Category: Asia

Four Plays from the Bunraku Puppet Theater

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The Bunraku Puppet Theatre of JapanThe plays presented in The Bunraku Puppet Theatre of Japan: Honor, Vengeance, and Love in Four Plays of the 18th and 19th Centuries, translated and annotated by Stanleigh H. Jones, were first performed between 1769 and 1832, a time when the Japanese puppet theatre known as Bunraku was beginning to lose its pre-eminence to Kabuki. During this period, however, several important puppet plays were created that went on to become standards in both the Bunraku and Kabuki repertoires; three of the plays in this volume achieved this level of importance. This span of some sixty-odd years was also a formative one in the development of how plays were presented, an important feature in the modern staging of works from the traditional plebeian theatre. Only a handful of complete and uncut plays—often as much as ten hours long—are produced in Bunraku or Kabuki nowadays; included here is one of these. Two among the four plays contained in this volume are examples of the much more common practice of staging a single popular act or scene from a much longer drama that itself is seldom, if ever, performed in its entirety today.

Newly translated and illustrated for the general reader and the specialist, the plays are accompanied by informative introductions, extensive notes on stage action, and discussions of the various changes that Bunraku underwent, particularly in the latter half of the eighteenth century, its golden age.

December 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3680-1 / $29.00 (PAPER)

New Edition of a Classic Cookbook

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Mary Sia's Classic Chinese CookbookMary Sia’s Chinese Cookbook has been a classic of Chinese cookery since it was first published in 1956. This fourth edition features all 300 of the original recipes, ranging from simple, everyday fare to more elaborate dishes for entertaining, as well as essays by Mary Sia. An all-new food glossary provides up-to-date names for ingredients along with advice on appropriate substitutions and sources for 21st-century cooks. The work also includes an introduction by Rachel Laudan, renowned food historian and author of The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawai‘i’s Culinary Heritage.

December 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3738-9 / $16.99 (PAPER)

Reading the World, One Book at a Time: Han Dong’s Banished

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9780824833404PLate in 2011, the world was gearing up for the Olympics in London and Ann Morgan was planning to meet it more than halfway by reading “as many of the globe’s 196 independent countries . . . one book from every nation.” Her blog “A year of reading the world” tracks her progress and is filled with thoughtful commentary on not only what Morgan is reading (she’s not done yet) and her thoughts on the work, but also how she got there: the recommendations she received, the reasons behind her decision to read one book over another (e.g., for Bulgaria, Georgi Gospodinov over Elias Canetti: She discovered Gospodinov’s Natural Novel in a NYC bookstore “and it sounded so intriguing that I had to buy it and read it then and there”).

Morgan’s November 29, 2012 entry, “China: one in 1.3 billion,”details her discovery of Han Dong’s Banished!, published by UH Press in 2008. Forgoing this year’s Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan, Morgan decided on Han Dong after a meeting with translator, Nicky Harman:

“I couldn’t help being intrigued by [Harman’s] description of the book, which, by the sound of it, provided an unusual—even quirky—perspective on the events of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. My interest was also piqued by the translator’s comment that the structure of the book, which reads like a memoir, with each chapter devoted to a different character in the village, reflected a popular tradition in Chinese fiction. I decided it would be the book for me.”

Last year Morgan blogged “A year of reading women,” an equally insightful and entertaining trip through books, this time by women writers (largely British and North American) through the centuries.

Foreign Policy Article on China’s Copycat Cities

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boskerEiffelTower

Last week Foreign Policy posted an article, China’s Copycat Cities, written by Jack Carlson, on China’s recent re-creation of some of the West’s most iconic, historical attractions in its own backyard: Replicas of British towns complete with Tudor, Georgian, and Victorian buildings can now be found near Shanghai and Chengdu, in addition to at least two large-scale replicas of the Eiffel Tower and a highly accurate, full-scale White House outside Hangzhou, to name a few. Carlson mentions the reasons offered by European and American commentators for the presence of Bauhaus towns and a Sydney Opera House in China—the country’s “copycat syndrome,” “self-colonization”—but he also finds a fascinating parallel in Chinese history during the Qing with the Qianlong Emperor’s construction of the Western Palaces, which were closely based on the Trianon in Versailles. An excellent slide show accompanies the article.

UH Press’ forthcoming Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China, by Bianca Bosker, is the first definitive chronicle of this remarkable phenomenon in which entire buildings and towns appear to have been airlifted from their historic and geographic foundations in Europe and the Americas and spot-welded to Chinese cities. The latest book in the series Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Architecture, Original Copies will be available in January 2013.

UH Press at American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 17-20

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AAA logoUniversity of Hawai‘i Press is exhibiting at this year’s annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, which is being held at McCormick Place Convention Center, November 17-20.

Press acquisitions editor Patricia Crosby and Asian studies product manager Steven Hirashima are attending. Please visit us at Booth 219.

Guide to the Sacred Sites of Japan’s Ancient Religion

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Shinto Shrines
Of Japan’s two great religious traditions, Shinto is far less known and understood in the West. Although there are a number of books that explain the religion and its philosophy, Shinto Shrines: A Guide to the Sacred Sites of Japan’s Ancient Religion, by Joseph Cali and John Dougill, is the first in English to focus on sites where Shinto has been practiced since the dawn of Japanese history. In an extensive introductory section, the authors delve into the fascinating aspects of Shinto, clarifying its relationship with Buddhism as well as its customs, symbolism, and pilgrimage routes. This is followed by a fully illustrated guide to 57 major Shinto shrines throughout Japan, many of which have been designated World Heritage Sites or National Treasures.

November 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3713-6 / $24.99 (PAPER)

Shotoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism

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Plotting the Prince Plotting the Prince: Shotoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism, by Kevin Gray Carr, traces the development of conceptual maps of the world created through the telling of stories about Prince Shōtoku (573?–622?), an eminent statesman who is credited with founding Buddhism in Japan. It analyzes his place in the sacred landscape and the material relics of the cult of personality dedicated to him, focusing on the art created from the tenth to fourteenth centuries. The book asks not only who Shōtoku was, but also how images of his life served the needs of devotees in early medieval Japan.

“In this remarkable study Kevin Carr shows how Prince Shōtoku became one of the most widely revered among the many nobles and priests who implanted the Buddhist faith in the hearts of the Japanese people. A crown prince who served as regent under his aunt, Empress Suiko, he directed the resources of the state to support the religion at a crucial moment in its arrival from the Asian mainland. At his country villa near Nara he built the famous Hōryū-ji monastery, whose Eastern Precinct became a shrine to his memory after his death. Carr introduces exciting new pictorial evidence of the growth of the Shōtoku cult in Japan’s Middle Ages, and he brilliantly analyzes the intriguing eleventh-century panoramic paintings of Shōtoku’s life that covered three walls of the E-den (Picture Hall) in the Eastern Precinct.” —John M. Rosenfield, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of East Asian Art, Emeritus, Harvard University

November 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3463-0 / $40.00 (CLOTH)

Illustrated Guide to Hawaii’s Japanese Buddhist Temples

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Japanese Buddhist Temples of Hawaii
Upon entering a Japanese Buddhist temple in Hawai‘i, most people—whether first-time visitors or lifelong members—are overwhelmed by the elaborate and complex display of golden ornaments, intricately carved altar tables and incense burners, and images of venerable masters and bodhisattvas. These objects, as well as the architectural elements of the temple itself, have meanings that are often hidden in ancient symbolisms. Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawai‘i: An Illustrated Giode, by George J. Tanabe and Willa Jane Tanabe, two local authorities on Japanese art and religion, provides a thorough yet accessible overview of Buddhism in Hawai‘i followed by a temple-by-temple guide to the remaining structures across the state.

October 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3663-4 / $45.00 (CLOTH)
ISBN 978-0-8248-3679-5 / $22.99 (PAPER)
A Latitude 20 Book

Zen and Swordsmanship

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Sword of Zen
Takuan Sōho’s (1573–1645) two works on Zen and swordsmanship are among the most straightforward and lively presentations of Zen ever written and have enjoyed great popularity in both premodern and modern Japan. Although dealing ostensibly with the art of the sword, Record of Immovable Wisdom and On the Sword Taie are basic guides to Zen—“user’s manuals” for Zen mind that show one how to manifest it not only in sword play but from moment to moment in everyday life.

Along with translations of Record of Immovable Wisdom and On the Sword Taie (the former, composed in all likelihood for the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu and his fencing master, Yagyū Munenori), Sword of Zen, by Peter Haskel, includes an introduction to Takuan’s distinctive approach to Zen, drawing on excerpts from the master’s other writings. It also offers an accessible overview of the actual role of the sword in Takuan’s day, a period that witnessed both a bloody age of civil warfare and Japan’s final unification under the Tokugawa shoguns. Takuan was arguably the most famous Zen priest of his time, and as a pivotal figure, bridging the Zen of the late medieval and early modern periods, his story (presented in the book’s biographical section) offers a rare picture of Japanese Zen in transition.

October 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3678-8 / $23.00 (PAPER)

Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing

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Reinventing Modern China
Reinventing Modern China: Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing, by Huaiyin Li, offers the first systematic analysis of writings on modern Chinese history by historians in China from the early twentieth century to the present. It traces the construction of major interpretive schemes, the evolution of dominant historical narratives, and the unfolding of debates on the most controversial issues in different periods. Placing history-writing in the context of political rivalry and ideological contestation, Li explicates how the historians’ dedication to faithfully reconstructing the past was compromised by their commitment to an imagined trajectory of history that fit their present-day agenda and served their needs of political legitimation.

October 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3608-5 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Shotoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism

Posted on by stephchun

Plotting the Prince
Plotting the Prince: Shotoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism, by Kevin Gray Carr, traces the development of conceptual maps of the world created through the telling of stories about Prince Shōtoku (573?–622?), an eminent statesman who is credited with founding Buddhism in Japan. It analyzes his place in the sacred landscape and the material relics of the cult of personality dedicated to him, focusing on the art created from the tenth to fourteenth centuries. The book asks not only who Shōtoku was, but also how images of his life served the needs of devotees in early medieval Japan.

“In this remarkable study Kevin Carr shows how Prince Shōtoku became one of the most widely revered among the many nobles and priests who implanted the Buddhist faith in the hearts of the Japanese people. A crown prince who served as regent under his aunt, Empress Suiko, he directed the resources of the state to support the religion at a crucial moment in its arrival from the Asian mainland. At his country villa near Nara he built the famous Hōryū-ji monastery, whose Eastern Precinct became a shrine to his memory after his death. Carr introduces exciting new pictorial evidence of the growth of the Shōtoku cult in Japan’s Middle Ages, and he brilliantly analyzes the intriguing eleventh-century panoramic paintings of Shōtoku’s life that covered three walls of the E-den (Picture Hall) in the Eastern Precinct.” —John M. Rosenfield, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of East Asian Art, Emeritus, Harvard University

September 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3463-0 / $40.00 (CLOTH)

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