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Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China is a major new work by one of Europe's most respected senior scholars of Chinese studies, Paolo Santangelo. In it, he questions the common premise that individualism was lacking in premodern China. It is Santangelo's contention that not only was the concept of the individual important in traditional China, but that it existed in interesting ways that are different from modes of individualism in the West. One of the strengths of this study is the masterful manner in which Professor Santangelo treats key terms of his discussion, terms such as xing ("e;human nature ), xin ("e;heart-mind"e;), ji ("e;self"e;), and uses them to analyze various texts. The study deftly weaves together many ideas from history, philosophy, art, and literature, especially the literary dimensions of late imperial history (both classical and vernacular). Another unusual facet of Santangelo's investigations is his thorough familiarity with the the Western intellectual tradition and his expert incorporation of the ideas of thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, and the Romantics This inquiry into the moral philosophy and ethics of the self seen in both its public and private dimensions in late imperial China is an important resource for scholars and students in many subfields of Chinese studies, such as history, intellectual history, art history, history of literature, and history of religion.

Strange Bedfellows, a novel by Liu Zhenyun, China s most renowned writer of satire, and translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Lin, is a farcical tale of sibling devotion, sexual exploitation, and official corruption, all played out more or less in bed. Though a critique of new mercenary values, scam artists, and the common folks vulnerability to scam artists, the novel is also an oblique compliment to the resourcefulness of these folks in a changing China. The strange bedfellows from various parts of China include Niu Xiaoli, a country girl who borrows money from a hometown loan shark to find a new wife for her brother, whose first wife ran off with another man. When the second wife runs off with the money for the arrangement, Xiaoli goes on a search for her, only to end up prey to a high-class madam, who teaches her to become a "e;fake-virgin"e; prostitute. Xiaoli begins a life of fleecing the wealthy and powerful. One of Xiaoli's clients is Li Anbang, the governor of a certain province, who faces arrest and possible execution for bribe-taking. A practitioner of black magic recommends that Li sleeps with a virgin to solve his problems. And thereon the twists and turns continue. Liu s trenchant criticism and fast-paced, humorous narrative is a delight to read. The irony that those exploiting the people end up being exploited themselves will not be lost on readers.

This book by one of the most important historians of our times is an essential record, bearing witness to the cultural, political, and social transformations in modern Chinese history.

This book by one of the most important historians of our time is an essential record of the cultural, political, and social transformations in modern Chinese history.

This book is the first to incorporate close readings and analysis of autobiographical texts of five canonical writers: Gabriel García Márquez, Margo Glantz, Pablo Neruda, Severo Sarduy, and Mario Vargas Llosa.

Theatrical performance occupied a central place in the emotional and political life of the Qing dynasty imperial household. For over two centuries, the Qing court poured a tremendous amount of human and material resources into institutionalizing the theatrical arts for the purposes of entertainment and edification. The emperors and empresses were ardent patrons and key players in establishing an artistic form that the court theatre called its own. They went to great lengths to cultivate a discerning taste in theatre and oversaw the artistic and managerial aspects of court theatrical activities. In the imperial theatrical spaces within and outside the Forbidden City, which were designed and built with the capacity to produce stunning visual effects, theatrical productions were staged to entertain imperial family members and to impress obeisance-paying guests from near and afar. Much scholarly attention has been devoted to understanding the dynamics between the Qing court theatre and the burgeoning popular theatrical traditions outside the court. However, the insights drawn from recent studies have only begun to be applied to the analysis of dramas commissioned by the Qing court for various ceremonial occasions. Treating Qing dynasty court theatre as a unique site in which to examine important but uncharted realms of Chinese theatrical experience, Staging for the Emperors examines two distinct and interlocking dimensions of the Qing court theatre the vicissitudes of the palace troupe and the multifaceted functions of court-commissioned ceremonial dramas to highlight the diverse array of views held by individual rulers as they used theatrical means to promote their personal and political agendas. Drawing on recently discovered materials from a variety of court administrative bureaus, memoirs, diaries, and play scripts written for court ceremonial occasions, this study places the history of Qing court theatre in the broader context of Qing cultural and political history. It demonstrates that theatre, like other forms of courtly art, served the individual rulers desire to embody virtue, to entertain at leisure, and to project aspirations. Staging for the Emperors would appeal to readers interested in China studies and performance studies. It would also appeal to those outside the field of China studies who are interested in developing a crosscultural perspective on the interplay between state rituals, power, identity formation, and theatrical experiences.

Transitions in Taiwan is an important book for Taiwan studies, Asian Studies, literature, and social justice.

"As the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in Asia and host the first annual gay pride in the Sinophone Pacific, Taiwan is a historic center of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture. With this blazing path of activism, queer Taiwanese literature has also risen in prominence and there is a growing popular interest in stories about the transgression of gender and sexual norms. Since the lifting of martial law in 1987, queer authors have redefined Taiwan's cultural scene, and throughout the 1990s many of their works won the most prestigious literary awards and accolades. This anthology provides a deeper understanding of queer literary history in Taiwan. It includes a selection of short stories, previously untranslated, written by Taiwanese authors dating from 1975 to 2020. Readers are introduced to a wide range of themes: bisexuality, aging, mobility, diaspora, AIDS, indigeneity, recreational drug use, transgender identity, surrogacy, and many others. The diversity of literary tropes and styles canvased in this book reflects the profusion of gender and sexual configurations that has marked Taiwan's complex history for the past half century. Queer Taiwanese Literature: A Reader is a timely and important resource for readers interested in Taiwan studies, queer literature, and global cultural studies. This book is part of the Cambria Literature in Taiwan Series, in collaboration with the National Museum of Taiwan Literature and National Taiwan Normal University"--

The 2/28 Incident led to 40 years of martial law-there was suppression of dissent, encroachments upon civil liberties, and violation of human rights-an era know as the White Terror. In presenting perspectives from various ethnic groups, this collection expands our understanding of Taiwan's postcolonial history and pursuit of transitional justice.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Argentina lived a process of accelerated modernization. To understand the beginnings of mass culture and mass cultural experiences (between 1880 and 1930), it becomes necessary to examine a variety of phenomena that combine modern forms of access to public space with the creation of new cultural contents. That was the period of the democratic political reforms, urban redesign, the rise of immigration rates, the economic growth, and the articulation of nationalist ideologies. Culture (elite, popular, and mass culture) played a major role in the context of deep social and political transformations. New phenomena profoundly affected the social life: popular spectacles, mass consumption, the variety shows, theatres, the circus, as well as the connections between these forms and the avant-garde of the 1920s. Coincidentally, the appearance and success of tango music and dancing, and the relationship between tango and masculine violence and the political violence of the early twentieth century are interconnected practices. Tango, a cultural export to Europe and the US, played a central function in redefining gender and class roles. Finally, the notions of good and poor taste as cultural and political experiences that define citizenship through fashion, the role of aesthetics in social life, and the dissemination of scientific and sociological knowledges introduce a complex scale of cultural practices Museum of Consumption: The Archives of Mass Culture in Argentina (1880 1930) is a study of the emergence of mass culture in modern Argentina. The book examines the tensions of this modern culture subject to the pressures of the market and politics. The book also traces the emergence of a cultural scene that constructed a frontier between elite and mass cultures during the modernization process. It was, however, a highly porous frontier: the reduced size of the cultural field meant that the same actors worked on both sides. If common sense would have it that the lower sectors imitate and copy elite culture, this book argues the opposite, demonstrating how plebeian productions impacted and radically transformed lettered culture. The book, therefore, takes a novel approach, viewing mass culture not as a series of case studies but rather as processes of cultural production and circulation. To this goal, the book focuses mainly on tango, circus, and fashion productions. This study belongs to the field of cultural studies. It lies at the intersection of numerous theoretical approaches like theory of the masses, studies of consumer culture, modernity and modernism, intellectual history, gender studies, and theories of spectacle. Its singular archive was constructed especially for this book and includes memoirs, chronicles, testimonies, essays, and fictions, all of which it places into dialog with canonical texts. Museum of Consumption: The Archives of Mass Culture in Argentina (1880 1930) is an important transdisciplinary book for Latin American cultural studies and history collections.

Using a a unique multidisciplinary approach, this book leads readers through an exploration of how different stages of US history (1750-2020) have led to American ideas of equality.

Deterrence by Denial is an important book for scholars of international relations, political science, terrorism and intelligence studies, and cybersecurity.

Japan's Russia is a valuable resource that reinterprets modern Japanese culture and society and introducing readers to the rich intellectual and cultural history between Japan and Russia.

This book newly reveals how early modern Italian bromance narratives interrogate alternative roles of close male friendships, the love between men, and the confines of marriage, thus providing the foundation for the contemporary bromance.

*This book is in the Rapid Communications in Conflict and Security (RCCS) Series (General Editor: Geoffrey R.H. Burn).Deterrence theory helps conceptualize how threats can be used and communicated to influence or alter an adversary's behavior. In practice, deterrence works by weighing on an actor's perceived costs and benefits of pursuing an unwanted action. Deterrence-and its close relatives, coercion, compellence, dissuasion, and influence-can be accomplished by using threats of punishment (i.e., retaliation) or by denying adversaries the gains they seek (i.e., defense, resilience, and failure). During much of the Cold War deterrence by punishment largely overshadowed deterrence by denial. The proliferation of nuclear weapons, and later, of missile technology, tipped the deterrent calculus in favor of retaliation: the ultimate weapon epitomized the ultimate deterrent. Deterrence by denial largely fell to the wayside as a result and the logic of punishment came to pervade the classical literature on deterrence theory. Contemporary security dynamics, however, have changed dramatically. Security concerns are increasingly sub- and non-state in nature, and they are much more diffused. While nuclear weapons and deterrence by punishment still matter, the rise of sophisticated international terrorist organizations, conventional military challenges, digital-based threats, and threats short of open conflict have today cumulatively tipped the deterrent calculus in favor of denial.Deterrence by denial reduces the perceived benefits an action is expected to provide an adversary. Decision making takes into account both costs and benefits, so while punishment manipulates behavior by augmenting costs, denial works by stripping away benefits. Unfortunately, given the field's longstanding focus on deterrence by punishment, very little research has systematically explored denial theory and strategy in contemporary security settings. And the limited denial scholarship that does exist rests largely on the dynamics inherent to the Cold War, like great power rivalry, strategic weapons, and military power. Deterrence by Denial: Theory and Practice is the first study to focus exclusively on contemporary denial, bridging the theoretical gap that persists between classical deterrence theory and contemporary insecurity. The book significantly advances the scholarship on deterrence by denial with empirically driven and policy-relevant contributions written by leading international scholars of conventional military aggression, missile defense, terrorism and militancy, crime, and cybersecurity.Deterrence by Denial: Theory and Practice is an important and unique book, of interest to scholars of international relations, political science, terrorism and intelligence studies, and cybersecurity, as well as to policy analysts, practitioners, and members of the armed forces and intelligence community.

The book is a study of the works of the Northern Song Chinese poet Chen Yuyi (1090 1139) as he fled the invading Jurchen soldiers in the political throes of a dynastic transition. Author Yugen Wang demonstrates how Chen s poems epitomize the new style of writing in the Song that is markedly different from that of his Tang predecessors. Underscoring this stylistic and aesthetic analysis is a comparison of Chen and his model, the Tang master Du Fu (712 770). Wang concludes that although the traumatic experience triggered Chen s inner Du Fu, he and Du were writing from different literary and cultural assumptions, with different expectations and skill sets. The collective eleventh-century pursuit of ideological and intellectual cohesion requires that Chen write more cogently than Du Fu; the urgent contingencies of his travel mandate that he observe and make sense of the political chaos from the perspective of a realistic road traveler. The result is a compact, practical, logically coherent, and technically precise style with ramifications that go far beyond Chen s own times. This is the first book-length study of Chen s poetry in English. Through detailed analysis of Chen s poems, and of the political and psychological conditions under which they were written, the reader gains intimate insights into not only how a classical Chinese poet conducted his business, on the road, in crisis, but also the sources of the poet s inner strength, what culturally, psychologically, and emotionally sustained him on the long dreadful journey. This was an important moment for Chen Yuyi and for Chinese literary history. Chen s poems bring to focus the changing dynamics of the classical Chinese poet s relationship to the world. As his journey grew longer and brought him farther away from central China, the richness of the local landscapes in the south made him less apprehensive about the political situation, allowed him to endure the constant fluctuations in his environment, and revitalized his inner self as a poet. As Chen struggled and reconciled with the political situation, he achieved a new balance between person and world, mind and landscape, a status later Chinese critics and theorists call qingjing jiaorong, the propitious fusion and coming together of emotion and nature in poetry. Writing Poetry, Surviving War: The Works of Refugee Scholar-Official Chen Yuyi (1090 1139) is an original study on Chinese poetry and an important book for Asian studies and premodern Chinese humanities collections. It targets both the scholarly and the general audience whose interests intersect China, premodern travel, trauma literature, traditional ideas of nature, and landscape poetry.

This book examines the interconnection between the idea of monstrosity and the emergence of Chinese cultural identity since the Song dynasty. Using four case studies on the developmental history of the fox demon, Zhang Fei, Sun Wukong, and Zhong Kui in vernacular literature, it explores how monstrosity, through its traditional connection to foreignness, played a crucial role in shaping society s idea regarding the self/other dichotomy. Chinese vernacular literature matured during the Southern Song period and coincided with society s growing apprehension of foreignness. As society s perception of the other fluctuated between acceptance and abhorrence following the Mongolian conquest of the Middle Kingdom and the subsequent political desire to return to a fixation with the concept of Han during the Ming dynasty, the idea of monstrosity was adopted by these works as a logical vessel for contemplating the question of identity. Unlike other forms of written work in China, vernacular literature developed out of the necessity to cater to the mass. As such, they provide a unique window to understand society s reaction to the cultural and political milieu of the time. By resituating the production of these works within this cultural backdrop, the importance of this study lies both in the foregrounding of the manifestation of Chinese cultural identity in the literary and the proposition of its importance to our understanding of the cultural politics since the Song dynasty. Although academics have long been aware of the importance of the cultural milieu of the Song-Yuan-Ming period to the development of Chinese cultural identity, there remains a lack of attention to the evolution of this identity during this time. The aim of this book is to explore the way cultural identity is encapsulated by the idea of monstrosity and how vernacular literature offers a window into society s continuous attempt to redefine this concept, in response to a shifting political landscape. But beyond its timely discussion of the background and historical genealogy of how Chineseness is conceptualized, this book specifically addresses the effect of the contentiousness of ethnicity on the identity question. In doing so, it explores how this gradual historical transformation of Chinese cultural identity is closely tied to xenophobia and the reimagination of foreignness as reflected in the idea of monstrosity. Students and scholars of Late Imperial Chinese literature are likely to find this book refreshing and informative. However, its overall thrust of the development of Chinese cultural identity should also appeal to readers who are interested in Early Modern Chinese history, especially those fascinated by questions concerning the formation of Chinese cultural identity.

This book is in the Cambria Sinophone World Series, headed by Victor Mair (University of Pennsylvania).*Includes color images.Although studies of collectors and collections are on the rise, the collector in China with not only the largest number of high-quality antique paintings but also the most comprehensive and scholarly record of his collection has largely been left unexamined. Pang Yuanji (1864-1949) is that collector, and this book addresses the situation. Analysis of Pang's collection reveals not only his personal taste but also how his taste was an expression of the Qing dynasty canon. As such, Pang's taste is shown to be standard for the time, and then the standard upheld in new collections abroad. When Pang's renowned collection became a source for object acquisition by U.S. collectors and museums new to Chinese art (especially Charles Lang Freer and the Freer Gallery), this taste was inevitably absorbed and disseminated through museum exhibitions and scholarly research and teaching. The inadvertent effect of this was that the new field of Chinese art history developed around the Qing canon, a canon that survived well into the latter half of the twentieth century. Knowing about Pang Yuanji and his collection thus helps readers better understand some of the forces at work in shaping Chinese art history today.This is the first study that takes the innovative and unique approach to collection analysis by quantifying Pang's collection and comparing it to a selection of contemporaneous private collectors. In doing so, it shows how their tastes and interests were all shaped by the same Qing canon. More broadly, it explains that Pang did not merely absorb this canon, but then also purposefully and systematically used it and his collection to protect China's traditions into an uncertain future.Moving from collection analysis to an examination of Pang's life, the book replaces Pang's commonplace yet reductionist identity as merchant-collector with a more nuanced understanding of his identity as social transformer. Pang's role as a modernist with a nationalist agenda becomes evident in the technological advancements and new forms of banking that he brought to his businesses, and the science-based medicine and techniques that he instituted in his hospitals. Through these, his philanthropy and civic leadership, and his renowned collection, he became a respected social and cultural figure in and outside of China. This book thus assesses his impact in his time and on the field of art history. Shaping Chinese Art History: Pang Yuanji and His Painting Collection is an important book for readers of Asian studies, art history, and museum and collections studies, and historiography.

In the past four hundred years, the cultural position of Taiwan has been undergoing a series of drastic changes due to constant political turmoil. From the early seventeenth century to the late twentieth century, the ruling power of Taiwan shifted from Spaniard and Dutch to the Late-Ming Zheng regime, then to the Qing court and imperial Japan, and finally to the Kuomintang (KMT) government from China. In this regard, Taiwan has long been regarded as a supplementary addition to its cultural Other: China, Japan, or imperial western powers, despite its rich Aboriginal cultures. To create a self-claimed subjectivity, the localist camp of the island has been promoting the Taiwanese consciousness via political movements and literary writings in a century-long campaign. Its focus on the native soil and experience is well connected with the Sinophone studies, which has been a prominent field across geographical and disciplinary barriers. As Taiwan's community grows more diverse, Taiwan literature is enriched by a series of locally based writings that draw attention to a specific space and/or to the division between places. In the twentieth century, more and more Taiwanese writers are no longer content with a singular place or dual comparison in their literary creations. Rather, they have started to recognize the plurality of Taiwaneseness and thus re-create an ambiguous form of the Taiwanese subjectivity in response to the conflict and compromise between political beliefs and ethnic groups in a cross-cultural light. To further engage with the multifaceted cultural expressions of Taiwan, this book speaks to the current framework of Sinophone studies by focusing on modern Taiwan and its entanglement with cultural China, Chinese diasporas, nativist trend, and Aboriginal consciousness. Recognizing the unresolved ethnic issues of Taiwan, this study explores different dimensions of ethnoscape in response to the cross-cultural landscape of Taiwan and beyond, while at the same time taking into account the intertwining of the official history and the individual, or ethnic, memory of Taiwan.

This book probes many crucial controversies: What are Taiwan's meaningful cultural and historical connections to Japan? How do Taiwanese filmmakers and audiences feel about mainland China? How does Taiwan cinema deal with environmental issues, animal rights, human trafficking, sexuality, and the challenges facing ethnic minorities?

"This book offers timely contributions to the process of conceptualizing a Latin American specificity and its forms of integration in larger contexts, both on the level of thought and the level of political and social praxis. To produce a critical reading of philosophy while also developing a philosophy of criticism is essential in cultures that continue to struggle for the decolonization of both thought and life. This book allows Anglophone readers access to the world of ideas of some of the most relevant Latin American thinkers of our age. Through a comprehensive discussion of the works and contexts of thinkers such as of Josâe Carlos Mariâategui, Enrique Dussel, Bolâivar Echeverrâia, and Roger Bartra to Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Peter Sloterdijk, Mabel Moraäna demonstrates that Latin American thought has not only been inseparable from Western philosophy but also from the determinants of its history and social struggles. By doing so, Mabel Moraäna provides an extensive perspective on the connections between historical moments, social structures, and discursive practices. With its interdisciplinary focus, this book will be an important resource for scholars and students in Latin American studies, comparative literature, world literature, and philosophy"--

The modern ombudsman was built in the spirit of prior incarnations of the public advocate such as the Swedish justitieombudsman, the Secret Royal Inspector in Korea s Joseon Dynasty, the Roman Tribune, or the Second Caliph s Qadi al-Qadat to serve as an agency of accountability. Across the Americas, the Defensor a del Pueblo was ushered into being as part of a larger democratization process in the Americas during the late twentieth century. This study incorporates this new agency into a principal-agent context and uses a regional analysis with two case studies to understand its functions better. This study aims to define the Defensor a del Pueblo, provide context for its emergence in Latin America, and examine variations in the structure of the office and its implications for democracy and its citizens. Through systematic, regional analysis with Bolivia and Colombia as case studies, this book sheds light on how the agencies in these countries have evolved, their contributions to human rights, and the impact of this unsung institution. The approach places the Defensor a del Pueblo into a principal-agent context, by illustrating how this agent can be conditioned to play specific roles in society, based on the incentives provided to its immediate principals (elected officials). The results of the regional analysis are significant because they highlight how the Defensor a s elected principals (executives and legislators) create the conditions that grant the agency more or less formal autonomy to advocate for human rights. The analysis highlights how this agency evolved over time and the manner in which this agency has contributed to protecting human rights in the Americas in general, and in Bolivia and Colombia in particular. Human Rights Ombudsmen in Latin America: From Justitieombudsman to Defensor del Pueblo is an important contribution for scholars of Latin American politics and comparative politics as well as policymakers and students at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

This study looks at a nearly invisible Chinese literary form in a comparative perspective by bringing one type of artifactuality (academic inquiry in English) to bear on a very different sort (Chinese lyricism), thereby illuminating the dynamics of the latter in the cross-light of the former.

Metalworking in Bronze Age China is the first study that adopts a comprehensive, thorough, and interdisciplinary approach toward early Chinese lost-wax castings. It shows that the dominant belief that the lost-wax process as the optimal method for casting bronzes deserves more rigorous examination. In a broader sense, the book provides a study on the norms, which are seldom questioned. By examining the reasons why Chinese founders often chose not to use the lost-wax process they had clearly mastered, the book refutes the idea that lost-wax technology is the only right way to cast bronzes. This study demonstrates that a norm is in many ways an illusion that twists our comprehension of art, technology, civilization, and history.

This study examines Russia's recent wars in the Caucasus and Eastern Europe and outlines the focus of Russian assertiveness in key regions central to their security interests. Further, it elucidates the threat that Russian conventional and unconventional warfare poses to populations in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and elsewhere.