Asia – Page 29 – UH Press

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

Posted on July 27, 2007 by stephchun

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 ([email protected]).

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 ([email protected]).

Translation of an Important Commentary in the Korean Buddhist Tradition

Posted on July 26, 2007 by stephchun

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.

Mediasphere Shanghai

Posted on July 5, 2007 by stephchun

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

Posted on June 27, 2007 by stephchun

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.

Gao Village Now in Paperback

Posted on June 27, 2007 by stephchun

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

Posted on June 13, 2007 by stephchun

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.

Author Beth Notar to Sign at Odyssey Books

Posted on June 5, 2007 by stephchun

Trinity College assistant professor of anthropology Beth Notar will be signing copies of her recently published book Displacing Desire: Travel and Popular Culture in China at Odyssey Bookshop on Tuesday, June 12, at 7:00 p.m. Odyssey Bookshop is located in the Village Commons, 9 College Street, South Hadley, Massachusetts.

For more information about the signing, please call Odyssey Books at (413) 534-7307 or click here.

Crisis in North Korea Now in Paperback

Posted on May 30, 2007 by stephchun

Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956, by Andrei Lankov, is now available in paperback.

Hawai‘i Studies on Korea series, published in association with the Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai‘i
May 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3207-0 / $21.00 (PAPER)

“In this important new book, the Russian-trained scholar Andrei Lankov examines the critical historical period, the mid-1950s, when the shape of the North Korean political system was formed. This book is important for two reasons—because it is the first thorough discussion of the events leading up to the effective removal of any opposition to the Kim Il Sung group, and because it uses sources which until recently were not readily accessible. . . . These sources give us a far better historical and chronological understanding of the events and players during this crucial period than we could have had before. . . . This well-written book will be of value beyond the area of Korean Studies to anyone interested in the history of communism and political systems, as well as the history of current affairs.” —Asian Affairs

Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics

Posted on May 29, 2007 by stephchun

Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics: Studies in Literature and Visual Culture, by Sheldon H. Lu, is an ambitious multimedia and interdisciplinary study of Chinese modernity in the context of globalization from the late nineteenth century to the present. Lu draws on Chinese literature, film, art, photography, and video to broadly map the emergence of modern China in relation to the capitalist world-system in the economic, social, and political realms. Central to his study is the investigation of biopower and body politics, namely, the experience of globalization on a personal level.

May 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3177-6 / $22.00 (PAPER)

Sheldon H. Lu is the editor of Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics (with Emily Yueh-yu Yeh) and Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender, both published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Significant University Press Titles for Undergraduates

Posted on May 17, 2007 by stephchun

In the May 2007 issue of the American Library Association’s Choice magazine, the premier source for reviews of academic books of interest to those in higher education, three recently published University of Hawai‘i Press titles are included in a list of “most significant university press titles for undergraduates”:

Displacing Desire: Travel and Popular Culture in China, by Beth E. Notar (now available in paperback)

Japanese Popular Prints: From Votive Slips to Playing Cards, by Rebecca Salter

Sherlock in Shanghai: Stories of Crime and Detection by Cheng Xiaoqing, translated by Timothy C. Wong

If you are an instructor interested in adopting these or other University of Hawai‘i Press books for classroom use, you may request an examination copy. For more information, please click here.

Christianity in Korea Now in Paperback

Posted on May 3, 2007 by UH Press

Christianity in Korea, edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Timothy S. Lee, is now available in paperback.

May 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3206-3 / $24.00 (PAPER)

Here’s what reviewers said about the cloth edition.

“An impressively comprehensive overview of Korean Christianity. . . . An excellent guide—probably one of the best resources available in English—for the study of Korean Christianity.” —International Bulletin of Missionary Research

“This book’s collection of remarkable essays takes an interdisciplinary approach to clarifying the growth and development of Korean Christianity and the importance of this development for Korean politics, religion, gender issues, social issues, and interreligious dialogue. Since Western scholarship has mostly ignored this aspect of Korean history and the history of Christianity, this book makes an important contribution toward filling a void.” —Choice

Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey

Posted on May 2, 2007 by UH Press

For more than half of the twentieth century, the Korean peninsula has been divided between two hostile and competitive nation-states, each claiming to be the sole legitimate expression of the Korean nation. The division remains an unsolved problem dating to the beginnings of the Cold War and now projects the politics of that period into the twenty-first century.

Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey: A Short History, by Michael E. Robinson, is designed to provide readers with the historical essentials upon which to unravel the complex politics and contemporary crises that currently exist in the East Asian region. Beginning with a description of late-nineteenth-century imperialism, Michael Robinson shows how traditional Korean political culture shaped the response of Koreans to multiple threats to their sovereignty after being opened to the world economy by Japan in the 1870s. He locates the origins of both modern nationalism and the economic and cultural modernization of Korea in the twenty years preceding the fall of the traditional state to Japanese colonialism in 1910.

May 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3174-5 / $19.00 (PAPER)