New Books in East Asian Studies

British Hong Kong was a historical anomaly in the Cold War. It experienced no "hot war" or organized movement for independence, and yet it was a key battlefield of Asia's cultural Cold War thanks largely to its unique location right next to Mao's China. The large influx of filmmakers, writers, and intellectuals from the mainland after 1948-1949 made the colony a hub of mass entertainment and popular publications in the region. Po-Shek Fu’s book Hong Kong Media and Asia’s Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2023) is the first systematic study of Hong Kong's cultural Cold War. Based on untapped archival materials, contemporary sources, and numerous interviews with filmmakers, magazine editors and student activists, this book sheds lights on the contest between Communist China, Nationalist Taiwan, and the US to mobilize the colony's cinema and print media to win the hearts and minds of ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and around the world. At the front and centre of this propaganda and psychological warfare was the emigre media industry. British Hong Kong was, in fact, a crossroads in the Cold War where the global, the regional, and the local intersected.Dr. Fu is a Professor of History, Asian American Studies, Global Studies, where he has taught since 1995. He has also been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong and a Visiting Zijiang Professor of Humanities at East China Normal University, Shanghai. He earned his Ph.D. at Stanford. Professor Fu has been the author, editor, or co-editor of many books, including: The Cold War and Asia Cinemas (Routlege, 2019), China Forever: Shaw Brothers and the Making of A Diasporic Cinema (University of Illinois Press, 2008), Between Shanghai and Hong Kong: The Politics of Chinese Cinemas (Stanford University Press, 2003), and Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration: Intellectual Choices in Occupied Shanghai, 1937-1945 (Stanford University Press, 1993). He has also published many articles and won major awards, including an Institute for Advanced Studies Fellowship, Fulbright Research Scholar award, a Mellon Faculty Grant, and a John D. and Catherine MacArthur Fellowship.Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Dr. Sheila Miyoshi Jager presents dramatic new telling of the dawn of modern East Asia, placing Korea at the center of a transformed world order wrought by imperial greed and devastating wars in her new book The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia (Harvard University Press, 2023).In the nineteenth century, Russia participated in two “great games”: one, well known, pitted the tsar’s empire against Britain in Central Asia. The other, hitherto unrecognized but no less significant, saw Russia, China, and Japan vying for domination of the Korean Peninsula. In this eye-opening account, brought to life in lucid narrative prose, Dr. Miyoshi Jager argues that the contest over Korea, driven both by Korean domestic disputes and by great-power rivalry, set the course for the future of East Asia and the larger global order.When Russia’s eastward expansion brought it to the Korean border, an impoverished but strategically located nation was wrested from centuries of isolation. Korea became a prize of two major imperial conflicts: the Sino–Japanese War at the close of the nineteenth century and the Russo–Japanese War at the beginning of the twentieth. Japan’s victories in the battle for Korea not only earned the Meiji regime its yearned-for colony but also dislodged Imperial China from centuries of regional supremacy. And the fate of the declining tsarist empire was sealed by its surprising military defeat, even as the United States and Britain sized up the new Japanese challenger.A vivid story of two geopolitical earthquakes sharing Korea as their epicenter, The Other Great Game rewrites the script of twentieth-century rivalry in the Pacific and enriches our understanding of contemporary global affairs, from the origins of Korea’s bifurcated identity—a legacy of internal politics amid the imperial squabble—to China’s irredentist territorial ambitions and Russia’s nostalgic dreams of recovering great-power status.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Yi-Tang Lin received her BA in sociology at National Taiwan University and MA in MA Interdisciplinary Practices of Humanities and Social Sciences, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and École Normale Supériorie (ENS), France. She completed her PhD at the University of Lausanne. After spending several years at the University of Geneva for her postdoc research on "Rockefeller Fellows as Heralds of Globalization (1917-1970), she is now PRIMA Professor at University of Zurich, Switzerland.Yi-Tang’s research focuses on the transnational history of science, technology and medicine. She is the author of Statistics and the Language of Global Health: Institutions and Experts in China, Taiwan and the World, 1917–1960 (Cambridge University Press, 2022). In this book, she traces the the historical process by which statistics became the language of global health for local and international health organizations. Currently, she is conducting a research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, aiming to decentralize historical accounts of the Cold War-era “Green Revolution” by studying exchange pathways between Asia and Africa and challenging the notion of two regions considered only the recipients instead of actors in these exchanges.Harry Yi-Jui Wu is Associate Professor jointly appointed by Cross College Elite Program and Department of Medical Humanities and Social Medicine, National Cheng Kung University (Taiwan). He is the author of Mad by the Millions: Mental Disorders and the Early Years of the World Health Organization (MIT Press, 2021). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Similar to countries like the US and Canada, Taiwan also has indigenous peoples who've existed before the arrival of colonizers, and continue to grapple with the legacy of colonialism to this day. Scott Simon's Truly Human: Indigeneity and Indigenous Resurgence on Formosa (U Toronto Press, 2023) explores lifeworlds, traditions, and political relationships in two of Taiwan's indigenous communities—the Sediq and Truku. Simon is a Professor of Sociological and Anthropological Studies at the University of Ottawa, where he is also the Chair of Taiwan studies. Truly Human is the result of nearly two decades of field research and interactions among the Sediq and Truku; the book provides a deep yet accessible dive into matters such as hunting practices, belief systems, electoral politics, historical narratives, and how Taiwan's geopolitical status may affect the island's indigenous communities. As Taiwan becomes ever-more-prominent in international headlines, Truly Human helps readers draw parallels with indigenous peoples in other parts of the world, and learn about a dimension of Taiwanese and Austronesian society that often gets lost in discussions centered on conflict.Anthony Kao is a writer who intersects international affairs and cultural criticism. He founded/edits Cinema Escapist—a publication exploring the sociopolitical context behind global film and television—and also writes for outlets like The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Diplomat, and Eater. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Commercial dating agencies that facilitate marriages across national borders comprise a $2.5 billion global industry. Ideas about the industry are rife with stereotypes-younger, more physically attractive brides from non-Western countries being paired with older Western men. These ideas are more myth than fact, Monica Liu finds in Seeking Western Men: Email-Order Brides Under China's Global Rise (Stanford UP, 2022). Her study of China's email-order bride industry offers stories of Chinese women who are primarily middle-aged, divorced, and proactively seeking spouses to fulfill their material and sexual needs. What they seek in their Western partners is tied to what they believe they've lost in the shifting global economy around them. Ranging from multimillionaire entrepreneurs or ex-wives and mistresses of wealthy Chinese businessmen, to contingent sector workers and struggling single mothers, these women, along with their translators and potential husbands from the US, Canada, and Australia, make up the actors in this multifaceted story. Set against the backdrop of China's global economic ascendance and a relative decline of the West, this book asks: How does this reshape Chinese women's perception of Western masculinity? Through the unique window of global internet dating, this book reveals the shifting relationships of race, class, gender, sex, and intimacy across borders.Dr. Monica Liu is a sociologist whose teaching and research interests include gender, globalization, family, immigration, race/ethnicity, Asia and Asian America, digital technology/media, and qualitative methods. She has explored the phenomenon of global internet dating and cross-border marriage between women from China and men from English-speaking Western countries. She is currently working on a new project that examines institutional racism against Asian women leaders in higher education.Born and raised in China, Dr. Liu immigrated to the U.S. at the age of eight. Before joining the University of St. Thomas, she taught at Colgate University and Carleton College.Victoria Oana Lupașcu is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Asian Studies at University of Montréal. Her areas of interest include medical humanities, visual art, 20th and 21st Chinese, Brazilian and Romanian literature and Global South studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Xiaoning Lu received her BA and MA in Chinese Literature and Language from Nanjing University and Fudan University respectively. She then earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Prior to joining SOAS in 2010, she had taught cinema and cultural studies, modern Chinese literature and popular culture at Stony Brook University and Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich.Xiaoning’s research focuses on the complex relationship between cultural production and state governance in modern China. She is the author of Moulding the Socialist Subject: Cinema and Chinese Modernity 1949-1966 (Brill, 2020) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures (OUP, 2020). Her writings on various aspects of Chinese socialist cinema and culture have appeared in journals and edited collections, including Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Journal of Contemporary China, Chinese Film Stars, Maoist Laughter, Surveillance in Asian Cinema: Under Eastern Eyes and Words and Their Stories: Essays on the Language of the Chinese Revolution. She was recently a recipient of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship through which she researched transnational film practices in the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1989.In addition to her scholarly work, Xiaoning is passionate at introducing contemporary Chinese films to UK audiences. With colleagues at Shanghai Art Film Federation, she co-curated Chinese Art Film Festival London Showcase from 2016 to 2018 exploring social and cultural issues in contemporary Chinese society, including the persistence of traditional values in China’s modernization and Chinese women’s filmmaking. Recognized for her regional expertise, she was invited to provide advice on China-related cultural production for the National Theatre, RDF television, and other media companies in the UK.Victoria Oana Lupașcu is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Asian Studies at University of Montréal. Her areas of interest include medical humanities, visual art, 20th and 21st Chinese, Brazilian and Romanian literature and Global South studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Entrepreneurship in the Chinese Digital Economy: A fascinating discussion with Lin Zhang about their book exploring entrepreneurialism in China, including rural and transnational spaces, e-commerce production, gender inequalities, and the challenges faced by entrepreneurs across national borders and digital platforms.

Victoria Lee’s The Arts of the Microbial World: Fermentation Science in Twentieth-Century Japan (U Chicago Press, 2021) is an in-depth exploration of the social history of microbial science in modern Japan. Lee shows that Japanese scientists and artisans in food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries harnessed a combination of premodern and modern understandings of the microbial world to create a productive approach positing microbes “as living workers” in important industries. With case studies that include sake and soy sauce, antibiotics, and biotechnology, Arts of the Microbial World weaves a historical narrative integrated with both the development of modern Japanese science and industry on the one hand and imperialism, expansion, and defeat and rebuilding on the other. Additionally, Lee couches her analysis of Japan’s microbial industries in the context of our contemporary microbiotic moment of antibiotic resistance, the microbiome, green chemistry, and lab-grown foods and pharmaceuticals. In this sense, Arts of the Microbial World will be of interest to scholars and students of Japan, the history of science, food, pharmaceuticals, and industry, but also to readers concerned about the possibilities of mobilizing non-Western technological breakthroughs in the quest for global sustainability.Nathan Hopson is an associate professor of Japanese language and history in the University of Bergen's Department of Foreign Languages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Former US National Security Council member Victor Cha and co-author Ramon Pacheco Pardo discuss Korea's split and divergent paths, sentiments on reunification, and post-WWII history. They explore different American and European perspectives on Korea, the stability of North Korea's regime, South Korea's reunification attitudes, cultural industry success, and future projects.

We understand very little about how elite individuals and families operate in everyday life to maintain their privileged statuses, as many of these status-maintaining activities are conducted out of the sight of the public, in private family settings, exclusive schools, and through privileged services. Yi-Lin Chiang’s new book, Study Gods: How the New Chinese Elite Prepare for Global Competition (Princeton University Press, 2022), offers a rare look into this issue in the context of contemporary China. Based on solid, long-term ethnographic research, Study Gods documents the educational journeys of elite Chinese adolescents, some of whom were named “study gods” by their peers because of their effortless abilities to achieve high academic performance. Employing vivid descriptions and sophisticated analyses, Chiang has shown how these young people achieve and maintain elite status by absorbing and complying with the rules surrounding status.In this episode, I talked with Yi-Lin Chiang about her new book, Studying Gods. You will hear not only her fascinating findings about the young generation of Chinese elite, but also behind-the-scene stories and reflections from a seasoned ethnographer, from how she interacted with these elite youths to what differs the younger generation of Chinese elites from the older ones, and why she thinks it is important to understand their elite world.Yi-Lin Chiang is assistant professor of sociology at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Chiang’s research focuses on educational stratification and intergenerational status transmission in greater China.About the host: Pengfei Zhao is a critical researcher and qualitative research methodologist based at the University of Florida. She is currently working on a book manuscript studying the coming-of-age experience of rural Chinese youth during and right after the Cultural Revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies