New Books Network
Chinese Studies
East Asian Studies January 25, 2021

The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier

Benno Weiner

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
In The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier (Cornell University Press, 2020) Benno Weiner provides an in-depth study of what happened when the Chinese Revolution came to Amdo, a Tibetan …

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East Asian Studies January 25, 2021

Constructing Empire

The Japanese in Changchun, 1905–45

Bill Sewell

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
What happens to everyday-life in a city when it becomes subsumed into an empire? Who becomes responsible for the everyday building and management of the new imperial enclave? How do …
East Asian Studies January 21, 2021

Fir and Empire

The Transformation of Forests in Early Modern China

Ian M. Miller

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Ian M. Miller’s book Fir and Empire: The Transformation of Forests in Early Modern China (University of Washington Press, 2020) offers a transformation of our understanding of China’s early modern …
East Asian Studies January 20, 2021

Rural Origins, City Lives

Class and Place in Contemporary China

Roberta Zavoretti

Hosted by Suvi Rautio
Many of the millions of workers streaming in from rural China to jobs at urban factories soon find themselves in new kinds of poverty and oppression. Yet, their individual experiences …
East Asian Studies January 18, 2021

Realistic Revolution

Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics after 1989

Els van Dongen

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
What is the role of the intellectual? Is violence, not to mention radical change, necessary? Can there be a revolution without them? Realistic Revolution: Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics …
East Asian Studies January 14, 2021

Staging Personhood

Costuming in Early Qing Drama

Guojun Wang

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Much is known about the Qing sartorial regulations and how the Qing conquerors forced Han Chinese males to adopt Manchu hairstyle and clothing. But what happened on the stage? What …
Asian Review of Books January 14, 2021

Three Asian Divas

Women, Art and Culture In Shiraz, Delhi and Yangzhou

David Chaffetz

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The “diva” is a common trope when we talk about culture. We normally think of the diva as a Western construction: the opera singer, the Broadway actress, the movie star …
East Asian Studies January 13, 2021

A Fashionable Century

Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing

Rachel Silberstein

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Rachel Silberstein’s book A Fashionable Century: Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing (University of Washington Press, 2020) reveals how Qing fashion was produced at the intersection of commerce …
Chinese Studies January 8, 2021

Recovering Histories

Life and Labor after Heroin in Reform-Era China

Nicholas Bartlett

Hosted by Suvi Rautio
Heroin first reached Gejiu, a Chinese city in southern Yunnan known as Tin Capital, in the 1980s. Widespread use of the drug, which for a short period became “easier to …
Japanese Studies January 7, 2021

The Japanese Discovery of Chinese Fiction

The Water Margin and the Making of a National Canon

William C. Hedberg

Hosted by Jingyi Li
The classic Chinese novel The Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) tells the story of a band of outlaws in twelfth-century China and their insurrection against the corrupt imperial court. Imported into …
East Asian Studies December 30, 2020

China's Muslims and Japan's Empire

Centering Islam in World War II

Kelly A. Hammond

Hosted by Ed Pulford
The 1930s-40s expansion of the Japanese empire was marked by significant interest among Japan-based scholars and policy-makers in China’s Muslim population and how best to write them into a new …
Chinese Studies December 29, 2020

Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities

Kinship, Migration, and Middle Classes

John Wei

Hosted by Laurie Dickmeyer
John Wei’s book Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities: Kinship, Migration, and Middle Classes (Hong Kong University Press, 2020) studies queer cultures and social practices in China and Sinophone Asia. Young …
Indian Ocean World December 24, 2020

The Blue Frontier

Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire

Ronald C. Po

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
In this revisionist history of the eighteenth-century Qing Empire from a maritime perspective, Ronald C. Po argues that it is reductive to view China over this period exclusively as a …
East Asian Studies December 21, 2020

Asymmetrical Neighbors

Borderland State-Building Between China and Southeast Asia

Enze Han

Hosted by Victoria Lupascu
Asymmetrical Neighbors: Borderland State-Building Between China and Southeast Asia (Oxford UP, 2019) explains the variations in state building across the borderland area between China, Myanmar, and Thailand. It presents a …
Philosophy December 21, 2020

The Art of Chinese Philosophy

Eight Classical Texts and How to Read Them

Paul Goldin

Hosted by Alexus McLeod
Paul Goldin's book The Art of Chinese Philosophy: Eight Classical Texts and How to Read Them (Princeton UP, 2020) provides an unmatched introduction to eight of the most important works of …
Economics December 18, 2020

China's Gilded Age

The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption

Yuen Yuen Ang

Hosted by Andrea Bernardi
Today I talked to Yuen Yuen Ang, a Professor of political science and China expert at the University of Michigan. We spoke already in summer 2019 to discuss her previous book …
East Asian Studies December 16, 2020

The Cost of Belonging

An Ethnography on Solidarity and Mobility in Beijing's Koreatown

Sharon J. Yoon

Hosted by Ann Choi
How vulnerable can you be as a researcher? Why, in a commercially successful city like Wangqing, are Chinese Koreans more successful in their businesses than entrepreneurs from Korea who often …
Buddhist Studies December 15, 2020

Chinese Esoteric Buddhism

Amoghavajra, the Ruling Elite, and the Emergence of a Tradition

Geoffrey C. Goble

Hosted by Luke Thompson
In his recent book, Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra, the Ruling Elite, and the Emergence of a Tradition (Columbia University Press, 2019), Geoffrey Goble examines the emergence and early history of …
East Asian Studies December 9, 2020

Monks in Motion

Buddhism and Modernity Across the South China Sea

Jack Meng-Tat Chia

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
Monks in Motion: Buddhism and Modernity Across the South China Sea (Oxford University Press 2020) is the first monograph in the English language to explore the transnationally connected history of …
East Asian Studies December 8, 2020

China's Good War

How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism

Rana Mitter

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
Although World War II had been largely remembered in the People’s Republic of China as an experience of victimization since its founding in 1949, that view has been changing since …