UH Press

Biography, vol. 35, no. 2 (2012): Between Catastrophe and Carnival: Creolized Identities, Cityspace, and Life Narratives

Posted on December 7, 2012 by alphabex

ARTICLES

“Dust to Cleanse Themselves,” A Survivor’s Ethos: Diasporic Disidentifications in Zeitoun
Valorie Thomas, 271

Extending Jose Muñoz’s analysis of disidentification, this essay argues that Dave Eggers’s Zeitoun reflects a particular ethos of survival that is both decolonized and disidentified. By revising the master media narrative of Hurricane Katrina as an unfortunate act of God and FEMA’s bad timing, Eggers critiques dominant practices of race, class, gender, nation, and crisis processing to address silences at the core of the narrative.
Continue reading “Biography, vol. 35, no. 2 (2012): Between Catastrophe and Carnival: Creolized Identities, Cityspace, and Life Narratives”

Green Days/Holiday Schedule 2012

Posted on December 5, 2012 by stephchun

As part of the University of Hawai‘i’s Green Days initiative, University of Hawai‘i Press will be closed Monday, December 17, 2012, through Tuesday, January 1, 2013, with the exception of our order department and warehouse, which will be open December 17–21. (Orders for Hawai‘i customers should be received no later than noon, December 20; all other orders should be received no later than noon, December 21.) Regular Press hours will resume on Wednesday, January 2, 2013. Mahalo for your support and happy holidays!

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

Posted on December 4, 2012 by stephchun

Late 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.

UH Press at HBPA Holiday Events

Posted on December 4, 2012 by UH Press Marketing

As a member of the Hawai‘i Book Publishers Association (HBPA), University of Hawai‘i Press will participate in two Honolulu events hosted by fellow publishers this month.

Saturday, December 8, 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Holiday Warehouse Sale
Local book publishers will feature their new releases, bestsellers, and holiday-themed titles at special prices. UH Press will focus on a selection of our most recent books on Hawai‘i. Come join the fun at the Bess Press Warehouse, 3565 Harding Avenue, in Kaimuki (park at the municipal lot across the street). Other participating publishers include host Bess Press, Bamboo Ridge Press, Bishop Museum Press, Calabash Books/Belknap Publishing, Kamehameha Publishing, and Watermark Publishing.

Wednesday, December 12, 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Downtown Holiday Book Fair
This brief but power-packed event will be an opportunity for busy downtown workers to check off their holiday gift-giving lists! As above, we’ll bring our latest Hawai‘i titles, plus a few surprises. Look for the pop-up fair at the Cades Schutte Building lanai, in front of 24-Fitness and Territorial Savings, 1000 Bishop Street (‘ewa-mauka corner of King and Bishop Streets). Other participating publishers include host Watermark Publishing, Bamboo Ridge Press, Bess Press, Calabash Books/Belknap Publishing, Island Paradise Publishing, Kamehameha Publishing, and Slate Ridge Press.

For more information, email Carol Abe in the UH Press marketing department.

Founder of Mauna Loa Observatory Celebrates His 100th Birthday

Posted on December 3, 2012 by stephchun

Dr. Robert Simpson, who founded the Mauna Loa Observatory, the world’s best-known atmospheric monitoring station, recently celebrated his 100th birthday in Washington, D.C. He also served as the first director of the National Hurricane Center.

In 1948 Simpson supervised the construction of an unmanned weather station atop Mauna Loa. The station began collecting data in 1951 but was abandoned a few years later because maintaining the road to the summit proved too difficult. Later, a chance meeting with Ralph Stair, a scientist who was attempting to measure the intensity of light from the sun, would lead directly to Simpson’s founding Mauna Loa Observatory.

Simpson wrote the Foreword to Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory: Fifty Years of Monitoring the Atmosphere, by Forrest M. Mims III, published by UH Press in 2011.

Foreign Policy Article on China’s Copycat Cities

Posted on December 3, 2012 by stephchun

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.

Albert Wendt Receives New Zealand’s Highest Literary Award

Posted on November 27, 2012 by stephchun

Yesterday Albert Wendt (shown with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key) was presented with this year’s Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement for Fiction in Wellington. The Samoan-born writer’s previous awards include the Wattie Book of the Year, the Montana Book Award, and two Commonwealth Book Prizes. He is acknowledged as one of the Pacific’s major novelists and poets and an important influence in the development of indigenous writing around the world.

Wendt is the author or editor of numerous books published by University of Hawai‘i Press, including Leaves of the Banyan Tree, Pouliuli, The Adventures of Vela, Sons for the Return Home, Black Rainbow, and Ola. His most recent book, Ancestry, is published by Huia Publishers and will be distributed in the U.S. and Canada by UH Press later this year.

Mahalo!

Posted on November 27, 2012 by stephchun

Mahalo to everyone who made our Cyber Monday Sale a huge success! We even got on TV! The Press’ Steve Hirashima was interviewed by KHON’s Taizo Braden about the importance of Cyber Monday sales to local businesses.

Japanese Buddhist Temples Exhibit Opens at JCCH

Posted on November 26, 2012 by UH Press Marketing

An exhibition of Japanese Buddhist temple objects and furnishings will be on display at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i community gallery from December 1, 2012 through February 22, 2013. The show is curated by professors emeriti George and Willa Tanabe, based on their new book, Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawai‘i: An Illustrated Guide. The book serves a dual role as the exhibition catalog as well as a colorful visitors’ guidebook to the 90 extant temples in the islands.

The Tanabes will also be leading a series of Saturday tours to selected temples on December 8, January 19, January 26, and February 9. For more information, see the JCCH website for details, or call (808) 945-7633 ext. 28 or email [email protected] to make reservations. UPDATE: After each tour, the Tanabes will discuss their book and sign copies.

Journal of Korean Religions, vol. 3, no. 2 (2012): Korean Shamans in the Present Tense

Posted on November 26, 2012 by alphabex

Editor’s Introduction
Laurel Kendall, 5

I agreed to comment on the three contributions to this symposium in a desire to see how the study of shamans in contemporary Korea is developing. I was curious about how and in what ways it continues to attract the attention of young scholars like Dong-kyu Kim and Jun Hwan Park, as well as offering new questions to veterans of Korean shaman studies like Jongsung Yang. As these contributions abundantly demonstrate, and as many of us have argued for a long time, there is no such thing as a fixed “Korean shamanism,” but rather a body of religious practices that survive precisely because they are fluid, responsive to other changes in Korean society. Like quicksilver contemporary South Korea, and the shamans who share in its dynamism, scholarship too is a moving target, with new projects and new approaches continuously added to the conversation. At the same time, all of these works build upon some viable scholarship that has gone before.
Continue reading “Journal of Korean Religions, vol. 3, no. 2 (2012): Korean Shamans in the Present Tense”

Journal of World History, vol. 23, no. 3 (2012)

Posted on November 19, 2012 by alphabex

In Memorium: Jerry H. Bentley, vi

ARTICLES

The Global View of History in China
Liu Xincheng, 491

This is an attempt to trace and contextualize Chinese scholars’ response—either positive or negative—to the “West-imported” concept of a “global view of history” after its emergence in China more than two decades ago. It also introduces how world historians in China are consciously employing this “global view of history” to compile their own world history textbooks, a practice that gave rise to a serious concern about world history methodologies. Continue reading “Journal of World History, vol. 23, no. 3 (2012)”

Cyber Monday Sale: 40% Off Every Title Online

Posted on November 19, 2012 by stephchun

Get a head start on your holiday shopping and save during our final sale of the year! For 24 hours (12 am to midnight, HST) on Monday, November 26, 2012, order online and receive 40% off every title currently available and in stock at our website.