UH Press Titles Long Listed for ICAS Book Prize

Two UH Press titles have been long listed for the 2013 ICAS (International Convention of Asia Scholars) Book Prize in the humanities and the social sciences. Twelve books in each area were chosen from a total of 250 Asian studies titles submitted by 60 publishers worldwide.

ICAS will announce the short list in early May. Winners will be announced during the ICAS Book Prize Awards Ceremony on June 25, 2013, in Macao.

Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts, edited by Jeffrey W. Cody, Nancy S. Steinhardt, and Tony Akin

“[The] fascinating and under-appreciated cross-pollination of Eastern and Western architecture is thoroughly examined in [this] absorbing new book. . . . Although filled with handsome photos contemporary and historic, Chinese Architecture and the Beaux-Arts is no coffee-table book — this volume is a thoughtful and far-ranging account of international trends in architecture, which have been too little known in the U.S. It fills an important need and is certain to find its place in every serious library of architectural history.” —Traditional Building (2011)

Burning Money: The Material Spirit of the Chinese Lifeworld, by C. Fred Blake

“Blake fully illustrates the common practice of burning paper money in the daily lives of many people throughout China, exploring the forces that have continued and transformed this old tradition from old times up to the present. His book is innovative and comprehensive in its interpretation of this common custom in China and will be welcomed by anyone interested in the living traditions and cultures of China.” —Asian Ethnology (71:2, 2012)

April 2013 Author Events

Whether you’re in or near New York, Carlsbad, D.C., or Kaunakakai, please join UHP authors at their events!

Thursday, April 11
6:30 to 8 p.m.
Bianca Bosker will be at the China Institute, NYC, to speak on her intriguing new book, Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China, and the phenomenon of “duplitecture.” Click here for event details and to purchase tickets ($10 member / $15 non-member).

For more on this fascinating topic:
Read the Atlantic article Duplitectural Marvels: Exploring China’s Replica Western Cities
Listen to an interview of Bianca Bosker by Chris Gondek of Heronandcrane on Portland State’s KPSU.

Saturday, April 13
2:00 p.m.
Head over to the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California for “Sincerely, Ukulele,” featuring Jim Tranquada’s book talk on The ‘Ukulele: A History, followed by a performance by ‘ukulele artist Brittni Paiva. For details and to purchase tickets, click here.

Sunday, April 14
In a mash-up of sorts, two UH Press authors will present short lectures as part of the National Cherry Blossom Festival‘s two-day anime marathon, which will feature all 26 episodes of Shinichiro Watanabe’s Samurai Champloo. Both talks are free and will be held in the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art.

11:00 a.m.
“Ukiyo-e Pictures and the World of the Pleasure Quarters”
Julie Nelson Davis, associate professor in the Department of the History of Art, University of Pennsylvania, and author of Utamaro and the Spectacle of Beauty.

3:00 p.m.
“Picaresque Tales, Travelers and Lawbreakers”
Constantine Vaporis, professor and director of Asian studies, University of Maryland Baltimore Campus; author of Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service in Edo, and the Culture of Early Modern Japan.

Wednesday, April 24
5:30 p.m.
Anwei Law will sign her monumental work, Kalaupapa: A Collective Memory, at Kalele Bookstore & Divine Expressions in the heart of Kaunakakai, Moloka‘i. Currently a resident of Seneca Falls, NY, where she works as the international coordinator of IDEA, she will be visiting Hawai‘i during most of May–watch for a post on next month’s events.

New Catalog Available: Asian Studies 2013

The UH Press Asian Studies 2013 catalog is now available! The catalog has been redesigned to showcase our new and forthcoming Asian studies titles. (All books published prior to late 2012 and currently in print can be found at our website.) To view the PDF, click on the catalog cover image to the left.

Highlights include:

* An illustrated anthology of well-known masterpieces and unusual writing from 18th-century Edo’s counterculture — An Edo Anthology: Literature from Japan’s Mega-City, 1750–1850

*Four new titles in the Spatial Habitus series — The Hermit’s Hut: Asceticism and Architecutre in India, China’s Contested Capital: Architecture, Ritual, and Response in Nanjing, Architecture and Urbanism in Modern Korea, and Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China

* Short fiction from Japan’s foremost Marxist writer, Kobayashi Takiji, including a new translation of an anticapitalist classic that became a runaway bestseller in Japan in 2008, nearly eight decades after its publication — The Crab Cannery Ship and Other Novels of Struggle

* A timely collection of essays exploring Japan’s role in global environmental transformation and how Japanese ideas have shaped bodies and landscapes over the centuries — Japan at Nature’s Edge: The Environmental Context of a Global Power

* An expansive new study on the varied roles Southeast Asia’s monumental remains (Angkor, Pagan, Borobudur, and Ayutthaya, among others) have played in the histories of its modern nations — A Heritage of Ruins: The Ancient Sites of Southeast Asia and Their Conservation

* Close description and analysis of the history, geographical whereabouts, and doctrinal positions of early schools of Buddhism by André Bareau, one of the foremost scholars of Buddhism of his generation — The Buddhist Schools of the Small Vehicle

* Two volumes in the new series Korean Classics Library — Salvation through Dissent: Tonghak Heterodoxy and Early Modern Korea and Imperatives of Culture: Selected Essays on Korean History, Literature, and Society

Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China

A 108-meter high Eiffel Tower rises above Champs Elysées Square in Hangzhou. A Chengdu residential complex for 200,000 recreates Dorchester, England. An ersatz Queen’s Guard patrols Shanghai’s Thames Town, where pubs and statues of Winston Churchill abound. Gleaming replicas of the White House dot Chinese cities from Fuyang to Shenzhen. These examples are but a sampling of China’s most popular and startling architectural movement: the construction of monumental themed communities that replicate towns and cities in the West.

Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China, by Bianca Bosker, presents the first definitive chronicle of this remarkable phenomenon in which entire townships appear to have been airlifted from their historic and geographic foundations in Europe and the Americas, and spot-welded to Chinese cities. These copycat constructions are not theme parks but thriving communities where Chinese families raise children, cook dinners, and simulate the experiences of a pseudo-Orange County or Oxford. In recounting the untold and evolving story of China’s predilection for replicating the greatest architectural hits of the West, Bosker explores what this unprecedented experiment in “duplitecture” implies for the social, political, architectural, and commercial landscape of contemporary China.

“The postmodern predilection for ‘themed’ environments and simulacra has generally been interpreted, in a line that stretches from the Frankfurt School to Baudrillard and Eco, in terms of loss—loss of originality and loss of authenticity. Bianca Bosker turns this line of cultural criticism in a very different direction in a perceptive analysis of architectural mimicry in the cultural context of the ‘new China.’ Through significant and original research, including personal interviews and photographs, Bosker draws a vivid picture of a rapidly changing society in a moment in the self-definition of its wealthier elements. Original Copies will appeal both to specialists in contemporary Chinese studies and to a wider public curious about these arresting images of a consumer society in formation.” —Christian Hubert, Parsons The New School for Design

January 2013 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3606-1 / $30.00 (PAPER)
Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Architecture
Published in association with Hong Kong University Press

For more on China’s architectural mimicry:
Copycat Architects in China Take Aim at the Stars: http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/pirated-copy-of-design-by-star-architect-hadid-being-built-in-china-a-874390.html
China’s Copycat Cities: http://uhpress.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/foreign-policy-article-on-chinas-copycat-cities/

Foreign Policy Article on China’s Copycat Cities

Last week Foreign Policy posted an article, China’s Copycat Cities, written by Jack Carlson, on China’s recent re-creation of some of the West’s most iconic, historical attractions in its own backyard: Replicas of British towns complete with Tudor, Georgian, and Victorian buildings can now be found near Shanghai and Chengdu, in addition to at least two large-scale replicas of the Eiffel Tower and a highly accurate, full-scale White House outside Hangzhou, to name a few. Carlson mentions the reasons offered by European and American commentators for the presence of Bauhaus towns and a Sydney Opera House in China—the country’s “copycat syndrome,” “self-colonization”—but he also finds a fascinating parallel in Chinese history during the Qing with the Qianlong Emperor’s construction of the Western Palaces, which were closely based on the Trianon in Versailles. An excellent slide show accompanies the article.

UH Press’ forthcoming Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China, by Bianca Bosker, is the first definitive chronicle of this remarkable phenomenon in which entire buildings and towns appear to have been airlifted from their historic and geographic foundations in Europe and the Americas and spot-welded to Chinese cities. The latest book in the series Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Architecture, Original Copies will be available in January 2013.

Japanese Buddhist Temples Exhibit Opens at JCCH

An exhibition of Japanese Buddhist temple objects and furnishings will be on display at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i community gallery from December 1, 2012 through February 22, 2013. The show is curated by professors emeriti George and Willa Tanabe, based on their new book, Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawai‘i: An Illustrated Guide. The book serves a dual role as the exhibition catalog as well as a colorful visitors’ guidebook to the 90 extant temples in the islands.

The Tanabes will also be leading a series of Saturday tours to selected temples on December 8, January 19, January 26, and February 9. For more information, see the JCCH website for details, or call (808) 945-7633 ext. 28 or email info@jcch.com to make reservations. UPDATE: After each tour, the Tanabes will discuss their book and sign copies.

November 2012 Author Events

Thursday, November 8, 12 noon to 1:15 p.m.
Wendy S. Arbeit shares her experiences in researching Hawaiian cultural and utilitarian objects, her techniques used in revealing their patterns, and how she documented them with detailed line drawings in her award-winning book, Links to the Past: The Work of Early Hawaiian Artisans.

Some of the questions that will be addressed:
What went into tracking down those artifacts now scattered across the globe?
What do the 1,400 illustrations tell you about pre- and early contact Hawaiian culture and the ways it changed in response to Westerners?
What sort of questions are raised by the grouping of so many objects?

The talk is part of the Brown Bag Biography series at the Center for Biographical Research, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Henke Hall 325, 1800 East-West Road. For more information, see the UH event calendar or call 808-956-3774 or email: biograph@hawaii.edu.

Isaiah Walker

Thursday, November 8, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.
BYU-Hawaii professor and former competitive surfer Isaiah Walker will  give a lecture at Arizona State University on his thought-provoking book, Waves of Resistance: Surfing and History in Twentieth-Century Hawai‘i. Walker explains how Hawaiian surfers have successfully resisted colonial encroachment in the po‘ina nalu (surf zone). In making his case, he also explores empowerment and masculinity, media representation of islanders, identity struggles, and other topics. The talk is open to the public and will be held in West Hall, Room 135, at ASU in Tempe. For more information, see the ASU calendar posting.

Tuesday, November 13, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
See below listing under November 18 for George and Willa Tanabe’s Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawai‘i.

Saturday, November 17, 3:00 p.m.
San Diego resident Leilani Holmes will visit Basically Books in Hilo, Hawai‘i to discuss and sign copies of her recent work, Ancestry of Experience: A Journey Into Hawaiian Ways of Knowing. Born in Honolulu in 1952 to a Hawaiian mother, Holmes was adopted as an infant by a haole (Caucasian) couple who moved to Ohio when she was four years old. The book recounts, explores, and analyzes the author’s quest to reclaim her origins and come to terms with the duality inherent in being an indigenous adoptee. The two-column format of the book mirrors this dichotomy, with a personal, conversational style of narrative on one side, and academic explanatory text on the other.

Saturday, November 17, 4:00 p.m.
Seattle author/poet/artist Alan Chong Lau will be at the Wing Luke Museum’s Tateuchi Story Theatre to join his sister, food writer Linda Lau Anusasananan, as she reads from The Hakka Cookbook, published by University of California Press. (Read a related post on the UC Press blog here.) Alan Lau provided the artwork for the book, done in a similarly whimsical, sumi-e style that illustrates his UH Press-published book of poetry, Blues and Greens: A Produce Worker’s Journal.

Sunday, November 18, 2:00 p.m.
George J. Tanabe and Willa Jane Tanabe will appear at Barnes & Noble, Ala Moana Center, for a signing of their just-released guidebook, Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawai‘i: An Illustrated Guide. The Tanabes personally visited each of the ninety temples still in existence, and took photographs not only the buildings’ exteriors but of the ornate altars and interior details. Over 360 of these color photos are contained in the book. Descriptions of each temple and explanations of the symbolism of objects and design elements will help temple visitors decipher the meaning behind these physical expressions. Also at this event, information will be distributed on the related exhibit due to open December 1 at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i.

Last-minute update: On Tuesday, November 13, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., George and Willa Tanabe will give a PowerPoint lecture at the Honpa Hongwanji Hawaii Betsuin Annex Temple (makai of the main temple), 1727 Pali Highway. Open to the public, with a $10 fee. For more information, click here for a link to the Dharma Light Project brochure and map, or call 808-536-7044.

Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual

Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual, by Jiren Feng, reveals significant and fascinating social and cultural phenomena in the most important primary text for the study of the Chinese building tradition. Unlike previous scholarship, which has reviewed this imperially commissioned architectural manual largely as a technical work, this volume considers the Yingzao Fashi’s unique literary value and explores the rich cultural implications in and behind its technical content.

“This fascinating and erudite study takes a fresh and original approach to the most significant document in Chinese architectural history. Taking the terminology and textual strategies of the Yingzao fashi as his starting point, and drawing both on literature and on the structures and aesthetics of surviving buildings, Jiren Feng develops a complex and sophisticated cultural analysis of the text and of Chinese historical traditions of architectural writing more broadly, demonstrating that matter and metaphor cannot be disentangled in Chinese architectural thinking and practice. As well as being an argument about architecture, this is a study of poetics and of sensibilities, and a history of the meaning of grand buildings in Chinese cosmology and politics.” —Francesca Bray, University of Edinburgh

June 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3363-3 / $53.00 (CLOTH)
Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Architecture
Published in association with Hong Kong University Press

More March Author Events

Sunday, March 18, 2-3:30 pm, Native Books/Nā Mea Hawai‘i: Wendy Arbeit, author of Links to the Past: The Work of Early Hawaiian Artisans, will give a free talk on how she researched Links, what she discovered, and why drawings can offer more information than photographs. The discussion will be preceded by live demonstrations by cultural practitioners and followed by a book-signing by the author and light refreshments. Books will be available for purchase at the shop, located at the ‘ewa end of Ward Warehouse, 1050 Ala Moana Blvd. (phone: 596-8885).

Monday, March 19, 6:30-7:30 pm, Thinking Out Loud: Talking Issues, Taking Action (KZOO-AM 1210): Don Hibbard, coauthor of Hart Wood: Architectural Regionalism in Hawai‘i and other books on architecture, will be interviewed by radio host Willa Tanabe. The program is sponsored by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i.

Hart Wood Receives Historic Hawaii Foundation Award

Hart Wood: Architectural Regionalism in Hawaii, by Don Hibbard, Glenn Mason, and Karen Weitze, will be recognized with a Preservation Honor Award at Historic Hawai‘i Foundation’s 2011 Awards Ceremony on April 19. This is the 36th year of the Preservation Honor Awards, which are Hawai‘i’s highest recognition of preservation projects that “perpetuate, rehabilitate, restore or interpret the state’s architectural, archaeological and/or cultural heritage.”

“With insightful text and 200 illustrations, Hart Wood traces the life and work of a significant Hawai‘i architect who resided and practiced in the islands from the 1920s to the 1950s. The wide range of buildings he designed has special significance for us today, as fine examples of this period’s distinctive regional style of Hawaiian architecture. The book is the culmination of years of extensive research, documentation, and the compilation of photographs and materials, which was first initiated in the 1980s. The University of Hawai‘i Press worked closely with the authors to design and produce a volume to match their vision. . . . [An] outstanding contribution to Hawai‘i’s preservation efforts.” —Hawai‘i Historic Foundation award letter