Welcome to our AAS 2020 virtual book exhibit! Below are the new titles that would have been released at the AAS conference. These were also featured on the outside back cover of the AAS 2020 conference program. Save 30% on the print edition of all titles if you order directly from the Cambria Press website and use the coupon code AAS2020.
At the AAS conference, we were going to launch the Cambria Book Cloud for going remote. Now this effective teaching and learning solution has become all the more important. With the Cambria Book Cloud, professors can assign pages or chapters from multiple books—or even entire books—from our collection to their students for a low, flat fee for semester-long access. During the semester, students will be able to access multiple books via any web browser; they can read the material on their smart phones, iPads, laptops, desktops. Professors can sign up here for their free trial access.
NEW TITLES
Cambria Sinophone World Series
The Great Leap Backward
Forgetting and Representing the Mao Years
Lingchei Letty Chen
“Letty Chen has done magnificent work in looking into the art and politics of remembering, and re-membering, the Maoist era—its fanatic causes, its violent episodes, and its traumatic consequences. With sources drawn from fictional and biographical narratives, she identifies ideological and affective contestations, and ponders the possibilities of inscribing the immemorial and unthinkable. Both historically engaged and theoretically provocative, Chen’s book is a timely intervention with the prevailing narrative of the Chinese Dream. The Great Leap Backward is a compelling reference for anyone interested in memory studies, Chinese and comparative literature, and cultural and political history.”
—David Der-wei Wang,
Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature,
Harvard University
The Chinese Lyric Sequence
Poems, Paintings, Anthologies
Joseph R. Allen
“This book is the first attempt to discuss, in both theoretical and concrete terms, the historical development of an important but decidedly understudied Chinese literary form, the poetic sequence (zushi). The poetic sequence is an important form in the Chinese tradition, as it allows the poet to build a complex argument in poetic form about an issue, an experience, or a phenomenon in life. This book is the first English-language monograph to discuss the poetic sequence in the context of the historical development of this art form as a whole, and the connection made between the poetic sequence and album leaves is thought-provoking. Each chapter contains many inspired and inspiring analyses of individual texts. The writing is lucid and accessible, and the book is a great pleasure to read from beginning to end. This book will be invaluable for both specialists in the field of Chinese literature and general readers who are interested in Chinese poetry and aesthetics; it will be essential reading for scholars and students in classical Chinese literature, cultural history, and art history.”
—Tian Xiaofei, Professor of Chinese Literature, Harvard University
Rethinking the Sinosphere
Poetics, Aesthetics, and Identity Formation
by Nanxiu Qian, Richard J. Smith, and
Bowei Zhang, eds.
“Rethinking the Sinosphere signifies a landmark in the study of cultural interaction in East Asia in two senses. First, it tells the story that literary Sinitic has served as the platform of personal and historical connections in East Asia. Through several case studies, the book affirms that the Chinese characters are the common dominator of the Sinosphere. Secondly, it is a well-knitted tapestry in which the personal, historical, poetic and aesthetic dimensions of cultural interaction in East Asia interweave with one another. This book is a most important source for anyone interested in East Asian studies.”
—Chun-chieh Huang, Distinguished Chair Professor,
National Taiwan University
Reexamining the Sinosphere
Transmissions and Transformations
in East Asia
by Nanxiu Qian, Richard J. Smith, and
Bowei Zhang, eds.
“Reexamining the Sinosphere is an excellent and much-needed book that explores the various aspects of the concept of Sinosphere with a wealth of textual examples and on the basis of rich and multifaceted contemporary scholarship. The volume puts together a fine group of essays that discuss issues of cultural transmissions and transformations in East Asia and contribute to our understanding by raising important questions as much as by providing answers. This is a volume that stimulates our rethinking of the Sinosphere and will be essential reading for anyone interested in the historical relations of East Asian countries and how this regional concept may be relevant to the reality of our world today. I highly recommend it.”
—Zhang Longxi,
Chair Professor of Comparative Literature and Translation,
City University of Hong Kong
Metalworking in Bronze Age China
The Lost-Wax Process
Peng Peng
“In pre-imperial China, lost-wax casting was very rarely used. As the identification of the technique has generated lively debates among specialists, some disputing the possibility of its use, a comprehensive investigation of its history is long overdue. For the first time, through the careful investigation of Professor Peng we have with this well-researched book a complete state-of-the-field report on this issue.”
—Alain Thote, Directeur d’études, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
Shaping Chinese Art History
Pang Yuanji and His Painting Collection
Katharine P. Burnett
“This comprehensive and engaging study for the first time brings into focus the full range of activities of the great collector Pang Yuanji, giving us a picture of a crucial figure in the field of Chinese art history. By situating him within a number of relevant frameworks as collector, businessman, and philanthropist, this book helps us better understand the key role which the art of the past played in the making of a modern China.
—Craig Clunas, FBA,
Professor Emeritus of the History of Art, Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, University of Oxford
See the entire list of the Cambria Sinophone World Series, which is headed by Professor Victor H. Mair (University of Pennsylvania).
New in Japan Studies
Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan
John W. Traphagan
“A very engaging and thoughtful work that will be of great interest to Japan scholars and to any social scientists with a concern for conditions of life in contemporary rural regions in many of the advanced industrial societies. This is a book about entrepreneurship, depopulation, and the nature of the contemporary rural. Each of these is of broad and comparative significance. The Japanese countryside doesn’t look like the countryside of the sentimental imagination; it is a complex hybrid formation, much as we find in Europe and North America, giving the case a wide salience. Depopulation is a shorthand for several related trends of much consequence: population decline, yes, but rapid aging of the population and significant marriage delay, declining births, and solo living. This too is a feature of the rest of the “developed” world, but Japan’s trends are among the most advanced and there is much to learn from a judicious account such as this book. This is an impressive book, which should gain an enthusiastic and appreciative readership.”
—William Kelly,
Professor of Anthropology and Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies,
Yale University
Law and Society in Imperial Japan
Suehiro Izutaro and the Search for Equity
Jason Morgan
“A first-rate scholarly work that is an important contribution to understanding Japan’s legal and wartime history, especially the nature of tenko (ideological conversion during wartime Japan). Not only is this book the first serious study of Suehiro Izutaro in English, but it is also a profound analysis of the the development of law (labor law espcially) in Imperial Japan, and more broadly the impact of Suehiro’s case-study approach on Japanese law today. Built on primary sources in Japanese and other languages, the bibliography is exhaustive and will be valuable in itself as a guide to the field. There is much to learn from this book, including important lessons about the nature of wartime Japanese society and politics.”
— Kevin M. Doak, Professor and Nippon Foundation Endowed Chair;
and Chair, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Georgetown University
NEW! Literature from Taiwan Series
Cambria Press is proud to announce a new series, the Literature from Taiwan Series, in collaboration with the National Museum of Taiwan Literature and National Taiwan Normal University.
A History of Taiwan Literature by Ye Shitao
translated by Christopher Lupke
A History of Taiwan Literature by Ye Shitao, an important public intellectual in Taiwan, was published in the crucial watershed year of 1987 when the end of martial law on the island was signaled. This is arguably one of the most important intellectual works of literary history, made even more impressive by Ye’s inclusion of copious notes, including Japanese-language ones. In this translation, Christopher Lupke has painstakingly translated both Ye’s main text and notes, making this valuable resource available to English readers for the first time. Lupke also provides an introduction that contextualizes Ye’s work as well as an epilogue that outlines some of the major historical and literary developments after 1987, along with a brief mention of some of the most important literary figures of Taiwan. In addition to a glossary and index, Lupke offers a select bibliography that lists works that Ye referenced in his own notes as well as some books that Lupke consulted in completing this translation.
The Soul of Jade Mountain by Husluman Vava
translated by Terence Russell
Cultural production, including literary work, has been a key element in the Indigenous struggle for decolonization worldwide. In Taiwan, ethnographic novels written in Chinese, such as The Soul of Jade Mountain (Yushan hun) by Bunun writer Husluman Vava (1958–2007), have been an important tool in the process of bringing the circumstances of Indigenous people to the attention of mainstream audiences. The Soul of Jade Mountain won the 2007 Taiwan Literature Award for the best novel, and this is the first English translation of an ethnographic novel by a Taiwan Indigenous writer to be published by a North American publisher, marking an important step in bringing Indigenous Taiwan to international audiences.
A Taiwanese Literature Reader
Nikky Lin, ed.
According to Taiwanese intellectual Ye Shitao, the development of Taiwanese literature during Japanese occupation can be divided into three stages: the “nascent period” (1920–1925), followed by the “mature period” (1926–1937), and finally the “war period” (1937–1945). The six stories in this collection are representative works from the mature period and the war period. Each story depicts different hardships and predicaments faced by Taiwan as a colony under Japanese rule, offering insight into how this part of Taiwan’s history continues to impact contemporary Taiwanese society.
See www.cambriapress.com for more titles.