Based on a close reading of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s extant films, this book provides insights into the ways the director created narrative structures and used symbolism to construct meaning in his films. Against critics’ insistence that Ozu was indifferent to plot and unlikely to use symbols, Geist demonstrates otherwise, revealing the director’s subtle iconographic paradigms. Her incisive understanding of the historical and cultural context in which the films were conceived amplifies her analysis of the films’ structure and meaning. Ozu: A Closer Look guides the reader through Ozu’s early, silent films and his sound films made during Japan’s wars in Asia and the subsequent American Occupation, then takes up specific themes relevant to his later, better-known films. These themes include religion, gender, and the influence of traditional Japanese painting. Geist also examines the impact that Ozu’s films had on specific directors in Europe, America, and Japan. Intended for film
In Painting Architecture: Jiehua in Yuan China, 1271–1368, Leqi Yu has conducted comprehensive research on jiehua or ruled-line painting, a unique painting genre in fourteenth-century China. This genre relies on tools such as rulers to represent architectural details and structures accurately. Such technical consideration and mechanical perfection linked this painting category with the builder’s art, which led to Chinese elites’ belittlement and won Mongol patrons’ admiration. Yu suggests that painters in the Yuan dynasty made new efforts towards a unique modular system and an unsurpassable plain-drawing tradition. She argues that these two strategies made architectural paintings in the Yuan dynasty entirely different from their predecessors, as well as making the art form extremely difficult for subsequent painters to imitate.
In On Saving Face, Michael Keevak traces the Western reception of the Chinese concept of “face” during the past two hundred years, arguing that it has always been linked to nineteenth-century colonialism. “Lose face” and “save face” have become so normalized in modern European languages that most users do not even realize that they are of Chinese origin. “Face” is an extremely complex and varied notion in all East Asian cultures. It involves proper behavior and the avoidance of conflict, encompassing every aspect of one’s place in society as well as one’s relationships with other people. One can “give face,” “get face,” “fight for face,” “tear up face,” and a host of other expressions. But when it began to become known to the Western trading community in China beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was distorted and reduced to two phrases only, “lose face” and “save face,” both of which were used to suggest distinctly Western ideas of humiliation, embarrassment, honor, a
地形學被稱為地質學的最後一章,也是地理學的第一章,是探討地表的起伏、成因與人們如何利用的學門。地形學對自然地理而言,是主要的知識架構之一,提供我們系統研究地球科學與人地互動的基礎概念。地表的地形作用改變了地形,產生變遷。這是地表的自然作用,然而也對人類社會有許多的影響。當超過人們可以承擔的限度時,就形成災害,因此人們需要面對地形災害的成因與如何減少災害的損失。【關於臺灣地形研究室】成立於1992年的「臺灣地形研究室」,過去30年來致力於臺灣地景的保育工作,從概念的推廣到推動地質公園的入法,都是我們努力的方向。研究室持續提供相關政府部門地景保育研習與環境教育的課程,並協助相關國家公園、國家風景區、地質公園等調查與規劃研究。研究室每年出版兩期《地景保育通訊》,並陸續進行合作出版《Geoparks of Taiwan》(Springer)、《臺灣的國土監測報告》、《地形圖中的福爾摩沙》、《氣候變遷中的國家發展藍圖》、《臺灣的天然災害》、《臺灣的十大地理議題》等書。近年研究室除了持續沖蝕監測、高精度航空攝影等相關地形變遷研究外,並致力於推動臺灣地質公園與國際地質公園及保育運動接軌、解說員的培訓與認證、讀景運動等地景保育工作。
書系名稱:East-West Cultural Encounters in Literature & Cultural StudiesTHE TAO OF S is an engaging study of American racialization of Chinese and Asians, Asian American writing, and contemporary Chinese cultural production, stretching from the nineteenth century to the present. Sheng-mei Ma examines the work of nineteenth-century “Sinophobic” American writers, such as Bret Harte, Jack London, and Frank Norris, and twentieth-century “Sinophiliac” authors, such as John Steinbeck and Philip K. Dick, as well as the movies Crazy Rich Asians and Disney’s Mulan and a host of contemporary Chinese authors, to illuminate how cultural stereotypes have swung from fearmongering to an overcompensating exultation of everything Asian. Within this framework Ma employs the Taoist principle of yin and yang to illuminate how roles of the once-dominant American hegemony—the yang—and the once-declining Asian civilization—the yin—are now, in the twenty-first century, turned upside down as China rises to writ
In The First British Trade Expedition to China, Nicholas D. Jackson explores the pioneering British trade expedition to China launched in the late Ming period by Charles I and the Courteen Association. While utilizing the vivid and unique perspective of its commander, Captain John Weddell, this study concentrates on the fleet’s adventures in south China between Portuguese Macao and the provincial capital, Guangzhou (Canton). Tracing the obscure origins of Sino-British diplomatic and commercial relations back to the late Ming era, Jackson examines the first episodes of Sino-British interaction, exchange, and collision in the seventeenth century. His definitive narrative and original analysis constitute a groundbreaking study of early modern British initiatives and enterprise in the coastal areas of south China. The book begins by sketching the Tudor-Stuart historical background of British trade expansion in Asia before precisely reconstructing the voyages of East India Company and then
he Genera of Orchidaceae in Hong Kong is a handy reference for both amateurs and professional botanists in Asia who wish to enter the field of modern orchidology. Orchid appreciation is an art deeply rooted in Asian cultures. But in 1977, when this book was first published, orchidology as a science was new to people there. The technical vocabulary was unfamiliar and the subject matter difficult to understand. Therefore, this volume was intended as a general, easy-to-use reference book, with illustrations of the basic structure of orchids and their habit and habitat clearly described in Chapter I.The book may also be used as a self-help guide for naturalists and gardeners in Hong Kong who wish to identify an orchid new to them. In Chapter II, keys, descriptions, and illustrations are given to allow the reader to look up and gain information about individual orchid species. Chapter III provides an analysis of the composition and an interpretation of the phytogeographic significance of th