AVAILABLE TO ORDER NOW via the Columbia University Press website. Read an excerpt on the AAS #AsiaNow blog: https://www.asianstudies.org/excerpt-beyond-the-book 9780924304989. 368 pages. Hardcover. AAS MEMBERS: use the code AASMEMBER at checkout for your 20% discount. BEYOND THE BOOK is the first ever volume dedicated to the studies of rare East Asian materials collected by individuals […]

ISBN: 9780924304965. 248 pages. Paperback. In recent years, both scholars and the general public have become increasingly fascinated by the role of religion in modern Chinese life. However, the bulk of attention has been devoted to changes caused by the repression of the Maoist era and subsequent religious revival. The Fifty Years That Changed Chinese […]

ISBN 978-0-924304-84-2. 340 pages. Paperback. The Turn Against the Modern is a biography of the late Meiji social and cultural critic Taoka Reiun (1870–1912) who was known for his fierce attack on modernity. Reiun was convinced that the western conception of modernity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was based on an overly narrow, […]

ISBN: 978-0-924304-53-8, 336 pages. Paperback. This important collection addresses aspects of Japanese human and material interactions in East Asia from the late eleventh through the late sixteenth centuries, a period coincident with Japan’s late classical and medieval eras. The collection broadens our understanding of Japanese history, by departing from a traditional focus on Japanese history as […]

ISBN: 978-0-924304-58-3. 200 pages. Paperback “To Die and Not Decay” is the only book-length study to date on early Chinese autobiographical writing and the cultural issues surrounding this particular genre. While other studies have regarded texts of the Han (206 BCE–220 CE) and early medieval period (220–589 CE) as antecedents for later authors, Matthew Wells focuses […]

ISBN 978-0-924304-78-1. 308 pages. Paperback. Edited by Deborah Shamoon and Chris McMorran Interest in Japanese popular culture is high among students at all levels, driving enrollment in Japanese Studies programs. However, there has been little reflection on the pedagogy of teaching Japanese popular culture. Now is the time for critical reflection on teaching practices related […]

ISBN: 978-0-924304-63-7. 424 pages. Paperback. South Asian Texts in History charts the contours of a reenvisioned and revitalized field of Indology in the light of the groundbreaking research of Sheldon Pollock. One of the many exciting aspects of Pollock’s work is its unprecedented combination of classical textual study with cutting edge theoretical and social scientific inquiry—a […]

ISBN: 978-0-924304-67-5. 314 pages. 8.5 x 11 paperback. SCATTERED GODDESSES: Travels with the Yoginis is a book about the lost home, the new homes, and the journeys in between of nineteen sculptures that now reside in at least twelve separate museums across North America, Western Europe, and South India. After piecing together what these goddesses and […]

ISBN: 978-0-924304-57-6. 296 pages. Paperback An essential book for scholars of East Asian history, Prescribing Colonization addresses the impact of Western-influenced Japanese medicine on medical practices in Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule and examines the role colonial medicine played in Japanese empire building.Taiwan was Japan’s first overseas colony and the Japanese government was eager to transform the […]

ISBN: 978-0-924304-52-1. 368 pages. Paperback A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title “Modern Short Fiction of Southeast Asia” surveys the historical and cultural significance of modern short fiction in nine Southeast Asian nations—Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar/Burma, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Written in an accessible style, without jargon, this book will be of great interest to students […]

ISBN: 978-0-924304-68-2. 346 pages. Paperback. Memory, Violence Queues: Lu Xun Interprets China takes a new look at the writer whose name is synonymous with the radical newness of modern Chinese literature. It identifies key moments in Lu Xun’s creative development and places them in the context of the turbulent era in which China became a republic. The […]

ISBN: 978-0-924304-76-7. 744 pages. Paperback. Through the lives of Chinese diplomats and their careers, East Meets East explores three important dimensions of modern Chinese history: Chinese discovery of the modern world in Japan; reports on Japan suppressed by higher authorities because of their insistent objectivity and non-Sinocentric perspective; and state-sponsored innovations to meet crises which opened the […]

ISBN: 978-0-924304-69-9. 216 pages. Paperback. CHANGING LIVES: The ‘Postwar’ in Japanese Women’s Autobiographies and Memoirs presents the reader with substantial translations from memoirs and autobiographies by Japanese women. The women who appear in the book are far from household names in Japan: Okabe Itsuko (nonfiction writer and cultural critic), Shinya Eikô (stage and screen actress), Yoshitake […]

ISBN: 978-0-924304-60-6. 258 pages. Paperback. Beating Devils and Burning Their Books considers several topics germane to today’s social and intellectual climate. Is religio-cultural conflict innate in religious belief? Is “difference” necessarily an antecedent of conflict? And on a purely expository level, how have governments, intellectuals, and religious devotees represented Asia or the West, and how did they […]