Author: stephchun

The Decorative Object in Early Modern China

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Sensuous SurfacesSensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China, by Jonathan Hay, is a richly illustrated and in-depth introduction to the decorative arts in Ming- and Qing-dynasty China. Hay explores materials and techniques, as well as issues of patronage and taste, which together formed a loose system of informal rules that affected every level of decoration in early modern China, from an individual object to the arrangement of an entire residential interior. By engaging the actual and metaphoric potential of surface, Hay contends, this system guided the production and use of the decorative arts during a period of explosive growth, which started in the late sixteenth century and continued until the mid-nineteenth century. This understanding of decorative arts in China made a fundamental contribution to the sensory education of its early modern urban population, both as individuals and in their established social roles. Sensuous Surfaces is also an elegant meditation on the role of pleasure in decoration. Often intellectually dismissed as merely pleasurable, Hay argues that decoration is better understood as a necessary form of art that can fulfill its function only by engaging the human capacity for erotic response.

September 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3361-9 / $63.00 (CLOTH)

Desire and Difference in Indonesia

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Falling into the Lesbi WorldFalling into the Lesbi World: Desire and Difference in Indonesia, by Evelyn Blackwood, offers a compelling view of sexual and gender difference through the everyday lives of tombois and their girlfriends (“femmes”) in the city of Padang, West Sumatra. While likening themselves to heterosexual couples, tombois and femmes contest and blur dominant constructions of gender and heterosexuality. Tombois are masculine females who identify as men and desire women; their girlfriends view themselves as normal women who desire men. Through rich, in-depth, and provocative stories, author Evelyn Blackwood shows how these same-sex Indonesian couples negotiate transgressive identities and desires and how their experiences speak to the struggles and desires of sexual and gender minorities everywhere.

“Falling into the Lesbi World sheds valuable light on the ways in which locally distinctive sensibilities articulate with regional, national, and transnational discourses bearing on the making of gender and sexual identities among Indonesia’s Minangkabau. This is a very sophisticated, nuanced, and theoretically provocative piece of work that is simultaneously lucid and compelling; it will be of great interest to Southeast Asianists and others committed to understanding gender diversity and sexual subjectivities in postcolonial contexts and beyond.” —Michael G. Peletz, Emory University

September 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3487-6 / $24.00 (PAPER)

Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics Wins the BAAL Book Prize

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GossipGossip and the Everyday Production of Politics, by Niko Besnier, has been awarded the BAAL Book Prize for 2010. BAAL (the British Association for Applied Linguistics) is a professional association based in the United Kingdom, which provides a forum for people interested in language and the applications of linguistics. It offers the annual prize for an outstanding book in any field of applied linguistics.

Talking Hawaii’s Story Readings to Air

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Talking Hawaii's StoryPaired readings from Talking Hawaiʻi’s Story: Oral Histories of an Island People, edited by Michi Kodama-Nishimoto, Warren Nishimoto, and Cynthia A. Oshiro, and Bamboo Ridge Press titles will air as a two-part program on September 7 and 14, at 6:30 pm, on “Aloha Shorts,” KIPO 89.3 FM. The readings were taped live at the fifth annual Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival on May 16, 2010.

UH Press Anniversary Sale On Now

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From September 1–7 (Hawai‘i Dateline), take 40% off EVERYTHING at our web site: www.uhpress.hawaii.edu.

Only prepaid orders taken at the UH Press web site will receive the 40% discount, which appears at checkout. All sales are final; no returns except for defective stock. Quantities are limited to stock on hand. No other discounts or sale offers apply. Bookstores, wholesalers, libraries, and other institutions may participate in this sale. Orders are shipped from Hawai‘i, Pennsylvania, Canada, and the U.K. If you have any questions, please contact our order department at 888-847-7377 or at uhpbooks@hawaii.edu.

The Value of Hawai‘i Events in September

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The Value of Hawaii
The Value of Hawai‘i Contributors on Tourism and Historic Preservation Wednesday, September 2, 7:00 am, AM 940
Tune in to Nā ‘Ōiwi ‘Ōlino on KINE 940 AM to listen to Ramsay Remigius Mahealani Taum and Sara Collins. Rebroadcast at 5 pm, and archived online at http://www.naoiwiolino.com.

The Economy, Tourism, and Agriculture in Hawai‘i
Thursday, September 2, 5:30­-7:00 pm
A “Beatup”/Meetup talk-story with Sumner La Croix, Ramsay Remigius Mahealani Taum, and Charles Reppun at the Civil Beat offices—3465 Waialae Avenue, Suite 200 (the Central Pacific Bank Building). Free and open to the public, but RSVP required—please send an email to beatup@civilbeat.com. See the following link for more information: http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2010/08/24/3758-next-beatup-sept-2-value-of-hawaii-part-2/

The Value of Hawai‘i in the Women’s Studies Colloquium Series
Friday, September 3, 12:30­-2:00
Featuring Mari Matsuda, Meda Chesney-Lind, Kat Brady, and D. Kapua‘ala Sproat.
UH Mānoa campus, Saunders Hall 624; co-sponsored by Departments of Women’s Studies and English.

For the full event schedule, please visit http://thevalueofhawaii.wordpress.com.

Remember, Remember, the First of September

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The University of Hawai‘i Press 63rd Anniversary Sale is just around the corner! From September 1–7 (Hawai‘i Dateline), take 40% off EVERYTHING at our web site: www.uhpress.hawaii.edu.

Only prepaid orders taken at the UH Press web site will receive the 40% discount. All sales are final; no returns except for defective stock. Quantities are limited to stock on hand. No other discounts or sale offers apply. Bookstores, wholesalers, libraries, and other institutions may participate in this sale. Orders are shipped from Hawai‘i, Pennsylvania, Canada, and the U.K. If you have any questions, please contact our order department at 888-847-7377 or at uhpbooks@hawaii.edu.

Save Big on the Atlas of Hawaii

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Atlas:Third EditionGet the hardcover/cloth edition of the award-winning Atlas of Hawai‘i: Third Edition for more than 30% off while supplies last! This essential reference, edited by Sonia P. Juvik, James O. Juvik, and Thomas R. Paradise, is now $51.99.

“‘Bigger’ and ‘better’ are probably the most appropriate terms to describe the third edition of this atlas. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice

“If you’re an information junkie and a lover of well-designed books, the new edition of the Atlas of Hawai‘i will excite you as much as it did me. . . . This is a very well-done piece of work—a beautifully illustrated encyclopedia of Hawai‘i contained in a single volume.” —Honolulu Advertiser

“[A] monumental effort to compile into one beautiful volume information on basically almost anything you ever wanted to know about Hawai`i. . . . It belongs in every collection as the core source of information on Hawai‘i.” —Western Association of Map Libraries Information Bulletin

“The Atlas of Hawai‘i . . . should be on the shelf of anyone who is interested in the state of Hawai‘i or the human and physical ecology of a north Pacific island group.” —Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers

UH Press Authors Featured on PBS-Hawaii’s Long Story Short

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KawakamiLSSEarlier this month, Barbara Kawakami, author of Japanese Immigrant Clothing in Hawaii, 1885–1941, “talked story” with Leslie Wilcox, the host of PBS-Hawaii’s Long Story Short. For audio and a transcript of the interview, go to http://www.pbshawaii.org/ourproductions/longstory_guests/kawakami.htm.

ClarkLSSJohn Clark, whose latest book, Hawaiian Surfing: Traditions from the Past, will be published by UH Press in March 2011, will be the featured guest on August 31. A video clip is available at http://www.pbshawaii.org/ourproductions/longstory_guests/clark.htm.

First in Paperback: Neither Monk Nor Layman

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Neither Monk nor LaymanBuddhism comes in many forms, but in Japan it stands apart from all the rest in one most striking way—the monks get married. In Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in Modern Japanese Buddhism, the most comprehensive study of this topic in any language, Richard M. Jaffe addresses the emergence of an openly married clergy as a momentous change in the history of modern Japanese Buddhism. He demonstrates, in clear and engaging prose, that this shift was not an easy one for Japanese Buddhists. Yet the transformation that began in the early Meiji period (1868–1912)—when monks were ordered by government authorities to marry, to have children, and to eat meat—today extends to all the country’s Buddhist denominations.

“First-rate. Jaffe’s research is utterly original; virtually none of the issues covered have been seriously investigated in any other Western-language study, and there are precious few Japanese secondary studies in the area. The book is well organized, well balanced, and a delight to read.” —Robert Sharf, University of California, Berkeley

August 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3527-9 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF Now Available in Paperback

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Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF“Laurel Kendall has written a study of contemporary Korean shamans that is both entertaining and enlightening. Most studies of the topic treat shamans as an anachronistic remnant of the past. Kendall challenges that approach, drawing on several decades of close observation of shamans in action to reveal how shamanism is constantly evolving. It is an important work that will appeal to a wide audience.” —Don Baker, University of British Columbia

“With the publication of Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF, Laurel Kendall opens a new chapter in the study not only of shamanism in Korea, but also in many societies undergoing the process of industrialization and modernization. It is distinguished by its rich ethnographic data and novel theoretical approach to the field of Korean popular religion. One of its many merits is that, unlike conventional studies that focus on ‘authentic’ shaman ritual performances, it reveals a wide spectrum of shamans and rituals within a grand system of practice.” —Kwang Ok Kim, Seoul National University

“Laurel Kendall’s sympathetic and lucid writing consistently leads from vivid narratives to penetrating theoretical insights. In her hands the IMF becomes a brilliant trope for the interplay between magical causality and the bewildering modernity which moulds our lives, as it does the lives of her shamans’ clients.” — Piers Vitebsky, University of Cambridge

August 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3398-5 / $24.00 (PAPER)

Coming Soon! The University of Hawai‘i Press 63rd Anniversary Sale

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Join us in celebrating 63 years of publishing with our 40% anniversary sale! From September 1–7 (Hawai‘i Dateline), take 40% off EVERYTHING at our web site: www.uhpress.hawaii.edu.

Only prepaid orders taken at the UH Press web site will receive the 40% discount. All sales are final; no returns except for defective stock. Quantities are limited to stock on hand. No other discounts or sale offers apply. Bookstores, wholesalers, libraries, and other institutions may participate in this sale. Orders are shipped from Hawai‘i, Pennsylvania, Canada, and the U.K. If you have any questions, please contact our order department at 888-847-7377 or at uhpbooks@hawaii.edu.

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