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.

Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com

Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/

Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork

Society & Culture
History
1601
Eric Rath, “Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Ja...
Cuisine in early modern Japan was experienced and negotiated through literature and ritual, and the uneaten or inedible was often as important as what was actually consumed. Eric Rath‘s recent book Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan (University of ...
78 min
1602
Michael Kevaak, “Becoming Yellow: A Short Histo...
In the course of his concise and clearly written new book Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking (Princeton University Press, 2011), Michael Keevak investigates the emergence of a “yellow” and “Mongolian” East Asian identity in eighteenth-...
66 min
1603
Lee Ambrozy, “Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Inter...
Anyone who has been following the news this year has likely heard of Ai Weiwei. This provocative and gifted Chinese artist-activist has made 2011 headlines for his controversial work Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads and for his recent arrest by Chinese p...
61 min
1604
Lori Meeks, “Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Fem...
Scholars have long been fascinated by the Kamakura era (1185-1333) of Japanese history, a period that saw the emergence of many distinctively Japanese forms of Buddhism. And while a lot of this attention overshadows other equally important periods of J...
56 min
1605
Dagmar Schaefer, “The Crafting of the 10,000 Th...
In her elegant work of historical puppet theater The Crafting of the 10,000 Things: Knowledge and Technology in Seventeenth-Century China (University of Chicago Press, 2011), Dagmar Schaefer introduces us to the world of scholars and craftsmen in seven...
57 min
1606
Michael Auslin, “Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultu...
How have the United States and Japan managed to remain such strong allies, despite having fought one another in a savage war less than 70 years ago? In Michael Auslin’s Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultural History of U.S.
52 min
1607
Michael Auslin, "Pacific Cosmopolitans: A Cultu...
An interview with Michael Auslin
52 min
1608
Yuma Totani, “The Tokyo War Crimes Trials: The ...
Most everyone has heard of the Nuremberg Trials. Popular books have been written about them. Hollywood made movies about them. Some of us can even name a few of the convicted (Hermann Goering, Albert Speer, etc.).
63 min