Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism

For more than a thousand years, Buddhism has dominated Japanese death rituals and concepts of the afterlife. The nine essays in Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, edited by Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, ranging chronologically from the tenth century to the present, bring to light both continuity and change in death practices over time. They also explore the interrelated issues of how Buddhist death rites have addressed individual concerns about the afterlife while also filling social and institutional needs and how Buddhist death-related practices have assimilated and refigured elements from other traditions, bringing together disparate, even conflicting, ideas about the dead, their postmortem fate, and what constitutes normative Buddhist practice.

August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3204-9 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Asian Settler Colonialism

Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai‘i, edited by Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y. Okamura, is a groundbreaking collection that examines the roles of Asians as settlers in Hawai‘i. Contributors from various fields and disciplines investigate aspects of Asian settler colonialism to illustrate its diverse operations and impact on Native Hawaiians. Essays range from analyses of Japanese, Korean, and Filipino settlement to accounts of Asian settler practices in the legislature, the prison industrial complex, and the U.S. military to critiques of Asian settlers’ claims to Hawai‘i in literature and the visual arts.

“When Native Hawaiian activists lash out against Asian settler colonialism, we must remember what Malcolm X said: ‘The conditions that our people suffer are extreme, and an extreme illness cannot be cured with moderate medicine.’ This book takes a candid and necessary look at indigenous views of Asian settlement in Hawai‘i over the past century.” —Yuri Kochiyama, civil rights activist

August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3300-8 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Hawaii at the Crossroads

Hawai‘i at the Crossroads of the U.S. and Japan before the Pacific War, edited by Jon Thares Davidann, tells the story of Hawai‘i’s role in the emergence of Japanese cultural and political internationalism during the interwar period. Following World War I, Japan became an important global power and Hawai‘i Japanese represented its largest and most significant emigrant group. During the 1920s and 1930s, Hawai‘i’s Japanese American population provided Japan with a welcome opportunity to expand its international and intercultural contacts. This volume, based on papers presented at the 2001 Crossroads Conference by scholars from the U.S., Japan, and Australia, explores U.S.–Japanese conflict and cooperation in Hawai‘i—truly the crossroads of relations between the two countries prior to the Pacific War.

August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3225-4 / $49.00 (CLOTH)

Enjoying and Learning about Hawaii’s Sea Turtles

The Book of Honu: Enjoying and Learning about Hawai‘i’s Sea Turtles, by Peter Bennett and Ursula Keuper-Bennett, is the first guide to finding and observing Hawaiian green turtles, or honu. It describes an exciting journey of discovery undertaken by two avid sports divers, Peter Bennett and Ursula Keuper-Bennett, who encountered their first honu twenty years ago while diving off Honokowai, Maui. The Bennetts soon realized that many honu (and green turtles worldwide) were afflicted with debilitating and potentially deadly tumors. They began to document the disease using photographs and videotape and in the process educated themselves about the daily lives of honu. To their surprise, they discovered they were the first to make prolonged observations of a marine turtle population in its natural habitat.

72 color illus.

A Latitude 20 Book
August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3127-1 / $18.95 (PAPER)

Art from Burma in the Denison Museum

The collection of Burmese art housed at the Denison Museum in Granville, Ohio, includes more than 1,500 objects dating from the late first millennium A.D., through the twentieth century. While particularly strong on textiles originating with minority groups in Burma, it also includes Buddha images, lacquer objects, works on paper, manuscripts, wood carvings, and pieces made from bronze, silver, and ivory. The core holdings were acquired by Baptist missionaries, United States government employees, diplomats, and others living in Burma, and this material was augmented by judicious purchases.

Eclectic Collecting: Art from Burma in the Denison Museum, edited by Alexandra Green, discusses theoretical approaches to the study of textiles and examines in some depth the production and use of textiles by the Karenic, Chin, Kachin, Lahu, and Tai, and Wa minority groups, as well as ethnic Burmans, within the context of their histories and cultures. Vibrant photographs illustrate the distinctive designs characteristic of each population group and the production techniques they use.

270 illus., 261 in color, 2 maps

August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3311-4 / $60.00 (CLOTH)

Hakka Soul

Hakka Soul: Memories, Migrations, Meals, by Chin Woon Ping, chronicles the dreams, ambitions, and idiosyncrasies of her family, beginning with the death of her grandmother in pre-Independence Malaya. It was a tumultuous period when the occupying Japanese army had just been defeated, the British colonial government was losing its grip on the country, and a communist guerilla insurgency had broken out in the jungles of the Malay Peninsula. Her stories follow the family’s move to the United States and a journey to China to visit her father’s ancestral home.

Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies
August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3289-6 / $24.00 (PAPER)