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Author: Haun Saussy
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173728
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316
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Book Description
"China" and "the West," "us" and "them," the "subject" and the "non-subject"--these and other dualisms furnish China watchers, both inside and outside China, with a pervasive, ready-made set of definitions immune to empirical disproof. But what does this language of essential difference accomplish? The essays in this book are an attempt to cut short the recitation of differences and to answer this question. In six interpretive studies of China, the author examines the ways in which the networks of assumption and consensus that make communication possible within a discipline affect collective thinking about the object of study. Among other subjects, these essays offer a historical and historiographical introduction to the problem of comparison and deal with translation, religious proselytization, semiotics, linguistics, cultural bilingualism, writing systems, the career of postmodernism in China, and the role of China as an imaginary model for postmodernity in the West. Against the reigning simplifications, these essays seek to restore the interpretation of China to the complexity and impurity of the historical situations in which it is always caught. The chief goal of the essays in this book is not to expose errors in interpreting China but to use these misunderstandings as a basis for devising better methodologies for comparative studies.
Author: James Robson
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684174899
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 540
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Book Description
"Throughout Chinese history mountains have been integral components of the religious landscape. They have been considered divine or numinous sites, the abodes of deities, the preferred locations for temples and monasteries, and destinations for pilgrims. Early in Chinese history a set of five mountains were co-opted into the imperial cult and declared sacred peaks, yue, demarcating and protecting the boundaries of the Chinese imperium. The Southern Sacred Peak, or Nanyue, is of interest to scholars not the least because the title has been awarded to several different mountains over the years. The dynamic nature of Nanyue raises a significant theoretical issue of the mobility of sacred space and the nature of the struggles involved in such moves. Another facet of Nanyue is the multiple meanings assigned to this place: political, religious, and cultural. Of particular interest is the negotiation of this space by Daoists and Buddhists. The history of their interaction leads to questions about the nature of the divisions between these two religious traditions. James Robson’s analysis of these topics demonstrates the value of local studies and the emerging field of Buddho–Daoist studies in research on Chinese religion."
Author: Suzanne Ogden
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 168417368X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 450
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Book Description
"Since 1979 China’s leaders have introduced economic and political reforms that have lessened the state’s hold over the lives of ordinary citizens. By examining the growth in individual rights, the public sphere, democratic processes, and pluralization, the author seeks to answer questions concerning the relevance of liberal democratic ideas for China and the relationship between a democratic political culture and a democratic political system. The author also looks at the contradictory impulses and negative consequences for democracy generated by economic liberalism. Unresolved issues concerning the relationships among culture, democracy, and socioeconomic development are at the heart of the analysis. Nonideological criteria are used to assess the success of the Chinese approach to building a fair, just, and decent society."
Author: Haun Saussy
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173728
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316
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Book Description
"China" and "the West," "us" and "them," the "subject" and the "non-subject"--these and other dualisms furnish China watchers, both inside and outside China, with a pervasive, ready-made set of definitions immune to empirical disproof. But what does this language of essential difference accomplish? The essays in this book are an attempt to cut short the recitation of differences and to answer this question. In six interpretive studies of China, the author examines the ways in which the networks of assumption and consensus that make communication possible within a discipline affect collective thinking about the object of study. Among other subjects, these essays offer a historical and historiographical introduction to the problem of comparison and deal with translation, religious proselytization, semiotics, linguistics, cultural bilingualism, writing systems, the career of postmodernism in China, and the role of China as an imaginary model for postmodernity in the West. Against the reigning simplifications, these essays seek to restore the interpretation of China to the complexity and impurity of the historical situations in which it is always caught. The chief goal of the essays in this book is not to expose errors in interpreting China but to use these misunderstandings as a basis for devising better methodologies for comparative studies.
Author: Paul Jakov Smith
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173817
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 549
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Book Description
This volume seeks to study the connections between two well-studied epochs in Chinese history: the mid-imperial era of the Tang and Song (ca. 800-1270) and the late imperial era of the late Ming and Qing (1550-1900). Both eras are seen as periods of explosive change, particularly in economic activity, characterized by the emergence of new forms of social organization and a dramatic expansion in knowledge and culture. The task of establishing links between these two periods has been impeded by a lack of knowledge of the intervening Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). This historiographical "black hole" has artificially interrupted the narrative of Chinese history and bifurcated it into two distinct epochs. This book aims to restore continuity to that historical narrative by filling the gap between mid-imperial and late imperial China. The contributors argue that the Song-Yuan-Ming transition (early twelfth through the late fifteenth century) constitutes a distinct historical period of transition and not one of interruption and devolution. They trace this transition by investigating such subjects as contemporary impressions of the period, the role of the Mongols in intellectual life, the economy of Jiangnan, urban growth, neo-Confucianism and local society, commercial publishing, comic drama, and medical learning.
Author: See Heng Teow
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173191
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 333
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Book Description
Most existing scholarship on Japan’s cultural policy toward modern China reflects the paradigm of cultural imperialism. In contrast, this study demonstrates that Japan—while motivated by pragmatic interests, international cultural rivalries, ethnocentrism, moralism, and idealism—was mindful of Chinese opinion and sought the cooperation of the Chinese government. Japanese policy stressed cultural communication and inclusiveness rather than cultural domination and exclusiveness and was part of Japan’s search for an East Asian cultural order led by Japan. China, however, was not a passive recipient and actively sought to redirect this policy to serve its national interests and aspirations. The author argues that it is time to move away from the framework of cultural imperialism toward one that recognizes the importance of cultural autonomy, internationalism, and transculturation.
Author: David Schaberg
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173612
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 530
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Book Description
In this comprehensive study of the rhetoric, narrative patterns, and intellectual content of the Zuozhuan and Guoyu, David Schaberg reads these two collections of historical anecdotes as traces of a historiographical practice that flourished around the fourth century BCE among the followers of Confucius. He contends that the coherent view of early China found in these texts is an effect of their origins and the habits of reading they impose. Rather than being totally accurate accounts, they represent the efforts of a group of officials and ministers to argue for a moralizing interpretation of the events of early Chinese history and for their own value as skilled interpreters of events and advisers to the rulers of the day.
Author: Aviad E. Raz
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173736
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
Our work life is filled with emotions. How we feel on the job, what we say we feel, and what feelings we display—all these are important aspects of organizational behavior and workplace culture. Rather than focusing on the psychology of personal emotions at work, however, this study concentrates on emotions as role requirements, on workplace emotions that combine the private with the public, the personal with the social, and the authentic with the masked. In this cross-cultural study of "emotion management," the author argues that even though the goals of normative control in factories, offices, and shops may be similar across cultures, organizational structure and the surrounding culture affect how that control is discussed and conceived.
Author: Timothy S. George
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173477
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
Nearly forty years after the outbreak of the “Minamata Disease,” it remains one of the most horrific examples of environmental poisoning. Based on primary documents and interviews, this book describes three rounds of responses to this incidence of mercury poisoning, focusing on the efforts of its victims and their supporters, particularly the activities of grassroots movements and popular campaigns, to secure redress. Timothy S. George argues that Japan’s postwar democracy is ad hoc, fragile, and dependent on definition through citizen action and that the redress effort is exemplary of the great changes in the second and third postwar decades that redefined democracy in Japan.
Author: Ezra F. Vogel
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173760
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
A collaborative effort by scholars from the United States, China, and Japan, this volume focuses on the period 1972–1989, during which all three countries, brought together by a shared geopolitical strategy, established mutual relations with one another despite differences in their histories, values, and perceptions of their own national interest. Although each initially conceived of its political and security relations with the others in bilateral terms, the three in fact came to form an economic and political triangle during the 1970s and 1980s. But this triangle is a strange one whose dynamics are constantly changing. Its corners (the three countries) and its sides (the three bilateral relationships) are unequal, while its overall nature (the capacity of the three to work together) has varied considerably as the economic and strategic positions of the three have changed and post–Cold War tensions and uncertainties have emerged.
Author: Haruo Iguchi
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 168417354X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380
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Book Description
"Ayukawa Yoshisuke (1880–1967) was the founder of the Nissan conglomerate and the leader of the Manchuria Industrial Development Corporation, one of the linchpins of Imperial Japan’s efforts to economically exploit its overseas dependencies. Despite his close association with the Japanese government from the 1920s to the 1950s, Ayukawa was a proponent of free trade and global economic interdependence. He sought to lessen state control of Japan’s economy by trying to attract foreign—especially American—capital and technology in the years surrounding World War II. In the postwar era in particular, Ayukawa actively pushed the growth of small- and medium-sized firms, yet his efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. In Unfinished Business, through exploring the reasons for Ayukawa’s failure, Haruo Iguchi illuminates many of the economic problems of today’s Japan."
