Category: Literary Criticism

Book Excerpt: “Taking China to the World” by Theodore Huters

The following is an excerpt from Taking China to the World: The Cultural Production of Modernity by Theodore Huters: In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels characterized communism as a specter haunting late-nineteenth-century Europe, one whose leaders tried desperately to exorcise. For the past century of Chinese history, following the the pivotal cultural reform movement named after the...

Book Review: “Philosophy and Criticism in Latin America” by Mabel Moraña

“Mabel Moraña’s extensive commentaries on cultural emancipation in Latin America are a notable contribution to scholarship on that region’s sociocultural development. … From José Carlos Mariátegui, Enrique Dussel, Bolívar Echeverría, and Roger Bartra to global thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Walter Benjamin, and Pierre Bourdieu, Moraña takes her readers on a tour-de-force voyage through significant landscapes of thought that have...

Book Review: “Insects in Chinese Literature” by Wilt Idema

“Insects in Chinese Literature will appeal to many audiences: entomologists and insect lovers will find it delightful, while specialists in Chinese literature will appreciate the copious notes and careful documentation of each text’s provenance. The works included will enrich both the Chinese and the comparative literature classroom. Quirky and eclectic, this anthology is full of unexpected charms. … the translations of...

Winner of MLA Award: “A History of Taiwan Literature” by Ye Shitao (translated by Christopher Lupke)

Congratulations to Professor Christopher Lupke (University of Alberta) for winning the MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature for his translation of A History of Taiwan Literature by Ye Shitao (Yeh Shih-tao 葉石濤)! The following is an excerpt from the introduction: Ye Shitao was born on November 1, 1925, in Tainan, Taiwan, the...

5 Critical Books for Latin American Literature Studies

Despite Latin American literature being widely known as a rich literary canon—or perhaps because it is such a rich literary canon—there are still works and aspects of Latin American literature that remain under-explored. Here are five books that bring critical works of Latin American literature to English-language audiences for the first time; break new ground in studying canonical Latin American...

Cultural exchange among early Chosŏn Korea, Ming China, and Muromachi Japan

Shedding light on the three-way cultural exchange among early Chosŏn Korea, Ming China, and Muromachi Japan, Professor Jongmook Lee examines poetic exchanges between Hanlin scholar Hua Cha 華察 (1497–1574) and his Korean counterpart So Se-yang 蘇世讓 (1486–1562); see, for example, page 25 (below) in his chapter “Establishing Friendships between Competing Civilizations: Exchange of Chinese Poetry in East Asia in the...

Essential Books for Taiwan Studies

The following are essential books for Taiwan Studies. The first three have just been published in the new Literature from Taiwan Series, in collaboration with the National Museum of Taiwan Literature and National Taiwan Normal University. A Taiwanese Literature Reader edited by Nikky Lin According to Taiwanese writer and historian Ye Shitao (see next book), the development of Taiwanese literature...

Cambria Press Publication Review: Reading John Banville Through Jean Baudrillard

Congratulations to Professor Hedda Friberg-Harnesk on the outstanding review of her book Reading John Banville Through Jean Baudrillard in the journal Études Irlandaises, which praises the the book for being an “eloquent, thought-provoking study grants the reader a deeper insight into Banville’s bewitching ‘territory of mercurial instability.’” The review also notes that Hedda Friberg-Harnesk sheds new light on the fiction...

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