Category: Literature

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)

Selected Works by Epeli Hauofa

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We Are Ocean, is a collection of essays, fiction, and poetry by Epeli Hau‘ofa, whose writing over the past three decades has consistently challenged prevailing notions about Oceania and prescriptions for its development. He highlights major problems confronted by the region and suggests alternative perspectives and ways in which its people might reorganize to relate effectively to the changing world.

Hau‘ofa’s essays criss-cross Oceania, creating a navigator’s star chart of discussion and debate. Spurning the arcana of the intellectual establishments where he was schooled, Hau‘ofa has crafted a distinctive—often lyrical, at times angry—voice that speaks directly to the people of the region and the general reader. He conveys his thoughts from diverse standpoints: university-based analyst, essayist, satirist and humorist, and practical catalyst for creativity. According to Hau‘ofa, only through creative originality in all fields of endeavor can the people of Oceania hope to strengthen their capacity to engage the forces of globalization.

January 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3173-8 / $22.00 (PAPER)

Modernist Fiction from Japan

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Remarkably little has been written on the subject of modernism in Japanese fiction. Until now there has been neither a comprehensive survey of Japanese modernist fiction nor an anthology of translations to provide a systematic introduction. Only recently have the terms “modernism” and “modernist” become part of the standard discourse in English on modern Japanese literature and doubts concerning their authenticity vis-a-vis Western European modernism remain. This anomaly is especially ironic in view of the decidedly modan prose crafted by such well-known Japanese writers as Kawabata Yasunari, Nagai Kafu, and Tanizaki Jun’ichiro­. By contrast, scholars in the visual and fine arts, architecture, and poetry readily embraced modanizumu as a key concept for describing and analyzing Japanese culture in the 1920s and 1930s.

Modanizumu: Modernist Fiction from Japan, 1913–1938, compiled and edited by William J. Tyler, addresses this discrepancy by presenting in translation for the first time a collection of twenty-five stories and novellas representative of Japanese authors who worked in the modernist idiom from 1913 to 1938.

“Be prepared to rethink the nature of modern Japanese literature; or better still, simply read these often wondrous tales, some tall, some short, one after the other, and enjoy a remarkable, liberating moment in Japanese literary history.” —J. Thomas Rimer, professor emeritus of Japanese literature, University of Pittsburgh

January 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3242-1 / $47.00 (CLOTH)

Reading Food in Asian American Literature

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The French epicure and gastronome Brillat-Savarin declared, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” Wenying Xu infuses this notion with cultural-political energy by extending it to an ethnic group known for its cuisines: Asian Americans. Eating Identities: Reading Food in Asian American Literature begins with the general argument that eating is a means of becoming—not simply in the sense of nourishment but more importantly of what we choose to eat, what we can afford to eat, what we secretly crave but are ashamed to eat in front of others, and how we eat. Food, as the most significant medium of traffic between the inside and outside of our bodies, organizes, signifies, and legitimates our sense of self and distinguishes us from others, who practice different foodways.

November 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3195-0 / $29.00 (PAPER)

Reflections on Asian Bodies in Diaspora

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Approximately twelve hours’ difference lies between New York and Beijing: The West and the East are, literally, night and day apart. Yet East-West Montage: Reflections on Asian Bodies in Diaspora, by Sheng-Mei Ma, crosscuts the two in the manner of adjacent filmic shots to accentuate their montage-like complementarity. It examines the intersection between East and West—the Asian diaspora (or more specifically Asian bodies in diaspora) and the cultural expressions by and about people of Asian descent on both sides of the Pacific.

November 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3181-3 / $27.00 (PAPER)

“East-West Montage possesses a unique vision that promises to push discussions of globalization, cultural production, ethnic identity, and bodily metaphors in powerful new directions. Ma is to be praised for his sound scholarship and innovative interpretations. Indeed where others specialize in either the collection of details or the unpacking of text, Ma weaves a strong analytic exegesis rooted in thorough research.” —Richard King, Washington State University

Mediasphere Shanghai

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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

Ghosts and Gender in Chinese Literature

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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.

Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics

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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.

Broken Trust, Varua Tupu Win Awards

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University of Hawai‘i Press titles were among the winners at the 2007 Ka Palapala Po‘okela book awards ceremony, held on May 18, 2007. The awards are presented by the Hawai‘i Book Publishers Association to recognize the finest books published during the previous year.

Broken Trust: Greed, Mismanagement, and Political Manipulation at America’s Largest Charitable Trust, by Samuel P. King and Randall W. Roth, was awarded the coveted Samuel M. Kamakau Award for Hawai‘i Book of the Year, as well as the certificate award in the nonfiction category and an honorable mention in Hawaiian Culture. This best-selling book by a federal judge and a UH law professor recounts the background and dramatic events surrounding the ouster of Bishop Estate trustees in the 1990s. According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (July 4, 2006), Broken Trust belongs at “the top of Hawaii’s must-read list.”

Varua Tupu: New Writing from French Polynesia, edited by Frank Stewart, Kareva Mateata-Allain, and Alexander Dale Mawyer, received the Excellence in Literature Award. The first anthology of its kind, Varua Tupu offers English-speaking readers the stories, memoirs, poetry, photography, and paintings of a French Polynesian artistic community that has been growing in strength since the 1960s.

Waikiki: A History of Forgetting & Remembering, by Gaye Chan and Andrea Feeser, received an honorable mention in Excellence in Design.

Also honored were UH Press author Caren Loebel-Fried and Iz: The Voice of the People (Bess Press) and The Seven Orchids (Bamboo Ridge Press), both distributed outside of Hawai‘i by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Significant University Press Titles for Undergraduates

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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.

Navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island Literatures

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Routes and Roots: Navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island Literatures, by Elizabeth DeLoughrey, is the first comparative study of Caribbean and Pacific Island literatures and the first work to bring indigenous and diaspora literary studies together in a sustained dialogue. Taking the “tidalectic” between land and sea as a dynamic starting point, Elizabeth DeLoughrey foregrounds geography and history in her exploration of how island writers inscribe the complex relation between routes and roots.

“Elizabeth DeLoughrey invokes the cyclical model of the continual movement and rhythm of the ocean (‘tidalectics’) to destabilize the national, ethnic, and even regional frameworks that have been the mainstays of literary study. The result is a privileging of alter/native epistemologies whereby island cultures are positioned where they should have been all along—at the forefront of the world historical process of transoceanic migration and landfall. The research, determination, and intellectual dexterity that infuse this nuanced and meticulous reading of Pacific and Caribbean literature invigorate and deepen our interest in and appreciation of island literature.” —Vilsoni Hereniko, University of Hawai‘i

May 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3122-6 / $29.00 (PAPER)

Kneubuhl Receives the Cades Award for Literature

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Playwright Victoria Kneubuhl, the author of Hawai‘i Nei: Island Plays, is the most recent recipient of the Elliot Cades Award for Literature, presented annually by the Hawai‘i Literary Arts Council. Kneubuhl’s first mystery novel, The Portrait Murders, will be published by University of Hawai‘i Press in 2008. She will be reading from her work at this month’s Hawai‘i Books and Music Festival.

Kneubuhl’s family boasts several accomplished writers, including her uncle, John, the author of Think of a Garden and Other Plays, published by University of Hawai‘i Press, and Lemanatele Mark Kneubuhl, the author of The Smell of the Moon, distributed in North America by University of Hawai‘i Press and published by New Zealand’s Huia Publishers.

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