Don Hibbard and Glenn Mason, coauthors of Hart Wood: Architectural Regionalism in Hawai‘i, will give a presentation and discuss their work on the book on Tuesday, August 3, at 6:30 pm, at the Waikiki Parc Hotel. Books will be available for purchase and signing after the presentation. Free and open to the public, the talk is part of Interisland Terminal’s Reed Space HNL events. Free validated parking is available for Reed Space attendees.
Category: art & visual culture
Media in Reform-Era China
Serialized television drama (dianshiju), perhaps the most popular and influential cultural form in China over the past three decades, offers a wide and penetrating look at the tensions and contradictions of the post-revolutionary and pro-market period. Zhong Xueping’s Mainstream Culture Refocused: Television Drama, Society, and the Production of Meaning in Reform-Era China draws attention to the multiple cultural and historical legacies that coexist and challenge each other within this dominant form of story telling. Although scholars tend to focus their attention on elite cultural trends and avant garde movements in literature and film, Zhong argues for recognizing the complexity of dianshiju’s melodramatic mode and its various subgenres, in effect “refocusing” mainstream Chinese culture.
“This is a very timely and original work that fills a significant gap in studies on contemporary Chinese culture. It does a compelling job in showing how and why these dramas on the small screen both dramatize and mediate the social and political transformations taking place in China today. The book will contribute significantly to Chinese media studies and cultural studies and, because many TV dramas are adapted from literary works, to debates on the changing status of Chinese literature and literary studies in an era infused with commercialism and visuality. This will be a path-breaking study.” —Zhen Zhang, New York University
July 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3469-2 / $27.00 (PAPER)
Readings from Andha Yug
A readers theatre production of excerpts from Andha Yug, Dharamvir Bharati’s critically acclaimed play taken from the Indian epic Mahabharata, will be held on Saturday, June 26, at 7:30pm at Orvis Auditorium. For more information on this free event call 808-956-8246 or click here.
The reading will be accompanied by visual images from the Mahabharata and Gamelan music. Translator Alok Bhalla will introduce the performance and play a role as well. A question and answer session will follow the performance.
Chinese Writing and Calligraphy
Suitable for college and high school students and those learning on their own, Wendan Li’s Chinese Writing and Calligraphy is a fully illustrated coursebook that provides comprehensive instruction in the history and practical techniques of Chinese calligraphy. No previous knowledge of the language is required to follow the text or complete the lessons. The work covers three major areas: 1) descriptions of Chinese characters and their components, including stroke types, layout patterns, and indications of sound and meaning; 2) basic brush techniques; and 3) the social, cultural, historical, and philosophical underpinnings of Chinese calligraphy—all of which are crucial to understanding and appreciating this art form.
May 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3364-0 / $25.00 (PAPER)
A Latitude 20 Book
Architectural Regionalism in Hawaii
Hart Wood: Architectural Regionalism in Hawaii, by Don Hibbard, Glenn Mason, and Karen Weitze, is a lavishly illustrated book that traces the life and work of Hart Wood (1880–1957), from his beginnings in architectural offices in Denver and San Francisco to his arrival in Hawaii in 1919 as a partner of C. W. Dickey and eventual solo career in the Islands. An outspoken leader in the development of a Hawaiian style of architecture, Wood incorporated local building traditions and materials in many of his projects and was the first in Hawaii to blend Eastern and Western architectural forms in a conscious manner. Enchanted by Hawaii’s vivid beauty and its benevolent climate, exotic flora, and cosmopolitan culture, Wood sought to capture the aura of the Islands in his architectural designs.
April 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3236-0 / $24.99 (CLOTH)
Chinese Avant-garde Art and Independent Cinema
Children of Marx and Coca-Cola: Chinese Avant-garde Art and Independent Cinema, by Xiaping Lin, affords a deep study of Chinese avant-garde art and independent cinema from the mid-1990s to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Informed by the author’s experience in Beijing and New York—global cities with extensive access to an emergent transnational Chinese visual culture—this work situates selected artworks and films in the context of Chinese nationalism and post-socialism and against the background of the capitalist globalization that has so radically affected contemporary China. It juxtaposes and compares artists and independent filmmakers from a number of intertwined perspectives, particularly in their shared avant-garde postures and perceptions.
This book is the second volume in the Critical Interventions series.
November 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3336-7 / $47.00 (CLOTH)
Polylocality in Contemporary Chinese Cinema
In Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China, prominent China film scholar Yingjin Zhang proposes “polylocality” as a new conceptual framework for investigating the shifting spaces of contemporary Chinese cinema in the age of globalization. Questioning the national cinema paradigm, Zhang calls for comparative studies of underdeveloped areas beyond the imperative of transnationalism.
This book is the inaugural volume in the Critical Interventions series.
October 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3337-4 / $49.00 (CLOTH)
Ben Norris Retrospective in Boston
Childs Gallery in Boston is presenting a career-defining retrospective of works by Ben Norris to celebrate the recent publication of Ben Norris: American Modernist, 1910-2006, distributed by University of Hawai‘i Press for Copley Square Press. The exhibit runs to November 14, 2009. For more information, contact Childs Gallery, 169 Newbury Street, Boston, MA, 02116, 617-266-1108, email: info@childsgallery.com.
Work from the retrospective can be viewed here.
Hawaiian Art and National Culture of the Kalakaua Era
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)
Painters in Hanoi Now Available in Paperback
Painting has played a significant role in modern Vietnam. Postage stamps, billboards, and annual national exhibitions attest to its fundamental place in a country where painters may be hailed as national heroes and include among their number fervent nationalists, propagandists, even dissidents. As Vietnamese painting has gained prominence in the contemporary transnational art circuits of Southeast Asia, many artists have become millionaires, yet Vietnamese painting is generally overlooked in art history surveys of the region. Nora Taylor sets out here to change that. Painters in Hanoi: An Ethnography of Vietnamese Art engages with twentieth-century Vietnam through its artists and their works, providing a new angle on a country most often portrayed through the lens of war and politics.
“Painters in Hanoi adds important perspectives to the growing body of literature on contemporary Southeast Asian art, as it also illuminates the highly specific political, economic, and social conditions that shape but do not determine that art. Taylor’s deeply satisfying work further erodes unitary notions of an artistic modernity and the authority of Euro-American paradigms of art history and art making to explain art production throughout the world. She convincingly demonstrates that artistic identity never remains stable but is always asserted, tested, defined, and redefined in local and now global social worlds.” —Journal of Asian Studies
July 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3355-8 / $26.00 (PAPER)
Eleanor Nordyke at Barnes & Noble, June 28
Eleanor Nordyke, author and publisher of Pacific Images: Views from Captain Cook’s Third Voyage, Second Edition, will appear at Barnes & Noble, Kahala Mall, on Sunday, June 28, 1:00–2:00 p.m., to sign the newly released second edition of her acclaimed work. She will show a DVD on the topic and display large reproductions of some of the engravings in the book. Pacific Images is distributed by University of Hawai‘i Press.
Ms. Nordyke and Pacific Images were recently featured in the Honolulu Advertiser: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090531/LIFE/905310326.
Paul Carter on ByDesign
Paul Carter will talk about his book Dark Writing: Geography, Performance, Design on ByDesign, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio program. Listen to the program or download audio at http://abc.com.au/rn/bydesign/stories/2009/2593356.htm.