Books sorted by author
Goddess on the Frontier
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Dali is a small region on a high plateau in Southeast Asia. Its main deity, Baijie, has assumed several gendered forms throughout the area's history: Buddhist goddess, the mother of Dali's founder, a widowed martyr, and a village divinity. What accounts for so many different incarnations of a local deity? Goddess on the Frontier argues that Dali's encounters with forces beyond region and nation have influenced the goddess's transformations. Dali sits at the cultural crossroads of Southeast Asia, India, and Tibet; it has been claimed by different countries but is currently part of Yunnan Province in Southwest China. Megan Bryson incorporates historical-textual studies, art history, and ethnography in her book to argue that Baijie provided a regional identity that enabled Dali to position itself geopolitically and historically. In doing so, Bryson provides a case study of how people craft local identities out of disparate cultural elements and how these local identities transform over time in relation to larger historical changes--including the increasing presence of the Chinese state.
Leadership in a Changing China
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Scholars from China, Singapore and the U.S. use the opportunity of the 16th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party to explore the issue of leadership change in China, and its impact on institution building and foreign policy there.
The Environment and Society Reader
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This is a comprehensive introduction to the issues associated with environmental problems. The author challenges readers to ask themselves questions regarding the complexity and distribution of environmental problems as well as human impacts on and responses to these problems. Readers are also encouraged to examine the scope and nature of environmental problems. Geared toward those interested in the relationship between the environment and society.
Proselytization Revisited
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The act of converting people to certain beliefs or values is highly controversial in today's postcolonial, multicultural world. Proselytization has been viewed by some as an aggressive act of political domination. 'Proselytization Revisited' offers a comprehensive overview of the many arguments for and against proselytization in different regions and contexts. Proselytization is examined in the context of rights talk, globalisation and culture wars. The volume brings together essays demonstrating the global significance of proselytization, ranging from Christians in India to Turkish Islamic Movements and the Wiccan use of modern media technologies. The cross-cultural and multidisciplinary nature of this collection of essays provides a fresh perspective and the book will be of value to readers interested in the dynamic interaction of beliefs, ideas and cultures.
Women Adrift
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Women's bodies contributed to the expansion of the Japanese empire. With this bold opening, Noriko J. Horiguchi sets out in Women Adrift to show how women's actions and representations of women's bodies redrew the border and expanded, rather than transcended, the empire of Japan. Discussions of empire building in Japan routinely employ the idea of kokutai--the national body--as a way of conceptualizing Japan as a nation-state. Women Adrift demonstrates how women impacted this notion, and how women's actions affected perceptions of the national body. Horiguchi broadens the debate over Japanese women's agency by focusing on works that move between naichi, the inner territory of the empire of Japan, and gaichi, the outer territory; specifically, she analyzes the boundary-crossing writings of three prominent female authors: Yosano Akiko (1878-1942), Tamura Toshiko (1884-1945), and Hayashi Fumiko (1904-1951). In these examples--and in Naruse Mikio's postwar film adaptations of Hayashi's work--Horiguchi reveals how these writers asserted their own agency by transgressing the borders of nation and gender. At the same time, we see how their work, conducted under various colonial conditions, ended up reinforcing Japanese nationalism, racialism, and imperial expansion. In her reappraisal of the paradoxical positions of these women writers, Horiguchi complicates narratives of Japanese empire and of women's role in its expansion.
Educating Activists
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What do people make of their own development? In Educating Activists, Rebecca M. Klenk illuminates a reality that is far more complex than either development planners or critics commonly assume. This gracefully written, accessible ethnography shows how rural women accept, refuse, reinterpret, and negotiate development's terms in a quest to improve their own communities. Klenk offers an account of Lakshmi Ashram, a remarkable Gandhian educational initiative for women and girls in Himalayan India. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, Educating Activists blends memories and stories with historical research and richly detailed ethnographic analysis to craft a compelling portrait of how women across two generations have engaged with issues of sustainability, poverty, gender equity, autonomy, and progress.
Sailor Moon and Postbubble Japan
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When the Japanese bubble burst in 1991, so did the promise of a good life for those who followed the rules. Restructuring meant the beginning of the end of guaranteed lifetime employment, the traditional backbone of the modern Japanese economic system. The picture is complex but many workers, especially in middle management, were either dismissed or demoted into jobs with reduced responsibilities and pay. Workers who had given their adult lives to Japanese companies felt justifiably betrayed. More importantly, young people lost faith in a system that had betrayed their fathers. It was not long before the shock of this change moved from the news media to the popular media. Graphic novelists began producing works that parodied the old genres. There was a deadly samurai assassin with orange bouffant hair tied with a red ribbon, a pirate captain who couldn't swim, and a "juvenile delinquent" ninja. Takeuchi Naoko's superheroine graphic novel, Sailor Moon, was one of the first of these subverted graphic novels (manga).There are two chapters and an introduction in this book. The first chapter is background material analyzing various critical approaches to the female superhero. It begins with Wonder Woman but focuses primarily on Cutey Honey, a female superhero who shares many of the problematic aspects of her Western counterparts. The second chapter is on Sailor Moon, the first postmodern and postbubble Japanese female superhero. Instead of a tomboy rivaling men in her athletic prowess, Takeuchi Naoko's heroine is a "cry baby" obsessed with video games, shopping, and "cute" older boys. Sailor Moon also celebrates the intentionally camp. As retro-pastiche tour de force, the graphic novel walks a tightrope between homage to the superheroine and subversion of the genre's varied tropes. Set against Art Deco backgrounds, Sailor Moon and her elegant tuxedo-clad boyfriend exchange dialog as sharp, if not quite as sophisticated, as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. This chapter also looks at the same sex relationships in Sailor Moon, an aspect of the manga that has been somewhat controversial in the West. The relationships are placed into the context of the Japanese all female theater, the Takarazuka, and other models that Takeuchi used for her characters. Jon LaCure teaches Japanese language and literature courses at the University of Tennessee. He regularly teaches an introductory course on the contemporary Japanese graphic novel and animation in translation. He has also taught courses on CLAMP, Takahashi Rumiko, Japanese cyberpunk, and postbubble Japanese horror films.
Rhetorical Devices of the Kokinshu
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This monography deals with the rhetorical device of Japanese waka poetry through an axhaustive analysis of the first and most important of the Japanese imperial anthologies, the Kohinshu (complied 905 AD). The chapters are organised around the poetic devices, including Kakekotoba (conventionalized puns, usually translated as pivot words), Makurkotoba (set phrases or epigrams, usually translated as pillow words). The analysis presented here uses descriptive model which defines and classifies these rhetorical devices as structural elements in the poetry.
The Chrysanthemum and the Scissors
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This book focuses on the development of modern haiku in Japan and the reception of haiku in the West. I have been working on the project for several decades, publishing articles about haiku and haiku poetry translated into English. The book takes a historical approach beginning with Bashō and ending with several important contemporary women poets. However, the path it takes bears no resemblance to the traditional history of haiku. The focus of the book is on the decontextualization of traditional haiku both in modern Japan and in the West. I am using the term to describe how haiku are often stripped of their original meaning, their literary context, and historical background. Once a haiku has been decontextualized, a new meaning and a new context can be created that are more understandable to modern readers. Without decontextualization haiku might have remained a mere oddity in the West. The first three chapters of the book deal with Bashō. The first chapter focuses on the importance of seeing haiku in the context of the Japanese literary tradition. The chapter analyzes one poem and how it makes use of a phrase that is a part of the long tradition of poetry in Japan. The next two chapters look at the pictures of Bashō that emerge from different Western translators of Bashō's haiku. One chapter deals with translators who treat Bashō as a religious figure. The next chapter deals with various other problems that arise when translators do not pay sufficient attention to the language or the context of the poems. There are also chapters on Issa and the modern poet Taneda Santōka, both of whom have been seen by translators as primarily religious rather than literary figures. A chapter that analyzes the poetry of one of Bashō's unknown disciples, Rōka, brings up the question of canon formation. Two chapters that go into detail about the haiku of Japan's most important novelist, Natsume Sōseki, examine the process involved in the creation of modern haiku in Japan. Two chapters examine new directions in haiku from young women poets who are writing today. One of these poets, Mayuzumi Madoka, works outside of the contemporary haiku establishment. The other, Ōtaka Shō, was a part of the conventional haiku world. There is one chapter on haiku in everyday life in Japan through the comic art of the creator of Sazae-san, Hasegawa Machiko. The final chapter looks at the nature of traditional Japanese verse from the point of view of a tenth-century diary. Through this unusual selection of haiku poets, the book attempts to create a multi-dimensional picture of the evolution of haiku as a poetic form and how haiku is perceived today.
CLAMP and Yazawa Ai
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When the Japanese bubble burst in 1991 it was not long before the shock moved from the news media to the popular media. Graphic novelists began producing works that parodied the old genres where hard work and perseverance inevitably led to success. The first chapter of this book looks at works by CLAMP. Sailor Moon (the subject of the first volume in this series) used Art Deco accessories and backgrounds to create the look and feel of an elegant 1930's jewelry ad. In contrast, CLAMP used organic flowing lines, large empty spaces, and sharp contrasts of light and dark to recall the decadent fin de si#65533;cle and Art Nouveau. The contrast between the two worlds of the 1890's and 1930's is reflected in the leading ladies. The languid and sultry Sarah Bernhardt is representative of a fin de si#65533;cle actress while the witty and independent Ginger Rogers is a creation of the 1930's. CLAMP subverted their genres with conventional tropes that were pushed to the point of absurdity. Yazawa Ai's characters read and discuss aspects of their own story, destabilizing and de-naturalizing the shojo romance. The story no longer occupies the privileged space of narrative convention; instead the metafictional disruptions force the reader into the role of critic. At the same time, the processed and condensed versions of postbubble Tokyo streets, schools, and burger joints frequented by Yazawa's impossibly leggy teens raise questions about the boundaries between fiction and reality. Yazawa's processed digital photographs technically resemble artists working with computers in the 1990's to create digital images, especially photo montage. The purpose of Yazawa's images is not, however, to cause the viewer to reexamine the visual world. Yazawa is using these images from the real world to reexamine the narrative space of the manga.
Press Images, National Identity and Foreign Policy: a case study of U.S.-Japan relations from 1955-1995
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This work examines how national identities and political-economic structures may shape press images of nations.
Diversity in U. S. Mass Media
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Diversity in U.S. Mass Media provides comprehensive coverage of the evolution and issues surrounding portrayals of social groups within the mass media of the United States. Focuses on past and current mass media representations of social groups Provides an overview of key theories that have guided research in mass media representations and stereotyping Discusses the impact new media has on representation and how technology is giving a new voice to various social groups Includes a chapter on how mass media industries are addressing diversity, complete with specially-commissioned interviews with media professionals Offers helpful supplementary features such as a glossary, questions for reflection, suggestions for projects related to diversity in mass media, and online resources for both instructors and students Accompanying website provides a glossary, links to related sites, recommendations of films to watch in the classroom, ideas for research projects, and an instructor's manual with sample syllabi
Excursions in Identity
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In the Edo period (1600-1868), status- and gender-based expectations largely defined a person's place and identity in society. The wayfarers of the time, however, discovered that travel provided the opportunity to escape from the confines of the everyday. Cultured travelers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wrote travel memoirs to celebrate their profession as belle-lettrists. For women in particular the open road and the blank page of the diary offered a precious opportunity to create personal hierarchies defined less by gender and more by culture and refinement. After the mid-eighteenth century--which saw the popularization of culture and the rise of commercial printing--textbooks, guides, comical fiction, and woodblock prints allowed not a few commoners to acquaint themselves with the historical, lyrical, or artistic pedigree of Japan's famous sites. By identifying themselves with famous literary and historical icons of the past, some among these erudite commoners saw an opportunity to rewrite their lives and re-create their identities in the pages of their travel diaries. The chapters in Part One, "Re-creating Spaces," introduce the notion that the spaces of travel were malleable, accommodating reconceptualization across interpretive frames. Laura Nenzi shows that, far from being static backgrounds, these travelscapes proliferated in a myriad of loci where one person's center was another's periphery. In Part Two, "Re-creating Identities," we see how, in the course of the Edo period, educated persons used travel to, or through, revered lyrical sites to assert and enhance their roles and identities. Finally, in Part Three, "Purchasing Re-creation," Nenzi looks at the intersection between recreational travel and the rising commercial economy, which allowed visitors to appropriate landscapes through new means: monetary transactions, acquisition of tangible icons, or other forms of physical interaction.
Literate Community in Early Imperial China
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Communication and Cooperation in Early Imperial China
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Challenges traditional views of the Qin dynasty as an oppressive regime by revealing cooperative aspects of its governance.
Nirvana for Sale?
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Explores the relationship between material prosperity and spirituality in contemporary Thai Buddhism.
Fresh Ink: ten takes on Chinese tradition
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Contemporary Chinese society has been called a culture at the crossroads of the past and the future, and nowhere is this tension more apparent than in Chinese ink painting today. Artists working in this highly traditional medium draw from a wealth of ancient themes, but must resolve them within contemporary Chinese culture. In Fresh Ink, ten of China's leading contemporary artists engage directly with the past by creating ten new works in response to older masterpieces, ranging from classical Chinese scrolls to a scholar's rock to a drip painting by Jackson Pollock. Their personal visions reflect diverse concerns and influences, whether Xu Bing's play on the absurdly monumental, Qin Feng's system of communicative signs, or the keen eye for society evident in the work of Li Jin, Yu Hong and Liu Xiaodong. An adventurous pairing of contemporary artworks with their forbears, Fresh Ink blurs the boundaries between traditional and contemporary, East and West.
Non-Muslim Provinces under Early Islam
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Eighth- and ninth-century Armenia and Caucasian Albania were largely Christian provinces of the then Islamic Caliphate. Although they formed a part of the Iranian cultural sphere, they are often omitted from studies of both Islamic and Iranian History. In this book, Alison Vacca uses Arabic and Armenian texts to explore these Christian provinces as part of the Caliphate, identifying elements of continuity from Sasanian to caliphal rule, and, more importantly, expounding on significant moments of change in the administration of the Marwanid and early Abbasid periods. Vacca examines historical narrative and the construction of a Sasanian cultural memory during the late ninth and tenth centuries to place the provinces into a broader context of Iranian rule. This book will be of benefit to historians of Islam, Iran and the Caucasus, but will also appeal to those studying themes of Iranian identity and Muslim-Christian relations in the Near East.
Empires of Coal
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From 1868-1872, German geologist Ferdinand von Richthofen went on an expedition to China. His reports on what he found there would transform Western interest in China from the land of porcelain and tea to a repository of immense coal reserves. By the 1890s, European and American powers and the Qing state and local elites battled for control over the rights to these valuable mineral deposits. As coal went from a useful commodity to the essential fuel of industrialization, this vast natural resource would prove integral to the struggle for political control of China.Geology served both as the handmaiden to European imperialism and the rallying point of Chinese resistance to Western encroachment. In the late nineteenth century both foreign powers and the Chinese viewed control over mineral resources as the key to modernization and industrialization. When the first China Geological Survey began work in the 1910s, conceptions of natural resources had already shifted, and the Qing state expanded its control over mining rights, setting the precedent for the subsequent Republican and People's Republic of China regimes.In Empires of Coal, Shellen Xiao Wu argues that the changes specific to the late Qing were part of global trends in the nineteenth century, when the rise of science and industrialization destabilized global systems and caused widespread unrest and the toppling of ruling regimes around the world.
Political Culture and Participation in Rural China
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Despite China's rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, most Chinese still live in the vast countryside or have rural household registration. Although there was significant economic improvement in rural areas in the 1980s, the rural economy has been stagnating or deteriorating since then, and the book argues that the rural-urban income gap is giving rise to the potential for political instability throughout China. This book, based on extensive original research including interview fieldwork in rural areas, examines the nature of political culture and participation in rural China, discussing issues such as the support, or lack of it, for democratic values; levels of political interest; the ways in which Chinese peasants interact with village and local officials; subjective factors that motivate them to vote, (or not to vote) in village elections; and rural people's views on market-oriented economic reforms, local and national government, and the Communist Party. The book argues that although hitherto peasants' riots, sit-ins and demonstrations have been localised and uncoordinated, they are frequent, and have the potential to cause serious political crises for China's rulers. It concludes by considering the future political development of China's vast countryside.
Political Civilization and Modernization in China
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This volume is the first comprehensive study of China's “political civilization” since the term was introduced by then Party Secretary Jiang Zemin in 2002. Selected among about 200 papers delivered at an international conference in Beijing in 2004, this collection of ten essays discusses the relations between “political civilization” and political reform in China from the different perspectives of institution building, political culture, political theory, intra-party democracy, political participation, judiciary reform, legislative reform, and media reform. While the contributors are aware of the enormous difficulties China faces in reforming its political system and political culture, most are optimistic about the prospect of reform. Through theoretical discussions, the institutional analysis and other empirical methods in the book contribute to our understanding of Chinese politics in unique ways.
