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Poet-Monks focuses on the literary and religious practices of Buddhist poet-monks in Tang-dynasty China to propose an alternative historical arc of medieval Chinese poetry. Combining large-scale quantitative analysis with close readings of important literary texts, Thomas J. Mazanec describes how Buddhist poet-monks, who first appeared in the latter half of Tang-dynasty China, asserted a bold new vision of poetry that proclaimed the union of classical verse with Buddhist practices of repetition, incantation, and meditation.Mazanec traces the historical development of the poet-monk as a distinct actor in the Chinese literary world, arguing for the importance of religious practice in medieval literature. As they witnessed the collapse of the world around them, these monks wove together the frayed threads of their traditions to establish an elite-style Chinese Buddhist poetry. Poet-Monks shows that during the transformative period of the Tang-Song transition, Buddhist monks were at the forefront of poetic innovation.

Worm-Time challenges conventional narratives of the Cold War and its end, presenting an alternative cultural history based on evolving South Korean aesthetics about enduring national division. From novels of dissent during the authoritarian era to films and webtoons in the new millennium, We Jung Yi's transmedia analyses unearth people's experiences of "wormification"--traumatic survival, deferred justice, and warped capitalist growth in the wake of the Korean War. Whether embodied as refugees, leftists, or broken families, Yi's wormified protagonists transcend their positions as displaced victims of polarized politics and unequal development. Through metamorphoses into border riders who fly over or crawl through the world's dividing lines, they reclaim postcolonial memories buried in the pursuit of modernization under US hegemony and cultivate a desire for social transformation. Connecting colonial legacies, Cold War ideologies, and neoliberal economics, Worm-Time dares us to rethink the post-WWII consensus on freedom, peace, and prosperity.

The Minjian Avant-Garde studies how experimental artists in China mixed with, brought changes to, and let themselves be transformed by minjian, the volatile and diverse public of the post-Mao era. Departing from the usual emphasis on art institutions, global markets, or artists' communities, Chang Tan proposes a new analytical framework in the theories of socially engaged art that stresses the critical agency of participants, the affective functions of objects, and the versatility of the artists in diverse sociopolitical spheres.Drawing from hitherto untapped archival materials and interviews with the artists, Tan challenges the views of Chinese artists as either dissidents or conformists to the regime and sees them as navigators and negotiators among diverse political discourses and interests. She questions the fetishization of marginalized communities among practitioners of progressive art and politics, arguing that the members of minjian are often more complex, defiant, and savvy than the elites would assume. The Minjian Avant-Garde critically assesses the rise of populism in both art and politics and show that minjian could constitute either a democratizing or a coercive force.This book was published with generous support from the George Dewey and Mary J. Krumrine Endowment.

Kyokutei Bakin's Nansō Satomi Hakkenden is one of the monuments of Japanese literature. This multigenerational samurai saga was one of the most popular and influential books of the nineteenth century and has been adapted many times into film, television, fiction, and comics.His Master's Blade, the second part of Hakkenden, begins the story of the eight Dog Warriors created from the mystic union between Princess Fuse and the dog Yatsufusa and born into eight different samurai families in fifteenth-century Japan. The first is Inuzuka Shino, orphaned descendent of proud warriors. Left with nothing save a magical sword and the bead that marks him as a Dog Warrior, young Shino escapes his evil aunt and uncle and sets out to restore his family name. Unaware of their karmic bond, Shino and the other Dog Warriors are drawn into a world of vendettas and quests, gallants, and rogues, as each strives to learn his true nature and find his place in the eight-man fraternity.