New Books Network
Chinese Studies
Buddhist Studies June 25, 2021

Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism

April D. Hughes

Hosted by Natasha Heller
What is the relationship between Buddhism and politics? How might Buddhism be realized in this world? And how might Buddhist texts help legitimate new rulers? These questions are ably addressed …

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Asian American Studies June 24, 2021

Mahjong

A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture

Annelise Heinz

Hosted by Ian Shin
Mahjong: many have played the game, but few are familiar with its rich and complex history. In Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture (Oxford University Press …
East Asian Studies June 22, 2021

A Time of Lost Gods

Mediumship, Madness, and the Ghost after Mao

Emily Ng

Hosted by Ed Pulford
If China’s Mao era is seen by many as a time of great upheaval and chaos, there are also people and places for whom things appear quite different. Writing from …
Sociology June 21, 2021

Time and Migration

How Long-Term Taiwanese Migrants Negotiate Later Life

Ken Chih-Yan Sun

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
Based on longitudinal ethnographic work on migration between the United States and Taiwan, Time and Migration: How Long-Term Taiwanese Migrants Negotiate Later Life (Cornell UP, 2021) interrogates how long-term immigrants …
Nordic Asia Podcast June 21, 2021

In China’s Shadow: China and Southeast Asia

A Discussion with Sebastian Strangio and Murray Hiebert

Sebastian Strangio and Murray Hiebert

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Does Southeast Asia face a stark choice between aligning with China or the United States? Can we understand domestic developments in the region as driven by wider geopolitics? Can the …
Nordic Asia Podcast June 18, 2021

Ecological Civilization: Chinese Dream or Global Strategy?

A Discussion with Mette Halskov Hansen

Mette Halskov Hansen

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
How seriously should we take the Chinese government’s discourse about ‘ecological civilization’? Mette Halskov Hansen argues that whatever the shortcomings of this rather grandiose notion, it offers an invaluable means …
Economics June 18, 2021

Workers and Change in China

Resistance, Repression, Responsiveness

Manfred Elfstrom

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
Post-socialist China has seen extensive labor unrest in the form of strikes, protests, and riots. The party-state has responded, sometimes with greater repression, sometimes with institutional changes to better channel …
Nordic Asia Podcast June 14, 2021

Sensible Politics

Visualizing International Relations

William A. Callahan

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
How can we theorize international relations by looking at how nose sizes are depicted in Asian art and literature? Why are Vietnamese immigration officials furious about the maps that appear …
Economics June 11, 2021

Playing by the Informal Rules

Why the Chinese Regime Remains Stable despite Rising Protests

Yao Li

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
In the developing world, political turmoil often brings an end to promising economic growth stories. During its period of rapid economic growth in the 1990s and 2000s, China experienced a …
Economic and Business History June 7, 2021

Pirates and Publishers

A Social History of Copyright in Modern China

Fei-Hsien Wang

Hosted by Ghassan Moazzin
Pirates and Publishers: A Social History of Copyright in Modern China (Princeton University Press, 2019) is a detailed historical look at how copyright was negotiated and protected by authors, publishers, and …
Nordic Asia Podcast June 7, 2021

The Politics of Chinese Media

A Discussion with Bingchun Meng

Bingchun Meng

Hosted by Joanne Kuai
Feeling betrayed by liberal ideals in the US and UK, how are Chinese international students dealing with rising racism during the pandemic? Bingchun Meng from LSE talks to Joanne Kuai …
East Asian Studies June 4, 2021

Land of Strangers

The Civilizing Project in Qing Central Asia

Eric Schluessel

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Eric Schluessel’s Land of Strangers: The Civilizing Project in Qing Central Asia (Columbia UP, 2020) looks at what happened when, at the end of the Qing, Chinese Confucian revivalists gained …
History June 3, 2021

Socialism As a Secular Creed

A Modern Global History

Andrei Znamenski

Hosted by Mark Klobas
The predominantly secular focus of socialism can often obscure the parts of its ideology that reflect the elements it inherited from Western religious thinking. In Socialism as a Secular Creed …
East Asian Studies May 28, 2021

Divine, Demonic, and Disordered

Women Without Men in Song Dynasty China

Hsiao-wen Cheng

Hosted by Natasha Heller
In Divine, Demonic, and Disordered: Women Without Men in Song Dynasty China (University of Washington Press, 2021), Cheng Hsiao-wen’s monograph looks at the women who are not married or otherwise in relationships …
Asian Review of Books May 27, 2021

We Served the People

My Mother's Stories

Emei Burell

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
During the Cultural Revolution, many young Chinese in the cities were encouraged — if not ordered — to move to the countryside. Millions of young Chinese in high school and …
Chinese Studies May 26, 2021

Discourses of Race and Rising China

Yinghong Cheng

Hosted by Suvi Rautio
Yinghong Cheng's book Discourses of Race and Rising China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) is a critical study of the development of a racialised nationalism in China, exploring its unique characteristics and internal …
Nordic Asia Podcast May 17, 2021

How China Loses

A Discussion with Luke Patey

Luke Patey

Hosted by Andreas Forsby
Western media accounts often suggest that China is rising inexorably as a global economic and political powerhouse. A new book by Luke Patey offers a more nuanced picture, focusing on …
Economic and Business History May 13, 2021

Global Trade in the Nineteenth Century

The House of Houqua and the Canton System

John Wong

Hosted by Ghassan Moazzin
In Global Trade in the Nineteenth Century: The House of Houqua and the Canton System (Cambridge University Press, 2016), John D. Wong examines the Canton trade networks that helped to shape …
East Asian Studies May 7, 2021

Empire and Righteous Nation

600 Years of China-Korea Relations

Odd Arne Westad

Hosted by Ed Pulford
Being arguably each side’s most enduring international bond, the China-Korea relationship has long been of great practical and symbolic importance to both. Moreover, as Odd Arne Westad observes in his …
Political Science May 3, 2021

Mobilizing for Development

The Modernization of Rural East Asia

Kristen E. Looney

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Dr. Kristen Looney’s Mobilizing for Development: The Modernization of Rural East Asia published by Cornell University in 2020 interrogates how countries achieve rural development and offers a new way of …