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This book interrogates moments in the long history of East Asian writing at which turning points in the lives of texts become perceptible and assesses the transforming effect of stories, customs, and "outside" ideas on Chinese civilization over a nearly 2000-year period.

The Story of the Stone, also known as Dream of the Red Chamber, is unquestionably the most beloved and most celebrated work of prose fiction in Chinese literary history. For two and half centuries, the novel has inspired a ceaseless flow of critical interpretation ranging from the allegorical, autobiographical, and bibliographical to the poststructural, forming a particular field of study called hongxue ( red studies). Building on the novel s rich content and this vast scholarship, and using Julia Kristeva s terms on intertextuality, especially her notions that every human being is nothing more than an intersection of preexistent discourses created by human language and text, and that reality can only be seized as a reconstructed fiction that exists through its relation to previous fiction, this book presents a new understanding of the novel. Eroticism and Other Literary Conventions in Chinese Literature examines how The Story of the Stone dramatizes human experiences by responding to previous literature, particularly those openly denounced by the novel s internal narrator, the mythic stone. While there has been much discussion about human lives and emotions presented in The Story of the Stone, the mainstream humanist scholarship often reads the text as a reflection of historical figures (e.g., the author of The Story of the Stone) or constructed (but real ) persons. This book, however, argues that while the novel is centrally concerned with defining ren (human), it is equally involved in investigating wen (literature). Thus, the core tenet of The Stone lies in the intricate symbiosis between ren and wen, which gives rise to wenren (literati) and renwen (humanities), and even more to the wen that produces wenti (genre), wenhua (culture), and wenming (civilization) an evolution that had concerned the Chinese literati for centuries but was fictionalized for the first time in The Story of the Stone. How does The Story of the Stone utilize language and text to make meanings of the human lives it creates? How does The Story of the Stone exist through its relation to previous fiction? To answer these questions, this book argues that the mythic stone s harsh critiques of historical romance (yeshi), erotic fiction (fengyue bimo), and scholar-and-beauty fiction (caizi jiaren) cannot be taken at face value. Instead, they signify The Stone s anxiety of influence and allude to the nature of intertextuality. In this light, this book argues that the novel s construction of lust shows its indebtedness to erotic literature; its making of romance is created through the use of drama as reading and as performance; in the protagonist s confrontation with and final submission to social expectations, the novel wrestles with the portrayal of young literati in the scholar-and-beauty convention; and finally, following a genealogy of objects featured in literature to animate human lives, the mythic stone is created to question the convention of storytelling, not only in pre-existing fiction but also in the novel s many previous lives in manuscript versions and printed editions. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in The Story of the Stone, and for readers interested in novel, fiction, drama, and other literary genres and subgenres in Chinese literature.

Zhang Yimou is one of the most famous filmmakers of China, as well as one of the most controversial. Long the object of intense discussion and critique in China, Zhang s approach can express a highly stylized and crafted aesthetics, a documentary, daily-life feel, or a historically rich sense of tragedy and sometimes comedy. The director of some twenty feature films, Zhang also is known for other projects, including work as a cinematographer and actor, and directing the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. As a prominent member of the pioneering Fifth Generation of film directors that began working after the Maoist period, Zhang s unique aesthetics garnered global attention. Several of Zhang Yimou s films have won domestic and international awards. Red Sorghum (1987) won the Golden Bear Award, Qiuju Goes to Court (1992) and Not One Less (1999) won the Golden Lion, To Live (1994) won the Grand Prix du Jury, and The Road Home (1999) won the Jury Grand Prix. To Live was banned in China, and Zhang as well as lead actress Gong Li was prevented from making films for two years. The debate that has centered on Zhang s films began right after Red Sorghum came out, and has continued to the present day. Critics branded his work as a self-Orientalizing fantasy that used the trope of a beautiful, vulnerable woman to suggest an inferior position for Chinese culture vis-a-vis the film s Western viewers. In some films notably Red Sorghum and Hero (2002), critics found an endorsement of authoritarian politics. These post-colonial and feminist critiques were countered by those who argued that the films broke through socialist isolation, for the first time finding for Chinese film a global audience. Others argued that the films were more subtle than critics recognized: embedded within them were complex inquiries into power, display, and authority. Despite his stature among Chinese film directors, Zhang Yimou has not yet been the subject of a book-length treatment in English. Film professors who teach his films only have access to a relatively small corpus of articles and book chapters published over some twenty-five years. This book is the first attempt to remedy that situation by laying out not simply a biographical or empirical study, but a polemical argument that counters some of the critical trends in the interpretation of Zhang s films. Taking advantage of the great interest in Zhang s work in China and the long-running debate, Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture uses a wide variety of sources, mainly in Chinese and English, to construct an alternative approach to understanding the films. The study zeroes in on nine feature films and the 2008 Beijing Olympics ceremonies, developing an analysis that both recognizes the formal aesthetic features of the films, while also contextualizing them within the culture debates of contemporary China. Theoretical approaches to the study of film and culture in the West also figure prominently. While finding common themes and structures that bring together several of Zhang s films, the study does not propose a unifying theory of Zhang s work as much as it uncovers connections between the films, showing a sharp, analytical approach at work. In this first critical study of films by Zhang Yimou in English, Wendy Larson plumbs the larger field of debate to suggest thought-provoking ways of thinking about the films and their relationship to Chinese culture. Arguing that the films do not appease Westerners but rather incorporate within themselves an understanding of how culture is changing under globalization, the book interprets the films emphasis on performance under coercion, the duplicity of display, and action under constraint. It investigates themes of gazing and being gazed upon, and behavior under duress, connecting these notions with implications on power, sovereignty, justice, and Chinese modernity. Larson argues that the films do not uncritically promote nationalism as some argue, but rather that they probe the possibilities for and limitations of culture in a globally-situated China. A substantial bibliography that provides references for the overall discussion is included. Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture is an important book for film scholars and for scholars of Chinese culture and history.

What do the early days of the Trump presidency tell us about the president's style? Foregrounding this study with a background of how the president's unorthodox style led him to win the election, renowned political scientist and presidentials studies scholar Michael A. Genovese looks at the transition period and the usual 100-day standard on which presidents are judged. Genovese presents five tests to see how things have measured up, from Trump's campaign management to putting together Team Trump to the vision presented in his inaugural address and the first hundred days of the Trump presidency. In addition to looking at President Trump's leadership style and comparing it with previous presidents, the book examines the campaign promises made and whether they have been or will be fulfilled and why. Not only encapsulating this critical period, this book also looks down the road to see what potential opportunities and challenges President Trump will face and how he might address these. Written in a highly accessible manner, How Trump Governs will be a valuable read for both scholars and general readers.

In recent years, Japanese manga, anime, music, cinema, television dramas, and computer games have gained many international fans. Recognizing the global appeal of Japanese popular culture, since the early 2000s the Japanese government has promoted popular culture exports and developed a national branding strategy using the slogan Cool Japan. In 2004, the large numbers of Japanese people who visited South Korea after watching the Korean television drama Winter Sonata caught the Japanese government s attention. In 2005, the government recognized in official documents for the first time that Japanese popular culture had another potential: to increase international visitor numbers to Japan and energize the domestic tourism industry. The term used in Japan to describe this form of tourism induced by popular culture is kontentsu tsurizumu, contents tourism. Contents tourism is defined as travel behavior motivated fully or partially by narratives, characters, locations, and other creative elements of popular culture forms, including film, television dramas, manga, anime, novels, and computer games. This book presents a comprehensive theoretical and historical overview of the phenomenon of contents tourism in Japan. Government, mass media, and scholarly interest in contents tourism is relatively new, and in its modern guise contents tourism behavior is closely associated with digital technology, the Internet, and social media. However, travel inspired by contents actually has a long history going back centuries. This book traces the development of contents tourism from its roots in religious pilgrimage and the earliest forms of poetry-inspired travel through to the most recent developments in anime location hunting and augmented reality gaming. In English-language scholarship, study of pop culture tourism has often focused on particular works or media formats. These approaches remain valid in many cases, but the theories and methods of film-induced tourism or literature tourism were never easily adapted into the Japanese setting. The rich history of derivative works, parodies, and multiuse of the same contents in a media mix enriched by the highly popular formats of anime and manga led Japanese scholars to seek a different approach to analyzing the links between popular culture and tourism. Scholars and those working in creative industries settled on the concept of contents, and focused on asking how and why particular creative elements resonated with fans and how fans interests in a narrative world whether fantasy, fictional, or even largely non-fictional could inspire travel to actual places, which came to be referred to as sacred sites by fans. In the twenty-first century, with culture industries worldwide now distributing and marketing their creative contents via multiple media platforms, the concept of contents and its links to tourism are of ever-increasing relevance to countries other than Japan. This book presents a vast range of works, artists and contents that have generated sacred sites across the length and breadth of Japan. Some sets of contents trigger tourism over only a short time period, while others have been inducing tourism for decades or even centuries. The comprehensive mapping of the phenomenon, both temporally and spatially, allows all past and present examples of contents tourism to be seen within a clear context. Furthermore, the book presents a detailed theoretical framework of how relationships are formed between and among the three main players of contents tourism: fans, contents businesses and local authorities. By doing so, it illuminates why some forms of contents tourism are simply localized flashes in the pan, while others go on to become embedded within the travel culture of the nation. Contents Tourism in Japan is a groundbreaking book in an important and rapidly emerging area of scholarly, media, political and business interest. It will be of interest primarily to scholars and practitioners with a specialization in tourism and media, but also to those studying contemporary popular culture in Japan and East Asia.

In 1981 an American historian of China, Professor Charlotte Furth, travelled to Beijing to teach young Chinese scholars about America. Professor Furth's year-long adventures, captured in this lively memoir, tell of classroom encounters, bureaucratic entanglements, expat frustrations, unlikely friendships, and misunderstandings both comic and grave. Her sponsor, the Fulbright program of academic exchange, had just revived after thirty years of the Cold War, and carried with it American hopes for a new era of cooperation between China and the United States. Her students were shaped by the Communist revolution, schooled in its political disciplines, and torn between thirst to experience the outside world at last and anxiety about what lay ahead in a post-Mao future. Based on Professor Furth's detailed notes and letters home at the time, this book evokes the unique atmosphere of expectation and frustration that characterized the first years of normalization. Furth belongs to a generation of American China experts who hoped for alternatives to the reductive cold war policies that made communism not only an enemy abroad but a weapon against social democracy at home. She encountered young Chinese intellectuals who also wanted to imagine a more just society at home without abandoning their primary loyalties to culture and nation. Their search for common ground can help us understand the impact of the Mao era on society and the path Chinese elites have followed since the 1980s. It also can tell us about ourselves as Americans forced to defend our own society against friendly yet penetrating scrutiny. This book is a valuable account for specialists on Sino-American relations and on the formative years of the generation of Chinese who lead the People's Republic of China today. It is also a fascinating read for anyone who wants to explore the pleasures and perils of Chinese and American struggles to understand one another.

This study examines the diversity of narrative strategies utilized by these authors to design their "written life," not only with respect to the future (that is, to history), but rather in terms of their own present, deliberately inserting themselves into their societies.

At the turn of the eighteenth century, Spain witnessed the rise of a liberal side that directly confronted the government during the First Carlist War (1833 1839), considered by many as the first civil war. After this conflict, many liberals felt the need to continue challenging the status quo, and to that end, they explored new concepts that originated beyond the borders of the Iberian nation. In many ways, they found their answer in the philosophical movement known as Krausism. Founded in Germany by Karl Christian Krause, introduced in Spain by Ruperto Navarro Zamorano in 1841, and expanded by Juli n Sanz del R o when he published Ideal de la Humanidad para toda la vida (1871), Krausism led to several important changes, including in politics. In fact, Krausism was considered to be driving force behind the Revolution of 1868, which brought the First Republic (1873 1874). However, Krausism also had great impact in other important fields, such as education and the arts. At a time when Spain s literacy rate bordered ninety percent, the need for a major overhaul in their education was a rare topic of agreement for liberals and conservatives. One of the most important educational centers that propelled those much-needed changes was the Instituci n Libre de Ense anza (ILE), a school founded under the influence of Krausism. This center paved the way for the foundation of future institutions, such as La Junta de Amplicaci n de Estudiantes. Continuing with ILE s ideology, this council launched various important schools, among them were La Residencia de Estudiantes and La Residencia de Se oritas. These two schools provided the ideal place for the development of the Spanish avant-garde. Equally important, Krausism brought to Spain the topic of aesthetics, which was introduced as a school subject by Sanz del Rio, and further explained by the founder of ILE, Francisco Giner de los R os, when he translated the works of Krause on the topic. These various introductions allowed men and women to explore new concepts in arts and display their talents. With the ever changing definition of Modernism, many Spanish critics continue to treat Spanish Modernismo as a different entity compared with the European version. This traditional approach in Modern Peninsular Literature and Cultural Studies has allowed for a generational division of literary and artistic production in Spain. These generations, encompassing over fifty years, follow a set of rigid outlines that have isolated specific writers according to their birth year, a historical event, and certain selected themes. This mindset enabled that method to set the standard in many studies and surveys, where the avant-garde otherwise known as vanguardismo has been considered part of the so-called Silver Age. However, recent investigations encourage a departure from this approach because it has not allowed new inquiries regarding the role of movements, places, and people during those years. This book responds to this call and offers an innovative approach to looking at various developments that occurred in Spain. By historicizing the emergence and impact of Krausism on the Spanish culture, this study answers questions such as: What made Spain the perfect place for the avant-garde? And, what events paved the way for the development of these movements? This is the first study that directly links Krausism to the Spanish avant-garde. To this end, the book is presented in chronological order in efforts to highlight how Krausism evolved and affected the culture of Spain. Those changes occurred in the fields of education, politics, philosophy, literature, and arts, to name a few. The effects in these fields allowed for artists and writers to challenge the tradition, embrace new ideas, and experiment with aesthetics, which all led to the Spanish avant-garde. Furthermore, this book will spark a debate in the wider audience and serve as a springboard, as well as a guide to new ways to analyze important cultural periods in Spain. To continue with the traditional approach would mean continuing to neglect the influence of ideologies, the importance of key playmakers, and the acceptance of obsolete paradigms as a norm. Krausism and the Spanish Avant-Garde is an important book for researchers, teachers, and students, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, in the fields of cultural studies, Spanish avant-garde, philosophy, and education.

Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer (1931-2015) is one of Sweden's most important writers and one of the most influential figures in contemporary world literature. In this first book-length study of Tomas Tranströmer's work, in English, Lim Lee Ching takes on the massive task of scrutinizing all of Tranströmer's poems.

This interdisciplinary and comparative study examines the Nigerian political system as a template for a historical and contemporary global comparative review and understanding of democracy-bureaucracy relations.

This volume assembles the research of distinguished scholars from various fields and regions, and looks at how Buddhism passed from India to Central Asia and China and Korea, and from China and Korea to Japan. But crossing is not merely geographical, hence cultural and doctrinal transformations and adaptations are also examined closely.

This unprecedented volume presents important cultural works from the borders, margins, buffer zones, transitional areas, and frontiers from within and around the mega-states of China and India, subsumed within the larger geo-political constructs of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.

Taking into account the threats and opportunities the United States faces, this book identifies strategies and policies for the US that are central to the maintaining of peace and security. This is an essential book for all interested in foreign and national security policy. See http: //www.cambriapress.com/books/9781604979305.cfm for more detail

"The best books on politics offer us fresh insight into the way things are, and powerful arguments about how things ought to be. Jerome Foss's superb book accomplishes both of these ends, rescuing John Rawls's work from the dusty corners of overly abstract theorizing by emphasizing Rawls's dedication to a very practical reinvention of the American political experiment. This approach has the virtue not only of according with Rawls's mature interpretation of his work, but also of setting up a lively contrast between the constitutional republicanism of the framers and Rawls's constitutional democracy. This book is a trustworthy guide to the American constitutional tradition as well as Rawls's innovative alternative, offering a respectful treatment of the latter while providing an engaging and persuasive defense of the former." -Micah J. Watson, William Spoelhof Teacher-Scholar Chair in Political Science, Calvin College "Foss's careful study of the transformative intention of Rawls's political theory brings extraordinary insights to our academic debates, and to the real causes of our polarized, dysfunctional politics. The analysis of Rawls's pragmatism reveals its breathtaking goal to elevate progressive-liberal judges as epitomes of public reason, seeking to construct a rationalist, egalitarian-minded democracy to replace the framers' complex republicanism. Rawls has partially succeeded; we increasingly are ruled by living judicialism rather than the rule of law, under novel power wielded by federal courts, law professors, and lawyers. Foss gives Rawls a fair hearing, but insists we confront the arbitrary and utopian bases of this radical project, and the costs of elevating equality and constructed theory at the expense of liberty, self-government, and natural rights. Those who care about the fate of constitutional self-government, and whether utopian theories produce sustainable polities or political-social disorder, must confront this book." -Paul Carrese, Professor of Political Science, U.S. Air Force Academy

"This book offers new insights into the representation of madness in British literature between two landmark dates for the social, philosophical and medical history of mental deviance: 1744 and 1845. In 1744, the Vagrancy Act first mentions 'lunatics' as a specific category, which is itself a social 'symptom' of an emerging need for isolation and confinement of the insane. A more sophisticated and attentive care of the 'fool' is testified only by the 1845 Lunatic Asylums Act, which established specific processes safeguarding against the wrongful detention of patients in public and private facilities. In stressing for the first time the momentous change the notion of madness underwent between these years, this book provides a fresh and absolutely unique perspective on some of the major works connected with mental disorder. The chronological boundaries also provide the collection with a definite and unifying frame, which comprises social, cultural, legal and medical aspects of madness as an historical phenomenon. It is within this frame that the eight essays composing the body of the book discuss how madness is recounted, or even experienced, by authors such as Christopher Smart and William Cowper, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Thomas Perceval, Samuel Richardson, Charlotte Lennox, Eliza Haywood, and Alfred Tennyson."--

In recent years, Sinophone studies has introduced to a broader audience multiple ways of examining Chineseness beyond the traditional China-centered view. Whereas a Sinophone product, whether fiction or film, reflects on the close relationship between language and place, a localist agenda from the margins of China and Chineseness is brought to the fore. It is important to consider that Sinophone literature both embodies an attachment to cultural China and encompasses vital issues of ethnicity and politics with respect to local contexts. To be more precise, Sinophone literature points to constantly evolving changes and adaptations into a profound combination of Chineseness and local identities. Surprisingly, there is no scholarly monograph focusing on the literary production in Sinophone Taiwan so far, even though Taiwan is defined by Shu-mei Shih as a major site of Sinophone literature as a result of its serial and layered colonial condition. What does then Sinophone Taiwan mean? According to Shu-mei Shih, The Sinophone Taiwan, for instance, is only an aspect of Taiwan s multilingual community where aboriginal languages are also spoken, and postmartial law Taiwan cultural discourse is very much about articulating symbolic farewells to China. In other words, Sinophone Taiwan is loaded with an ambivalent attitude towards the Chinese state as well as concept of cultural China while drawing on exclusively localized experiences. This first scholarly monograph focusing on the literary and cultural geography of Taiwan through a Sinophone lens is therefore a step toward filling the gap. While reexamining the cultural and political complexities of Sinophone Taiwan, this book also recognizes the narrative of the strange as a widely adopted artistic form in highlighting Sinophone practices and experiences separated from the China-centric ideology. The study argues that the narratives of the strange in Sinophone Taiwan cross the boundaries between the living and the dead as well as the past and the present, in response to a pastiche of phantasm, Chinese diaspora, gender discourse, and transnational politics. With detailed analysis, this book brings into focus the notion of zhiguai historiography in an attempt to shed light on the Sinophone narratives of the strange and to demonstrate how the topic can help illuminate the social and political implications of literary texts beyond contemporary China. By analyzing the literary tropes of strangeness, this research deals with the critical issues of the cultural exchange between China, Taiwan, and Sinophone Malaysia. The book explores the idea of the strange narrative as a fluid, border-crossing phenomenon that is impossible to ignore in Chinese ethnic writing. In this light, the narrative of the strange refers to the storytelling wedded to the motifs of ghost haunting and/or the figurative manifestation of anomalies. In recounting diverse cultural spectacles of the strange, this book builds on such topics as the ghostly Chineseness, lingering aboriginal spirits, and eccentric identities with respect to ethnic and sexual complexities. Therefore, narratives of the strange are examined from three interrelated perspectives in this book. First, spectral and monstrous appearances can be associated either with a nostalgic attachment to the past or with an emotional resistance against historical traumas. Second, the scope of the strange can be expanded to bring into play the figuration of the ghostly/monstrous together with the magical representation of uncanniness, wonder, and fantasy. Third, strange figures can be posited as the invisible, marginalized subjects like sexual and ethnic minorities within a dominant social framework. Intriguingly, the equation can also be inverted by creative writers to make strange figures voiced and visible in a political light. Collectively, the scope of the strange includes the hauntology, the ghostly, the monstrous, the uncanny, the magical, and the fantastic. Supernatural Sinophone Taiwan and Beyond will be of interest to scholars and students in Asian studies, particularly Sinophone studies as well as Chinese literature and culture.

South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994, after about 350 years of minority governments. Nelson Mandela became the first President of a democratic or post-apartheid South Africa. The successive administrations since 1994 have pursued many programs, policies, legislative instruments and other initiatives to correct the imbalances that the apartheid system created. In particular, the focus, since 1994, has been on social and economic inclusion. Inclusive development is important for any democratic government emerging out of the past that was undemocratic and discriminatory. Redress becomes a hallmark of all that a democratic government pursues. The early years of a democratic or post-apartheid South Africa focused on national reconciliation. The second President, Thabo Mbeki, focused more on the economy a project he started when he was the first Deputy President in the Mandela administration. The third President of the democratic South Africa, Jacob Zuma, has continued with the project towards an inclusive society. In about twenty years since the dawn of democracy in South Africa the debates about the performance of the society under the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) has gained momentum. The ANC came up with many discussion documents aimed at informing policy and or ideological orientation of the state. In its national Congresses and General Councils meetings as well as in Makgotla, the ANC discusses and develops policies and frameworks which are to influence the work of the government. The analysis of the policies pursued since 1994, especially as far as inclusive development is concerned, is critical and it is the main preoccupation of this book. In addition, the book also examines the effects and implications of the policies implemented since 1994, in the context of whether South Africa is becoming or not becoming a society that was envisaged by the liberation project; an inclusive and prosperous nation. South Africa is a complex society in many respects. Many of intractable dilemmas confronting South Africa are a result of the legacy of apartheid. Apartheid created a skewed distribution of resources and opportunities. It is therefore not surprising that many challenges that the successive democratic administrations have had to deal with are structural; the structure of the economy make it more challenging to reduce poverty and inequality as well as to create jobs for the majority of South Africans. The book analyses the ramifications of the apartheid system examining the totality of apartheid colonialism in relation to the post-apartheid development experience within the context of the global distribution of power. The fundamental challenge that constrains South Africa s ability to further achieve inclusive growth and development relates to policy. Therefore, economic policy has to address the challenges of unemployment and poverty, as well as reducing inequality. Social policy has to be robust. Labor market policies should be ameliorated. More importantly, social and economic policies have to work together for socioeconomic development. To achieve this, South Africa needs a new consensus on the ideal framework or approach to its socioeconomic development. Over and above policy and or policy reforms, implementation should be improved. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, South Africa needs to reconfigure state-capital relations. Lastly, it should be more meaningful and relevant in the context of democratic South Africa to see a nation as a community that acknowledges and respects its repulsive political and economic history of deprivation through systematic restitution, reconciliation, and restructuring measures, and, more importantly, equitable sharing of resources. This is an important book for collections in African studies and international politics.

Chinese avant-garde fiction undoubtedly represents a summit in contemporary Chinese literature. Given the remarkable achievement of the genre and its revolutionary and profound impact on Chinese literature, it has attracted much attention from the English-speaking academic world. The existent scholarship on this subject, however, has some gaps which need to be filled. There are few book-length studies which provide a concentrated and in-depth analysis of Chinese avant-garde fiction as a literary genre; most studies tend to treat Chinese avant-garde fiction as a component of some grand cultural trends in the contemporary Chinese intellectual world. Such a sweeping historical approach overlooks the aesthetic and epistemological values of the fiction, preventing the researchers from investigating the thematic complexity and diversity and the artistic originality and appeal of the fiction. This book examines the works of three leading writers Su Tong, Yu Hua, and Ge Fei and their significant contributions to the genre; this is the first in-depth, comparative study on these writers. This book examines how Su Tong, Yu Hua, and Ge Fei manipulate dark moods and what Karl Jaspers termed limit-situations such as death and suffering, along with other motifs, to pursue both historicity and transcendent truth in their fiction. Setting the fiction against the backdrop of long history of Chinese culture and the development of modern Chinese literature, the book also explores the changing intellectual and literary landscape and the changing paradigms of literature in modern China. This study illuminates the patterns of history presented in the fiction of the three Chinese avant-garde writers as well as their respective views of history. The book also investigates another prominent theme in Chinese avant-garde fiction: the philosophical meditation on the human condition, human nature, and other metaphysical issues. This study also grapples with the mechanisms and devices adopted by these avant-garde writers to defamiliarize the Chineseness of their fiction. In so doing, the book attempts to answer the questions of why and how the reprise of traditional Chinese conventions and themes can be regarded as avant-garde in the Chinese context. The book also sheds light on each writer's aesthetics and the aesthetics of Chinese avant-garde fiction as a genre. Unlike most previous research on Chinese avant-garde fiction, the study focuses on the Chineseness of the fiction or its intertextuality with Chinese conventions and texts. This unique study will be a welcome addition to scholars of Chinese literature and cultural studies.

This is the first detailed study of federalism in Kenya during the 1940s and 1950s that provides important grounding and background for the understanding of the later emergence of majimbo in the independence era (1961-1963) and later.

More than two decades ago, Christos Tsiolkas s his first novel Loaded was published and he had achieved a cult following in the short-lived grunge fiction scene of Australian writing. The novel was quickly adapted as the film Head On (1998), directed by Ana Kokkinos, and starring popular young Greek actor, Alex Dimitriades; like the novel, it was well-received by critics, if not by mainstream literary and cinematic culture. For the next few years, Tsiolkas worked on Jump Cuts, an experimental collaborative autobiography, with Sasha Soldatow (1996), as well as a number of theatre productions Who s Afraid of the Working Class? (1999, co-written with Andrew Bovell, Melissa Reeves and Patricia Cornelius, and adapted to film as Blessed, also directed by Kokkinos [2009]), Thug (1998, written with Spiro Economopolous), and Elektra AD (1999) but when The Jesus Man (1999) was published, its violent depiction of depression and suicide received critical attention as offensive and unnecessary. Partly because of the reception of The Jesus Man, and partly because of the density of its subject matter, his next novel, Dead Europe (2005) took six years to write. In the interim, he published a critical study of the film The Devil s Playground (2002), and several more plays and screenplays: Viewing Blue Poles (2000), Saturn s Return (2000), Fever (2002, co-written with Bovell, Reeves and Cornelius), Dead Caucasians (2002), Non Parlo di Salo (2005, written with Economopoulous), and The Hit (2006, written with Netta Yashin). Dead Europe was a triumphant return: it won the Age Book of the Year and the Melbourne Best Writing Award in 2006. But it was the extraordinary critical and commercial success of The Slap (2008) which entirely changed Tsiolkas s personal and professional circumstances. It was the fourth-highest selling book by an Australian author in 2009, won the ALS Gold Medal, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and was Book of the Year for both the Australian Booksellers Association and the Australian Book Industry Award. The Slap was also adapted as a popular television series for the ABC in 2011, and for NBC in the United States in 2015. For the first time in his career, Tsiolkas was able to dedicate himself to writing full-time, but the attention paid to the novel also meant that Tsiolkas was now a household name no longer a cult writer, his opinions are now courted and offered in popular and political publications. Barracuda (2013) follows the social realism of The Slap, and sold similarly well, riding on the back of its extraordinary predecessor. Merciless Gods (2014), a collection of short stories, some new, some previously published, is only recently being taken up by popular critics. Tsiolkas s work has become increasingly popular and appealing to readers outside of the academy. Tsiolkas s works adopt a Modernist attitude to the concept of a utopia a negative politics which simultaneously draws attention to the insufficiency of the present, a pastoral nostalgia for the past, and a longing for the impossible future to come. This first in-depth study of his entire corpus provides an understanding of Tsiolkas s position in relation to Modernism, thereby drawing out his points about character, setting and politics, thereby helping us to think about what place his ideas about the individual and the community might have in our reading of contemporary Australia and contemporary world literature.

This study examines the earlier writings of celebrated Australian writer David Malouf, who was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award, and the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. This book investigates his earlier writings to uncover what the terms poetic , poetic imagination and inner and outer ways imply for his development as a writer. Making use of some of his correspondence, diaries, and drafts of work-in-progress, Yvonne Smith takes into fuller account the way his works relate to each other and to the circumstances in which they were written. By investigating what poetic imagination might mean across the first decades when he was finding his way into a writer s vocation, this sturdy reaps fresh insights into the nature of David Malouf's creativity its tensions, struggles and moments of breakthrough, as well as its potential limitations. Finding what he could not do (or did not want to do) shapes strongly what he wants to achieve by the mid 1980s when his published works are becoming better known. Such considerations are touched on in earlier studies, yet have been sidelined by more recent criticism informed by postcolonial perspectives, debates about myths of origins and other Australian nation-based agendas. That Malouf has played a part, not only as a writer but as a public intellectual, in what Brigid Rooney terms his consistent cultivation of nation adds to this trajectory in his literary career. However, there has been less attention to Malouf s development as a writer its transnational dimensions, for instance, as he finds his vocation through hybrid family cultures and living for many years between Australia and Europe. It is helpful that discussion is increasingly balanced by broader views of what Australian literature might encompass, of global connections in worlds within national narratives, together with consideration of notions of world literature and a fluid transnation that exceeds boundaries of the state.

Christina Stead (1902 1983) was an Australian novelist and short-story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and penetrating psychological characterizations. Stead enjoyed an international reputation in the 1930s and beyond, then went out of favor as a communist-affiliated writer, until she was rediscovered by feminist critics. Her standing is considerable, and in Australia she vies with Patrick White for the laurel of finest Australian novelist. In this book, author Michael Ackland argues that the single most important influence on Stead s life, socialism, has been seriously neglected in studies of her life and work. Ackland delves into Stead s political formation prior to her departure for London in 1928, arguing that considerable insights can be added to the known record by reviewing these years within a specifically political context, as well as by interrogating Stead s own accounts of key persons and events. He examines her novels, from Seven Poor Men of Sydney to I m Dying Laughing and The Man Who Loved Children, and focuses on Stead s conception of history, of capitalist finance, and on the significance of the key historical moments that frame her works. In tracing the trajectory of her work, Ackland illuminates how Stead was, as a well-informed Marxist critic underscored, a product of thirties. Steeped in socialist literature and steeled to withstand ideological adversity, Stead emerged at the end of the decade a strongly committed novelist, whose intellectual idealism and convictions could, as coming decades would show, long withstand privation, heartbreaks and the unwelcome lessons of history. This is an important book for collections in Australian literature, comparative literature, world literature, and women's studies.

This first book-length study on the relationship of the plays by Terrence McNally, one of America's celebrated major dramatists and award-winning playwright about gay life in New York City, to the history of gay theatre during McNally's career, which has spanned more than half a century. The book written by theatre expert John Clum examines McNally's work from the political movements of the 1960s and the history of gay men in New York during the early years of gay liberation, the age of AIDS, and the new reality of gay marriage and families. "This is an original contribution to the field. No scholar has contextualized McNally quite this way. The book impresses with its analytical rigorous yet readable style." -Matthew Roudané, Regents Professor of American Drama, Georgia State University "This is a thorough study of Terrence McNally. The context of gay theatre, gay New York, and gay history is masterfully incorporated, making this book valuable at multiple levels-literary to biographical to historical." -William W. Demastes, Alumni Professor of English, Louisiana State University

" Documenting gay Cuban-American activist Pedro Zamora's appearances onscreen, in person, and in print, Pedro Zamora, Sexuality and AIDS Education reflects on the power of mediated autobiography and testifies to the ongoing importance of working together to combat HIV/AIDS and injustice. Informed by the assessments of 1980s and 1990s AIDs activism offered by Alex Juhasz, José Esteban Muñoz, Simon Watney, Roger Hallas, Randy Shilts, Paul Monette, Marlon Riggs, and others, Pullen's study details how the good-looking Zamora became a skilled educator who excelled at reaching out to youth, especially queer youth, and people of color. Diagnosed as HIV-positive at the age of 17, Zamora learned how to be charismatically convincing, conjoining vulnerability, transparency, sincerity, warmth, and strength. His articulately 'out' role on MTV's 1994 reality show, The Real World: San Francisco, was a highlight; sadly, he died that same year, aged only 22. Kudos to Pullen for so eloquently marshaling Pedro Zamora's life, work, and love, for the present, toward the future." -Chris Holmlund, Arts and Sciences Excellence Professor of Cinema Studies, Women's Studies and French, University of Tennessee; and author of Impossible Bodies "Christopher Pullen gives Pedro Zamora's extraordinary life compelling form in this illuminating account. He urges to rethink our notions of self and identity. Our lives depend on them, and this book makes clear how very true that is." -Bill Nichols, author of Introduction to Documentary More information on the book can be found at http: //www.cambriapress.com/books/9781604979237.cfm. This book is in the Cambria Global Performing Arts Series headed by John M. Clum (Duke University).

This book develops new theory for superior strategy in complex warfare. The approach is comprehensive and practical, and it is applied to three contemporary security crises involving the United States, China, the Koreas, and Japan. Beginning with existing theories on strategy and culture, a new interpretation of "combined effects strategy" is introduced based on research and years of experience. Drawing from security theory and military doctrine, combined effects strategy is presented as a comprehensive process that subsumes the prevailing paradigm of combined arms. The entire book is written using the language of combined effects theory developed in the first chapter. Extensive use of symbols, text boxes, and charts orients the reader on combined effects in the three cases that follow. Unlike previous works, this study considers security culture as a way to understand warfare conceived and waged broadly: patterns of confrontation and cooperation, threat perception and assessment, and strategic effectiveness. Also for the first time, contemporary crises detail the interaction of strategies operating as lines of effect which when combined, create powerful synergies. A summary analysis of each case develops implications for future strategy. The concluding chapter is unique in its discussion of the influence of security culture on operational concepts, when lines of effect combine, and how security culture informs combined effects strategy, particularly for the United States. This is an important book for students, faculty, policy makers and practitioners with interests in strategy, global and US national security, defense policy, Asian regional security, Asian studies, military culture, military effectiveness, the future of warfare, and foreign policy. This book is in the Rapid Communications in Conflict and Security (RCCS) Series (General Editor: Geoffrey R.H. Burn).

Security Forces in African States: Cases and Assessment is an important, much-needed resource that helps redefine how African governments can improve the governance and capacity of their security institutions. The book is intended for students, scholars, and practitioners-both Western and African.

Plato (ca. 427 ca. 347 BCE), the preeminent Greek philosopher, has been extensively studied. A major field of Plato s comprehensive work is his political philosophy, which is multifaceted and multidimensional. The discourse on gender issues forms an integral part of it. In this context, one is surprised to notice that Plato s elaborations have been interpreted in quite contrasting ways. In some feminist discussions of classical philosophy, Plato s intellectual enterprise is evaluated as reflecting Greek male chauvinism. Such identification carries all manner of stereotyping, and this is neither enlightening nor helpful for an overall understanding of Plato s teachings and his world of ideas. In the scholarly literature, one can make the surprising discovery that Plato s contribution to the understanding of gender roles in society slips the attention of authors who specialize in this topic. Plato was neither feminist in the modern sense nor a sexist. Plato was not a liberal thinker, and he did not take the initiative to make a case for women s liberties. And yet, he elaborates amply on issues of what is subsumed under women s liberation in our time: What else would we call a philosopher who, under the conditions of Greek society in the classical age, advocated for the participation of women in sports competitions and approved of the access of women to public offices, even to political leadership? In this study, priority lies in reconstructing Plato s ideas on women s roles viewed against the zeitgeist of gender issues in Greek society of classical antiquity. The analysis shows that Plato s speculations about gender and gender issues in an ideal society were nothing short of revolutionary. What has been produced up to the present regarding Plato's positions on the agenda of gender are disparate studies whose scope falls short of the whole range of angles from which Plato himself approached the issues, and the study of gender issues in Plato has remained unsystematic so far. In this book Plato on Women, Harald Haarmann provides the first systematic analysis of Plato's positions on gender and the role of women in an ideal society. The intention is to achieve a balance in the investigation of Plato's dialogues and to fill gaps by highlighting those texts that have remained understudied, Plato's last dialogue Nomoi ("e;Laws"e;) in particular. This text, the longest of Plato's dialogues, is now considered, together with the Politeia ("e;Republic"e;), to range among the most important sources of Plato's political theory. The introduction of the Laws, which make up about one fifth of Plato's work, into the comparative study of Plato's philosophical enterprise does not only contribute to an enrichment of the whole text corpus but also provides the possibility to broaden the perspective on particular topics, women's roles in society, for one. The ways in which Plato elaborates on women's roles illustrates that, in light of his concept of true justice, gender issues become detached from the contemporary clich of "e;natural law"e; by which women's status in society was allegedly determined. In this book, a new approach to Plato's philosophical endeavor is presented, one which calls upon an internal reconstruction of historical realities and of cultural conditions during Plato's lifetime, and of its zeitgeist, at the same time avoiding judgmental stereotyping and the forceful projection of modern biased positions into antiquity. Here, Plato's mature reflections on gender equality in an ideal society are contrasted with the real mirror image of women's role in Greek society of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. The present reconstruction is intended as a contribution, on the one hand, to identify the cultural embedding of Plato's enterprise and, on the other hand, to specify the typical markers of Platonic philosophy. Readers may discover a "e;new"e; Plato. Plato on Women is a major contribution to political philosophy and gender studies as well as an important book for collections of Plato's works and scholarly literature focusing on this philosopher.