New Books Network
East Asian Studies
Nordic Asia Podcast January 21, 2022

China's Environmental Foreign Relations

Heidi Wang-Kaeding

Hosted by Nordic Asia Podcast
Environmental protection and climate actions has embedded in China’s foreign policy and the Chinese government has recently pledged to make the Belt and Road Initiative “open, green, and clean”. How …

East Asian Studies

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Interviews with scholars of East Asia about their new books.

Asian Review of Books January 20, 2022

On the Edge

Life Along the Russia-China Border

Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The border between Russia and China is one of the world’s longest, spanning thousands of miles. It’s one of the few extended land borders between two great powers, subject to …
Folklore January 18, 2022

Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China

Incense Is Kept Burning

Ziying You

Hosted by Timothy Thurston
In Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China: Incense Is Kept Burning (Indiana UP, 2020), Ziying You explores the role of the "folk literati" in negotiating, defining, and …
Nordic Asia Podcast January 7, 2022

COVID-19 and Vaccine Hesitancy in Japan

Kamila Szczepanska and Yoko Demelius

Hosted by Satoko Naito
Anti-vaccination movements pose an increasing threat to global public health, but what of vaccine hesitancy? Join us for a discussion on the effects of vaccine hesitancy in Japan during the …
Asian Review of Books January 6, 2022

Middle Class Shanghai

Reshaping U.S.-China Engagement

Cheng Li

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
In mid-November, Washington and Beijing mutually agreed to start granting journalist visas again, putting an end to months of reciprocal visa rejections and denials. A perhaps minor, yet still important …
Japanese Studies January 3, 2022

The Politics of International Marriage in Japan

Viktoriya Kim, Nelia Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Viktoriya Kim, Nelia Balgoa, and Beverley Anne Yamamoto's book The Politics of International Marriage in Japan (Rutgers UP, 2021) provides an in-depth exploration and analysis of marriages between Japanese nationals and migrants …
Japanese Studies December 28, 2021

Ghastly Tales from the Yotsuya Kaidan

Takashi Saitō

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Ghastly Tales from the Yotsuya Kaidan (Chisokudo, 2020) is a newly revised and corrected translation of what is perhaps the most famous and oft told tales of horror in Japan. The …
Nordic Asia Podcast December 27, 2021

East Asian Cold War History with a Maritime Twist

Kuan-Jen Chen

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
When did the Cold War in East Asia really begin? According to ADI-NIAS researcher Kuan-Jen Chen, the answer is 1945 – if we view the Cold War through a maritime …
Japanese Studies December 22, 2021

Pilgrims Until We Die

Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku

Ian Reader and John Shultz

Hosted by Raditya Nuradi
Ian Reader and John Shultz's Pilgrims Until We Die: Unending Pilgrimage in Shikoku (Oxford University Press, 2021)" explores the Shikoku pilgrimage by focusing on the themes of repetition and perpetual …
Japanese Studies December 22, 2021

A Fictional Commons

Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literature

Michael K. Bourdaghs

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Modernity arrived in Japan, as elsewhere, through new forms of ownership. In A Fictional Commons: Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literature (Duke UP, 2021), Michael K. Bourdaghs explores …
Chinese Studies December 21, 2021

Disaggregating China, Inc.

State Strategies in the Liberal Economic Order

Yeling Tan

Hosted by Keith Krueger
Once you understand that markets require public institutions of governance and regulation in order to function well, and further, you accept that nations may have different preferences over the shape …
Nordic Asia Podcast December 20, 2021

Understanding South Korea’s Taegukgi Rallies

A Conversation with Myunghee Lee

Myunghee Lee

Hosted by Petra Desatova
Why did so many of South Korea’s senior citizens take to the streets between 2016 and 2019? What motivated their participation in rallies? And what do these rallies tell us …
Japanese Studies December 20, 2021

Revisiting Japan's Restoration

New Approaches to the Study of the Meiji Transformation

Timothy D. Amos and Akiko Ishii

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Revisiting Japan's Restoration: New Approaches to the Study of the Meiji Transformation (Routledge, 2021) presents the reader with thirty-one short chapters that capture an exciting new moment in the study …
East Asian Studies December 15, 2021

Mediatized Taiwanese Mandarin

Popular Culture, Masculinity, and Social Perceptions

Chun-Yi Peng

Hosted by Li-Ping Chen
Mediatized Taiwanese Mandarin: Popular Culture, Masculinity, and Social Perceptions (Springer, 2021) explores how language ideologies have emerged for gangtaiqiang through a combination of indexical and ideological processes in televised media …
Nordic Asia Podcast December 10, 2021

The #MeToo Movement in China and the Case of Tennis Star Peng Shuai

Dusica Ristivojević

Hosted by Julie Yu-Wen Chen
Several high-profile cases of sexual harassment and assault have helped the #MeToo movement in China continue to make impacts on a society that is highly controlled and surveilled. Most recently …
Nordic Asia Podcast December 6, 2021

COP26 from a Southeast Asian Perspective

Sharon Seah

Hosted by Quynh Le Vo
COP26 was billed as the make or break event in the fight against climate change. In conversation with Quynh Le Vo, Sharon Seah, coordinator of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s Climate …
Philosophy January 20, 2022

The Analects: A Guide

Erin M. Cline

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
Probably the most well-known Chinese philosopher around the world is Kongzi, typically called by his Latinized name, “Confucius.” And yet he did not write a single book. Rather, his students …
Japanese Studies January 17, 2022

Cultivating Femininity

Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan

Rebecca Corbett

Hosted by Takeshi Morisato
The overwhelming majority of tea practitioners in contemporary Japan are women, but there has been little discussion on their historical role in tea culture (chanoyu). In Cultivating Femininity: Women and …
Chinese Studies January 14, 2022

The Yellow River

A Natural and Unnatural History

Ruth Mostern

Hosted by Lance Pursey
A three-thousand-year history of the Yellow River and the legacy of interactions between humans and the natural landscape From Neolithic times to the present day, the Yellow River and its …
SSEAC Stories January 7, 2022

Export China

Reimagining Chineseness through the Ceramics Trade in Southeast Asia

Alex Burchmore

Hosted by Natali Pearson
In 2021, a team of divers sponsored by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute surveyed two historic shipwrecks discovered in the Singapore Strait, working for several months to bring their submerged cargos …