New Books In East Asian Studies

For this installment, we had the pleasure of hosting Maja Korbecka, a PhD candidate at Freie Universitat Berlin. We chatted about five East Asian films released between 2016 and 2022, and the topics of queer, sci-fi and the family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Aya Homei’s Science for Governing Japan’s Population (Cambridge UP, 2022) examines the science and policy of population in Japan, 1860s-1960s. As in other modern nation-states and empires, population has been an index of national strength and a preoccupation of specialists and policymakers alike. Homei tackles the origins and changes of this interest in Japan, and the mutual dependence of the development of population as an object of knowledge and management for both the state and scientific community. Science for Governing shows that population science was shaped by the shifting imperatives and ideologies of the state and the sociopolitical and economic conditions in which knowledge was produced. Nathan Hopson is an associate professor of Japanese language and history in the University of Bergen's Department of Foreign Languages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

For this instalment, we had the pleasure of hosting Teri Silvio, who works as Research Fellow at the Academia Sinica Institute of Ethnology. We chatted about Teri’s recently published book, Puppets, Gods and Brands. Theorizing the Age of Animation from Taiwan (2019), her previous work and current projects. To find out more about performance and animation, a Taiwan-centered mode of animation (ang-a), cute gods and designer toys, please listen to this episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

In this episode, our host, Ti-han Chang, conducted an interview chat with the ecowriter, Liao Hung-chi about his oceanic and cetacean writings. The interview covers the writer's view on the oceanic narrative formation in Taiwan, his perspective on non-human agency and Hokkien (Hoklo) language employment in literary writing, as well as his dedication in Pacific ocean conservation. The interviewed is conducted in Chinese and translated by Zhan Fe-fei in English, hence tailored to both English and Chinese audience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Many of us–who maybe aren’t historians–have an image of the Silk Road: merchants who carried silk from China to as far as ancient Rome, in one of the first global trading networks. Historians have since challenged the idea that there really was such an organized network, instead seeing it as a nineteenth-century metaphor that obscures as much as it explains. But Xin Wen, the author of The King’s Road: Diplomacy and the Remaking of the Silk Road (Princeton University Press, 2023), tries to revive the idea that there really was a “Silk Road,” at least for the people of Dunhuang, in what is now China’s Gansu Province. His book explains that there really were convoys traveling back-and-forth along an established route–though they likely saw themselves as diplomats more than merchants. “People in Dunhuang, of course, did not not exactly call the road that connected them with their neighbors the “Silk Road.” Nevertheless, had they been asked about it, they likely would have found the phrase entirely intelligible, e

In this episode, our host, Ti-han Chang, conducted an interview chat with the film director, Huang Chia-chu about his making of the eco-film, Whale Island (2020). The interview covers the Director's engagement with this amazing project to tell a "sea story" of Taiwan, his encountering with the writer, Liao Hung-chi and the photographer, Jin Lai, his choice of film translated title as well as movie soundtracks. The interviewed is conducted in Chinese and translated by Zhan Fe-fei in English, hence tailored to both English and Chinese audience.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

To fend off American and European imperialism in the nineteenth century, Japan strove to strengthen itself by drawing on the most updated ideas and practices from around the world. By the 1880s, this included the introduction of Western-derived psychiatry and its ideas about mental illness. The first Japanese psychiatrists claimed that mental illnesses required medical treatment in specialized institutions rather than confinement at home, as had been common practice. Yet the state implemented no social welfare policies to make new medical services more accessible and affordable to the public. The family, especially women, thus continued to carry the burden of caring for those considered mad. Madness in the Family: Women, Care, and Illness in Japan (Oxford UP, 2022) examines how the family in Japan came to be seen as the natural provider of care for those suffering from mental illnesses. It centers on the experiences of women and families, which have long been obscured by the voices of male psychiatrists, stat

In this podcast, the host, Lara Momesso, interviews Dr Beatrice Zani, author of the book Women Migrants in Southern China and Taiwan. Mobilities, Digital Economies and Emotions, published by Routledge in 2021. The two scholars chat about novel ethnographic methods, such as itinerant ethnography and digital ethnography, solidarity between migrant women, the role of emotions in research. This episode can’t be missed by those interested in understanding globalisation from the perspective of contemporary Chinese migrant women, e-entrepreneurship and petit-capitalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Timothy Benedict’s Spiritual Ends: Religion and the Heart of Dying in Japan (U California Press, 2023) is an exploration of spiritual care in the context of the Japanese hospice. The book is rooted in Benedict’s experience as a hospice chaplain in Japan and his extensive fieldwork and interviews with patients, medical personnel, and other chaplains. The author thoughtfully problematizes the application of ideas about spiritual care in end-of-life care that are not necessarily well rooted in the culture and life experience of Japanese patients, and proposes that greater attention should be paid to the care of the heart-mind (kokoro) as a central concept for attending to their needs. In this sense, Spiritual Ends contributes to a better understanding of the ways in which specific beliefs and practices of religion, spirituality, and medicine affect both patients and their loved ones on the one hand and the institutions providing end-of-life care on the other. This book is available open access here.  Nathan Hops

Fear pervades dictatorial regimes. Citizens fear leaders, the regime's agents fear superiors, and leaders fear the masses. The ubiquity of fear in such regimes gives rise to the "dictator's dilemma," where autocrats do not know the level of opposition they face and cannot effectively neutralize domestic threats to their rule. The dilemma has led scholars to believe that autocracies are likely to be short-lived. Yet, some autocracies have found ways to mitigate the dictator's dilemma. As Martin K. Dimitrov shows in Dictatorship and Information: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China (Oxford UP, 2023), substantial variability exists in the survival of nondemocratic regimes, with single-party polities having the longest average duration. Offering a systematic theory of the institutional solutions to the dictator's dilemma, Dimitrov argues that single-party autocracies have fostered channels that allow for the confidential vertical transmission of information, while also solving the problem

In this podcast, the host, Lara Momesso, interviews Dr Dominic Meng-hsuan Yang, author of the book The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. The two scholars chat about important turning points in the production of the book, the author’s positions. Most importantly, how the author proposes solutions to decolonise trauma and find reconciliation in Taiwan. This episode can’t be missed by those interested in historiography, diaspora studies, trauma theory and Cold War period in relation to Taiwan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

What can a classroom experiment teach us about how and when we start shaping our ideas of ‘the other’? Can the results from such an experiment help us challenge the ideas and preconceptions that we have on our own as well as other cultures? In this episode, Tyra Orton speaks to Marie Roesgaard about an ongoing project that she is the participant of, titled; “Programme development for intercultural understanding education for the understanding and coexistence of ‘Iko’”. Born out of discussions from an open forum on how to enhance Japan’s foreign relations at a conference in Japan in 2013, the project has brought together scholars from Japan, China, Korea, and most recently Denmark in a collaboration on fostering intercultural understanding education. Hear Marie’s take on the lessons we can learn from the Iko-project and how it can contribute to intercultural understanding and coexistence across cultures. Marie Roesgaard is an associate professor of Japan studies at the University of Copenhagen. Her research fo

Especially within the last decade, the word "nationalism" often evokes images of bombastic demagogues and democratic backsliding. But does nationalism always hurt liberal democracy? In Narratives of Civic Duty: How National Stories Shape Democracy in Asia (Cornell UP, 2022), Aram Hur argues that the answer might be "no". Instead, under specific circumstances, national attachments can actually strengthen democracies.  Hur—an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri—explores this phenomenon through a close examination of South Korea and Taiwan. She finds that, if a strong linkage between a national people and their democratic state exists, then nationalism may inspire a greater sense of civic duty, and build democratic resilience.  Amidst rising demographic challenges and geopolitical tensions in East Asia, Narratives of Civic Duty helps readers rethink the role nationalism plays in the continued health of democracies in the region, and beyond.  Anthony Kao is a w

John and Elizabeth, in this special Centennial episode of Recall this Book, explore spectral radiation with Ryo Morimoto, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. His new book Nuclear Ghost: Atomic Livelihoods in Fukushima's Grey Zone (University of California Press, 2023) is based on several years of fieldwork in coastal Fukushima after the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident. Ryo's book shows how residents of the region live with and through the "nuclear ghost" that resides with them. The trio discuss ways that residents acclimatize themselves to the presence of radiation, efforts to live their lives in ways not only shaped by catastrophe and irradiation, and the Geiger counter as a critical object. Ryo relates the astonishing--but when you stop to think unsurprising—fact that "once you have [a Geiger counter] you actually want to see higher scores." Mentioned in this episode: Paul Saint-Amour, Tense Future Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Roadside Picnic Tarkovk

How is China trying to influence media across Asia and indeed globally? Why has this ambitious project achieved rather mixed results so far? And how should the rest of the world respond? In this episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast, CFR's Josh Kurlantzick talks to NIAS Director Duncan McCargo about his important new book, Beijing's Global Media Offensive (Oxford UP, 2022).  His book is a major analysis of how China is attempting to become a media and information superpower around the world, seeking to shape the politics, local media, and information environments of both East Asia and the World. Since China's ascendancy toward major-power status began in the 1990s, many observers have focused on its economic growth and expanding military. China's ability was limited in projecting power over information and media and the infrastructure through which information flows. That has begun to change. Beijing's state-backed media, which once seemed incapable having a significant effect globally, has been overhauled and e

Seiji Shirane’s Imperial Gateway: Colonial Taiwan and Japan's Expansion in South China and Southeast Asia, 1895-1945 (Cornell UP, 2022) demonstrates that colonial Taiwan was an imperial center in its own right, a political, social, and economic hub for the southern expansion of Japan’s empire led by officials with agendas that did not always match those of the government in Tokyo. In addition to this contribution to the study of Japanese empire, Imperial Gateway highlights two aspects of the history that are often underappreciated in the Anglophone literature. First, Shirane expands the aperture of his narrative beyond bilateral Sino-Japanese relations to encompass a dynamic multilateral milieu that includes colonial Taiwan, the region’s Western powers, and the Taiwanese subjects of the empire called “overseas Taiwanese” (sekimin) by Japan. Second, Shirane pays particular attention to the agency not just of the Government-General installed by Japan to rule over Taiwan, but also the “overseas Taiwanese” both w

In 1971, Americans made two historic visits to China that would transform relations between the two countries. One was by US official Henry Kissinger; the other, earlier, visit was by the US table tennis team. Historians have mulled over the transcripts of Kissinger's negotiations with Chinese leaders. However, they have overlooked how, alongside these diplomatic talks, a rich program of travel and exchange had begun with ping-pong diplomacy.  Improbable Diplomats: How Ping-Pong Players, Musicians, and Scientists Remade US-China Relations (Cambridge UP, 2022) reveals how a diverse cast of Chinese and Americans – athletes and physicists, performing artists and seismologists – played a critical, but to date overlooked, role in remaking US-China relations. Based on new sources from more than a dozen archives in China and the United States, Pete Millwood argues that the significance of cultural and scientific exchanges went beyond reacquainting the Chinese and American people after two decades of minimal contact;

What is the nature of language? This is the question that Nathan Vedal’s book, The Culture of Language in Ming China: Sound, Script, and the Redefinition of Boundaries of Knowledge (Columbia University Press; 2022), explores. And ‘explore’ is indeed the best word to describe what this beautifully rich book does, for it looks at how language was conceived, discussed, and debated in a wide range of little-known texts from the Ming and Qing, including works of philosophy, philology, literature, and music. Through this exploration, The Culture of Language in Ming China looks at how a community interested in philology formed in the sixteenth century. More importantly, this book examines Ming philology on its own terms, making the point that constrained disciplinary boundaries around philology and around what constitutes the study of language simply didn’t apply in this period; such restrictions would come later. As such, this book should be of interest to anyone curious in learning more about Chinese intellectual

Owing to Taiwan’s multi-ethnic nature and palimpsestic colonial past, Taiwanese literature is naturally multilingual. Although it can be analyzed through frameworks of Japanophone literature and Chinese literature, and the more provocative Sinophone literature, only through viewing Taiwanese literature as world literature can we redress the limits of national identity and fully examine writers' transculturation practice, globally minded vision, and the politics of its circulation. Throughout the colonial era, Taiwanese writers gained inspiration from global literary trends mainly but not exclusively through the medium of Japanese and Chinese. Modernism was the mainstream literary style in 1960s Taiwan, and since the 1980s Taiwanese literature has demonstrated a unique trajectory shaped jointly by postmodernism and postcolonialism. These movements exhibit Taiwanese writers’ creative adaptations of world literary thought as a response to their local and trans-national reality. During the postwar years Taiwanese

The second half of the nineteenth century is correctly known to have culminated in the emergence of the gold standard as the first truly international monetary regime. The processes leading up to this remarkable feat are, however, far less documented or understood. Economic historians have only recently started digging into the causes behind the 'fall of silver' that preceded the scramble for gold. It is nowadays clear that its effects were felt worldwide. Not in the least, silver depreciation severely affected East-West trade. It was, among other factors, behind the bankruptcy of several powerful institutions as the Oriental Bank Corporation. Yet at the same time, it cemented the position of other banks, some of which exist until this very day (HSBC, Standard Chartered). What did these banks know that others did not? In Accounting for the Fall of Silver: Hedging Currency Risk in Long-Distance Trade with Asia, 1870-1913 (Oxford UP, 2020), Michael Schiltz explains that the 1870s and 1880s witnessed furious ex