Category: China

Beijing Opera Costumes

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Beijing Opera Costumes: The Visual Communication of Character and Culture, by Alexandra B. Bonds, is the first in-depth English-language book focused exclusively on the costumes of Jingju, the highest form of stage arts in China. This comprehensive volume provides both theory and analysis of the costumes and the method of their selection for the roles as well as technical information on embroidery, patterns, and construction. Extensive descriptions illuminate the use of colors and surface images derived from historical dress and modified for the stage. Details on makeup, hairstyles, and dressing techniques present a complete view of the Jingju performer from head to toe.

“This book is a very detailed and thorough examination of costuming (including make-up) in traditional Beijing opera as practiced today. The author has combined her expertise in costume design in general with extensive fieldwork and consultation in China. Because of the highly developed role-type system in Beijing opera and the premium put on visually distinguishing these role types on stage, costuming and make-up in Beijing opera are simultaneously very complicated, very full of meaning, and very worth paying attention to. This book, with its ample illustrations and clear structure, is an excellent guide to the symbolic systems used to differentiate characters on the Beijing opera stage, and, given the comparative lack in Beijing opera of scenery on the one hand and emphasis on the actor on the other, it could also be said to represent a guide to the visual world of Beijing opera in general. It is the only book of its kind in English, and it is very hard to conceive of it being surpassed any time soon.” —David Rolston, University of Michigan

April 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-2956-8 / $50.00 (CLOTH)

New in Paperback in March

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The Flaming Womb: Repositioning Women in Early Modern Southeast Asia, by Barbara Watson Andaya

“The definitive volume on women in Southeast Asia history. . . . [Anadaya’s] book is encyclopedic in its inclusiveness yet it does not force a homogenizing or uniform interpretation upon the material. Instead, Andaya brings symphonic order to the cacophony of beliefs and practices. . . . The examples are detailed, specific, precise and attentive. This is the hallmark of her work. . . . Masterfully composed.” —Pacific Affairs

March 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3288-9 / $21.00 (PAPER)

Women Through the Lens: Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema, by Shuqin Cui

“Stands out for its ambition and breadth. . . . Women Through the Lens not only lays a foundation and road map for other scholars but it should be used as a reference book by anyone interested in Chinese film.” —Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews

March 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3296-4 / $28.00 (PAPER)

Cambodian Buddhism: History and Practice, by Ian Harris

“A fascinating book that contains a wealth of material that would require a series of reviews to discuss fully. It is a resource on Cambodia that adds enormously to the literature of Southeast Asian Buddhism. . . . It will become a pivotal work on the subject.” —Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

March 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3298-8 / $25.00 (PAPER)

The People of the Sea: Environment, Identity, and History in Oceania, by Paul D’Arcy

“This well-researched and beautifully written monograph opens a window in time and space. Its emphasis on the dynamics [of marine ecosystems] is convincing and serves to falsify the notion of a frozen ‘tradition’ as well as of a predictable maritime environment.” —Anthropological Quarterly

March 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3297-1 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Two Precious Scroll Narratives of Guanyin and Her Acolytes

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The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was a handsome prince when he entered China. As Guanyin, the bodhisattva was venerated from the eleventh century onward in the shape of a beautiful woman who became a universal savior. Throughout the last millennium, the female Guanyin has enjoyed wide and fervid veneration throughout East Asia and has appeared as a major character in literature and legend. In one tale, Guanyin (as the princess Miaoshan) returns from the dead after being executed by the king, her father, for refusing to marry. The most popular version of this legend is The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain (Xiangshan baojuan). In Personal Salvation and Filial Piety: Two Precious Scroll Narratives of Guanyin and Her Acolytes, Wilt L. Idema offers a complete and fully annotated translation of The Precious Scroll, based on a nineteenth-century edition.

This is the latest volume in the series Classics in East Asian Buddhism, published in association with the Kuroda Institute.

March 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3215-5 / $50.00 (CLOTH)

The Literature of Leisure and Chinese Modernity

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The Chinese essay is arguably China’s most distinctive contribution to modern world literature, and the period of its greatest influence and popularity—the mid-1930s—is the central concern of this book. What Charles A. Laughlin terms “the literature of leisure” is a modern literary response to the cultural past that manifests itself most conspicuously in the form of short, informal essay writing (xiaopin wen). In The Literature of Leisure and Chinese Modernity, Laughlin examines the essay both as a widely practiced and influential genre of literary expression and as an important counter-discourse to the revolutionary tradition of New Literature (especially realistic fiction), often viewed as the dominant mode of literature at the time.

“More than any scholar in the field, Charles Laughlin has placed the prose essay at the heart of modern Chinese literary production and reception—where it rightly belongs. As a whole, his work demonstrates both the variety of approaches modern Chinese writers have taken to the prose genre and the essential interconnectedness of political literature and the literature of leisure. With this volume, the field seems to have matured to the point that we no longer need to obsess about ‘alternative modernities’ as counterweights to the ‘hegemony’ of the May Fourth mainstream. Since xiaopin wen (little prose pieces) were explicitly associated with the prose writing of late imperial China, Laughlin’s book also shows us how the rigid dichotomy between tradition and modernity has been a false construct in the scholarship on modern Chinese literature. Finally, organized around schools of prose—Yusi, White Horse Lake, Analects, and Crescent Moon—the book contributes greatly to our understanding of prose’s critical place in the shaping of a Republican-era literary field. Important on so many levels, The Literature of Leisure and Chinese Modernity is a must-read.” —Kirk A. Denton, The Ohio State University

March 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3125-7 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

The Shaolin Monastery

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The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts, by Meir Shahar, charts, for the first time in any language, the history of the Shaolin Temple and the evolution of its world-renowned martial arts. In this meticulously researched and eminently readable study, Shahar considers the economic, political, and religious factors that led Shaolin monks to disregard the Buddhist prohibition against violence and instead create fighting techniques that by the twenty-first century have spread throughout the world. He examines the monks’ relations with successive Chinese regimes, beginning with the assistance they lent to the seventh-century Emperor Li Shimin and culminating more than a millennium later with their complex relations with Qing rulers, who suspected them of rebellion. He reveals the intimate connection between monastic violence and the veneration of the violent divinities of Buddhism and analyzes the Shaolin association of martial discipline and the search for spiritual enlightenment.

“Written in clear and lucid style and ambitious both in scope and methodology, this book offers a fascinating window into Chinese culture, religion, and history. Ranging from historical and ethnographic documents to a wide variety of literary sources, it weaves them all into a compelling narrative. In this fashion, Shahar is uniquely able to bring together social, historical, and mythological elements, providing a demythologized account of martial Chinese traditions such as Shaolin Boxing. This is sinology at its best.”—Bernard Faure, Columbia University

January 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3110-3 / $54.00 (CLOTH)

Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face

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In Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China, Christine Mollier reveals previously unexplored dimensions of the interaction between Buddhism and Taoism in medieval China. While scholars of Chinese religions have long recognized the mutual influences linking the two traditions, Mollier here brings to light their intense contest for hegemony in the domains of scripture and ritual. Drawing on a far-reaching investigation of canonical texts, together with manuscript sources from Dunhuang and the monastic libraries of Japan—many of them studied here for the first time—she demonstrates the competition and complementarity of the two great Chinese religions in their quest to address personal and collective fears of diverse ills, including sorcery, famine, and untimely death.

“This book exemplifies the best sort of work being done on Chinese religions today. Christine Mollier expertly draws not only on published canonical sources but also on manuscript and visual material, as well as worldwide modern scholarship, to give us the most sophisticated book-length study yet produced on the textual relations between the Buddhist and Taoist traditions. She pushes past the tired, vague, and rather innocent-sounding trope of ‘influence’ to pinpoint much more complex—and fascinating—processes of textual repackaging, hybridization, adaptation, appropriation, reframing, pirating, remodeling, and transposing. Throughout, the urgent concerns of medieval Chinese people—life, health, protection, salvation—are sensitively and elegantly evoked. Anyone interested in Chinese religions, in the ways in which religious texts are formed, and in cross-religious interactions should want to read this book.”—Robert Ford Campany, University of Southern California

January 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3169-1 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

Asian Visual and Material Culture in Context

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Post-Enlightenment notions of culture, which have been naturalized in the West for centuries, require that art be autonomously beautiful, universal, and devoid of any practical purpose. The authors of What’s the Use of Art? Asian Visual and Material Culture in Context, edited by Jan Mrázek and Morgan Pitelka, seek to complicate this understanding of art by examining art objects from across Asia with attention to their functional, ritual, and everyday contexts. From tea bowls used in the Japanese tea ceremony to television broadcasts of Javanese puppet theater; from Indian wedding chamber paintings to art looted by the British army from the Chinese emperor’s palace; from the adventures of a Balinese magical dagger to the political functions of classical Khmer images—the authors challenge prevailing notions of artistic value by introducing new ways of thinking about culture.

December 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3063-2 / $58.00 (CLOTH)

Choice Magazine’s Outstanding Academic Titles for 2007 Announced

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Each year Choice Magazine, the official publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries, compiles a distinguished list of Outstanding Academic Titles. The following five UH Press books were recognized for 2007. A complete list of titles will be available in the January 2008 issue.

The Flaming Womb: Repositioning Women in Early Modern Southeast Asia by Barbara Watson Andaya

“Andaya has penned the definitive volume on women in early modern Southeast Asia. Graduates and undergraduates will find Andaya’s work approachable and foundational to their understanding of Southeast Asian history, society, politics, and religion. . . . Andaya’s tightly argued book is masterfully organized and is the most comprehensive book to date on women in Southeast Asia. A must read for Southeast Asianists and historians of gender and women.” —Choice, February 2007

Displacing Desire: Travel and Popular Culture in China by Beth E. Notar

“In a half-dozen penetrating chapters, anthropologist Notar examines the relationship between cultural representations and physical transformation in this superb ethnography of place. . . . Besides the valuable contribution that this book makes to the literature on representation, popular culture, and tourism, it offers fascinating insights on a growing Chinese consumer society. Highly recommended.” —Choice, October 2007

Himiko and Japan’s Elusive Chiefdom of Yamatai: Archaeology, History, and Mythology by J. Edward Kidder, Jr.

“The most comprehensive and persuasive treatment in English to date of the great ancient Japanese mystery that has captured the imagination of the Japanese: the location of Yamatai and the identity of its female shaman leader, Himiko. . . . In what must be the magnum opus and capstone of his illustrious career, Kidder meticulously and thoroughly examines all historical, archaeological, and mythological materials, creating a grand synthesis. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice, October 2007

Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History
by Michael E. Robinson

“The wait for a succinct yet comprehensive history of modern Korea is over. This volume, deftly written by Michael E. Robinson, comes as a welcome alternative to histories of Korea too long or too complex for typical undergraduates. . . . Striking photographs throughout confirm this impressive volume’s status as the new standard in the field. . . . Essential.” —Choice, November 2007

The Growth and Collapse of Pacific Island Societies: Archaeological and Demographic Perspectives
edited by Patrick V. Kirch and Jean-Louis Rallu

“This collection is a seminal contribution to the longstanding concern with demographic levels and change before and following European contacts with Pacific Island societies. . . . The essays represent exemplary interdisciplinary meshings and, in developing a new level of technique for this research, remind readers of the excellence of the earlier work as well. . . . Undoubtably, this will be a basic reference in Pacific Islands scholarship. Highly recommended.” —Choice, October 2007

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

The Making of a Savior Bodhisattva

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In modern Chinese Buddhism, Dizang is especially popular as the sovereign of the underworld. Often represented as a monk wearing a royal crown, Dizang awaits the faithful to help them navigate the complex underworld bureaucracy, avert the sufferings of hells, and arrive at the happy realm of rebirth. The Making of a Savior Bodhisattva: Dizang in Medieval China, by Zhiru, examines this important Buddhist deity during his formative period—before he settled into his modern role as beneficent ruler of the underworld, when his iconography and hagiography were still rife with possibilities.

August 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3045-8 / $50.00 (CLOTH)
Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism, No. 21
Published in association with the Kuroda Institute

“This is a welcome, important, and very helpful study of a hitherto poorly understood topic, and will remain the standard work of reference on the distinctively Chinese development of this important bodhisattva figure for years to come.” —Robert Campany, University of Southern California

Economic and Social Development in East and Southeast Asia

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It is well known that Taiwan and South Korea, both former Japanese colonies, achieved rapid growth and industrialization after 1960. The performance of former European and American colonies (Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Philippines) has been less impressive. Some scholars have attributed the difference to better infrastructure and greater access to education in Japan’s colonies. Colonial Legacies: Economic and Social Development in East and Southeast Asia, by Anne E. Booth, examines and critiques such arguments in this ambitious comparative study of economic development in East and Southeast Asia from the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1960s.

August 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3161-5 / $60.00 (CLOTH)

Visual and Material Cultures of Ming China

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Empire of Great Brightness: Visual and Material Culture of Ming China, 1368–1644, by Craig Clunas, is an innovative and accessible history of a high point in Chinese culture, seen through the riches of its images and objects. Not a simple emperor-by-emperor history, it instead introduces the reader to themes that provide stimulating and original points of entry to the culture of China: to ideas of motion and rest, to the position occupied by writing and objects featuring writing; to ideas about pleasure, about violence and ageing.

Craig Clunas is the author of Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China and Elegant Debts: The Social Art of Wen Zhengming, both published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

August 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3149-3 / $59.00 (CLOTH)

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