Han Heroes and Yamato Warriors
Han Heroes and Yamato Warriors

Author: Amanda Weiss

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2023-08-21

Total Pages: 179

ISBN-13: 9888754270

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Taking the “tidal wave” of memory in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century as its starting point, this monograph explores collective memory of World War II in East Asia (1937–1945) through film. Weiss argues that Chinese, Japanese, and American remembrance of World War II is intertwined in what she terms a “memory loop,” the transnational mediation and remediation of war narratives. Gender is central to this process, as the changing representation of male soldiers, political leaders, and patriarchal father figures within these narratives reveals Japanese and Chinese challenges to each other and to the perceived “foundational” American narrative of the war. This process continues to intensify due to the globally visible nature of the memory loop, which drives this cycle of transmission, translation, and reassessment. This volume is the first to bring together a collection of Chinese and Japanese war films that have received little attention in English-language literature. It also produces new readings of popular war memory in East Asia by revealing the gendered dimensions of collective remembrance in these films. “This awesome book shows how Chinese and Japanese films about the Second World War both reflect and shape memories of that conflict. Moreover, by analyzing movies about the war and the ensuing ‘competing masculinities,’ Amanda Weiss skillfully discloses their impact on subsequent conceptions of race, gender, and identity. Highly recommended.” —Kam Louie, University of Hong Kong “Amanda Weiss, who views film as a significant mode of popular memory traveling beyond national border, discovers a loop of mutual interaction in the representation of Chinese and Japanese war films deeply intertwined with the nationalism of both countries. Her skill in capturing the intersection of cross-border memories in visual images such as the Tokyo Trials, warrior, rape, and reconciliation is remarkable. This is a transcendent achievement that could only be accomplished by Weiss, who fully understands both Japanese and Chinese languages and deeply understands the movements of consciousness among the people of these countries during her long stay in Japan and China.” —Shunya Yoshimi, University of Tokyo 日本語原文： 1980年代以降、日本と中国の戦争映画は、まったく異なる方向に向かい、それぞれナショナリスティックな語りを発達させてきたと考えられている。しかし、映画とはトランスナショナルな大衆的記憶の技術であると考えるヴァイスは、この両国のナショナリズムと根深く結びついた戦争映画の表象に、国境を越える相互の作用や反作用のループがあることを発見していく。彼女が東京裁判、戦士の表象、レイプ、和解といった映像イメージの中に国境を越える記憶の交錯を捉える手際は鮮やかである。本書はそれ自体、日中の言語を完全に理解し、日本で長く暮らす中でこの国の人々の意識のうごめきを深く理解し、フィルム・スタディーズはもちろん、アジアの近現代史やカルチュラル・スタディーズ、ジェンダー・スタディーズを知悉したヴァイスでなければできない越境的な達成である。

Making National Heroes
Making National Heroes

Author: Jacqueline Zhenru Lin

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2024-01-02

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 9888842757

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Making National Heroes is an ethnography of the making of national heroes in the commemoration of the Second World War in contemporary China. Foregrounding the lived experience of men and women who participate in commemorative activities, it theorises how masculinity and nationalism entangle in recollecting war memories. Taking the feminist line of inquiry, this anthropological study develops an approach to capture the centrality of making exemplars in the realisation of hegemonic masculinities. It adds a gender perspective to studies on exemplarist moral theory and theorises exemplary men’s cross-cultural significance in defining masculinities. Researchers in the fields of critical masculinity studies, anthropology, feminist methodology, China studies, and memory studies will be interested in this book. “I highly recommend this book about the grassroots redress movement that seeks to make national heroes of the largely forgotten KMT soldiers from pre-1949 times. By way of exploring this intriguing topic, Jacqueline Zhenru Lin gives a fascinating account of how nationalism and gender interact to produce exemplary masculinities in present-day China.”—Kam Louie, University of Hong Kong “Firmly grounded in anthropology, but with historical and digital analyses woven throughout, the author eloquently opens new avenues for reflection in Chinese masculinities research. This important contribution draws new attention to links between masculinity, nation, and memory in a media-saturated world.”—Jamie Coates, University of Sheffield

A Global Humanities Approach to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals
A Global Humanities Approach to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

Author: Kelly Comfort

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-09-20

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1000996441

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This edited textbook explores the 17 UN SDGs through 12 works from the humanities, including films, novels, and photographic collections. It provides students with the knowledge and understanding of how the humanities engage in broader social, political, economic, and environmental dialogue, offering a global perspective that crosses national and continental borders. The book takes students through the UN SDGs from a theoretical perspective through to practical applications, first through specific global humanities examples and then through students’ own final projects and reflections. Centered around three major themes of planet, people, and prosperity, the textbook encourages students to explore and apply the Goals using a place-based, culturally rooted approach while simultaneously acknowledging and understanding their global importance. The text’s examples range from documentary and feature film to photography and literature, including Wang Jiuliang’s Plastic China, Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn’s Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, Barbara Dombrowski’s Tropic Ice: Dialog Between Places Affected by Climate Change, and Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, among others. Providing diverse geographic and cultural perspectives, the works take readers to Argentina, Australia, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Greenland, Haiti, India, Japan, Peru, Rwanda, Senegal, and the United States. This broad textbook can be used by students and instructors at undergraduate and postgraduate levels from any subject background, particularly, but not exclusively, those in the humanities. With added discussion questions, research assignments, writing prompts, and creative project ideas, students will gain a nuanced understanding of the interconnectivity between social, cultural, ethical, political, economic, and environmental factors.

Everyday Masculinities in 21st-Century China
Everyday Masculinities in 21st-Century China

Author: Magdalena Wong

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2020-05-04

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 9888528424

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Everyday Masculinities in 21st-Century China: The Making of Able-Responsible Men argues that a moral dimension in Chinese masculinity is of growing significance in fast-changing China. ‘Able-responsible men’—those who can create wealth and shoulder responsibilities—have replaced the ‘moneyed elite’ of the earlier reform-and-opening-up era as the dominant male ideal. With vivid and highly readable case studies, Wong presents a compelling account of the forces that coerce men to live up to the able-responsible standard. She demonstrates the impact this pressure has on the lives of not only boys and men, but also on women, and shows how it invites both complicit and resistant reactions. The book lays bare the socio-political context that nurtures the cultural expressions of hegemonic masculinity under the rule of Xi Jinping. The president himself has emerged in public consciousness as the embodiment of the ideal able-responsible man. Based on anthropological fieldwork in Nanchong, Sichuan, the book provides new perspectives on many topical issues that China faces. These include urbanization, labour migration, the one-child policy, love and marriage, gender and intergenerational dynamics, hierarchical male relationships, and the rise of mass displays of nationalism. ‘In this richly informative book, Dr Wong gives us an intimate picture of masculinities in a contemporary Chinese city. She explores the role of wealth in definitions of masculinity, the moral dimension in gender imagery, the changing desires of women, and the role of the state—including a striking account of the gender strategies of President Xi. More than a local study, this book provides valuable ideas for understanding gender, men, and masculinities in the contemporary world.’ —Raewyn Connell, University of Sydney ‘Magdalena Wong asks wonderful, original questions. Her study might be one of the most pioneering investigations into Chinese family relations I have read. The strength of her book lies in its insight into kinship and cultural continuities and changes. The rich, nuanced case studies can make her book become an important addition to our ongoing studies on Chinese family.’ —William Jankowiak, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Mastery of Words and Swords
Mastery of Words and Swords

Author: Jun Lei

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2021-11-03

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 9888528742

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The crisis of masculinity surfaced and converged with the crisis of the nation in the late Qing, after the doors of China were forced open by Opium Wars. The power of physical aggression increasingly overshadowed literary attainments and became a new imperative of male honor in the late Qing and early Republican China. Afflicted with anxiety and indignation about their increasingly effeminate image as perceived by Western colonial powers, Chinese intellectuals strategically distanced themselves from the old literati and reassessed their positions vis-à-vis violence. In Mastery of Words and Swords: Negotiating Intellectual Masculinities in Modern China, 1890s–1930s, Jun Lei explores the formation and evolution of modern Chinese intellectual masculinities as constituted in racial, gender, and class discourses mediated by the West and Japan. This book brings to light a new area of interest in the “Man Question” within gender studies in which women have typically been the focus. To fully reveal the evolving masculine models of a “scholar-warrior,” this book employs an innovative methodology that combines theoretical vigor, archival research, and analysis of literary texts and visuals. Situating the changing inter- and intra-gender relations in modern Chinese history and Chinese literary and cultural modernism, the book engages critically with male subjectivity in relation to other pivotal issues such as semi-coloniality, psychoanalysis, modern love, feminism, and urbanization. “Jun Lei’s brilliant book offers a wealth of information and insights on how intellectuals such as Liang Qichao and Lu Xun shaped notions of Chinese masculinity in the tumultuous late Qing and May Fourth periods. Its account of how China’s interactions with the West and Japan impacted ideas of masculinity in modern times is compelling reading.” —Kam Louie, author of Theorising Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China and Chinese Masculinities in a Globalizing World “What are political and cultural consequences when a Chinese man looks and behaves like a woman? Jun Lei probes the psychic, intellectual, and nationalist underpinnings of that question. This provocative book offers an engaging story and insightful analyses about how male writers grappled with the effeminate look and strove to revitalize manliness.” —Ban Wan

The Nobility of Failure
The Nobility of Failure

Author: Ivan Morris

Publisher:

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9784902075502

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Long recognized as a core book in any study of Japanese culture and literature, The Nobility of Failure examines the lives and deaths of nine historical individuals who faced overwhelming odds, and, realizing they were doomed, accepted their fate--to be killed in battle or by execution, to wither in exile, or to escape through ritual suicide. Morris then turns his attention to the kamikaze pilots of World War II, who gave their lives in defense of their nation in the full realization that their deaths would have little effect on the course of the war. Through detail, crystal-clear prose and unmatched narrative sweep and brilliance, Professor Morris takes you into the innermost hearts of the Japanese people.

Japanese Death Poems
Japanese Death Poems

Author:

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 1998-04-15

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 146291649X

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"A wonderful introduction the Japanese tradition of jisei, this volume is crammed with exquisite, spontaneous verse and pithy, often hilarious, descriptions of the eccentric and committed monastics who wrote the poems." --Tricycle: The Buddhist Review Although the consciousness of death is, in most cultures, very much a part of life, this is perhaps nowhere more true than in Japan, where the approach of death has given rise to a centuries-old tradition of writing jisei, or the "death poem." Such a poem is often written in the very last moments of the poet's life. Hundreds of Japanese death poems, many with a commentary describing the circumstances of the poet's death, have been translated into English here, the vast majority of them for the first time. Yoel Hoffmann explores the attitudes and customs surrounding death in historical and present-day Japan and gives examples of how these have been reflected in the nation's literature in general. The development of writing jisei is then examined--from the longing poems of the early nobility and the more "masculine" verses of the samurai to the satirical death poems of later centuries. Zen Buddhist ideas about death are also described as a preface to the collection of Chinese death poems by Zen monks that are also included. Finally, the last section contains three hundred twenty haiku, some of which have never been assembled before, in English translation and romanized in Japanese.

The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha
The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha

Author: Mikael S. Adolphson

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2007-02-28

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 0824831233

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Japan’s monastic warriors have fared poorly in comparison to the samurai, both in terms of historical reputation and representations in popular culture. Often maligned and criticized for their involvement in politics and other secular matters, they have been seen as figures separate from the larger military class. However, as Mikael Adolphson reveals in his comprehensive and authoritative examination of the social origins of the monastic forces, political conditions, and warfare practices of the Heian (794–1185) and Kamakura (1185–1333) eras, these "monk-warriors"(sôhei) were in reality inseparable from the warrior class. Their negative image, Adolphson argues, is a construct that grew out of artistic sources critical of the established temples from the fourteenth century on. In deconstructing the sôhei image and looking for clues as to the characteristics, role, and meaning of the monastic forces, The Teeth and Claws of the Buddha highlights the importance of historical circumstances; it also points to the fallacies of allowing later, especially modern, notions of religion to exert undue influence on interpretations of the past. It further suggests that, rather than constituting a separate category of violence, religious violence needs to be understood in its political, social, military, and ideological contexts.