Author: stephchun

Buddhist Cults and the Hwaom Synthesis in Silla Korea

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Western scholarship has hitherto described the assimilation of Buddhism in Korea in terms of the importation of Sino-Indian and Chinese intellectual schools. This has led to an overemphasis on the scholastic understanding of Buddhism and overlooked evidence of the way Buddhism was practiced “on the ground.” Domesticating the Dharma: Buddhist Cults and the Hwaom Synthesis in Silla Korea, by Richard D. McBride, II, provides a much-needed corrective to this view by presenting for the first time a descriptive analysis of the cultic practices that defined and shaped the way Buddhists in Silla Korea understood their religion from the sixth to tenth centuries. Critiquing the conventional two-tiered model of “elite” versus “popular” religion, Richard McBride demonstrates how the eminent monks, royalty, and hereditary aristocrats of Silla were the primary proponents of Buddhist cults and that rich and diverse practices spread to the common people because of their influence.

November 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3087-8 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Micronesians in the Pacific War

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Micronesians often liken the Pacific War to a typhoon, one that swept away their former lives and brought dramatic changes to their understandings of the world and their places in it. Those who survived the war years know that their peoples passed through a major historical transformation. Yet Pacific War histories scarcely mention the Islanders across whose lands and seas the fighting waged. Memories of War: Micronesians in the Pacific War, by Suzanne Falgout, Lin Poyer, and Laurence M. Carucci, sets out the fill that historical gap by presenting the missing voices of Micronesians and by viewing those years from their perspectives.

November 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3130-1 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Toyoko Yamasaki Novel Now Available in English

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Toyoko Yamasaki’s novel Two Homelands (Futatsu no sokoku) tells the powerful story of three brothers during the years surrounding World War II. From the attack on Pearl Harbor to the Pacific War, relocation to Manzanar, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and the Tokyo war crimes trials, we follow the lives of Kenji, Tadashi, and Isamu Amo, the California-born sons of Japanese immigrants. The eldest, Kenji, must grapple with what it means to belong to two nations at war with one another and to face betrayal by both. Tadashi, in school in Japan when war breaks out, is drafted into the Japanese army and renounces his U.S. citizenship. Later Kenji and Tadashi find themselves on opposite sides of a battlefield in the Philippines; although they both survive the conflict, their relationship is destroyed by the war. Isamu, the youngest and the most thoroughly American of the brothers, loves John Wayne movies and gives his life to rescue the lost Texas battalion fighting in France.

Popular Japanese novelist Toyoko Yamasaki spent five years interviewing Japanese-Americans and researching documentary sources to assemble the raw material for her book. Through the story of the Amo family, she forces readers to confront the meaning of “love of country” as her characters encounter prejudice and suspicion on both sides of the Pacific. Almost a quarter century after its Japanese publication, this English-language translation affords a valuable opportunity to understand the postwar reassessment of what it means to be Japanese in the modern world.

Translated by V. Dixon Morris

November 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-2944-5 / $36.00 (PAPER)
Order here and receive a 20% discount for November 2007!

Mark Panek reading from Gaijin Yokozuna

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Mark Panek, author of Gaijin Yokozuna: A Biography of Chad Rowan, will read from his biography of the Hawai‘i-born sumotori on Tuesday, October 16, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in UCB 100 at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

Gaijin Yokozuna explores the changes in cultural identity that Waimanalo’s Chad Rowan made on his way to becoming sumotori Akebono, the first foreigner (gaijin) to reach the top rank, yokozuna (grand champion), in a sport that dates back to Japanese creation myths.

This special event is free and open to the public, but registration is required to fulfill grant conditions. Call 808-974-7664 for registration information.

John Clark at Brown Bag Biography

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John Clark, author of many popular books on Hawai‘i’s beaches, will discuss his work on Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawai‘i, published this August by University of Hawai‘i Press, on Thursday, November 15, noon-1:15 pm, at the Center for Biographical Research, University of Hawai‘i-Manoa, Henke Hall 325, 1800 East-West Road. The event is part of “Brown Bag Biography: Discussions of Life Writing By and For Town and Gown,” sponsored by the Center.

Bob Dye at the Honolulu Writers Conference

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Bob Dye, author of Merchant Prince of the Sandalwood Mountains: Afong and the Chinese in Hawai‘i and editor of Hawai‘i Chronicles II and III, all published by University of Hawai‘i Press, will lead a non-fiction writing workshop at this year’s Honolulu Writers Conference. Twelve workshops will be offered by experienced authors, editors, and teachers at the conference on Saturday, October 20, from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm, at the Neil Blaisdell Center. Registration and fee ($70.00) are required. For more information, call 808-395-1161, or email alohapress@hawaiiantel.net.

Halloween Book Signings for Marion Coste

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Marion Coste will autograph The Hawaiian Bat: ‘Ope‘ape‘a, her most recent book for children on Hawaiian native animal species at the below times and locations. Children are invited to make their own bat bookmarks, and everyone can learn more about this rare animal from the author.

Wednesday, October 24
2-3:00 pm, Pearl Harbor Navy Exchange

Saturday, October 27
12-1:00 pm, Borders-Windward Mall
2-3:00 pm, Borders-Waikele

Sunday, October 28
12-1:00, Borders-Ward Centre
2-3:00, Borders-Pearlridge

The author will also be giving talks on the Hawaiian bat at various O‘ahu elementary schools from now into November:
October 11, Maunawili
October 12, Benjamin Parker
October 18, Pearl Kai
October 19, ASSETS School
October 22, Pearlridge
October 26, Kaneohe
November 15, Hale Kula
November 16, Waiau

Marion Coste is the author of Nene, Honu, and Kolea: The Story of the Pacific Golden Plover, all published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

The WWII Internment Memoirs of a Hawaii Issei

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Yasutaro Soga’s Life behind Barbed Wire (Tessaku seikatsu) is an exceptional firsthand account of the incarceration of a Hawai‘i Japanese during World War II. On the evening of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Soga, the editor of a Japanese-language newspaper, was arrested along with several hundred other prominent Issei (Japanese immigrants) in Hawai‘i. After being held for six months on Sand Island, Soga was transferred to an Army camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico, and later to a Justice Department camp in Santa Fe. He would spend just under four years in custody before returning to Hawai‘i in the months following the end of the war.

Most of what has been written about the detention of Japanese Americans focuses on the Nisei experience of mass internment on the West Coast—largely because of the language barrier immigrant writers faced. This translation, therefore, presents us with a rare Issei voice on internment, and Soga’s opinions challenge many commonly held assumptions about Japanese Americans during the war regarding race relations, patriotism, and loyalty.

October 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-2033-6 / $24.00 (PAPER)

Visual Modernity in China

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The Distorting Mirror: Visual Modernity in China, by Laikwan Pang, analyzes the multiple and complex ways in which urban Chinese subjects saw themselves interacting with the new visual culture that emerged during the turbulent period between the 1880s and the 1930s. The media and visual forms examined include lithography, photography, advertising, film, and theatrical performances. Urbanites actively engaged with and enjoyed this visual culture, which was largely driven by the subjective desire for the empty promises of modernity—promises comprised of such abstract and fleeting concepts as new, exciting, and fashionable.

October 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3093-9 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

“This book presents a careful historicization of the ‘visual.’ Rather than take the act of seeing as natural, Pang brilliantly argues that the visual is a modern phenomenon, linked to but extending and transforming indigenous cultural forms of seeing and looking. Equally meticulous in its theoretical and empirical coordinates, this book is eminently readable and consistently insightful. A wonderful look at how modern Chinese came to see.” —Rebecca E. Karl, New York University

Pacific Ethnomathematics

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Pacific Ethnomathematics: A Bibliographic Study, a ground-breaking work by distinguished Pacific researcher Nicholas J. Goetzfridt, examines mathematical concepts and practices in Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. It covers number systems, counting, measuring, classifying, spatial relationships, symmetry, geometry, and other aspects of ethnomathematics in relation to a wide range of activities such as trade, education, navigation, construction, rituals and festivals, divination, weaving, tattooing, and music. In compiling nearly five hundred citations, Goetzfridt makes use of the vast resources of writing about the Pacific from the 1700s to the present. In addition to discussing Pacific knowledge systems in general, his introductory chapter includes a helpful overview of the relatively new field of ethnomathematics and important theoretical reflections on the discipline as a research program.

October 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3170-7 / $75.00 (CLOTH)

Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art

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Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art, 1600–2005, by Patricia J. Graham, explores the transformation of Buddhism from the premodern to the contemporary era in Japan and the central role its visual culture has played in this transformation. Although Buddhism is generally regarded as peripheral to modern Japanese society, this book demonstrates otherwise. Its chapters elucidate the thread of change over time in the practice of Buddhism as revealed in temple worship halls and other sites of devotion and in imagery representing the religion’s most popular deities and religious practices. It also introduces the work of modern and contemporary artists who are not generally associated with institutional Buddhism and its canonical visual requirements but whose faith inspires their art.
157 illustrations, 46 in color

October 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3126-4 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

Patricia J. Graham is the author of Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha, also published by University of Hawai‘i Press. 

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