Format: Print

The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China (Jin Feng)

May 2024. AVAILABLE TO PREORDER from our distribution partner, Columbia University Press

AAS Asia Shorts book series. Paperback print ISBN: 9781952636462. E-Book ISBN: 9781952636479. 140 pages.

What happens when a US cultural institution is imported to China, the purported chief rival of the United States in the twenty-first century? The first book-length account of university-based creative writing programs in China, this book reveals how Chinese intellectuals adapt American-style writing programs such as the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the International Writing Program at Chinese universities to seek agency and literary innovation in the last two decades. The rise of creative writing programs in China explains broader issues of cultural production in an increasingly authoritarian and market-oriented postsocialist state. By telling a unique story of Chinese intellectuals’ interactions with an influential Western cultural institution, this book also shows how varied cultural and geopolitical priorities can rewrite the story of the global influence of the United States.

Jin Feng 冯进 is Professor of Chinese and Japanese and the Orville and Mary Patterson Routt Professor of Literature at Grinnell College, USA. She has published four English monographs: The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (Purdue University Press, 2004), The Making of a Family Saga (SUNY Press, 2009), Romancing the Internet (Brill, 2013), and Tasting Paradise on Earth (University of Washington Press, 2019), three Chinese books such as A Book for Foodies 吃货之书 (Jiangsu Fenghuang Wenyi, 2020), and numerous articles in both English and Chinese.

Global Anti-Asian Racism (Edited by Jennifer Ho)

View the VIRTUAL BOOK LAUNCH

AVAILABLE NOW from our distribution partner, Columbia University Press

AAS Asia Shorts book series. Paperback print ISBN: 9781952636400. E-Book ISBN: 9781952636417. 180 pages.

View the AAS #AsiaNow conversation between Jennifer Ho, Tina Chen, and Christine Yano: Capacious Listening and Diverse Entry Points: On “Global Anti-Asian Racism”

View the video book trailer

Global anti-Asian racism, particularly in the guise of Yellow Peril, has endured for centuries around the world. In Europe and the Americas, Asian immigrants and refugees were, and are, treated as threats to national security. Yellow Peril and anti-Asian racism is also found in Africa, Australia, and in Asian nations as well. Wherever Asian immigrants and refugees found themselves, anti-Asian sentiments quickly followed.

The contributors to Global Anti-Asian Racism investigate the varied manifestations of prejudice and violence that Asians have endured through the 17th century to the twin pandemics of anti-Asian racism during COVID-19. From historical case studies in Mexico and Brazil to personal ruminations of people who are Asian German, mixed-race Swedish-Japanese, and adopted Korean American, to graphic narratives and poetic explorations, the essays in this volume illuminate the multifaceted nature of global anti-Asian racism and the resilience of Asians across the world to resist and counter this bigotry and bias.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword: Tackling the Taboo Subject — Christine R. Yano

Introduction: Global Anti-Asian Racism: The Problem that Never Went Away — Jennifer Ho

Yellow Peril, Brown Terror: The Global Virus of Anti-Asian Racism across Closed Borders — Rahul K. Gairola

Don’t Hate the Player. Between Essentialism and Resistance: Community Organizing against Anti-Asian Racism in Germany — Sara Djahim

The Choice of Liberdade: Brazilian Facets of Anti-Asian Racism and the Activism’s Response — Érika Tiemi W. Fujii, Gabriel Akira, Maria Victória R. Ruy, and Mariana Mitiko Nomura

The Political Economy of Anti-Asian Discrimination in Africa — Richard Aidoo

Savage Script: How Chinese Writing Became Barbaric — Rivi Handler-Spitz

Racialization from Home: China’s Response to the Anti-Chinese Movement in Mexico, 1928–1937 — Xuening Kong

The Politics of Anti-Asian Discourses in Turkey — Irmak Yazici

The Anti-Asian Racism at Home: Reckoning with the Experiences of Adoptees from Asia — Kimberly D. McKee

Far-Flung Fetishization: Calling Asian Women to Globally Transcend Hypersexualization — Eileen Chung

Translating Guling: Technologies of Language, Race, and Resistance in Sweden — Jennifer Hayashida

“This transformational volume on global anti-Asian racism should be required reading for all those interested in why we ought to foster conversations between Asian area studies and Asian diaspora studies and how we might create common ground for anti-racist solidarity. In approaching anti-Asian racism as a global phenomenon, contributors highlight a wide range of critical sites—foreign policy, cultural production, social justice activism, economics, transracial adoption, inter-Asian persecution, alphabetic supremacy, and quotidian life—where discrimination and bias manifest. They also collectively demonstrate how necessary it is to imagine our praxis capaciously if we want academic scholarship to impact the age-old fears that anti-Asian racism foments and reflects. This superbly edited collection teaches us that the complexity of global anti-Asian racism requires communal effort—to cross-pollinate knowledge, to create effective responses, and to explore vulnerability as the site of both oppression and solidarity.”
— TINA CHEN, Founding Editor of Verge: Studies in Global Asias and Director of the Global Asias Initiative at the Pennsylvania State University

“Asian American Studies scholars should be thankful that we now have a multi-genre collection that situates anti-Asian racism in a global context. In highly readable prose, Global Anti-Asian Racism offers a breadth to this topic that in turn adds to our theoretical depth around the relationship of racism to colonialism, trauma, capitalism, and most importantly, resistance. This book is highly recommended for anyone wanting a robust understanding of both the threats of intersectional violence across the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe and how we can fight back.”
— PAWAN DHINGRA, Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty, Amherst College and President, Association for Asian American Studies

“Jennifer Ho’s edited volume on Global Anti-Asian Racism is a thundering response to the clarion call for greater attention to race and racism in Asian Studies. Through powerful anecdote, heartbreaking evidence of fatal racism, and supported with structural analysis, this Asia Shorts volume is necessary reading that does away, once and for all, with the notion that Asian-descended people are invisible, irrelevant, and apolitical. This is a must-teach volume, illustrating the power of a global and antiracist approach to inequality.”
— NITASHA TAMAR SHARMA, Professor of African American Studies and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University

The daughter of a refugee father from China and an immigrant mother from Jamaica, whose own parents were, themselves, immigrants from Hong Kong, Jennifer Ho is the director of the Center for Humanities & the Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she also holds an appointment as Professor of Ethnic Studies. She is past president of the Association for Asian American Studies and the author of three scholarly books and two edited collections. In addition to her academic work, Ho is active in community engagement around issues of race and intersectionality, leading workshops on anti-racism and how to talk about race in our current social climate.

Freedom Undone: The Assault on Liberal Values and Institutions in Hong Kong (Michael C. Davis)

Read the AAS #AsiaNow Q&A with Michael Davis

VIEW the book trailer video

AAS Asia Shorts book series. Paperback print ISBN: 9781952636448. E-Book ISBN: 9781952636455. 280 pages.

What happens when liberal constitutional institutions are undone? Can Freedom survive the loss of separation of powers with the associated legal and political accountability? The Chinese Communist Party has been at the forefront in its disdain for liberal institutions and promoting illiberal alternatives. This disdain placed Hong Kong people on the frontlines of the global struggle for freedom. Since its handover from Britain, Hong Kong has felt the brunt of China’s illiberal agenda, recently with increased intensity since the crackdown in 2019 and Beijing’s imposition of a National Security Law in 2020. Thousands have been jailed and a city famous for vigorous protests has been silenced. Professor Michael Davis, a close observer who taught human rights and development in the city for three decades, takes us on the constitutional journey of both the city’s vigorous defense of freedom and its repressive undoing—a painful loss for Hong Kong and a lesson for the world.

Succinct, accessible and informative, Michael Davis combines local and legal knowledge to tell a momentous story about the demise of the rule of law and human rights culture in Hong Kong. It offers the first systematic assessment of the National Security Law’s impacts on the city’s possible trajectories ahead. Anyone interested in Hong Kong and the global advance of illiberalism should find this an essential read. — Ching Kwan Lee, author of Hong Kong: Global China’s Restive Frontier

Freedom Undone is a painful account of Hong Kong’s tragic journey from a free society to an outpost of China’s autocratic rule. Michael Davis’s penetrating analysis of the events after the city’s return to Chinese rule in 1997 reveals how the Chinese Communist Party’s political paranoia and ideological hostility to liberalism culminated in the ignominious end of the ‘one country, two systems’ model in 2020 and obliterated the regime’s own credibility. This is the most authoritative and illuminating work on one of the darkest pages in Chinese history. — Minxin Pei, Claremont McKenna College

A generation ago some predicted that the British ‘handover’ meant the death of Hong Kong as we knew it. The dynamic and rather free UK colony has not died, of course, but it has been profoundly transformed into a rather sluggish and definitely unfree de facto Chinese Communist colony. How did that happen and why? Michael Davis tells the complex story in riveting detail and offers a political-legal analysis that is as enlightening as it is sobering. — Jerome A. Cohen, Founding Director Emeritus, US-Asia Law Institute, New York University

Michael C. Davis, long a professor at the University of Hong Kong, where he taught courses on human rights and constitutional development until the fall of 2020, is currently a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asia Institute at Columbia University, and a Professor of Law and International Affairs at O.P. Jindal Global University in India. He also enjoys research affiliations at New York University and the University of Notre Dame. He has held several distinguished visiting professorships, including the J. Landis Martin Visiting Professor of Human Rights Law at Northwestern University (2005-2006), the Robert and Marion Short Visiting Professor of Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame (2004-2005), and the Frederick K. Cox Visiting Professor of Law at Case Western University (2000).

Reform and Nation-Building: Essays on Socio-Political Transformation in Malaysia (Sharifah Munirah Alatas)

AAS Asia Shorts book series. Paperback print ISBN: 9781952636424. E-Book ISBN: 9781952636431. 220 pages.

View an excerpt on the AAS #AsiaNow blog

Since obtaining independence in 1957, Malaysia has had two historic general elections, the first in 2018 and the second in 2022. The 2018 election brought the reformist Pakatan Harapan government into power. Due to both internal and external machinations, the Pakatan Harapan administration collapsed 22 months later. Subsequently, more than two years of socio-political instability ensued, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic hardships, and increasing ethnic polarization and identity politics. After the 2022 election, there was renewed hope. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Pakatan Harapan again leads a new coalition government (dubbed the “unity” government). Sharifah Munirah Alatas discusses these developments in a series of short essays. She highlights the peoples’ hopes for crucial reforms and their lingering despair for what seems unattainable. Alatas focuses on the rise in corruption, identity politics, and what she considers the dismal failure of the nation’s public universities. She questions the future of the nation but hopes for a revolutionary change in leadership attitudes.

“Sharifah Munirah Alatas’s deep-felt essays remind us of the meaning of affirmation and hope. The ideals of nation-building that had inspired Malaya/Malaysia since its creation are still alive. By focusing on the consequences of major threats to progressive development like corruption, identity politics, and educational short-sightedness, these essays show that she is truly the daughter of her respected parents, Hussein and Sarojini Alatas. Her uplifting appeals to all Malaysians deserve to be widely read.”
— WANG GUNGWU, National University of Singapore

“Sharifah Munirah Alatas’s critical reflection on nation-building in Malaysia makes compelling reading, since she highlights major areas of concern obstructing the way to a progressive Malaysian nation and humane society. With clear analysis she focuses, among many broad themes, on the issues of nation-building without a vision, a democracy limited only to the ballot box, a political culture bogged down by identity-politics obsessed with narrow sectarian interests, and an education system geared to mediocrity and sterile imitation of foreign models, devoid of clear educational objectives or purpose. The task of nation-building is greatly complicated by an elite characterised by political leaders or academics lacking in idealism, intellectual interests, beyond the pursuit of honorific titles, material and career advancement. Those seeking better understanding of the challenges of reforms in Malaysia will find this book delightful reading.”
— SHAHARUDDIN MAARUF, Universiti Malaya

S. Munirah Alatas, Ph.D. is a former Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Indonesian International Islamic University (UIII, Jakarta). In March 2023, she retired from a career in Strategic Studies and International Relations at the National University of Malaysia (UKM). Munirah’s doctorate and MA degrees are from Columbia University, and her BA is from the University of Oregon. Her scholarly interests and writings focus on decolonial thought, geopolitics, foreign policy, non-Western International Relations theory, and autonomous social science traditions. Munirah also speaks regularly in public fora and writes in her media columns, on Malaysian politics, civil society, good governance, higher education reform and the future direction of universities.

Women in Japanese Studies: Memoirs from a Trailblazing Generation (Alisa Freedman, Editor)

Women in Japanese Studies: Memoirs from a Trailblazing Generation brings together trailblazing women scholars from diverse disciplines in Japanese Studies to reflect on their careers and offer advice to colleagues.

Most books present research and pedagogies. We do something different: We share lives—personal stories of how women scholars earned graduate degrees and began careers bridging Japan and North America between the 1950s and 1980 and balanced professional and personal responsibilities. We challenge the common narrative that Japanese Studies was established by men who worked for the US military after World War II or were from missionary families in Japan. This is only part of the story—the field was also created by women who took advantage of postwar opportunities for studying Japan. Women of this generation were among the first scholars to use Japanese source materials in research published in English and the first foreigners to study at Japanese universities. Their careers benefited from fellowships, educational developments, activist movements to include the study of women and Asia in university curricula, and measures to prevent gender discrimination. Yet there were instances when, due to their gender, women received smaller salaries, faced hurdles to tenure, and were excluded from, or ignored, at conferences.

Our book pioneers a genre of academic memoirs, capturing emotional and intellectual experiences omitted from institutional histories. We offer lively, engaging, thoughtful, brave, empowering stories that start larger conversations about gender and inclusion in the academy and in Japan-American educational exchange.

“This unique collection testifies to the strength, creativity, and sheer grit of thirty-one women who changed the face of Japanese Studies in North America and Japan. They created new pathways and possibilities, modeling ways to forge ahead with the help of mentors and despite roadblocks. An invaluable resource, Women in Japanese Studies will have you cheering on each remarkable author.” — REBECCA COPELAND, Washington University in St. Louis

“As individuals, the thirty-one scholars featured in this remarkable collection have each made significant contributions to the field of Japanese studies in North America. Collectively, they have transformed it. Often sobering and at times, breathtaking, their richly varied and deeply personal accounts of what it was like to make that transformation happen will be read with profit by anyone interested in the history of Anglophone scholarship on Japan, and serve as a powerful source of both insight and inspiration for those who seek to chart its future.” — DANIEL BOTSMAN, Yale University

“This inspiring collection will be a lasting resource for students and scholars of Japan. From the palpable intellectual excitement to the personal experiences and relationships that shaped each writer’s professional trajectory, every chapter tells a story worth savoring, and the scholarly apparatus and illustrations included are true gems.” — INDRA LEVY, Stanford University

ALISA FREEDMAN is a professor of Japanese literature, cultural studies, and gender at the University of Oregon. Her books include Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost (AAS Asia Shorts book series, 2021); Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road (2010); an annotated translation of Kawabata Yasunari’s The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa (2005); a coedited volume on Modern Girls on the Go: Gender, Mobility, and Labor in Japan (2013); and an edited textbook on Introducing Japanese Popular Culture (first edition in 2017, second edition in 2023). She served as the editor in chief of the US–Japan Women’s Journal (2016–2022) and has published more than thirty-five articles and chapters for peer-reviewed journals and books, around twenty-five literary translations and co-translations, several guides to academic publishing, and numerous articles for general-interest publications. She is the Faculty Fellow of a university residence hall and has received a national award for her mentorship work. Alisa enjoys presenting at public events like cultural festivals, anime cons, and reading groups.

Modern Indian History (Emily Rook-Koepsel)

AVAILABLE TO PREORDER  via the Columbia University Press website.

ISBN 9781952636332. 132 pages.

India, as a nation-state, is a relatively new concept. Modern Indian History is a chronological historical narrative starting in the 16th century and ending in the present, that considers political, economic, and social developments on the Indian subcontinent. The narrative challenges commonly-held stereotypes about India’s cultural, religious, geographic economic, and political identities. Accessible enough to be used in honors high school, and introductory college and university survey courses in world history, international studies, Asian studies, and global studies, this volume is also an excellent resource for middle and high school teacher participants in Asia-related professional development programs.

Emily Rook-Koepsel is a historian of modern India and Assistant Director of Academic Affairs at the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh.

Japanese Government and Politics (Lauren McKee)

ISBN 9781952636356. 132 pages.

Japanese Government and Politics takes a comparative approach to Japanese politics, covering topics such as political parties and elections, civil society, bureaucracy, and foreign relations. Grounded in a discussion of democracy’s historical development since the Meiji period, each chapter encourages readers to think critically and comparatively about political processes and their outcomes, situating Japan regionally and as a wealthy, democratic nation. The goal is to offer students of government insight into how democracy works—and doesn’t, for that matter—and can illustrate the fact that strengthening democratic institutions is an ongoing struggle throughout much of the world, including Japan.

“Written in a style that is readily accessible to non-specialists, Japanese Government and Politics is a wonderful resource for secondary teachers who want a basic, broad overview for use in social studies classes. Chapters can easily be incorporated into and enhance lessons ranging from medieval Japan to WWII to current global events. Material on the role of the emperor throughout history, the court system, elections, political parties, ministries which oversee international matters, civic participation and more make this a must-have volume on your bookshelf.” — Anne Prescott, Director, Five College Center for East Asian Studies

“McKee’s fascinating book provides a comprehensive and detailed, yet eminently readable, account of Japanese democracy. Placing Japan in comparative context, it will be an invaluable resource for students and teachers.” — Charles T. McClean, Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University

Lauren McKee is associate professor of political science and Asian Studies at Berea College. She first joined the faculty of Berea College in 2014 as an ASIANetwork-Luce Foundation postdoctoral teaching fellow after receiving a PhD in international studies from Old Dominion University. Dr. McKee regularly works with the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA) and has published in the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) teaching journal, Education about Asia. She enjoys teaching classes on comparative and East Asian politics and has taken students on study trips to Japan and China. Dr. McKee recently joined the US-Japan Network for the Future, an initiative dedicated to promoting bilateral policymaking and US-Japan understanding, which is sponsored by the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and the Japan Center for Global Partnerships.

Confucius in East Asia: Confucianism’s History in China, Korea, Japan, and Viet Nam (Jeffrey L. Richey)

REVISED AND EXPANDED SECOND EDITION

ISBN 978-1-952636-37-0. 130 pages.

FOR EDUCATORS: VIEW KEY CONCEPTS AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR TEACHING THIS BOOK IN YOUR CLASSROOM

Jeffrey Richey has written an engaging and well-crafted book that clearly delineates the oftentimes fitful development of Confucianism in China, Japan, Korea, and Viet Nam. At the same time, he masterfully demonstrates how Confucianism slowly came to dominate politics, thought, and society in each of these places and still continues to inform their assumptions, values, and institutions. Richey also expertly underscores the outsized role that government has played in promoting and sustaining this tradition’s formidable influence. This second, revised and expanded edition incorporates analysis of Confucianism’s impact on how East Asian societies have responded to recent events such as the global coronavirus epidemic, the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and recent legal developments and social media trends.

JEFFREY L. RICHEY is Professor of Asian Studies at Berea College. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, he completed graduate studies in East Asian religious history at Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley before earning his Ph.D. in Cultural and Historical Studies of Religions with a concentration in East Asian religions at the Graduate Theological Union. He has edited and contributed to several books on Confucian and other East Asian traditions, including Teaching Confucianism (New York: Oxford University Press), The Sage Returns: Confucian Revival in Contemporary China (Albany: SUNY Press), and Daoism in Japan: Chinese Traditions and Their Influence on Japanese Religious Culture (London: Routledge).

FOR CLASSROOM USE:

Download the Teaching Resource PDF below, with course adoption notes and recommendations directly from the author or editor(s), including:

  • Key Concepts and Definitions
  • Discussion Questions
  • Additional Links and Resources
  • Table of Contents

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD  ⇓

New Threats to Academic Freedom in Asia (Dimitar D. Gueorguiev, Editor)

AAS Asia Shorts book series. 9781952636318. 202 pages

Please support the work of AAS by ordering print or ebook copies from our distributor, Columbia University Press.

VIEW OPEN ACCESS VERSION

New Threats to Academic Freedom in Asia examines the increasingly dire state of academic freedom in Asia. Using cross-national data and in-depth case studies, the authors shed light on the multifaceted nature of academic censorship and provide reference points to those working in restrictive academic environments.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface — Kamran Asdar Ali

Introduction: Progress Under Threat: Academic Freedom in Asia — Dimitar D. Gueorguiev

Academic Freedom in Asia from 1900 to 2021: A Quantitative Overview — Katrin Kinzelbach

Contesting Academic Freedom in Japan — Jeff Kingston

The State of Academic Freedom in Singapore’s World-Beating Universities — Cherian George, Chong Ja Ian, and Shannon Ang

Academic Freedom in China: An Empirical Inquiry through the Lens of the System of Student Informants (xuesheng xinxiyuan) — Jue Jiang

In the Name of the Nation: Restrictions on Academic Freedom in Contemporary Indonesian Higher Education — Stefani Nugroho

Afterword: Canary in a Coal Mine — Patricia M. Thornton

“This short book by an international and interdisciplinary set of scholars covers a lot of ground in illuminating ways. Through a combination of tightly focused case studies and sections that place threats to academic freedom in different parts of Asia into comparative and global perspective, it offers a valuable window onto a multifaceted issue of pressing concern.”
— Jeffrey Wasserstrom, author of Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink and former editor of The Journal of Asian Studies

“Where freedom of inquiry stops, other fundamental rights also suffer. Academic freedom, in that sense, is a fortress for free societies that value the pursuit of truth and unbiased knowledge. This book is a collection of excellent research that gives an alarming call to all scholars, researchers, and concerned individuals. It tells us that academic freedom is being increasingly threatened in many Asian societies, even in places where it has been taken for granted.”
— Ji Yeon Hong, Associate Professor of Political Science and Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies, University of Michigan

“I have long been searching for an answer to the conundrum of how authoritarian regimes aim to combine high global rankings with diminished academic freedoms. This insightful volume focused on Asia as a region of great ambition and increasing restrictions, provides the answer to this question and many others. A very valuable contribution to the literature on academic freedom globally.”
— Nandini Sundar, Professor of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics

“Nuanced and thoroughly researched, this volume offers new data to shed light on the state of academic freedom in Asia. An important and timely contribution.”
— Risa J. Toha, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Wake Forest University

“The case studies in this volume illuminate how tensions among traditional “strong states” in Asia, facing growing civil society, intellectual space, and geopolitical competition, resort to interference in academic institutions. It is an insightful comparative study that speaks beyond the Asian particulars, casting light on the vulnerability of the intellectual endeavor elsewhere as well.”
— Haruko Satoh, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University

DIMITAR D. GUEORGUIEV is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship Public Affairs and Chinese Studies Director at Syracuse University. Gueorguiev specializes in Chinese politics. Gueorguiev’s newest book, Retrofitting Leninism (Oxford, 2021), explores the limits and opportunities of non-democratic participation and digital control in China. Gueorguiev is also co-author of China’s Governance Puzzle (Cambridge, 2017).

Who Is the Asianist? The Politics of Representation in Asian Studies (Will Bridges, Nitasha Tamar Sharma, and Marvin D. Sterling, Editors)

VIEW THE BOOK LAUNCH AND DISCUSSION (from October 6, 2022)

Please support the work of AAS by ordering print or ebook copies copies from our distributor, Columbia University Press.

VIEW OPEN ACCESS VERSION

AAS Asia Shorts book series. 9781952636295. 220 pages.

FOR EDUCATORS: VIEW KEY CONCEPTS AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR TEACHING THIS BOOK IN YOUR CLASSROOM

Who Is the Asianist? reconsiders the past, present, and future of Asian Studies through the lens of positionality, questions of authority, and an analysis of race with an emphasis on Blackness in Asia. From self-reflective essays on being a Black Asianist to the Black Lives Matter movement in West Papua, Japan, and Viet Nam, scholars grapple with the global significance of race and local articulations of difference. Other contributors call for a racial analysis of the figure of the Muslim as well as a greater transregional comparison of slavery and intra-Asian dynamics that can be better understood, for instance, from a Black feminist perspective or through the work of James Baldwin. As a whole, this diversified set of essays insists that the possibilities of change within Asian Studies occurs when, and only when, it reckons with the entirety of the scholars, geographies, and histories that it comprises.

CONTENTS

Introduction: Do Black Lives Matter for Asian Studies? by Will Bridges, Nitasha Tamar Sharma, and Marvin D. Sterling

Who Is a South Asianist? A Conversation on Positionality by Hoda Bandeh-Ahmadi and Isabel Huacuja Alonso

A Different Way of Seeing: Reflections of a Black Asianist by Carolyn T. Brown

From Bhagdād to Baghpūr: Sailors and Slaves in Global Asia by Guangtian Ha

The Asianist is Muslim: Thinking through Anti-Muslim Racism with the Muslim Left by Soham Patel and M. Bilal Nasir

Racial Capitalism and the National Question in the Early People’s Republic of China by Jeremy Tai

Science without Borders? The Contested Science of “Race Mixing” circa World War II in Japan, East Asia, and the West by Kristin Roebuck

Toward an Afro-Japanese and Afro-Ainu Feminist Practice: Reading Fujimoto Kazuko and Chikappu Mieko by Felicity Stone-Richards

Black Japanese Storytelling as Praxis: Anti-Racist Digital Activism and Black Lives Matter in Japan by Kimberly Hassel

From Black Brother to Black Lives Matter: Perception of Blackness in Viet Nam by Phuong H. Nguyen and Trang Q. Nguyen

“We Have a Lot of Names Like George Floyd”: Papuan Lives Matter in Comparative Perspective by Chris Lundry

“In this uniquely conceived volume, editors Will Bridges, Nitasha Tamar Sharma, and Marvin D. Sterling have assembled a cast of progressive-minded contributors whose collective aim is to decenter Asian Studies from its customary self-absorption and circumscription and propel the discipline into a broadened engagement with and advocacy for Black Studies. Through its eclectic and insightful scholarship contending that such intersectionality can only benefit the interests of all parties, no work currently matches Who Is the Asianist? as an indicator and expression of the emerging imperatives within Asian Studies for racial equity and justice. More so than any other now available, this book fully represents and reflects the expanding vision and transformed agenda of the future that Asian Studies is destined to embrace.”

— DON J. WYATT, McCardell Distinguished Professor, Middlebury College and Chair, Diversity and Equity Committee, Association for Asian Studies

“These outstanding essays compel us to reflect on the ways in which the pernicious ‘color line’ belts the world (Du Bois), including Asia, but in ways that must be attentive to both the singularities of locality and the entanglements of our worlded conditions. This means that we must also interrogate the past and present of Asian Studies as a radicalized formation. A courageous, timely, and important intervention that should be read in and far beyond Asian Studies.”

— TAKASHI FUJITANI, Dr. David Chu Professor and Director in Asia Pacific studies, University of Toronto and author, Race for for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans During WWII

“This extremely timely and crucial book helps Asian Studies to finally reckon with its racial unconscious in epistemological, pedagogical, and institutional terms. It examines the racial logic in various Asian countries in relation to the global racial formation, and shows how such studies are critical for Asian Studies. A must read for all Asianists.”

— SHU-MEI SHIH, Irving and Jean Stone Chair in the Humanities, and Professor of Comparative Literature, Asian Languages and Cultures & Asian American Studies, UCLA

Will Bridges is Associate Professor of Japanese at the University of Rochester. His first monograph, Playing in the Shadows: Fictions of Race and Blackness in Postwar Japanese Literature was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2020.

Nitasha Tamar Sharma is Professor of African American Studies and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University. She is author of Hawai’i is my Haven: Race and Indigeneity in the Black Pacific and Hip Hop Desis: South Asian Americans, Blackness, and a Global Race Consciousness, both published by Duke University Press, and coeditor of Beyond Ethnicity: New Politics of Race in Hawai’i, published by the University of Hawai’i Press.

Marvin D. Sterling is Associate Professor, Anthropology at Indiana University Bloomington. His research centers on the popularity of a range of Jamaican cultural forms in Japan, mainly roots reggae, dancehall reggae, and Rastafari. In a more recent line of research, he has shifted geographical perspectives from Japan to explore the Japanese community in Jamaica, one primarily centered on an interest in learning Jamaican culture at its source.

FOR CLASSROOM USE:

Download the Teaching Resource PDF below, with course adoption notes and recommendations directly from the author or editor(s), including:

  • Key Concepts and Definitions
  • Discussion Questions
  • Additional Links and Resources
  • Table of Contents

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD  ⇓

Beyond the Book: Unique and Rare Primary Sources for East Asian Studies Collected in North America (Jidong Yang, Editor)

Read an excerpt on the AAS #AsiaNow blog: https://www.asianstudies.org/excerpt-beyond-the-book

9780924304989. 368 pages, full color.

BEYOND THE BOOK is the first ever volume dedicated to the studies of rare East Asian materials collected by individuals and institutions in North America, including those currently held at the University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University; Duke University; Harvard University; Hoover Institution; Library of Congress; University of Michigan; University of Pittsburgh; Rutgers University; Stanford University; University of Toronto; University of Washington; and Yale University.

Most of the materials discussed are in a non-book format, such as archives, maps, prints, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings, diaries, correspondence, posters, and unofficial publications.

Beyond the Book not only reveals many interesting and forgotten stories in the two centuries of cultural exchanges between East Asia and North America, it also provides fresh clues for East Asian studies scholars in their search for important research materials.

Animal Care in Japanese Tradition: A Short History (W. Puck Brecher)

AAS Asia Shorts book series. 9781952636271. 138 pages.

FOR EDUCATORS: VIEW KEY CONCEPTS AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR TEACHING THIS BOOK IN YOUR CLASSROOM

Listen to an interview with Prof. Brecher on the New Books Network: https://newbooksnetwork.com/animal-care-in-japanese-tradition

This volume provides an historical overview of Japan’s relationship with animals from ancient times to the 1950s. Its analysis serves as a lens through which to scrutinize Japanese tradition and interrogate ahistorical claims about Japan’s culturally endemic empathy for the natural world. Departing from existing scholarship on the subject, the book also connects Japan’s much-maligned record of animal exploitation with its strong adherence to contextual, needs-based moral memory.

“Richly detailed yet accessible and concise, this compelling overview of animal care in Japan covers a surprising amount of historical ground while offering fresh and nuanced insights on this fraught topic. Brecher dispels persistent idealistic misconceptions about historical human-animal relationships in Japan as he traces how wildlife and domestic animals were treated and cared for in the early modern through modern periods. This readable and engaging study is a must-read for scholars and students of Japanese history and animal studies.” — BARBARA R. AMBROS, Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of Bones of Contention: Animals and Religion in Contemporary Japan

“Well over a decade and a half after the publication of the landmark Japanimals volume, Brecher’s stimulating book shows that we still have much to learn about the long history of animal-human relations in the Japanese archipelago. Engagingly written, this book covers the full sweep of Japanese history and lays out a bold argument about the enduring significance of attitudes and practices with deep roots in the past.” — DANIEL V. BOTSMAN, Professor of History, Yale University and author of Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan

“A finely wrought, carefully researched volume. An excellent introduction to the history of Japanese engagements with other animals.” — IAN JARED MILLER, Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of History, Harvard University and author of The Nature of the Beasts: Empire and Exhibition at the Tokyo Imperial Zoo

W. PUCK BRECHER is Professor of History at Washington State University where he teaches courses on East Asia and specializes in early modern and modern Japanese social and cultural history. His past research projects have focused on Japanese thought, aesthetics, urban history, race, private spheres, autonomy, as well as contemporary environmental issues.

FOR CLASSROOM USE:

Download the Teaching Resource PDF below, with course adoption notes and recommendations directly from the author or editor(s), including:

  • Key Concepts and Definitions
  • Discussion Questions
  • Additional Links and Resources
  • Table of Contents

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD  ⇓

Burmese Haze: US Policy and Myanmar’s Opening—and Closing (Erin Murphy)

AAS Asia Shorts book series. 9781952636257. 244 pages.

FOR EDUCATORS: VIEW KEY CONCEPTS AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR TEACHING THIS BOOK IN YOUR CLASSROOM

A play on George Orwell’s famous novel, Burmese Days, Burmese Haze provides a unique—and personal—perspective on the historical events and foreign ties that shaped Myanmar and its relationship with the United States. Former intelligence analyst Erin Murphy tells the story of a remarkable political transition and subsequent collapse, taking the story beyond the headlines to explain why Myanmar and US policy toward it is where it is today. The book weaves in historical details, analysis, and memories drawn from interviews with senior US officials and tycoons, monks, activists, and antagonists.

“Murphy provides a unique insider’s look at US engagement with Myanmar, detailing the successes, pitfalls, and humorous moments in a fleeting moment of optimism between the two countries.” — Timothy McLaughlin, Contributing Writer at The Atlantic

“A thoughtful, well-paced, and incredibly timely account of the complex diplomatic efforts that led to Burma’s rapprochement with the West and the challenges that have faced Washington’s Burma policy ever since.” —  Thant Myint-U, author of The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century

“An essential and riveting account of the recent, painful history of Burma. Erin Murphy brings an insider’s knowledge, a scholar’s rigor, and an eye for colorful details that bring this complex story to life for the general reader. Burmese Haze offers a front-row seat on US policymaking and a pragmatic and balanced take on the effectiveness of sanctions. It’s also a reminder that America is still – for the moment – a model for the world, and if democracy’s light is extinguished here, it will be hard to reignite it elsewhere.” — Ambassador (ret.) Ted Osius, author of Nothing is Impossible: America’s Reconciliation with Vietnam and President & CEO of the US-ASEAN Business Council

ERIN MURPHY has worked on Asia issues since 2001. She has spent her career in several public and private sector roles, including as an analyst on Asian political, foreign policy, and leadership issues at the Central Intelligence Agency, a director for Indo-Pacific with a development finance agency, leading her boutique advisory firm focused on Myanmar, and as an English teacher with the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program in Saga ken, Japan. Erin received her master’s degree in Japan Studies and International Economics from Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, and her bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Spanish from Tufts University. She was also a 2017–2018 Hitachi International Affairs Fellow-Japan with the Council on Foreign Relations.

FOR CLASSROOM USE:

Download the Teaching Resource PDF below, with course adoption notes and recommendations directly from the author or editor(s), including:

  • Key Concepts and Definitions
  • Discussion Questions
  • Additional Links and Resources
  • Table of Contents

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD  ⇓

Japan on American TV: Screaming Samurai Join Anime Clubs in the Land of the Lost (Alisa Freedman)

View the AAS Digital Dialogue book launch webinar for Japan on American TV featuring Alisa Freedman, Anne Allison, Jan Bardsley, and Bill Tsutsui with moderator, Maura Cunningham.

Listen to the podcast from New Books Network.

AAS Asia Shorts book series. 9781952636219. 202 pages.

Japan on American TV explores political, economic, and cultural issues underlying depictions of Japan on US television comedies and the programs they inspired. Since the 1950s, US television programs have taken the role of “curators” of Japan, displaying and explaining selected aspects for viewers. Beliefs in US hegemony over Japan underpin this curation process. Japan on American TV takes a historical perspective to understand the diversity of Japan parodies. These programs show changing patterns of cultural globalization and perpetuate national stereotypes while verifying Japan’s international influence. Television presents an alternative history of American fascinations with and fears of Japan.

Written in an accessible style that will appeal to scholars, teachers, students, and anyone with an interest in Japan and popular culture, as well as an ideal text for classroom use, Japan on American TV offers a gentle means to approach racism, cultural essentialism, cultural appropriation, and issues otherwise difficult to discuss and models new ways to apply knowledge of Asian Studies.

“Whether in Sesame Street or Gilligan’s Island, The Simpsons or Tidying up with Marie Kondo, Japan has powerfully figured in the post-postwar US imaginary through ‘cutification.’ Freedman traces this lineage with an astuteness that is both sharp-edged and arousing, considering how these parodies and stereotypes of ‘cute Japan’ work as affectively as politically. This is a wonderful book to think with, teach with, or just enjoy.” — ANNE ALLISON, author, Millennial Monsters, Precarious Japan, and Nightwork

“This smart and revealing study of the stereotypes of Japan created, circulated, and perpetuated on American television is fun and funny, eminently readable, and occasionally unsettling. Freedman’s insightful analysis will ensure you never look at John Belushi or Marie Kondo, The Flintstones or The Simpsons, Sesame Street or Portlandia, in quite the same way ever again.” — WILLIAM M. TSUTSUI, author, Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization

“Exploring old favorites and new hits alike, Japan on American TV takes on Sesame Street, South Park, SNL samurai, Marie Kondo, and much more. Freedman has us chuckling, cringing, and most importantly, thinking critically. Original, fun to read, and superbly researched, this timely book leaves no doubt about the cultural power of TV.” — JAN BARDSLEY, author, Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan

Tribe and State in Asia through Twenty-Five Centuries (Sumit Guha)

AAS Asia Shorts book series. 9780924304958. 142 Pages.

FOR EDUCATORS: VIEW KEY CONCEPTS AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR TEACHING THIS BOOK IN YOUR CLASSROOM

Every literate person today will encounter the word “tribe” in many settings. What does this word mean? When and how did its use begin? Is it a good label for any contemporary social organization? Is it relevant for policymakers to think with? Academics have often critiqued its use, but that has not suppressed its ubiquity. Why?

This book offers answers to all the above. In order to keep it manageable, these questions are investigated only for the span of Asia that runs from Siberia to Sri Lanka and Suez to the Sea of Japan, and over the past 2,500 years. It thus starts at the beginning of the Iron Age and looks at both unwritten cultures dominant in the past and the hypertextual world of today. Its four chapters successively analyze the Asian uses of tribe-like categories, European deployment of the term in the age of imperialism, the environments where it flourishes and those it makes and the diversity of tribes across Asia today. The book will be of great interest to historians, journalists, policymakers, and to anyone studying the history of Asia.

“As we write our difficult post-mortems on Afghanistan, this is the kind of book foreign-policy specialists really need to read.” — JEREMI SURI, Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin, excerpted from:

“Why Afghanistan’s Tribes Beat the United States” (review from Foreign Policy, August 2021)

“Tribe” and “state” have long been contested, frequently politically loaded terms in historical, social science and popular literature. Sumit Guha in this thoughtful, meticulously researched book has provided a succinct, lively, and highly accessible analysis of these often multipurposed terms in Asia and in the study of Asia over two and a half millennia. The novice and the specialist will benefit from Guha’s superb study.  — PETER B. GOLDEN, Professor Emeritus of History, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies, Rutgers University

An outstanding, accessible, survey of a vast subject. Tribe and State in Asia through Twenty-Five Centuries not only illuminates the wide range of peoples who have been labelled “tribes” and the varied conditions of their emergence, persistence, and disappearances, down to today; it is also an excellent guide to the shifting intellectual and political currents governing the use of that category, and its consequences. — KENNETH POMERANZ, University of Chicago

FOR CLASSROOM USE:

Download the Teaching Resource PDF below, with course adoption notes and recommendations directly from the author or editor(s), including:

  • Key Concepts and Definitions
  • Discussion Questions
  • Additional Links and Resources
  • Table of Contents

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD  ⇓

Found in Translation: “New People” in Twentieth-Century Chinese Science Fiction (Jing Jiang)

AAS Asia Shorts book series. 9780924304941. 144 Pages.

What will the world look like in the future? How do people think and act in that future world? What constitutes the allures or hidden dangers of being modern? These are questions science fiction is uniquely equipped to entertain as a genre, a genre that took on a seriousness and significance in twentieth-century China rarely seen in other parts of the world. While marginalized in standard literary history, science fiction was the privileged literary form originally, and repeatedly, entrusted with the modernization of the Chinese mind for the sake of nation-building. Since its introduction into China via translation at the beginning of the twentieth century as a type of new fiction bearing the badge of universal modernity, science fiction in China had always been associated with aspirations for membership in the modern world first and foremost, and in world literature secondarily. Found in Translation investigates Chinese science fiction as a phenomenon of world literature or a product of transculturation. Through exploring the multiple “textual pathways” as well as “conceptual and thematic networks” that exist between translations and creations during the two boom periods and beyond, the book highlights the ways in which science fiction intervened in critical debates on nationalism, realism, humanism, and environmentalism in twentieth-century China.

“Found in Translation locates Chinese science fiction on the map of world literature. A brilliant combination of theoretical inquiries and cultural analysis, it traces the genre’s origin and development throughout the twentieth century, offering definitive interpretations of its key motifs and movements, and bringing together well-informed discussions on translation and nation, science and literature, humanism and realism.”  — Mingwei Song, Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at Wellesley College, author of Young China: National Rejuvenation and the Bildungsroman, 1900-1959 and co-editor of The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction

“Jing Jiang’s Found in Translation is a welcome contribution to the fields of modern Chinese literature, translation, and science fiction studies, refuting popular assumptions of the genre’s cultural marginality. With science fiction—and its engagement with the discourse of science—situated at the nexus of popular culture, hard science, and high art, Jiang elucidates how SF writers, translators and critics engaged as active agents in the global circulation of scientific discourse. SF served as an intellectual map conceptualizing and helping plot the course for Chinese modernity, and intervening in the debate regarding the role of science and technology in the fate of humankind.” — Nathaniel Isaacson, Associate Professor, North Carolina State University, author of Celestial Empire: the Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction

The Fifty Years That Changed Chinese Religion 1898–1948 (Paul R. Katz and Vincent Goossaert)

ISBN: 9780924304965. 248 pages. Paperback.

FOR EDUCATORS: VIEW KEY CONCEPTS AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR TEACHING THIS BOOK IN YOUR CLASSROOM

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 Religion breaks new ground by systematically demonstrating that equally important transformative processes occurred during the period covering the last decade of the Qing dynasty and the entire Republican period. Focusing on Shanghai and Zhejiang, this book delves in depth into the real-life workings of social structures, religious practices and personal commitments as they evolved during this period of wrenching changes. At the same time, it goes further than the existing literature in terms of theoretical models and comparative perspectives, notably with other Asian countries such as Korea and Japan.

“This is by far the most original, innovative, and definitive study of the religious transformation in the context of China’s modernization from the late Qing to early Republican period. Drawing on new and underexplored primary sources such as religious journals, séance writings, morality books, and liturgical texts, the authors show convincingly how active production of religious knowledge, new and creative forms of religiosity, structural and institutional innovation of religion were taking place alongside the processes of modernization in the Jiangnan region from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. As such, this book has greatly advanced our understanding of trajectories of religious transformation and modes of religious modernity in China.” — XUN LIU, Department of History, Rutgers University

“Goossaert and Katz have crafted a unique and innovative research strategy, applying a macro approach—looking at a broad range of data relating to a large number of religious phenomena—to a specific micro-region—Jiangnan. The results are insightful and valuable on many levels.” — DAVID OWNBY, Professor of History, University of Montreal

PAUL R. KATZ is Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, and Program Director of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. He is the author of Religion in China and its Modern Fate (Brandeis University Press, 2014) and Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Western Hunan during the Modern Era: The Dao among the Miao? (Routledge, forthcoming).

VINCENT GOOSSAERT is professor of Daoist history at EPHE, PSL (Paris) and coeditor of T’oung Pao. He is the author of Heavenly Masters: Two Thousand Years of the Daoist State (University of Hawai’i Press, November 2021) and Making Gods Speak: The Ritual Production of Revelation in Chinese Religious History (Harvard University Asia Center, forthcoming).

FOR CLASSROOM USE:

Download the Teaching Resource PDF below, with course adoption notes and recommendations directly from the author or editor(s), including:

  • Key Concepts and Definitions
  • Discussion Questions
  • Additional Links and Resources
  • Table of Contents

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD  ⇓

Teaching About Asia in a Time of Pandemic (Edited by David Kenley)

Teaching About Asia in a Time of Pandemic, edited by David Kenley, is a collaborative work between Asia Shorts and the AAS pedagogical journal Education about Asia.

AAS Asia Shorts book series. 9781952636196. 234 pages. Paperback. Also available in e-book and open access formats.

Please support the work of AAS by ordering print or ebook copies from our distributor, Columbia University Press.

In the spring of 2020, educators suddenly found themselves teaching remotely as they and their students began a multiweek period of pandemic-induced isolation. As weeks turned to months, administrators announced that students would not return to campus until the following school year and perhaps even longer. Teachers quickly scrambled to design new pedagogical approaches suitable to a socially-distanced education.

Teaching About Asia in a Time of Pandemic presents many lessons learned by educators during the COVID-19 outbreak. The volume consists of two sections. Section one includes chapters discussing how to teach Asian history, politics, culture, and society using examples and case studies emerging from the pandemic. Section two focuses on the pedagogical tools and methods that teachers can employ to teach Asian topics beyond the traditional face-to-face classroom. Both sections are designed for undergraduate instructors as well as high school teachers using prose that is easily accessible for non-specialists. The volume is a collaborative work between the AAS Asia Shorts series and the AAS pedagogical journal Education about Asia, exemplifying the high standards of both publishing ventures.

“Teaching about as huge and diverse a region as Asia is hard in ‘ordinary’ times. In the midst of a global health crisis, it may seem an even more daunting challenge. Fortunately, this timely collection offers teachers knowledge, wisdom, and advice from a community of colleagues who have thought deeply about how to help students enrich their lives through study of Asia. The many short and stimulating essays not only contextualize the pandemic in Asian history and contemporary Asia, but also provide practical suggestions for teaching about Asia in these challenging times.”
— Kristin Stapleton, University at Buffalo, SUNY

“This collection of twenty-one concise and well-written essays offers much needed intellectual and pedagogical sustenance for our COVID-19 times. Authored by academics at K–16 institutions in the U.S. and Australia, they offer timely and helpful guidance for understanding the responses of different Asian states and societies to the pandemic and appraising the tools and platforms available to enhance online teaching and learning about Asia. Whether you are a beginning or highly experienced instructor, you will find yourself wishing you had utilized some of the delivery strategies and technologies our enterprising colleagues have successfully utilized in classes ranging from language instruction to humanities and social science offerings to experiential classes. This is definitely a volume well worth bunkering down with along with our computers and loved ones!”
— Anand Yang, University of Washington

ABOUT THE EDITOR: David Kenley is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Dakota State University. Formerly Professor of Chinese History at Elizabethtown College, he is committed to the concept of the scholar-teacher. His publications include Modern Chinese History (published in the AAS Key Issues in Asian Studies series), New Culture in a New World: The May Fourth Movement and the Chinese Diaspora, 1919–1932, and Contested Community: Identities, Spaces, and Hierarchies of the Chinese in the Cuban Republic (with Miriam Herrera Jerez and Mario Castillo Santana).

The Pandemic: Perspectives on Asia (Edited by Vinayak Chaturvedi)

The Pandemic: Perspectives on Asia, edited by Vinayak Chaturvedi, is a collaborative work between Asia Shorts and the Journal of Asian Studies.

AAS Asia Shorts book series. 9781952636172. 198 pages. Paperback. Also available in e-book and open access formats.

Please support the work of AAS by ordering print or ebook copies from our distributor, Columbia University Press.

The Pandemic: Perspectives on Asia provides analyses of the COVID-19 pandemic in Asia. It covers the first phase of the pandemic that will help future scholars to contextualize the history of the present. It includes interpretations by leading scholars in anthropology, food studies, history, media studies, political science, and visual studies, who examine the political, social, economic, and cultural impact of COVID-19 in China, India, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and beyond. Contributors are David Arnold, Manan Ahmed Asif, Mary Augusta Brazelton, Clare Gordon Bettencourt, Yong Chen, Alexis Dudden, John Harriss, Jaeho Kang, Ravinder Kaur, Catherine Liu, Kate McDonald, Sumathi Ramaswamy, and Christine Yano. The volume is introduced by Vinayak Chaturvedi and concludes with an afterword by Kenneth Pomeranz. The timely and provocative essays in the volume will be of interest to scholars, teachers, students, and general readers.

“Why have Asian societies, despite different political systems, been so successful in fighting the pandemic, while the United States and the UK have lost control with catastrophic consequences? The essays in this indispensable volume use history to illuminate the reasons for this ‘great divergence.’”
— Mike Davis, Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, University of California, Riverside and author of The Monster Enters: COVID-19, Avian Flu and the Plagues of Capitalism (2020)

“This is a rare book of essays that achieves what it sets out to do: generate new insights on the pandemic in and across Asian societies and histories. Technology, state making, ecology, and ideology are among the themes explored in brief but telling cameos. Not to be missed in learning and thinking about pandemics and society in a time of change in Asia and the world at large.”
— Mahesh Rangarajan, Professor of History and Environmental Studies, Ashoka University

“The topics in this collection are as varied as the course of the disease and its effects across Asia. Its value derives from the vivid portrayls of the relationships of the epidemic to histories, popular arts, public health, data regimes and surveillance, and not least, the use and abuse of political power. It captures the pandemic in medias res much as Boccaccio did for the Black Death.”
— Prasenjit Duara, AAS President 2019–2020, Oscar Tang Professor of East Asian Studies, and Director, Global Asia Initiative, Duke University

ABOUT THE EDITOR: Vinayak Chaturvedi is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. He is the former editor of the Journal of Asian Studies.

Waiting Town: Life in Transit and Mumbai’s Other World-Class Histories (Lisa Björkman)

AAS Asia Shorts book series. ISBN: 9780924304934. 176 Pages.

Drawing on a decade of ethnographic research in the Indian city of Mumbai, Waiting Town is an unconventional little book—experimental in form—about how we come to know the worlds about which we write. The narrative follows the author’s fieldnotes diaries as they wend their way through a series of ethnographic puzzles that emerge in the wake of a high-profile mega-infrastructure project that became an internationally celebrated prototype and model. Waiting Town complicates this celebratory narrative by revealing the conflicting temporalities and procedural pretentions of “world class” developmentalism. On one level, Waiting Town is a book about Mumbai—about housing schemes and scams, about “duplicate” documents (and “duplicate duplicates”), and about the material wreckage wrought by the city’s “world-class” ambitions. And at the same time, it has a larger story to tell about truth and falsehood, time and memory—and about the promises and pitfalls of knowledge production, interpretation and representation more generally.

“Reading like a mystery tale, this engagingly written book explains why, in a poor part of Mumbai, there are many people without houses alongside apartments without occupants. Lisa Björkman’s story exposes the machinations of city planning in a field of contention that includes powerful NGOs, a range of informal associations, activists, so-called social workers and politicians, and it illuminates the chaotic and complicated ways in which people negotiate the city. It shows, too, the cruel absurdity of ideas about the possibilities of ‘community’ action that are so entrenched in the development discourse, and it touchingly describes the daily struggles of the urban poor. In the way it is written, the book is also an ambitious and original experiment, encouraging reflection on ethnography and on the practices of interpretation and meaning-making that animate the craft of research. It is a pithy and powerful little book.” — JOHN HARRISS, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver

“Waiting Town presents a powerful punch against simplistic narratives of eviction and resettlement. It is written with attention to the power and agency of people confronting eviction: people who are witnessing a project set up for this purpose just besides where they squat. As Björkman shows, it is their world of pipes and water puddles that holds a mirror to Bombay, and to the necessarily ‘messy’ politics that define urban contestations today. Reminiscent of Lisa Peattie’s 1968 path-breaking View from the Barrio, Waiting Town serves as a model of writing, framing, and representation—an entry into questions of what Abdoumaliq Simone calls “majority life.” Björkman suggests to us how those urgent questions might be posed in ways that matter.” — SOLOMON J. BENJAMIN, Associate Professor, Humanities and Social Science Department, Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Lisa Björkman is Assistant Professor of Urban Affairs at University of Louisville and Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany.