3 UHP Titles Longlisted for the ICAS Book Prize

The International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) Book Prize is a global competition that provides an international focus for publications on Asia while at the same time increasing their visibility worldwide. The coveted book prizes are awarded for best studies in the humanities and the social sciences.

Three University of Hawai‘i Press titles have been longlisted for this year’s prize: The Flaming Womb: Repositioning Women in Early Modern Southeast Asia, by Barbara Watson Andaya (humanities category); Selfless Offspring: Filial Children and Social Order in Medieval China, by Keith N. Knapp (humanities category); and Final Days: Japanese Culture and Choice at the End of Life, by Susan Orpett Long (social sciences category). Winners will be announced at ICAS 5, which will be held in August 2007 in Kuala Lumpur.

Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937, by Christopher A. Reed, also published by University of Hawai‘i Press, won the prize in the humanities category in 2005.

The Life and Writings of One of Hawaii’s Most Distinguished Nisei

Distributed for the Department of American Studies, University of Hawai‘i, and the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, First Among Nisei: The Life and Writings of Masaji Marumoto, by Dennis M. Ogawa, is an account of the life and career of one of Hawai‘i’s most distinguished Nisei. Primarily based on oral histories, this book is an account of Marumoto’s life and career—from the time he was a child until he was well into his retirement years in the mid-1980s. Marumoto was the first person of Asian ancestry to graduate from Harvard Law School, the first Japanese American president of the Hawaii Bar Association, and the first Japanese American to serve on the Hawaii Supreme Court.

June 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3141-7 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Dennis M. Ogawa is the author of Jan Ken Po: The World of Hawaii’s Japanese Americans and co-author with Glen Grant of Kodomo no tame ni/For the Sake of the Children: The Japanese American Experience in Hawaii, both published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Selling Songs and Smiles Now in Paperback

Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in Heian and Kamakura Japan, by Janet R. Goodwin, is now available in paperback.

June 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3097-7 / $24.00 (PAPER)

“Goodwin offers an erudite account that acknowledges all prior scholarly work on the subject. . . . The book is packed with juicy details, historically necessary and judiciously picked from sources not usually encountered. Of major interest, however, is Goodwin’s ability to see behind the self-serving screens of political history, to divine the true intentions of this demonization of one of the few professions then open to women, and to present her facts in the fairest possible manner.” —Japan Times (read the full text of Donald Richie’s review here)

Janet R. Goodwin is the author of Alms and Vagabonds: Buddhist Temples and Popular Patronage in Medieval Japan, published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Gao Village Now in Paperback

Gao Village: Rural Life in Modern China, by Mobo C. F. Gao, is now available in paperback.

June 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3192-9 / $24.00 (PAPER)

“For the classroom, [Gao’s] book complements and enriches more conventional views of this period and also has something to contribute to . . . what is popularly called the ‘politics of memory.’ I enjoyed his personal anecdotes and know that undergraduates will too. Having recently taught many village ethnographies, I anticipate that students will be engaged by the stories of Gao villagers as well as by the author’s passionate polemics about the Maoist years in rural China.” —China Review International

Ghosts and Gender in Chinese Literature

The “phantom heroine”—in particular the fantasy of her resurrection through sex with a living man—is one of the most striking features of traditional Chinese literature. Even today the hypersexual female ghost continues to be a source of fascination in East Asian media, much like the sexually predatory vampire in American and European movies, TV, and novels. But while vampires can be of either gender, erotic Chinese ghosts are almost exclusively female. The significance of this gender asymmetry in Chinese literary history is the subject of Judith Zeitlin’s elegantly written and meticulously researched new book, The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature.

“This is an accomplished book by a maverick thinker and writer. Zeitlin’s genius is to turn something hideous and freaky into the stuff of life. She adopts an archaeological approach, excavating motifs from and finding resonances in disparate genres and periods. An elegant book, it should attract readers from Chinese studies, gender studies, comparative literature, performance studies, and religion.” —Dorothy Ko, Columbia University

June 2007 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3091-5 / $57.00 (CLOTH)

Judith T. Zeitlin is co-editor, with Charlotte Furth and Ping-chen Hsiung, of Thinking with Cases: Specialist Knowledge in Chinese Cultural History, published by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Author Davianna McGregor to Guest on OHA Radio Talk Show

UH professor Davianna McGregor, author of Na Kua‘aina: Living Hawaiian Culture, will be a guest on the Office of Hawaiian Affairs radio talk show Na Oiwi Olino, next Tuesday, June 12, 2007. The newly formatted show, hosted by Kimo Kahoano and Brickwood Galuteria, airs weekday mornings from 7 to 9 on KKNE 940AM and is streamed live on the internet at http://am940hawaii.com.

Professor McGregor is also featured in the June/July 2007 issue of Hawaiian Airline’s Hana Hou! magazine.