Doing fieldwork inside the PRC is an eye-opening but sometimes also deeply frustrating experience. In this volume scholars from around the world reflect on their own fieldwork practice to give practic
In this case study of the relationship between popular culture, travel, and transformation of place, Notar (anthropology, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut) revisits Dali, a remote, minority-inha
Adams (anthropology, Loyola U., Chicago) was intrigued by the death cults of the Sa'dan Toraja people, a Christian enclave in the mountains of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, a predominantly Muslin nation.
Riven by Lust explores the tale of a man accused of causing the fundamental schism in early Indian Buddhism, but not before he has sex with his mother and kills his father. In tracing this Buddhist O
Pang (cultural and religious studies, Chinese U. of Hong Kong) finds in a commercial product that was more toy than scientific instrument an apt metaphor for changes in how Chinese people saw the worl
Basing this work on his ethnographic fieldwork in mountain villages of Japan's Kii Peninsula in the late 1980s (for a doctoral thesis submitted in 1992 to the London School of Economics), Knight (Quee
"That year, quite a shocking incident occurred...." So reminisces old Hanshichi in a story from one of Japan's most beloved works of popular literature, Hanshichi torimonocho. Told through the eyes of
Japan’s monastic warriors have fared poorly in comparison to the samurai, both in terms of historical reputation and representations in popular culture. Often maligned and criticized for their involve
Although some regard China's realistic fiction of the 1930s as its primary contribution to world literature, Laughlin (Chinese language studies, Tsinghua U., Beijing) reminds us of xiaopin wen, short
El Filibusterismo (The Subversive) is the second novel by José Rizal (1861–1896), national hero of the Philippines. Like its predecessor, the better-known Noli Me Tangere, the Fili was written in Cast
On the eve of Papua New Guinea's attainment of independence from Australia, the Chief Minister, Michael Somare, referred to the new nation's cultural treasures as 'living spirits with fixed abodes'. H
In this examination of the Indonesian military image-making efforts, Katharine E. McGregor explores the formulation of nationalist history under Suharto, and shows how this effort affected the Indone
This book provides an account of the vigorous survival of an Islamic community in the strife-torn borderlands of the lower Mekong delta and its creative accommodation to the modernising reforms of th
What is globalization? How is it gendered? How does it work in Asia and the Pacific? The authors of the sixteen original and innovative essays presented here take fresh stock of globalization’s comple
Lu (comparative literature, U. of California, Davis) takes an interesting interdisciplinary approach to the study of Chinese modernity, starting from the traditions of the late nineteenth century up t
Soon after the inception of Buddhism in the sixth or fifth century B.C.E., the Buddha ordered his small band of monks to wander forth for the welfare and weal of the many, a command that initiated one
For this collection of 14 essays exploring readings of expressions of the Asian diaspora in literature and film, Ma (English, Michigan State U.) uses the term "montage" to metaphorically indicate that
Collins (classics, world religions, and Southeast Asian studies; Ohio U.) uses the democratic revolution that took place in Indonesia in 1998 as a window on the worldwide struggle for a more just econ
In light of the reconciliations between the fields of history and anthropology in recent decades, Buschmann (history, California State U., Channel Islands) writes on the colony of German New Guinea (1
