Most analyses of gender in High Qing times have focused on literature and on the writings of the elite; this book broadens the scope of inquiry to include women's work in the farm household, courtesan entertainment, and women's participation in ritual observances and religion. In dealing with literature, it shows how women's poetry can serve the historian as well as the literary critic, drawing on one of the first anthologies of women's writing compiled by a woman to examine not only literary sensibilities and intimate emotions, but also political judgments, moral values, and social relations.
Eccentric and humorous cult classic, both a practical guide to starting a listener-supported community radio station and a passionate defense of noncommercial broadcasting. "A goldmine." — The Times (London) Literary Supplement
Although little known in the West, Kajiyama Toshiyuki was one of Japan's most prolific and popular writers. Celebrated for his crisp, fast-paced style and incisive analysis, Kajiyama's popularity may be attributed to his finely tuned sense of what many Japanese felt but could not articulate: the feeling of irreplaceable loss that lay beneath post-World War II Japan's highly successful economic recovery. The son of a civil engineer, Kajiyama was born in Seoul in 1930 and remained there until his family was repatriated to Japan at the end of the war. The Clan Records: Five Stories of Korea not only offers a sampling of Kajiyama's work in English for the first time but also represents the first English translations from the Japanese that deal with Korea under Japan's harsh military rule, which lasted from 1910 to 1945. Kajiyama intended these tales to be one of the components of his "lifework," a trilogy that remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1975. Kajiyama had outlined a tour de force that was to have focused on three interlocking landscapes - Korea, the place of his birth and childhood; Hawaii, his mother's birthplace and the setting for the Japanese immigration experience; and Hiroshima, his father's birthplace and the site of the atomic bombing. The Clan Records includes five of Kajiyama's Korea tales, among them the title story "Richo zan'ei," winner of the prestigious Naoki Prize and the basis of a highly acclaimed movie made in Korea in 1967. Laced with local expressions and accurate descriptions of Korean culture, Kajiyama's narratives infuse his Korean protagonists with dignity and courage. They depict sensitive subjects in an unusually subtle and emphatic manner without being patronizing. In these stories, too, Kajiyama avoided the temptation to soften the often brutal consequences of the inhumanity of the Japanese occupation.
In Pleas and Petitions Virginia Sánchez sheds new light on the political obstacles, cultural conflicts, and institutional racism experienced by Hispano legislators in the wake of the legal establishment of the Territory of Colorado. The book reexamines the transformation of some 7,000 Hispano settlers from citizens of New Mexico territory to citizens of the newly formed Colorado territory, as well as the effects of territorial legislation on the lives of those residing in the region as a whole. Sánchez highlights the struggles experienced by Hispano territorial assemblymen trying to create opportunity and a better life in the face of cultural conflict and the institutional racism used to effectively shut them out of the process of establishing new laws and social order. For example, the federal and Colorado territorial governments did not provide an interpreter for the Hispano assemblymen or translations of the laws passed by the legislature, and they taxed Hispano constituents without representation and denied them due process in court. The first in-depth history of Hispano sociopolitical life during Colorado’s territorial period, Pleas and Petitions provides fundamental insight into Hispano settlers’ interactions with their Anglo neighbors, acknowledges the struggles and efforts of those Hispano assemblymen who represented southern Colorado during the territorial period, and augments the growing historical record of Hispanos who have influenced the course of Colorado’s history.
Eihei Dogen, the thirteenth-century Zen master who founded the Japanese Soto School of Zen, is renowned as one of the world's most remarkable religious thinkers. As Shakespeare does with English, Dogen utterly transforms the language of Zen, using it in novel and extraordinarily beautiful ways to point to everything important in the religious life. He is known for two major works. The first work, the massive Shobogenzo (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye), represents his early teachings and exists in myriad English translations; the second work, the Eihei Koroku, is a collection of all his later teachings, including short formal discourses to the monks training at his temple, longer informal talks, and koans with his commentaries, as well as short appreciatory verses on various topics. The Shobogenzo has received enormous attention in Western Zen and Western Zen literature, and with the publication of this watershed volume, the Eihei Koroku will surely rise to commensurate stature. Dogen's Extensive Record is the first-ever complete and scholarly translation of this monumental work into English and this edition is the first time it has been available in paperback. This edition contains extensive and detailed research and annotation by scholars, translators and Zen teachers Taigen Dan Leighton and Shohaku Okumura, as well as forewords by the eighteenth-century poet-monk Ryokan and Tenshin Reb Anderson, former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center - plus introductory essays from Dogen scholar Steven Heine, and the prominent, late American Zen master John Daido Loori.
