stephchun

The Origins of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China Now Available in Paperback

Posted on August 25, 2009 by stephchun

The Origins of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China: An Annotated Translation and Study of the Chanyuan qinggui, by Yifa, contains the first complete translation of China’s earliest and most influential monastic code. The twelfth-century text Chanyuan qinggui (Rules of Purity for the Chan Monastery) provides a wealth of detail on all aspects of life in public Buddhist monasteries during the Sung (960–1279).

“Absolutely essential for anyone who wishes to gain an accurate understanding of the actual day-to-day life of the Chan community. . . . [T]his book represents a real advance in our understanding of Chinese Chan and should be on the bookshelf of every scholar of Chinese Buddhism.” —Journal of Chinese Religions

August 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3425-8 / $28.00 (PAPER)>

Van Dyke receives UH Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Research

Posted on August 25, 2009 by stephchun

University of Hawai‘i law professor Jon Van Dyke, author of Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai‘i?, has been awarded the University of Hawai‘i Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Research. The medal for research recognizes “scholarly contributions that expand the boundaries of knowledge and enrich the lives of students and the community.”

Professor Van Dyke and the two other recipients of this year’s award will be recognized at the annual convocation ceremony on September 15, 10 a.m., at UH’s Kennedy Theatre.

Japan’s Medieval Population Now Available in Paperback

Posted on August 10, 2009 by stephchun

Japan’s Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age, by William Wayne Farris, charts a course through never-before-surveyed historical territory: Japan’s medieval population, a topic so challenging that neither Japanese nor foreign scholars have investigated it in a comprehensive way. And yet, demography is an invaluable approach to the past because it provides a way—often the only way—to study the mass of people who did not belong to the political or religious elite. By synthesizing a vast cache of primary and secondary sources, Farris constructs an important analysis of Japan’s population from 1150 to 1600 and considers social and economic developments that were life and death issues for ordinary Japanese.

“In Japan’s Medieval Population, Farris, true to form, asks questions that are relevant and essential for a broader understanding of Japanese society but also extremely challenging to answer. . . . There can be little doubt that [this] study fills an important void in English-language scholarship on pre-Tokugawa Japan. . . . Farris deserves accolades for taking on what is possibly the most challenging task for historians: asking the broader synthesizing questions for which the sources do not provide any readily available answers.” —Journal of Japanese Studies

August 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3424-1 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Go Green with UH Press

Posted on August 3, 2009 by stephchun

“Go Green” with University of Hawai‘i Press. Support our green initiative by signing up for an email alert when our Hawai‘i and the Pacific 2010 catalog is available for download in September 2009. To conserve resources we will be offering this catalog in electronic format only.

Also sign up for email announcements of new books in your choice of subjects. Mahalo!

Photo: Robert J. Shallenberger (from Hawaiian Birds of the Sea: Na Manu Kai, available November 2009)

Hawaiian Art and National Culture of the Kalakaua Era

Posted on August 3, 2009 by stephchun

The Arts of Kingship: Hawaiian Art and National Culture of the Kalakaua Era, by Stacy L. Kamehiro, offers a sustained and detailed account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalakaua, the nativist and cosmopolitan ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. Kamehiro provides visual and historical analysis of Kalakaua’s coronation and regalia, the King Kamehameha Statue, ‘Iolani Palace, and the Hawaiian National Museum, drawing them together in a common historical, political, and cultural frame. Each articulated Hawaiian national identities and navigated the turbulence of colonialism in distinctive ways and has endured as a key cultural symbol.

August 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3358-9 / $24.00 (PAPER)

The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan

Posted on August 3, 2009 by stephchun

The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan, by Karen M. Gerhart, is the first in the English language to explore the ways medieval Japanese sought to overcome their sense of powerlessness over death. By attending to both religious practice and ritual objects used in funerals in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it seeks to provide a new understanding of the relationship between the two. Gerhart looks at how these special objects and rituals functioned by analyzing case studies culled from written records, diaries, and illustrated handscrolls, and by examining surviving funerary structures and painted and sculpted images.

August 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3261-2 / $39.00 (CLOTH)

Buddhism and Lao Religious Culture

Posted on August 3, 2009 by stephchun

Spirits of the Place: Buddhism and Lao Religious Culture, by John Clifford Holt, is a rare and timely contribution to our understanding of religious culture in Laos and Southeast Asia. Most often studied as a part of Thai, Vietnamese, or Khmer history, Laos remains a terra incognita to most Westerners—and to many of the people living throughout Asia as well. Holt’s new book brings this fascinating nation into focus. With its overview of Lao Buddhism and analysis of how shifting political power—from royalty to democracy to communism—has impacted Lao religious culture, the book offers an integrated account of the entwined political and religious history of Laos from the fourteenth century to the contemporary era.

“John Holt’s study of Lao Buddhism makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the understudied religious culture of Laos. Of special value are the comparisons Holt draws between Lao and Sinhala religious culture, and the insight achieved when Buddhist conceptuality, symbol, and ritual are seen through the lens of the indigenous Lao religious substratum rather than vice versa.” —Donald K. Swearer, Director, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School

August 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3327-5 / $58.00 (CLOTH)

Poetry and the Auditory Imagination in Modern China

Posted on August 3, 2009 by stephchun

China’s century of revolutionary change has been heard as much as seen, and nowhere is this more evident than in an auditory history of the modern Chinese poem. From Lu Xun’s seminal writings on literature to a recitation renaissance in urban centers today, poetics meets politics in the sounding voice of poetry. Supported throughout by vivid narration and accessible analysis, Voices in Revolution: Poetry and the Auditory Imagination in Modern China, by John A. Crespi, offers a literary history of modern China that makes the case for the importance of the auditory dimension of poetry in national, revolutionary, and postsocialist culture.

“This is an important and exciting monograph for the field of modern Chinese literature. It sheds unprecedented light on poetic composition and does much more than previous studies to flesh out the living practice of poetry circulation and reception in modern China.” —Charles Laughlin, Tsinghua University, Beijing

August 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3365-7 / $47.00 (CLOTH)

New Catalog Now Available Online

Posted on July 30, 2009 by stephchun

The New Books for Fall 2009-Spring 2010 Catalog is now available for download. Our latest catalog features dozens of new and forthcoming titles from UH Press and the publishers we distribute.

The catalog’s striking cover photo of a pueo (Hawaiian short-eared owl) is by renowned bird photographer Jack Jeffrey and is taken from Jim Denny’s A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Hawai‘i: The Main Islands and Offshore Waters, available this October.

Free Noli Me Tangere with Purchase of El Filibusterismo

Posted on July 24, 2009 by stephchun

Purchase a paperback copy of El Filibusterismo at the regular price of $26.00 and receive a free copy of its predecessor, Noli Me Tangere. Both ship as a set at no additional cost. To receive your free book, you must reference code “RIZAL” when ordering by phone, email, or online (in the comments box).

Take advantage of this offer to enjoy these two classics of modern Philippine literature!

Small Trees for the Tropical Landscape

Posted on July 23, 2009 by stephchun

Small Trees for the Tropical Landscape, by Fred D. Rauch and Paul R. Weissich, describes and illustrates in full color 129 species and subspecies and 48 named varieties, cultivars, and forms plus 23 hybrids appropriate for the home garden and confined public landscape spaces. The authors have also included a section on “Tailored Small Trees,” large shrubs that are readily transformed into small trees through intelligent, selective pruning. They identify and describe 67 species and subspecies; 40 named varieties, cultivars, and forms; and 21 hybrids that are appropriate for this conversion.