Author: stephchun

How Development Fails in Indonesia

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Supporters of neoliberalism claim that free markets lead to economic growth, the creation of a middle class, and the establishment of democratically accountable governments. Critics point to a widening gap between rich and poor as countries compete to win foreign investment, and to the effects on the poor of neoliberal programs that restrict funding for health, education, and welfare. Indonesia Betrayed: How Development Fails, by Elizabeth Fuller Collins, offers a ground-level view from Sumatra of the realities behind these debates during the final years of Suharto’s New Order and the beginning of a transition to more democratic government.

July 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3183-7 / $24.00 (PAPER)

“Since the overthrow of the Suharto regime, we have had a small blizzard of studies on Muslim politics, ethnoreligious violence, and national-level politics in Indonesia. By contrast, we have had fewer of the fine-grained regional studies of economic change and political contestation for which Indonesian studies was renowned in the 1980s. In this fine book, Elizabeth Fuller Collins brings the earlier tradition of rich regional analysis to bear on the processes and pitfalls of the post-Suharto era in South Sumatra. The case study is important, and the analysis is rich. The result is a work that will be of interest to students of Indonesian studies, neoliberal development, and political transitions, and to the general reader curious about this most important, if still obscure, Asian giant.” —Robert W. Hefner, Boston University

Translation of an Important Commentary in the Korean Buddhist Tradition

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Wŏnhyo’s (617–686) Exposition of the Vajrasamâdhi-Sûtra (Kŭmgang sammaegyŏng non) is one of the finest examples of a scriptural commentary ever written in the East Asian Buddhist tradition. The Exposition is the longest of Wŏnhyo’s extant works and is widely regarded as his masterpiece. In Cultivating Original Enlightenment, the first volume in The International Association of Wŏnhyo Studies’ Collected Works of Wŏnhyo series, Robert E. Buswell, Jr.’s, translation of the Exposition, the eminent Silla exegete brings to bear all the tools acquired throughout a lifetime of scholarship and meditation to the explication of a scripture that has a startling connection to the Korean Buddhist tradition.

July 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3076-2 / $37.00 (CLOTH)

Robert E. Buswell, Jr., is co-editor of Christianity in Korea (with Timothy S. Lee),  and editor of Currents and Countercurrents: Korean Influences on the East Asian Buddhist Traditions, both published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

A Musical Ethnography of Taku Atoll, Papua New Guinea

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Songs from the Second Float: A Musical Ethnography of Takü Atoll, Papua New Guinea, by Richard Moyle, based on fieldwork spanning a decade, gives a comprehensive analysis of the musical life of a unique Polynesian community whose geographical isolation, together with a local ban on missionaries and churches, combine to allow its 600 members to maintain a level of traditional cultural practices unique to the region.

July 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3175-2 / $54.00 (CLOTH)
Pacific Islands Monograph Series, No. 21, published in association with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i

“Why . . . so much singing on Takü?’ is the compelling, orienting question threaded through [this] volume. . . . One comes away from reading the book with an understanding of music embedded within the fibers of Takü lifeways, constitutive of both indi vidual character and social solidarity.” —Janet Dixon Keller, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Stopover, the Story of Indian-Fijian Migration

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Since 1976 New Zealand artist Bruce Connew has travelled widely, undertaking documentary photography projects around the world. Stopover is a haunting book of photographs from the tiny Indian-Fijian sugar cane settlement of Vatiyaka, taken by Connew during seven visits between June 2000 and November 2003. Connew’s narrative captions and a story by Brij V. Lal take the reader to the heart of an extended family inside the story of migration. The Stopover photographs will be exhibited at PATAKA, Porirua, Wellington, New Zealand, from August 18, 2007.

July 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3198-1 / $39.00 (CLOTH)

“Connew’s work combines haunting images with a text that is poetic, elegant, and moving in its clarity. There is a power and persuasion to his work that even the most scholarly and responsible analyses cannot match.” —David Hanlon, University of Hawai‘i

Brij V. Lal is the author of Broken Waves: A History of the Fiji Islands in the Twentieth Century; editor of Pacific Places, Pacific Histories and The Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora; and co-editor of The Pacific Islands: An Encyclopedia (with Kate Fortune) and Plantation Workers: Resistance and Accommodation (with Doug Munro and Edward D. Beechert), all published by Univerisity of Hawai‘i Press.

Auckland Book Signing for Sally McAra

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University of Auckland anthropologist Sally McAra will be signing copies of her recently published book, Land of Beautiful Vision: Making a Buddhist Sacred Place in New Zealand, on Friday, August 3, 2007, 4:00 p.m., at the University of Auckland’s Human Sciences Building (HSB 802), 10 Symonds Street. The book is part of the Topics in Contemporary Buddhism series, published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP by emailing s.mcara@auckland.ac.nz or calling (09-815-5033).

First Among Nisei Book Launch

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A book launch celebrating the publication of First Among Nisei: The Life and Writings of Masaji Marumoto will be held on Saturday, July 21, 2007, at 10:30 a.m., at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, Teruya Courtyard, 2454 South Beretania Street, Honolulu. The book is written by University of Hawai‘i professor Dennis M. Ogawa, published by the Department of American Studies, UH, and the JCCH, and distributed by University of Hawai‘i Press. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information call (808) 945-7633 or email info@jcch.com.

Mediasphere Shanghai

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For many in the west, “Shanghai” is the quintessence of East Asian modernity, whether imagined as glamorous and exciting, corrupt and impoverishing, or a complex synthesis of the good, the bad, and the ugly. How did “Shanghai” acquire this power? How did people across China and around the world decide that Shanghai was the place to be? Mediasphere Shanghai: The Aesthetics of Cultural Production, by Alexander Des Forges, shows that partial answers to these questions can be found in the products of Shanghai’s media industry, particularly the Shanghai novel, a distinctive genre of installment fiction that flourished from the 1890s to the 1930s.

July 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3081-6 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

“Alexander Des Forges’ book is not just another study of late imperial Chinese fiction. It is, rather, an innovative argument about how the wide-ranging engagement with fiction was instrumental in constituting Shanghai as what he terms a mediasphere—an evolving locus and process of social interaction, sustained by the collaboration of hybrid urban forces such as industry, print culture, aesthetic and narrative conventions, a growing consumers’ market, and an active reading public. These forces led to the production not only of material goods but also of the ideological conditions under which that modern time-space known as Shanghai became possible—indeed, was repeatedly imagined and performed in literary, cultural, and sociopolitical (con)texts. An admirably learned and coherently written book; a must-read for all Shanghai lovers.” —Rey Chow, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Brown University

3 UHP Titles Longlisted for the ICAS Book Prize

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The International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) Book Prize is a global competition that provides an international focus for publications on Asia while at the same time increasing their visibility worldwide. The coveted book prizes are awarded for best studies in the humanities and the social sciences.

Three University of Hawai‘i Press titles have been longlisted for this year’s prize: The Flaming Womb: Repositioning Women in Early Modern Southeast Asia, by Barbara Watson Andaya (humanities category); Selfless Offspring: Filial Children and Social Order in Medieval China, by Keith N. Knapp (humanities category); and Final Days: Japanese Culture and Choice at the End of Life, by Susan Orpett Long (social sciences category). Winners will be announced at ICAS 5, which will be held in August 2007 in Kuala Lumpur.

Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937, by Christopher A. Reed, also published by University of Hawai‘i Press, won the prize in the humanities category in 2005.

The Life and Writings of One of Hawaii’s Most Distinguished Nisei

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Distributed for the Department of American Studies, University of Hawai‘i, and the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, First Among Nisei: The Life and Writings of Masaji Marumoto, by Dennis M. Ogawa, is an account of the life and career of one of Hawai‘i’s most distinguished Nisei. Primarily based on oral histories, this book is an account of Marumoto’s life and career—from the time he was a child until he was well into his retirement years in the mid-1980s. Marumoto was the first person of Asian ancestry to graduate from Harvard Law School, the first Japanese American president of the Hawaii Bar Association, and the first Japanese American to serve on the Hawaii Supreme Court.

June 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3141-7 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Dennis M. Ogawa is the author of Jan Ken Po: The World of Hawaii’s Japanese Americans and co-author with Glen Grant of Kodomo no tame ni/For the Sake of the Children: The Japanese American Experience in Hawaii, both published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Selling Songs and Smiles Now in Paperback

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Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in Heian and Kamakura Japan, by Janet R. Goodwin, is now available in paperback.

June 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3097-7 / $24.00 (PAPER)

“Goodwin offers an erudite account that acknowledges all prior scholarly work on the subject. . . . The book is packed with juicy details, historically necessary and judiciously picked from sources not usually encountered. Of major interest, however, is Goodwin’s ability to see behind the self-serving screens of political history, to divine the true intentions of this demonization of one of the few professions then open to women, and to present her facts in the fairest possible manner.” —Japan Times (read the full text of Donald Richie’s review here)

Janet R. Goodwin is the author of Alms and Vagabonds: Buddhist Temples and Popular Patronage in Medieval Japan, published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Gao Village Now in Paperback

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Gao Village: Rural Life in Modern China, by Mobo C. F. Gao, is now available in paperback.

June 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3192-9 / $24.00 (PAPER)

“For the classroom, [Gao’s] book complements and enriches more conventional views of this period and also has something to contribute to . . . what is popularly called the ‘politics of memory.’ I enjoyed his personal anecdotes and know that undergraduates will too. Having recently taught many village ethnographies, I anticipate that students will be engaged by the stories of Gao villagers as well as by the author’s passionate polemics about the Maoist years in rural China.” —China Review International

Ghosts and Gender in Chinese Literature

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The “phantom heroine”—in particular the fantasy of her resurrection through sex with a living man—is one of the most striking features of traditional Chinese literature. Even today the hypersexual female ghost continues to be a source of fascination in East Asian media, much like the sexually predatory vampire in American and European movies, TV, and novels. But while vampires can be of either gender, erotic Chinese ghosts are almost exclusively female. The significance of this gender asymmetry in Chinese literary history is the subject of Judith Zeitlin’s elegantly written and meticulously researched new book, The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature.

“This is an accomplished book by a maverick thinker and writer. Zeitlin’s genius is to turn something hideous and freaky into the stuff of life. She adopts an archaeological approach, excavating motifs from and finding resonances in disparate genres and periods. An elegant book, it should attract readers from Chinese studies, gender studies, comparative literature, performance studies, and religion.” —Dorothy Ko, Columbia University

June 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3091-5 / $57.00 (CLOTH)

Judith T. Zeitlin is co-editor, with Charlotte Furth and Ping-chen Hsiung, of Thinking with Cases: Specialist Knowledge in Chinese Cultural History, published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

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