New Books in East Asian Studies

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.

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Society & Culture
History
1301
Peter Eisner, “MacArthur’s Spies: The Solider, ...
The conquest of the Philippines in 1942 brought thousands of Americans under the control of the empire of Japan. While most of them were interned or imprisoned for the duration of the war, a remarkable few evaded capture and fought on against the Japan...
58 min
1302
Albert Wu, “From Christ to Confucius: German Mi...
Where Europeans have gone, so, too, have their ideas about religion. We know that this was no one-way street, that Christian missionaries have both changed and been changed by their interaction with nonwhite, non-Christian peoples,
56 min
1303
Eileen Le Han, “Micro-Blogging Memories: Weibo ...
Since its invention, the Internet has become a fundamental part of our lives. Since the invention of social media, communicative technologies have changed our lives and influenced journalism and politics in ways that were unimaginable just ten years ag...
52 min
1304
Bongrae Seok, “Moral Psychology of Confucian Sh...
Shame is a complex social emotion that has a particularly negative valence; in the West it is associated with failure, inappropriateness, dishonor, disgrace. But within the Confucian tradition, there is in addition a distinct,
63 min
1305
Edward Vickers, “Education and Society in Post-...
Dr. Edward Vickers, Professor of Comparative Education at Kyushu University, joins New Books Network to discuss his recently published book, entitled Education and Society in Post-Mao China (Routledge Studies in Education and Society in Asia, 2017).
30 min
1306
Dorothy Ko, “The Social Life of Inkstones: Arti...
Dorothy Ko‘s new book is a must-read. Troubling the hierarchy of head over hands and the propensity to denigrate craftsmen in Chinese history, The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China (University of Washington Press,
63 min
1307
Don Baker, “Catholics and Anti-Catholicism in C...
Shortly after the introduction of Catholicism into Korea in the late 18th century, Korea’s Confucian government began to persecute Catholics. Why would a Confucian government torture and kill the people it was supposed to protect and nurture?
57 min
1308
Jonathan Schlesinger, “A World Trimmed with Fur...
Jonathan Schlesinger‘s new book makes a compelling case for the significance of Manchu and Mongolian sources and archival sources in particular in telling the story of the Qing empire and the invention of nature in its borderlands.
65 min
1309
Roy Bing Chan, “The Edge of Knowing: Dreams, Hi...
Roy Bing Chan‘s new book explores twentieth-century Chinese literature that emphasizes sleeping and dreaming as a way to reckon with the trauma of modernity, from the early May Fourth period through the end of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s....
67 min
1310
Timothy Cheek, “The Intellectual in Modern Chin...
In the preface to his new book, Timothy Cheek calls out a widespread tendency to focus on dissidents when engaging with Chinese intellectuals. (This is a problem insofar as we use these intellectuals as a mirror for our own concerns, hopes, and fears.
61 min
1311
Marcia Yonemoto, “The Problem of Women in Early...
Were women a problem in early modern Japan? If they were, what was the nature of the problem they posed? For whom, and why? Marcia Yonemoto‘s new book explores these questions in a compelling study that brings together the public discourse on women in ...
66 min
1312
Carrie J. Preston, “Learning to Kneel: Noh, Mod...
Carrie J. Preston‘s new book tells the story of the global circulation of noh-inspired performances, paying careful attention to the ways these performances inspired twentieth-century drama, poetry, modern dance, film, and popular entertainment.
69 min
1313
Li Zhi, “A Book To Burn And A Book To Keep (Hid...
Rivi Handler-Spitz, Pauline C. Lee, and Haun Saussy have created a wonderful resource for readers, researchers, students, and teachers alike. A Book To Burn And A Book To Keep (Hidden): Selected Writings (Columbia University Press,
66 min
1314
Phoebe Chow, “Britain’s Imperial Retreat from C...
At the start of the twentieth century Britain’s relationship with China was defined by the economic and political dominance Britain exerted in the country as an imperial power, a dominance that would ebb over the next three decades.
45 min
1315
Quincy Carroll, “Up to the Mountains and Down t...
Quincy Carroll’s new novel Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside: A Novel (Inkshares, 2015) follows the experiences of a handful of expats teaching English in China, simultaneously offering a compelling story and a peek into various ways of m...
42 min
1316
Jayde Lin Roberts, “Mapping Chinese Rangoon: Pl...
In recent years, scholarship on Burma, or Myanmar, has undergone a renaissance. Jayde Lin Roberts’ Mapping Chinese Rangoon: Place and Nation among the Sino-Burmese (University of Washington Press, 2016) is a bellwether of exciting new books to come,
60 min
1317
Laura Madokoro, “Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migran...
Laura Madokoro’s new book is a timely and important study of movement across national borders, migrants, and the refugee label in the global Cold War. Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War (Harvard University Press,
67 min
1318
Richard Jean So, “Transpacific Community: Ameri...
Richard Jean So’s new book studies a group of American and Chinese writers in the three decades after WWI to propose a conceptual framework for understanding intellectual and cultural relations between China and America in the twentieth century and bey...
66 min
1319
Chris Miller, “The Struggle to Save the Soviet ...
One of the most interesting questions of modern history is this: Why is it that Communist China was able to make a successful transition to economic modernity (and with it prosperity) while the Communist Soviet Union was not?
50 min
1320
Jan Kiely and J. Brooks Jessup, eds., “Recoveri...
The essays in Jan Kiely and J. Brooks Jessup’s new edited volume, Recovering Buddhism in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2016), collectively make a compelling argument that Buddhism and Buddhists played important roles in the modern transforma...
67 min
1321
Justin M. Jacobs, Xinjiang and the Modern Chine...
Justin M. Jacob‘s new book proposes that we understand modern China as a national empire, and traces the strategies of difference that have consistently marked Xinjiang as a part thereof. Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State (University of Washington ...
65 min
1322
Ruth Rogaski, “Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of ...
Since it was published in 2004, Ruth Rogaski’s Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China (University of California Press, 2014 reprint) has won four major prizes in fields ranging from history of medicine to East Asian his...
47 min
1323
Robert Peckham, “Epidemics in Modern Asia” (Cam...
Robert Peckham’s Epidemics in Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores the crucial yet under-explored role that epidemics have played in both colonial and postcolonial Asia. At once broad in sweep and nuanced in analysis,
47 min
1324
Kate Merkel-Hess, “The Rural Modern: Reconstruc...
Kate Merkel-Hess‘s new book looks closely at a loose group of rural reformers in 1920s and 1930s China who were trying to create a rural alternative to urban modernity. Focusing on the Rural Reconstruction Movement of roughly 1933-1937,
67 min
1325
Pamela S. Turner, “Crow Smarts/Samurai Rising” ...
Award-winning author, Pamela S. Turner discusses two new books, Crow Smarts: Inside the Brain of the Worlds Smartest Bird (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2016), and Samurai Rising: The Epic Life of Minamoto Yoshitsune (Charlesbridge, 2016).
47 min