Seeing Beauty, Sensing Race in Transnational Indonesia

In Indonesia, light skin color has been desirable throughout recorded history. Seeing Beauty, Sensing Race in Transnational Indonesia, by L. Ayu Saraswati, explores Indonesia’s changing beauty ideals and traces them to a number of influences: first to ninth-century India and some of the oldest surviving Indonesian literary works; then, a thousand years later, to the impact of Dutch colonialism and the wartime occupation of Japan; and finally, in the post-colonial period, to the popularity of American culture.

“In this book L. Ayu Saraswati offers a lucid and compelling accounting of how ideas of beauty and race circulate and become affective in transnational Indonesia. Offering a distinctive approach to global culture as an affective domain, as well a sharp and nuanced critique of histories of whiteness, this book will be of tremendous value to all scholars and students interested in unlearning the affective and aesthetic scripts of race.” —Sara Ahmed, Professor of Race and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012)

Southeast Asia: Politics, Meaning and Memory
March 2013 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3736-5 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Through the Prism of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Hollywood

From melodrama to Cantonese opera, from silents to 3D animated film, Remaking Chinese Cinema: Through the Prism of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Hollywood, by Yiman Wang, traces cross-Pacific film remaking over the last eight decades. Wang revolutionizes our understanding of Chinese cinema as national cinema. Against the diffusion model of national cinema spreading from a central point—Shanghai in the Chinese case—she argues for a multi-local process of co-constitution and reconstitution. In this spirit, Wang analyzes how southern Chinese cinema (huanan dianying) morphed into Hong Kong cinema through trans-regional and trans-national interactions that also produced a vision of Chinese cinema.

“This study of remaking in Chinese cinema is both one of the most sophisticated and insightful analyses of the remake phenomenon in general and a work that reveals a series of fascinating and hitherto occluded connections and links in Chinese-language film history. Each case study is a revelation for the reader. This rigorous and original piece of scholarship reveals, investigates and narrates forgotten connections across borders and between major filmmaking cities and in this way makes new contributions to film history. The primary readership for the work will be students and scholars of Chinese cinema, but its contribution to larger debates about transnational cinema and remaking in general should be recognized and it should find a wider readership in cinema studies, as well as in Chinese studies.” —Chris Berry, University of London

Critical Interventions
March 2013 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3607-8 / $49.00 (CLOTH)

March 2013 Author Events #1: Night at Waialua Library

This week the Waialua and North Shore community looks forward to this fun fundraiser for their public library.

Thursday, March 7, 6:30 p.m.
O‘ahu North Shore authors will discuss their recently published books at the annual Friends of Waialua Library Authors’ Night. Among the presenters this year is master jazz saxophonist Gabe Baltazar Jr., who will “talk story” on his wonderful memoir, If It Swings, It’s Music, and play a tune or two (or three) with a guitarist friend that is sure to be the highlight of an entertaining evening. As the Friends’ newsletter words it: “We won’t promise, but we are hoping that this gracious and generous man will give us a sampling of the jazz playing that made him famous.” Even without the music, Gabe is a treasure!

Joining Gabe at the same Authors’ Night are fellow Waialua residents George and Willa Tanabe to speak on the subject of their newest book, Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawai‘i: An Illustrated Guide. The Tanabes could fill (and, in fact, have filled) an entire evening discussing their fascinating work that resulted from researching all 90 extant Japanese Buddhist temples in the Hawaiian islands. Given that the program features two additional authors (Waimea Williams/Aloha, Mozart and Courtnie Chang/Kolohe ‘Iole), they will give an abbreviated version.

The program is free and open to the public. For more information, call (808) 637-8286.

Plant & Gardening Book Sale: March 12-19, 40% Off Select Titles

Mark your calendars and get ready to get planting! UH Press will be offering more than 30 plant and gardening titles at 40% off: online only, March 12-19 (starts and ends noon, HST), while supplies last (sale prices in red):

A Native Hawaiian Garden: How to Grow and Care for Island Plants – $26.99/$16.19
Breeding Anthuriums in Hawaii – $31.00/$18.60
Breeding Dendrobium Orchids in Hawaii – $31.00/$18.60
Ethnic Culinary Herbs: A Guide to Identification and Cultivation in Hawai‘i – $26.99/$16.19
Flowers of the Pacific Island Seashore: A Guide to the Littoral Plants of Hawai‘i, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Fiji, and Micronesia – $19.00/$11.40
A to Z of South East Asian Orchid Species – $39.00/$23.40
Hawaiian Heritage Plants: Revised Edition – $31.99/$19.19
Hawai‘i’s Ferns and Fern Allies – $25.00/$15.00
Landscape Planning in Singapore – $40.00/$24.00
Loulu: The Hawaiian Palm – $48.00/$28.80
Manual of the Flowering Plants of Hawaii, Revised Edition – $97.00/$58.20
Orders and Families of Malayan Seed Plants – $22.00/$13.20
Plants for Tropical Landscapes: A Gardener’s Guide – $41.99/$25.19
Plants in Hawaiian Culture – $31.99/$19.19
Plants and Flowers of Hawai‘i – $26.99/$16.19
Poisonous Plants of Paradise: First Aid and Medical Treatment of Injuries from Hawai‘i’s Plants – $21.99/$13.19
Polynesian Herbal Medicine – $27.00/$16.20
Rainforest Trees of Samoa: A Guide to the Common Lowland and Foothill Forest Trees of the Samoan Archipelago – $27.00/$16.20
Samoan Herbal Medicine: ‘O La‘au ma Vai Fofo o Samoa – $13.00/$7.80
Small Trees for the Tropical Landscape – $41.99/$25.19
Specialty Crops for Pacific Islands – $75.00/$45.00
The Classical Gardens of Suzhou – $20.95/$12.57
The Essential Guide to Creating a Chinese-Style Garden – $29.95/$17.97
The Ornamental Edible Garden – $24.99/$14.99
The Small Food Garden: Growing Organic Fruit and Vegetables at Home – $19.99/$11.99
The World of Bananas in Hawai‘i: Then and Now – $80.00/$48.00
Tongan Herbal Medicine – $13.00/$7.80
Trees of Hawai‘i – $14.99/$8.99
Trees of Our Garden City: A Guide to the Common Trees of Singapore – $42.00/$25.20
Tropical Exotics – $36.99/$22.19
Tropical Shrubs – $36.99/$22.19
Useful Plants of Guam: A Facsimile Edition Reprint of the Original Book Published in 1905 – $60.00/$36.00

(The Second) Five Dollar Friday Sale is March 8 / Five Books for $5 Each

Another Five Dollar Friday Sale! We can’t promise there will be a sale every Friday, but we will be announcing them regularly in the coming months via Twitter, Facebook, our blog, and our website. Here are the Five Dollar Five for Friday, March 8, 8am to 4pm (HST), while supplies last:

Japan: Why It Works, Why It Doesn’t
Light Waves: Fine Tuning the Mind
Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956
Sihanouk: Prince of Light, Prince of Darkness
The State in Myanmar