Category: Asia

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

Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions

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From the 1910s to the mid-1930s, the flamboyant and gifted spiritualist Deguchi Onisaburô (1871–1948) transformed his mother-in-law’s small, rural religious following into a massive movement, eclectic in content and international in scope. Through a potent blend of traditional folk beliefs and practices like divination, exorcism, and millenarianism, an ambitious political agenda, and skillful use of new forms of visual and mass media, he attracted millions to Oomoto, his Shintoist new religion. Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburô, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan, by Nancy K. Stalker, not only gives us the first full account in English of the rise of a heterodox movement in imperial Japan, but also provides new perspectives on the importance of “charismatic entrepreneurship” in the success of new religions around the world.

November 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3172-1 / $49.00 (CLOTH)

“A tour de force of scholarship, this compelling work raises the bar for works on religion, history and modernity and should be standard reading for years to come.”—James Ketelaar, University of Chicago

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)

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!

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

Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan Now in Paperback

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Popular Literacy in Early Modern Japan, by Richard Rubinger, is now available in paperback. The focus of Rubinger’s study of Japanese literacy is the least-studied (yet overwhelming majority) of the premodern population: the rural farming class. In this book-length historical exploration of the topic, the first in any language, Rubinger dispels the misconception that there are few materials available for the study of popular literacy in Japan. He analyzes a rich variety of untapped sources from the sixteenth century onward, drawing for the first time on material that allows him to measure literacy: signatures on apostasy oaths, diaries, agricultural manuals, home encyclopedias, rural poetry-contest entries, village election ballots, literacy surveys, and family account books.

August 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3124-0 / $24.00 (PAPER)

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)

Visual Culture and Identity in Colonial Taiwan

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Since the mid-1990s Taiwanese artists have been responsible for shaping much of the international contemporary art scene, yet studies on modern Taiwanese art published outside of Taiwan are scarce. The nine essays collected in Refracted Modernity: Visual Culture and Identity in Colonial Taiwan, edited by Yuko Kikuchi, present different perspectives on Taiwanese visual culture and landscape during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945), focusing variously on travel writings, Western and Japanese/Oriental-style paintings, architecture, aboriginal material culture, and crafts.

August 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3050-2 / $60.00 (CLOTH)

Announcing Two Series: The World of East Asia and Critical Interventions

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For most of its past, East Asia was a world unto itself. The land we now call China sat roughly at its center and was surrounded by a number of places we now call Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Tibet, as well as a host of lands absorbed into one of these. The peoples and cultures of these lands interacted among themselves with virtually no reference to the outside world before the dawn of early modern times. Although all was not always peaceful or harmonious, there were rules (explicit and implicit) governing interactions long in existence when Westerners arrived on the scene. The World of East Asia aims to support the production of research on the interactions, both historical and contemporary, between and among these lands and their cultures and peoples. It purposefully does not define itself by discipline or time period; the only criterion is that the interaction be either within East Asia or between East Asia and its Central, South, and Southeast Asian neighbors. Crossing Empire’s Edge: Foreign Ministry Police and Japanese Expansionism in Northeast Asia, by Erik Esselstrom, will be the inaugural volume. For further information contact the series’ general editor, Joshua A. Fogel (fogel@yorku.ca).

Critical Interventions aims to make available innovative, cutting-edge works with a focus on Asia or the presence of Asia in other continents and regions. Series titles will explore a wide range of issues and topics in the modern and contemporary periods, especially those dealing with literature, cinema, art, theater, media, cultural theory, and intellectual history as well as subjects that cross disciplinary boundaries. It encourages scholarship that combines solid research with an imaginative approach, theoretical sophistication, and stylistic lucidity. Direct proposals and inquiries to the series’ general editor, Sheldon H. Lu (shlu@ucdavis.edu).

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