparities in Western and Japanese critics’ approaches to shōjo display and fandom. Passionate Friendship is a remarkable contribution to the growing field of Girl Studies.”—Jan Bardsley, University of North Carolina
March 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3542-2 / $27.00 (PAPER)
In early medieval China hundreds of Buddhist miracle texts were circulated, inaugurating a trend that would continue for centuries. Each tale recounted extraordinary events involving Chinese persons and places—events seen as verifying claims made in Buddhist scriptures, demonstrating the reality of karmic retribution, or confirming the efficacy of Buddhist devotional practices. Robert Ford Campany, one of North America’s preeminent scholars of Chinese religion, presents Signs from the Unseen Realm: Buddhist Miracle Tales from Early Medieval China, the first complete, annotated translation, with in-depth commentary, of the largest extant collection of miracle tales from the early medieval period, Wang Yan’s Records of Signs from the Unseen Realm, compiled around 490 C.E.
Classics in East Asian Buddhism
March 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3602-3 / $65.00 (CLOTH)
Published in association with the Kuroda Institute
Combine creativity, aesthetics and practicality in your very own garden with an inspired mix of fruit, vegetable, herbs and flowers. The beautifully illustrated The Ornamental Edible Garden gives practical information on everything you need to know to design and plant an ornamental edible garden, including advice on laying pathways and edgings, building raised beds, erecting plant supports, hedging and enclosures, how to espalier, as well as plans for traditional ground layouts for any garden size or shape, and much, much more. Full color photographs throughout.
February 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3672-6 / $24.99 (PAPER)
The UH Press Asian Studies 2012 catalog is now available online. To view the 3.8M PDF, click on the cover image to the left.
Highlights include:
* A pioneering study of the fate of Buddhism during the communist period in Cambodia (Buddhism in a Dark Age: Cambodian Monks under Pol Pot)
* The first major work of Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965), “Japan’s Edgar Allan Poe” (Strange Tale of Panorama Island)
* The first definitive chronicle of a remarkable phenomenon in Chinese architecture (Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China)
* A new volume in the Dimensions of Asian Spirituality series (Theravada Buddhism: The View of the Elders)
* A study of Buddhist miracle texts by one of the preeminent scholars of Chinese religion (Signs from the Unseen Realm: Buddhist Miracle Tales from Early Medieval China)
* Two new volumes in a series designed to help students learn the most frequently used Chinese characters (Remembering Traditional Hanzi 2; Remembering Simplified Hanzi 2)
* Innovative studies on Japanese popular and visual culture (Passionate Friendship: The Aesthetics of Girl Culture in Japan; Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime, and Religion in Contemporary Japan; The Art of Censorship in Postwar Japan; Japanese Cinema in the Digital Age)
* A colorful, comprehensive guide to Hawai‘i’s Japanese Buddhist temples (Japanese Buddhist Temples of Hawai‘i: An Illustrated Guide)
* The latest books in a popular Korean language textbook series (Integrated Korean: Intermediate 1, Second Edition, Textbook, Workbook)
* A richly illustrated look at the artisans of Himachal Pradesh and their work (Making Faces: Self and Image Creation in a Himalayan Valley)
* An insider’s view of the sex trade on the Lao-Thai border (The Perfect Business? Anti-Trafficking and the Sex Trade along the Mekong)
