New Books Network
East Asian Studies
East Asian Studies March 1, 2021

Eating Wild Japan

Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, with a Guide to Plants and Recipes

Winifred Bird

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Winifred Bird’s Eating Wild Japan: Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, with a Guide to Plants and Recipes (Stone Bridge Press, 2021) is more than just a look at the culture and …

Subscribe to

East Asian Studies

on the NBN

RSS Spotify Stitcher Apple
East Asian Studies February 26, 2021

The Sea and the Sacred in Japan

Aspects of Maritime Religion

Fabio Rambelli

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
In The Sea and the Sacred in Japan: Aspects of Maritime Religion (Bloomsbury 2018), Fabio Rambelli invites various fifteen scholars of Japanese religions to reflect on a well taken-for-granted fact: although the sea …
Chinese Studies February 24, 2021

Writing for Print

Publishing and the Making of Textual Authority in Late Imperial China

Suyoung Son

Hosted by Aliki Semertzi
Suyoung Son’s book Writing for Print: Publishing and the Making of Textual Authority in Late Imperial China (Harvard UP, 2018) examines the widespread practice of self-publishing by writers in late imperial …
Japanese Studies February 24, 2021

African Samurai

The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan

Geoffrey Girard and Thomas Lockley

Hosted by Jingyi Li
The remarkable life of history's first foreign-born samurai and his astonishing journey from Northern Africa to the heights of Japanese society. When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s …
East Asian Studies February 24, 2021

Buddhism after Mao

Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions

Zhe Ji, Gareth Fisher, André Laliberté

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
With over 100 million followers, Buddhism in the People's Republic of China now fosters the largest community in the world of individuals who self-identify as Buddhists. Although Buddhism was harshly persecuted …
East Asian Studies February 24, 2021

A Roundtable on the History of the Japanese Student Movement

A Discussion with Naoko Koda and Chelsea Szendi Schieder

Naoko Koda and Chelsea Szendi Schieder

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Chelsea Szendi Schieder’s Co-Ed Revolution: The Female Student in the Japanese New Left and Naoko Koda’s The United States and the Japanese Student Movement, 1948-1973: Managing a Free World provide new …
Chinese Studies February 19, 2021

Forgotten Ally

China's World War II, 1937–1945

Rana Mitter

Hosted by Keith Krueger
If we wish to understand the role of China in today’s global society, we would do well to remind ourselves of the tragic, titanic struggle which that country waged in …
Asian Review of Books February 18, 2021

The Myth of Chinese Capitalism

The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World

Dexter Roberts

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Around the Chinese New Year period, millions of Chinese migrant workers return home from jobs in China’s major cities to their rural villages to visit their families. China’s urban centers …
East Asian Studies February 17, 2021

Comfort Women Activism

Critical Voices from the Perpetrator State

Eika Tai

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Eika Tai’s Comfort Women Activism: Critical Voices from the Perpetrator State (Hong Kong University Press, 2020) tackles the complex histories of Japanese “military sexual violence” and the activism by women …
Japanese Studies February 12, 2021

Embracing 'Asia' in China and Japan

Asianism Discourse and the Contest for Hegemony, 1912-1933

Torsten Weber

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui
Embracing ‘Asia’ in China and Japan: Asianism Discourse and the Contest for Hegemony (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) by Torsten Weber examines how Asianism became a key concept in mainstream political discourse between China …
Japanese Studies February 8, 2021

Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki

Prayers, Protests and Catholic Survivor Narratives

Gwyn McClelland

Hosted by Takeshi Morisato
On 9th August 1945, the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Of the dead, approximately 8500 were Catholic Christians, representing over sixty percent of the community. In Dangerous …
Law February 8, 2021

Asia's New Geopolitics

Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific

Michael R. Auslin

Hosted by Jane Richards
Is the Indo-Pacific already the most dominant in terms of global power, politics, and wealth? In his newest book, Michael R. Auslin considers the key issues facing the Indo-Pacific which have ramifications …
Japanese Studies February 5, 2021

The Films of Kore-eda Hirokazu

An Elemental Cinema

Linda C. Ehrlich

Hosted by Takeshi Morisato
The Films of Kore-eda Hirokazu: An Elemental Cinema (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019) draws readers into the first 13 feature films and 5 of the documentaries of award-winning Japanese film director Kore-eda Hirokazu …
East Asian Studies February 1, 2021

A Fourth-Century Daoist Family

The Zhen'gao, Or Declarations of the Perfected, Volume 1

Stephen R. Bokenkamp

Hosted by Natasha Heller
The Zhen’gao, or Declarations of the Perfected is one of the most important Daoist texts, and a literary classic in its own right. The Declarations of the Perfected collects fragmentary …
Japanese Studies January 29, 2021

Scripting Japan

Orthography, Variation, and the Creation of Meaning in Written Japanese

Wesley C. Robertson

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Imagine this book was written in Comic Sans. Would this choice impact your image of me as an author, despite causing no literal change to the content within? Generally, discussions …
Japanese Studies January 29, 2021

Seeking Sakyamuni

South Asia in the Formation of Modern Japanese Buddhism

Richard M. Jaffe

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui
Though fascinated with the land of their tradition’s birth, virtually no Japanese Buddhists visited the Indian subcontinent before the nineteenth century. In the richly illustrated Seeking Śākyamuni: South Asia in the …
East Asian Studies January 29, 2021

Medicine and Memory in Tibet

Amchi Physicians in an Age of Reform

Theresia Hofer

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
Medicine and Memory in Tibet: Amchi Physicians in an Age of Reform (University of Washington Press, 2018) is the first full-length ethnography of Tibetan medical practitioners (amchi) in central Tibet working outside …
East Asian Studies January 29, 2021

Heritage and Romantic Consumption in China

Yujie Zhu

Hosted by Victoria Lupascu
The drums beat, an old man in a grand robe mutters incantation and three brides on horseback led by their grooms on foot proceed to the Naxi Wedding Courtyard, accompanied …
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 …
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 …