Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China

Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China

Author: Haun Saussy

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-03-23

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1684173728

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"China" and "the West," "us" and "them," the "subject" and the "non-subject"--these and other dualisms furnish China watchers, both inside and outside China, with a pervasive, ready-made set of definitions immune to empirical disproof. But what does this language of essential difference accomplish? The essays in this book are an attempt to cut short the recitation of differences and to answer this question. In six interpretive studies of China, the author examines the ways in which the networks of assumption and consensus that make communication possible within a discipline affect collective thinking about the object of study. Among other subjects, these essays offer a historical and historiographical introduction to the problem of comparison and deal with translation, religious proselytization, semiotics, linguistics, cultural bilingualism, writing systems, the career of postmodernism in China, and the role of China as an imaginary model for postmodernity in the West. Against the reigning simplifications, these essays seek to restore the interpretation of China to the complexity and impurity of the historical situations in which it is always caught. The chief goal of the essays in this book is not to expose errors in interpreting China but to use these misunderstandings as a basis for devising better methodologies for comparative studies.


Chinese Asianism, 1894¿1945

Chinese Asianism, 1894¿1945

Author: Craig A. Smith

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2021-09-07

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780674260245

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Chinese Asianism analyzes Chinese views of East Asian solidarity in light of Chinese nationalism and Sino-Japanese relations. Advocates of Asianism packaged Asia for their own agendas, often by translating and interpreting Japanese perspectives. As China now plays a central role in East Asian development, Asianism is once again of great importance.


Hideyoshi

Hideyoshi

Author: Mary Elizabeth Berry

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-05-18

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1684172845

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"Here is the first full-length biography in English of the most important political figure in premodern Japan. Hideyoshi—peasant turned general, military genius, and imperial regent of Japan—is the subject of an immense legendary literature. He is best known for the conquest of Japan’s sixteenth-century warlords and the invasion of Korea. He is known, too, as an extravagant showman who rebuilt cities, erected a colossal statue of the Buddha, and entertained thousands of guests at tea parties. But his lasting contribution is as governor whose policies shaped the course of Japanese politics for almost three hundred years. In Japan’s first experiment with federal rule, Hideyoshi successfully unified two hundred local domains under a central authority. Berry explores the motives and forms of this new federalism which would survive in Japan until the mid-nineteenth century, as well as the philosophical question it raised: What is the proper role of government? This book reflects upon both the shifting political consciousness of the late sixteenth century and the legitimation rituals that were invoked to place change in a traditional context. It also reflects upon the architect of that change—a troubled parvenu who acted often with moderation and sometimes with explosive brutality."


Sovereignty at the Edge

Sovereignty at the Edge

Author: Cathryn H. Clayton

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-03-17

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 168417497X

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"How have conceptions and practices of sovereignty shaped how Chineseness is imagined? This ethnography addresses this question through the example of Macau, a southern Chinese city that was a Portuguese colony from the 1550s until 1999. As the Portuguese administration prepared to transfer Macau to Chinese control, it mounted a campaign to convince the city’s residents, 95 percent of whom identified as Chinese, that they possessed a “unique cultural identity” that made them different from other Chinese, and that resulted from the existence of a Portuguese state on Chinese soil. This attempt sparked reflections on the meaning of Portuguese governance that challenged not only conventional definitions of sovereignty but also conventional notions of Chineseness as a subjectivity common to all Chinese people around the world. Various stories about sovereignty and Chineseness and their interrelationship were told in Macau in the 1990s. This book is about those stories and how they informed the lives of Macau residents in ways that allowed different relationships among sovereignty, subjectivity, and culture to become thinkable, while also providing a sense of why, at times, it may not be desirable to think them."


The Book of Korean Shijo

The Book of Korean Shijo

Author: Kevin O'Rourke

Publisher: Harvard Univ Asia Center

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780674008571

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Wit is integral to shijo. Indeed, it is the fusion of image and idea through wit, most often an ironical wit, that gives shijo its unique flavor." "In this anthology of 611 shijo in English translation, Kevin O'Rourke introduces the English reader to this venerable verse form. The anthology covers the entire range of shijo production, from the tenth century to the modern era."--BOOK JACKET.


War and National Reinvention

War and National Reinvention

Author: Frederick R. Dickinson

Publisher: Harvard Univ Asia Center

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 9780674005075

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For Japan, as one of the victorious allies, World War I meant territorial gains in China and the Pacific. At the end of the war, however, Japan discovered that in modeling itself on imperial Germany since the nineteenth century, it had perhaps been imitating the wrong national example. Japanese policy debates during World War I, particularly the clash between proponents of greater democratization and those who argued for military expansion, thus became part of the ongoing discussion of national identity among Japanese elites. This study links two sets of concerns--the focus of recent studies of the nation on language, culture, education, and race; and the emphasis of diplomatic history on international developments--to show how political, diplomatic, and cultural concerns work together to shape national identity.


One Belt One Road

One Belt One Road

Author: Eyck Freymann

Publisher: Harvard East Asian Monographs

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 9780674247956

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One Belt One Road argues that the largest global infrastructure development program in history is not the centralized and systematic project that many assume. Rather, Eyck Freymann suggests, the campaign aims to build the cult of Chinese President Xi Jinping while exporting an ancient model of patronage and tribute.