Patchwork: Seven Essays on Art and Literature presents in English translation a number of essays written by the Chinese literary scholar and novelist Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998). One of the great minds of the twentieth century, Qian, with his characteristic erudition and wit, addresses here aspects of the classical literary and artistic traditions of China. Better known, as a scholar, for his magisterial Limited Views: Essays on Ideas & Letters (Guanzhui bian) (1979-80) and, as a novelist, for his Fortress Besieged (Weicheng) (1947), these essays, first written during the...

In Modern China and the West: Translation and Cultural Mediation, the authors investigate the significant role translation plays in the act of cultural mediation. They pay attention to transnational organizations that bring about cross-cultural interactions as well as regulating authorities, in the form of both nation-states and ideologies, which dictate what, and even how, to translate. Under such circumstances, is there room for individual translators or mediators to exercise their free will? To what extent are they allowed to do so? The authors see translation as a "shaping force."...

Did East Asian literatures, ranging from bronze inscriptions to zazen treatises, lack a concept of authorship before their integration into classical modernity? The answer depends on how one defines the term author. Starting out with a critical review of recent theories of authorship, this edited volume distinguishes various author functions, which can be distributed among several individuals and need not be integrated into a single source of textual meaning. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean literary traditions cover the whole spectrum from 'weak' composite to 'strong' individual forms...

In Representing Empire Ying Xiong examines Japanese-language colonial literature written by Japanese expatriate writers in Taiwan and Manchuria. Drawing on a wide range of Japanese and Chinese sources, Representing Empire reveals not only a nuanced picture of Japanese literary terrain but also the interplay between imperialism, nationalism, and Pan-Asianism in the colonies. While the existing literature on Japanese nationalism has largely remained within the confines of national history, by using colonial literature as an example, Ying Xiong demonstrates that transnational...

It has long been known that the modern Chinese language inherited numerous terms from Japanese and that Japanese coined many of those terms in the last decades of the 19th century. These seven essays address the actual processes by which a discreet number of terms came into being, how they outdistanced competitors, and the persons and texts involved in the process. Rather than relying on received tropes of translation heritage, these essays delve much deeper into the particularities of their cases. They set a standard for subsequent scholarship.

Cross-cultural Studies: China and the World, A Festschrift in Honor of Professor Zhang Longxi collects twelve essays by eminent scholars across several disciplines in Chinese and cross-cultural studies to celebrate Zhang Longxi's scholarly achievements. As a leading scholar from post-Cultural Revolution China, Zhang Longxi's academic career has set a milestone in cross-cultural studies between China and the world. With an introduction by Qian Suoqiao, and a prologue by Zhang Longxi himself, the volume features masterly essays by Ronald Egan, Torbjorn Loden, Haun Saussy, Lothar von...

In Good Company answers a question that has confounded Christian theologians: What is the nature of the body that will enjoy resurrection at the end of time? In this exciting work of comparative theology, Bede Benjamin Bidlack derives a theory of the body from the French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, by putting him in dialogue with the Song Dynasty Daoist Xiao Yingsou. In addition to its contribution to comparative theology, In Good Company offers the first translation of the preface of Xiao's commentary on the Duren jing in a Western language, as well as a careful...

In Representing Empire Ying Xiong examines Japanese-language colonial literature written by Japanese expatriate writers in Taiwan and Manchuria. Drawing on a wide range of Japanese and Chinese sources, Representing Empire reveals not only a nuanced picture of Japanese literary terrain but also the interplay between imperialism, nationalism, and Pan-Asianism in the colonies. While the existing literature on Japanese nationalism has largely remained within the confines of national history, by using colonial literature as an example, Ying Xiong demonstrates that transnational...

This book offers a thorough and thought-provoking study on the impact of Japanese colonialism on Taiwan’s literary production from the 1920s to 1945. It redresses the previous nationalist and Japan-centric interpretations of works from Taiwan’s Japanese period, and eschews a colonizer/colonized dichotomy. Through a highly sensitive textual analysis and contextual reading, this chronologically structured book paints a multi-layered picture of colonial Taiwan’s literature, particularly its multi-styled articulations of identities and diverse visions of modernity. By engaging critically...

In A Sense of the City, Gala Maria Follaco examines Nagai Kafū’s (1879-1959) literary construction of urban spatialities from late Meiji through the early Shōwa period. She argues that Kafū’s urban critique was based on his awareness of the cultural sedimentation of the cityscape and of the complex relationship that it bore with the historical framework of modern Japan. With the overall aim to define Kafū’s position within pre-war Japanese literature, Follaco touches upon key issues such as memory, class difference, and language ideologies; draws connections between his sojourn...