Masterworks of Asian Literature in Comparative Perspective: a Guide for Teaching by 
Subjectivity in Asian Children's Literature and Film by
Winner of the Children's Literature Association Honor Book Award This volume establishes a dialogue between East and West in children's literature scholarship. In all cultures, children's literature shows a concern to depict identity and individual development, so that character and theme pivot on questions of agency and the circumstances that frame an individual's decisions and capacities to make choices and act upon them. Such issues of selfhood fall under the heading subjectivity. Attention to the representation of subjectivity in literature enables us to consider how values are formed and changed, how emotions are cultivated, and how maturation is experienced. Because subjectivities emerge in social contexts, they vary from place to place. This book brings together essays by scholars from several Asian countries -- Japan, India, Pakistan, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Australia, Thailand, and The Philippines -- to address subjectivities in fiction and film within frameworks that include social change, multiculturalism, post-colonialism, globalization, and glocalization. Few scholars of western children's literature have a ready understanding of what subjectivity entails in children's literature and film from Asian countries, especially where Buddhist or Confucian thought remains influential. This volume will impact scholarship and pedagogy both within the countries represented and in countries with established traditions in teaching and research, offering a major contribution to the flow of ideas between different academic and educational cultures.
Light from the East: An Anthology of Asian literature ; China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and India by 
A Treasury of Asian Literature by
From the great and ancient cultures of Asia comes this fascinating collection of great prose, drama, poetry and scripture. Translated by scholars well versed in the original languages, the contents range from selections from the holy books of the Confucian, Taoist, Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic religions to a story from The Thousand and One Nights and verses from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Monkey by
Immensely popular in the Far East, combines elements of the of picaresque novel with folk epic in a mix of satire, allegory, and history in which Monkey encounters major and minor spirits, gods, demigods, demons, ogres, monsters, and fairies.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by 
Kanthapura by
... the story of how a Gandhian struggle for independence came to one small village in south India. Evoking the ethos of India's traditional folk epics, the Puranas, the novel celebrates the triumph of the human spirit--the shedding of narrow prejudices and of uniting in the common cause of the non-violent resistance to the British Raj.
The Tale of the Heike by
"With a reflection on the fleeting nature of power and glory begins The Tale of the Heike, an epic from twelfth-century Japan. Comparable in stature to The Tale of Genji, The Tale of the Heike narrates with wit, energy, and compassion the stories of such unforgettable characters as the ruthless warlord Kiyomori, who dies still burning with such rage that water poured on him boils; Hotoke, the beautiful young dancer who renounces wealth and fame to follow her conscience; Shigemori, the tyrant's righteous son, who struggles against all odds to uphold fairness and justice; and Yoshitsune, the daring commander who defeats the enemy in battle after battle, only to be condemned by his jealous, powerful brother. The Tale of the Heike is a foundation stone of Japanese culture and a major masterpiece of world literature. Lavishly illustrated and accompanied by maps, character guides, and genealogies."--Publisher.
The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature by
This extraordinary one-volume guide to the modern literatures of China, Japan, and Korea is the definitive reference work on the subject in the English language. With more than one hundred articles that show how a host of authors and literary movements have contributed to the general literary development of their respective countries, this companion is an essential starting point for the study of East Asian literatures. Comprehensive thematic essays introduce each geographical section with historical overviews and surveys of persistent themes in the literature examined, including nationalism, gender, family relations, and sexuality.Following the thematic essays are the individual entries: over forty for China, over fifty for Japan, and almost thirty for Korea, featuring everything from detailed analyses of the works of Tanizaki Jun'ichiro and Murakami Haruki, to far-ranging explorations of avant-garde fiction in China and postwar novels in Korea. Arrayed chronologically, each entry is self-contained, though extensive cross-referencing affords readers the opportunity to gain a more synoptic view of the work, author, or movement. The unrivaled opportunities for comparative analysis alone make this unique companion an indispensable reference for anyone interested in the burgeoning field of Asian literature.Although the literatures of China, Japan, and Korea are each allotted separate sections, the editors constantly kept an eye open to those writers, works, and movements that transcend national boundaries. This includes, for example, Chinese authors who lived and wrote in Japan; Japanese authors who wrote in classical Chinese; and Korean authors who write in Japanese, whether under the colonial occupation or because they are resident in Japan. The waves of modernization can be seen as reaching each of these countries in a staggered fashion, with eddies and back-flows between them then complicating the picture further. This volume provides a vivid sense of this dynamic interplay.
Ecoambiguity by
East Asian literatures are famous for celebrating the beauties of nature and depicting people as intimately connected with the natural world. But in fact, because the region has a long history of transforming and exploiting nature, much of the fiction and poetry in the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages portrays people as damaging everything from small woodlands to the entire planet. These texts seldom talk about environmental crises straightforwardly. Instead, like much creative writing on degraded ecosystems, they highlight what Karen Laura Thornber calls ecoambiguity—the complex, contradictory interactions between people and the nonhuman environment. Ecoambiguity is the first book in any language to analyze Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese literary treatments of damaged ecosystems. Thornber closely examines East Asian creative portrayals of inconsistent human attitudes, behaviors, and information concerning the environment and takes up texts by East Asians who have been translated and celebrated around the world, including Gao Xingjian, Ishimure Michiko, Jiang Rong, and Ko Un, as well as fiction and poetry by authors little known even in their homelands. Ecoambiguity addresses such environmental crises as deforesting, damming, pollution, overpopulation, species eradication, climate change, and nuclear apocalypse. This book opens new portals of inquiry in both East Asian literatures and ecocriticism (literature and environment studies), as well as in comparative and world literature.
Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics by
Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics is an essential, all-access guide to the core texts of East Asian civilization and culture. Essays address frequently read, foundational texts in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, as well as early modern fictional classics and nonfiction works of the seventeenth century. Building strong links between these writings and the critical traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, this volume shows the vital role of the classics in the shaping of Asian history and in the development of the humanities at large. Wm. Theodore de Bary focuses on texts that have survived for centuries, if not millennia, through avid questioning and contestation. Recognized as perennial reflections on life and society, these works represent diverse historical periods and cultures and include the Analects of Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, Xunxi, the Lotus Sutra, Tang poetry, the Pillow Book, The Tale of Genji, and the writings of Chikamatsu and Kaibara Ekken. Contributors explain the core and most commonly understood aspects of these works and how they operate within their traditions. They trace their reach and reinvention throughout history and their ongoing relevance in modern life. With fresh interpretations of familiar readings, these essays inspire renewed appreciation and examination. In the case of some classics open to multiple interpretations, de Bary chooses two complementary essays from different contributors. Expanding on debates concerning the challenges of teaching classics in the twenty-first century, several pieces speak to the value of Asia in the core curriculum. Indispensable for early scholarship on Asia and the evolution of global civilization, Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics helps one master the major texts of human thought.
Reading East Asian Writing by
This book presents contributions by thirteen scholars of Chinese and Japanese literature whose work is characterised by a strong interest in literary theory. They focus in particular on the various new theories that have emerged during the past two decades, uprooting traditional forms of understanding literary texts, their function, their readership and their interpretation. Often confined to discussion of a specific country or area, these theories have been criticised for their Western bias. This collection breaks through these barriers, providing an opportunity for scholars of two closely related yet often independently studied cultures to present and compare their views on specific theories of literature, to discuss the advantages and shortcomings of those theories, and to consider specific difficulties related to the East-West dimension.
That Wonderful Composite Called Author by
Did East Asian literatures lack a concept of authorship before their integration into classical modernity? Distinguishing various author functions, which can be distributed among several individuals, this edited volume covers the whole spectrum from composite to individual forms of authorship.
Oral and Literary Continuities in Modern Tibetan Literature by
This is the first book-length study to appear in English on the literary, cultural and political roots of modern Tibetan literature. While existing scholarship on modern Tibetan writing takes the 1980s as its point of “birth” and presents this period as marking a “rupture” with traditional forms of literature, this book goes beyond such an interpretation by foregrounding instead the persistence of Tibet's artistic past and oral traditions in the literary creativity of the present. While acknowledging the innovative features of modern Tibetan literary creation, it draws attention to the hitherto neglected aspects of continuity within the new. This study explores the endurance of genres, styles, concepts, techniques, symbolisms, and idioms derived from Tibet's rich and diverse oral art forms and textual traditions. It reveals how Tibetan kāvya poetics, the mgur genre, life-writing, the Gesar epic and other modes of oral and literary compositions are referenced and adapted in novel ways within modern Tibetan poetry and fiction. It also brings to prominence the complex and fertile interplay between orality and the Tibetan literary text. Embracing a multidisciplinary approach drawing on theoretical insights in western literary theory and criticism, political studies, sociology, and anthropology, this research shows that, alongside literary and oral continuities, the Tibetan nation proves to be an inevitable attribute of modern Tibetan literature.
Bodies That Remember Women's Indigenous Knowledge and Cosmopolitanism in South Asian Poetry by
An engaging and informative exploration of four women poets writing in Hindi and Urdu over the course of the twentieth century in India and Pakistan. Anantharam follows the authors and their works, as both countries undergo profound political and social transformations. The book tells of how these women forge solidarities with women from different, castes, classes, and religions through their poetry.
The Routledge Concise History of Southeast Asian Writing in English by
The Routledge Concise History of Southeast Asian Writing in English traces the development of literature in the region within its historical and cultural contexts. This volume explores creative writing in English across different genres and media, establishing connections from the colonial activity of the early modern period through to contemporary writing across Southeast Asia, focusing especially on the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. In this critical guide, Rajeev S. Patke and Philip Holden: interweave text and context through the history of creative writing in the region examine language use and variation, making use of illuminating examples from speech, poetry and fictional prose trace the impact of historical, political and cultural events engage with current debates on national consciousness, globalization, modernity and postmodernism provide useful features including a glossary, further reading section and chapter summaries. Direct and clearly written, this Concise History guides readers through key topics while presenting a unique, original synthesis of history and practice in Southeast Asian writing in English. It is the ideal starting point for students and all those seeking a better understanding of Southeast Asian literatures and cultures.
South Asian Atlantic Literature, 1970-2010 by
This book is a sustained attempt to chart and interpret a wide range of recent South Asian diasporic writing from Britain and America in specifically transatlantic terms. This body of literature has grown substantially since the 1970s, receiving not only critical acclaim but also widespread popular interest, and its favoured themes have also found expression in cinematic works. Yet scholars have largely overlooked the transatlantic development of South Asian writing over the past three decades. Maxey's book fill this gap in transatlantic studies by offering fresh readings of canonical writers and texts, while bringing to light lesser-known authors and ideas. Tracing a literary lineage for works from different genres, it identifies key trends in recent South Asian American and British Asian literature by considering the favoured formal and aesthetic modes of major writers and by relating their work to different historical developments, sexual politics, the marketplace and issues of literary value. The book thus engages with longer-established debates as well as intervening in new ways in Atlantic Studies and in such fields as postcolonial literary studies and Asian American cultural studies.Key Features:• A book-length study of recent South Asian diasporic literature in transatlantic terms• Examines a wide range of canonical and under-researched writers• Investigates key themes, the majority of which remain under-explored• Identifies major formal and aesthetic trends and positions works within their wider intellectual and commercial context
South Asian Writers in English by
Essays on South Asian writers in English from all parts of the subcontinent who share a common fascination with the English language. South Asian writing in English is thriving and worth reading and studying, either as a whole or separately as Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan or Bangladeshi literature. Discusses the fate of the English language after the British left South Asia and the exile's return to a country that has changed and the search for roots.
Writing the South Seas by
Postcolonial literature about the South Seas, or Nanyang, examines the history of Chinese migration, localization, and interethnic exchange in Southeast Asia, where Sinophone settler cultures evolved independently by adapting to their "New World" and mingling with native cultures. Writing the South Seas explains why Nanyang encounters, neglected by most literary histories, should be considered crucial to the national literatures of China and Southeast Asia.
Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature (vol. 2) by
The long-awaited, first Western-language reference guide, this work offers a wealth of information on writers, genres, literary schools and terms of the Chinese literary tradition from earliest times to the seventh century C.E. Indispensable for scholars and students of pre-modern Chinese literature, history, and thought. Part Two contains S to Xi.
Anthology of Chinese Literature by 
Chinese Literature by
Perhaps nowhere else has literature been as conscious a collective endeavor as in China, and China's survival over three thousand years may owe more to its literary traditions than to its political history. This Very Short Introduction tells the story of Chinese literature from antiquity to the present, focusing on the key role literary culture played in supporting social and political concerns. Embracing traditional Chinese understandings of literature as encompassing history and philosophy as well as poetry and poetics, storytelling, drama, and the novel, Sabina Knight discusses the philosophical foundations of literary culture as well as literature's power to address historical trauma and cultivate moral and sensual passions. From ancient historical records through the modernization and globalization of Chinese literature, Knight draws on lively examples to underscore the close relationship between ethics and aesthetics, as well as the diversity of Chinese thought. Knight also illuminates the role of elite patronage; the ways literature has served the interests of specific groups; and questions of canonization, language, nationalism, and cross-cultural understanding. The book includes Chinese characters for names, titles, and key terms.
Chinese Literature, Ancient and Classical by
Andre Levy sets out in this slim volume to provide a picture of Chinese literature of the past. He does so not in lengthy dissertations on literature, but by blending the colors of approximately 120 vivid translations with his personal insights on these works, and then framing these readings in innovative historical accounts. The result is a brilliant illustration of the four basic literary groups of traditional China: the classics, poetry, prose, and the literature of entertainment. Although Levy relates literary evolution to parallels in political and social history, he is less dependent on the political chronology of dynasties than were previous histories of Chinese literature. His generic approach, moreover, provides a greater insight into how these literary types developed and why they became the foundations of Chinese literature.
Chinese Revolution and Chinese Literature by
This volume has brought together essays to explore, analyse and interpret the revolutionary tradition in modern Chinese literature over the past century from various angles. The authors examines the bodily or carnal dimension, especially the hidden implication of sexual passion, in revolutionary literature, formulate feminist critiques of the conception of women in literary expressions of revolution, explore the function of revolution as historical discourse and in historiographical representation, and discuss the reworking of “revolutionary classics” in recent literary and artistic endeavours. Here, revolution (in history and in literature) is conceptualized neither as an unquestionably progressive and creative force for a new world, nor an absolutely pejorative concept that necessarily leads to sociopolitical turmoil and tragedy. Insofar as “postrevolutionary writings” cannot but reappropriate the revolutionary spirit as their unavoidable and inseparable traumatic kernel, studies in revolutionary literature and culture, too, go through the zigzag experience of revolution in order to scrutinize its complex implications.
The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature by
In The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, two of the world's leading sinologists, Victor H. Mair and Mark Bender, capture the breadth of China's oral-based literary heritage. This collection presents works drawn from the large body of oral literature of many of China's recognized ethnic groupsincluding the Han, Yi, Miao, Tu, Daur, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Kazakand the selections include a variety of genres. Chapters cover folk stories, songs, rituals, and drama, as well as epic traditions and professional storytelling, and feature both familiar and little-known texts, from the story of the woman warrior Hua Mulan to the love stories of urban storytellers in the Yangtze delta, the shaman rituals of the Manchu, and a trickster tale of the Daur people from the forests of the northeast. The Cannibal Grandmother of the Yi and other strange creatures and characters unsettle accepted notions of Chinese fable and literary form. Readers are introduced to antiphonal songs of the Zhuang and the Dong, who live among the fantastic limestone hills of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region; work and matchmaking songs of the mountain-dwelling She of Fujian province; and saltwater songs of the Cantonese-speaking boat people of Hong Kong. The editors feature the Mongolian epic poems of Geser Khan and Jangar; the sad tale of the Qeo family girl, from the Tu people of Gansu and Qinghai provinces; and local plays known as'rice sprouts'from Hebei province. These fascinating juxtapositions invite comparisons among cultures, styles, and genres, and expert translations preserve the individual character of each thrillingly imaginative work.
The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature by
The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature features more than fifty short essays on specific writers and literary trends from the Qing period (1895–1911) to the present. The volume opens with thematic essays on the politics and ethics of writing literary history, the formation of the canon, the relationship between language and form, the role of literary institutions and communities, the effects of censorship, the representation of the Chinese diaspora, the rise and meaning of Sinophone literature, and the role of different media in the development of literature. Subsequent essays focus on authors, their works, and the schools with which they were aligned, featuring key names, titles, and terms in English and in Chinese characters. Woven throughout are pieces on late Qing fiction, popular entertainment fiction, martial arts fiction, experimental theater, post-Mao avant-garde poetry, post–martial law fiction from Taiwan, contemporary genre fiction from China, and recent Internet literature. The volume includes essays on such authors as Liang Qichao, Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Eileen Chang, Jin Yong, Mo Yan, Wang Anyi, Gao Xingjian, and Yan Lianke. Both a teaching tool and a go-to research companion, this volume is a one-of-a-kind resource for mastering modern literature in the Chinese-speaking world.
The Columbia History of Chinese Literature by
The Columbia History of Chinese Literature is a comprehensive yet portable guide to China's vast literary traditions. Stretching from earliest times to the present, the text features original contributions by leading specialists working in all genres and periods. Chapters cover poetry, prose, fiction, and drama, and consider such contextual subjects as popular culture, the impact of religion, the role of women, and China's relationship with non-Sinitic languages and peoples. Opening with a major section on the linguistic and intellectual foundations of Chinese literature, the anthology traces the development of forms and movements over time, along with critical trends, and pays particular attention to the premodern canon.
A Concise History of Chinese Literature by
Adopting new theoretical perspectives and using updated research, this book by a leading Chinese scholar seeks to provide a coherent, panoramic description of the development of premodern Chinese literature and its major characteristics.
The Edge of Knowing by
The Edge of Knowing explores the relationship between the rhetoric of dreams and realist literary practice in modern Chinese literature from the May Fourth Era in the early twentieth century through the period just following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. The writers� attention to dreams demonstrates the multiple influences of Western psychology, utopian desire for revolutionary change, and the enduring legacy of traditional Chinese philosophy. At the same time, modern Chinese writers used their work to represent social reality for the purpose of nation-building. Recent political usage of dream rhetoric in the People�s Republic of China attests to the continuing influence of dreams on the imagination of Chinese modernity.By employing a number of critical perspectives, The Edge of Knowing will appeal to readers seeking to understand the complicated relationship between literary form and Chinese history and politics.
Experimental Chinese Literature by
In Experimental Chinese Literature Tong King Lee explores how translation, technology, and text come together in the works of contemporary Chinese authors in the creation of a material poetics.
Finding Them Gone by
"Bill Porter has been one of the most prolific translators of Chinese texts, while also developing into a travel writer with a cult following."-The New York Times "Red Pine's out-of-the-mainstream work is canny and clearheaded, and it has immeasurably enhanced Zen/Taoist literature and practice."-Kyoto Journal "Red Pine's succinct and informative notes for each poem are core samples of the cultural, political, and literary history of China." -Asian ReporterTo pay homage to China's greatest poets, renowned translator Bill Porter-who is also known by his Chinese name "Red Pine"-traveled throughout China visiting dozens of poets' graves and performing idiosyncratic rituals that featured Kentucky bourbon and reading poems aloud to the spirits.Combining travelogue, translations, history, and personal stories, this intimate and fast-paced tour of modern China celebrates inspirational landscapes and presents new translations of classical poems.An entertaining storyteller who is deeply knowledgeable about Chinese culture, both ancient and modern, Porter brings the reader into the journey-from standing at the edge of the trash pit that used to be Tu Mu's grave to sitting in Han Shan's cave where the Buddhist hermit "Butterfly Woman" serves tea.Illustrated with over one hundred photographs and two hundred poems, Finding Them Gone combines the love of travel with an irrepressible exuberance for literature.Bill Porter (a.k.a. "Red Pine") is widely recognized as one of the world's finest translators of Chinese religious and poetic texts. His best-selling books include Lao-tzu's Taoteching and The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain. He lives near Seattle, Washington"-- Provided by publisher.
Global Chinese Literature by
Presenting an array of cutting edge perspectives on modern Chinese literature in different Sinophone contexts, this volume of essays offers a wide range of critical approaches to the study of an emerging interdisciplinary field.
Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature by
Modern Chinese literature has been flourishing for over a century, with varying degrees of intensity and energy at different junctures of history and points of locale. An integral part of world literature from the moment it was born, it has been in constant dialogue with its counterparts from the rest of the world. As it has been challenged and enriched by external influences, it has contributed to the wealth of literary culture of the entire world. In terms of themes and styles, modern Chinese literature is rich and varied; from the revolutionary to the pastoral, from romanticism to feminism, from modernism to post-modernism, critical realism, psychological realism, socialist realism, and magical realism. Indeed, it encompasses a full range of ideological and aesthetic concerns. Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature presents a broad perspective on the development and history of literature in modern China. It offers a chronology, introduction, bibliography, and over 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors, literary and historical developments, trends, genres, and concepts that played a central role in the evolution of modern Chinese literature.
History of Chinese literature. With a supplement on the modern period by 
How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context by
How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context is an introduction to the golden age of Chinese poetry, spanning the earliest times through the Tang dynasty (618–907). It aims to break down barriers—between language and culture, poetry and history—that have stood in the way of teaching and learning Chinese poetry. Not only a primer in early Chinese poetry, the volume demonstrates the unique and central role of poetry in the making of Chinese culture. Each chapter focuses on a specific theme to show the interplay between poetry and the world. Readers discover the key role that poetry played in Chinese diplomacy, court politics, empire building, and institutionalized learning; as well as how poems shed light on gender and women's status, war and knight-errantry, Daoist and Buddhist traditions, and more. The chapters also show how people of different social classes used poetry as a means of gaining entry into officialdom, creating self-identity, fostering friendship, and airing grievances. The volume includes historical vignettes and anecdotes that contextualize individual poems, investigating how some featured texts subvert and challenge the grand narratives of Chinese history. Presenting poems in Chinese along with English translations and commentary, How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context unites teaching poetry with the social circumstances surrounding its creation, making it a pioneering and versatile text for the study of Chinese language, literature, history, and culture.
The Literature of Leisure and Chinese Modernity by
The Chinese essay is arguably China's most distinctive contribution to modern world literature, and the period of its greatest influence and popularity—the mid-1930s—is the central concern of this book. What Charles Laughlin terms'the literature of leisure'is a modern literary response to the cultural past that manifests itself most conspicuously in the form of short, informal essay writing (xiaopin wen). Laughlin examines the essay both as a widely practiced and influential genre of literary expression and as an important counter-discourse to the revolutionary tradition of New Literature (especially realistic fiction), often viewed as the dominant mode of literature at the time. After articulating the relationship between the premodern traditions of leisure literature and the modern essay, Laughlin treats the various essay styles representing different groups of writers. Each is characterized according to a single defining activity:'wandering'in the case of the Yu si (Threads of Conversation) group surrounding Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren;'learning'with the White Horse Lake group of Zhejiang schoolteachers like Feng Zikai and Xia Mianzun;'enjoying'in the case of Lin Yutang's Analects group;'dreaming'with the Beijing school. The concluding chapter outlines the impact of leisure literature on Chinese culture up to the present day. The Literature of Leisure and Chinese Modernity dramatizes the vast importance and unique nature of creative nonfiction prose writing in modern China. It will be eagerly read by those with an interest in twentieth-century Chinese literature, modern China, and East Asian or world literatures.
New Literature in Chinese: China and the World by
This book systematically discusses the academic connotations of the concept of “Modern Chinese Literature”, as well as its basic categories. The discipline founded upon this concept is influential both in China and throughout the world, and scholars engaged in teaching and research in this field number around ten thousand. The discipline was originally established in haste in an abnormal academic environment, and, with the passage of time, such derivative disciplines as “Contemporary Chinese Literature”, “20th Century Chinese Literature”, “the Literature of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau” and “World Chinese Literature” have appeared. This book argues that these fields should be united in the area of “New Literature in Chinese”, because they have a shared language, culture and tradition. In today's multi-polar world, where Chinese literature is so diversified, such an approach is obviously helpful.
Novel Medicine by
By examining the dynamic interplay between discourses of fiction and medicine, Novel Medicine demonstrates how fiction incorporated, created, and disseminated medical knowledge in China, beginning in the sixteenth century. Critical readings of fictional and medical texts provide a counterpoint to prevailing narratives that focus only on the “literati” aspects of the novel, showing that these texts were not merely read, but were used by a wide variety of readers for a range of purposes. The intersection of knowledge—fictional and real, elite and vernacular—illuminates the history of reading and daily life and challenges us to rethink the nature of Chinese literature.
British India and Victorian Literary Culture by
The book traces the development of British Indian literature from the early days of the nineteenth century through the Victorian period. Previously unstudied poems and essays drawn from the thriving periodical culture of British India are examined alongside novels and travel-writing by authors including Emma Roberts, Philip Meadows Taylor and Rudyard Kipling. Key events and concerns of Victorian India − the legacy of the Hastings impeachment, the Indian 'Mutiny', the sati controversy, the rise of Bengal nationalism − are re-assessed within a dual literary and political context, emphasising the engagement of British writers with canonical British literature (Scott, Byron) as well as the mythology and historiography of India and their own responses to their immediate surroundings.
The Conception of Punishment in Early Indian Literature by
Early textual source of the vast body of Dharmasastra literature of India on religion, law, and morality contain numerous statements that present or imply an undefined conception of punishment. Yet nowhere is this conception formally defined, as if knowledge of its nature and structure were generally known. In this first-ever attempt to provide a definition of the conception and to recover its ideational infrastructure, the author has drawn on these sources to reconstruct the theoretical backgrounds of its distinctive metaphysical, religious, juridical, social, and moral components. He shows that the conception is the totality of correction principles, powers, agents, processes, and operations through which acts contrary to the Universal Order are counteracted and compensated. The volume contains extensive documentation, a glossary of Sanskrit terms, a selected bibliography, and an index.
Contemporary Indian Writing in English Between Global Fiction and Transmodern Historiography by
Christoph Senft provides a set of re-readings of contemporary Indian narrative texts as decolonial and pluralistic approaches to the past and thus offers a comprehensive overview of the subcontinent's literary landscape in the 21st century.
Contemporary Women's Writing in India by
doyenne signifies the various expressions of female, feminine, and feminist aspects of contemporary literature in India, through multiple theoretical frameworks. Contemporary Women’s Writing in India is an edited collection dealing with a range of these issues set in the society of Indian culture. Indian women’s literature is still a fertile ground for critical enquiry. There are three sections in the collection: Section I deals with specific instances in history, historical constructions, and representations of gender. Section II offers a varied spectrum of feminist critical discourse on contemporary Indian women’s writing, intersecting with the frameworks of post-colonial theory, deconstruction, perspectives on race and ethnicity, and eco-feminism. Section III touches upon the notion of the woman’s body and psyche through the varied perspectives of psychoanalysis, feminism, and post-feminism. By thoroughly exploring a range of issues, Contemporary Women’s Writing promises to take the reader by the hand, and journey through the unfamiliar but refreshing landscape of women’s literature in India.
Culture and Circulation by
Culture and Circulation presents a range of essays that investigate the dialogue between the multiple literary cultures of early modern India, shedding light on processes of cultural exchange between disparate social groups.
Emerging Literatures from Northeast India by
Emerging Literatures from Northeast India is an amalgam of critical perceptions on writings emanating from the region on issues of identity construct, on hidden colonial burdens that refuse to leave and on the key role that oral traditions continue to play and will do so for some time in any study of the region. Within the ambit of'emerging'literatures, this book takes into consideration not only the new writings in English and the vernacular being generated from the region, but also the already existing works in the form of translations, thereby making such works accessible for the first time to the rest of the world. Moreover, the book, in critiquing and calling attention to the emerging literatures of the region, is also playing the larger role of providing access to and facilitating the opening up of the region through the academia.
English Heart, Hindi Heartland by
English Heart, Hindi Heartland examines Delhi's postcolonial literary world--its institutions, prizes, publishers, writers, and translators, and the cultural geographies of key neighborhoods--in light of colonial histories and the globalization of English. Rashmi Sadana places internationally recognized authors such as Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, Vikram Seth, and Aravind Adiga in the context of debates within India about the politics of language and alongside other writers, including K. Satchidanandan, Shashi Deshpande, and Geetanjali Shree. Sadana undertakes an ethnographic study of literary culture that probes the connections between place, language, and text in order to show what language comes to stand for in people's lives. In so doing, she unmasks a social discourse rife with questions of authenticity and cultural politics of inclusion and exclusion. English Heart, Hindi Heartland illustrates how the notion of what is considered to be culturally and linguistically authentic not only obscures larger questions relating to caste, religious, and gender identities, but that the authenticity discourse itself is continually in flux. In order to mediate and extract cultural capital from India's complex linguistic hierarchies, literary practitioners strategically deploy a fluid set of cultural and political distinctions that Sadana calls "literary nationality." Sadana argues that English, and the way it is positioned among the other Indian languages, does not represent a fixed pole, but rather serves to change political and literary alliances among classes and castes, often in surprising ways.
Exploring Gender in the Literature of the Indian Diaspora by
Reflecting the continuing interest in diaspora and transnationalism, this collection of critical essays is located at the intersection of gender and diaspora studies, exploring multiple ways in which literature negotiates, interprets and performs gender within established and emerging ethnic spaces. Based on current theories of diaspora, as well as feminist and queer studies, this collection focuses on close textual interpretation framed by cultural and literary theory. Targeted at both the academic as well as general reader interested in gender, diaspora as well as Indian literature, this collection is an eclectic selection of articles by established academics as well as emerging scholars from diverse backgrounds and different parts of the world. It brings together multiple approaches to the predicament of belonging and creating identities, while showcasing the range and depth of the Indian diaspora and the diversity of its literary productions.
Indian English and the Fiction of National Literature by
During the twentieth century, at the height of the independence movement and after, Indian literary writing in English was entrusted with the task of consolidating the image of a unified, seemingly caste-free, modernising India for consumption both at home and abroad. This led to a critical insistence on the proximity of the national and the literary, which in turn, led to the canonisation of certain writers and themes and the dismissal of others. Examining English anthologies of'Indian literature', as well as the establishment of the Sahitya Akademi (the national academy of letters) and the work of R. K. Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand among others, Rosemary Marangoly George exposes the painstaking efforts that went into the elaboration of a'national literature'in English for independent India even while deliberating the fundamental limitations of using a nation-centric critical framework for reading literary works.
The Indian English Novel by
The Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures series offers stimulating and accessible introductions to definitive topics and key genres and regions within the rapidly diversifying field of postcolonial literary studies in English. It is often claimed that unlike the British novel or the novel in indigenous Indian languages, Anglophone fiction in India has no genealogy of its own. Interrogating this received idea, Priyamvada Gopal shows how the English-language or Anglophone Indian novel is a heterogeneous body of fiction in which certain dominant trends and recurrent themes are, nevertheless, discernible. It is a genre that has been distinguished from its inception by a preoccupation with both history and nation as these come together to shape what scholars have termed'the idea of India'. Structured around themes such as'Gandhi and Fiction','The Bombay Novel', and'The Novel of Partition', this study traces lines of influence across significant literary works and situates individual writers and texts in their historical context. Its emergence out of the colonial encounter and nation-formation has impelled the Anglophone novel to return repeatedly to the question:'What is India?'In the most significant works of Anglophone fiction,'India'emerges not just as a theme but as a point of debate, reflection, and contestation. Writers whose works are considered in their context include Rabindranath Tagore, Mulk Raj Anand, RK Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Nayantara Sahgal, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, and Vikram Seth.
The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination by
Gautam Chakravarty explores representations of the event which has become known in the British imagination as the'Indian Mutiny'of 1857 in British popular fiction and historiography. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources including diaries, autobiographies and state papers, Chakravarty shows how narratives of the rebellion were inflected by the concerns of colonial policy and by the demands of imperial self-image. He goes on to discuss the wider context of British involvement in India from 1765 to the 1940s, and engages with constitutional debates, administrative measures, and the early nineteenth-century Anglo-Indian novel. Chakravarty approaches the mutiny from the perspectives of postcolonial theory as well as from historical and literary perspectives to show the extent to which the insurrection took hold of the popular imagination in both Britain and India. The book has a broad interdisciplinary appeal and will be of interest to scholars of English literature, British imperial history, modern Indian history and cultural studies.
Influence of English on Indian Women Writers by
This book reveals English as culture, politics, lifestyle and social change in the context of Indian women. English as a symbol of modernity in India was first accessed by men, giving them a new image of masculinity while Indian languages were ‘feminized'—seen as meant for women. Among upper-caste women, English was a vehicle for social reform and for lessening seclusion, invisibility and economic dependence. For the so-called lower castes, the language was aspirational, indicating emancipation and empowerment possibilities, and threatening upper-caste dominance. English formed its own language of gender and made women's voices stronger in regional languages, which can be seen in the flowering of women's articles, fiction, biography and letters. This book records the different ways in which women responded to the coming of English into their lives.
Limiting Secularism by
With a backdrop of religious violence and escalating regional tensions in South Asia, Priya Kumars Limiting Secularism probes the urgent topic of secularism and tolerance in Indian culture and life. Kumar explores Partition as the founding trauma of the Indian nation-state and traces the consequences of its marking off of Indian" from "Pakistani" and the positioning of Indian Muslims as strangers within the nation.Kumar unpacks the implications of the Nehruvian doctrine of tolerance-with all of its resonances of condescension and inequality-and asks whether more ethical cohabitation can replace the "arrogant compulsive tolerance" of the state and the majority. Informed by Jacques Derridas recent work on hospitality and living together Kumar argues for the emergence of an "ethics of coexistence" in Indian fiction and film. Considering narratives ranging from the cosmopolitan English novels of Rushdie and Ghosh to literature in South Asian languages as well as recent Hindi cinema Kumar demonstrates that these fictions are important resources for reimagining tolerance and coexistence. Distinctive and timely in its investigation of secularism and communalism Limiting Secularism works to envision the radical possibilities of going beyond tolerance to living well together.
New Readings in the Literature of British India, C. 1780-1947 by
The twelve contributors to this book amply demonstrate the richness, vitality and complexity of the colonial transactions between Britain and India over the last two centuries, and they do so by approaching the topic from a specific perspective: by interpreting the rubric “new readings” as broadly, creatively and productively as possible. They cover a wide range of literary responses and genres: eighteenth-century drama, the gothic novel, verse, autobiography, history, religious writing, journalism, women’s memoirs, travel writing, popular fiction, and the modernist novel. Brought together in one volume, these essays offer a small, but representative sample of the multifaceted literary and cultural traffic between Britain and India in the colonial period. In the richness and diversity of the various contributors’ strategies and interpretations, these new readings urge us to return once again to texts that we think we know, as well as to explore those that we do not, with a freshly renewed sense of their complexity, immediacy, and relevance. Reihe Studies in English Literatures - Band 9
Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel by
Early twentieth-century Indian novels often depict the harsh material conditions of life under British colonial rule. Even so, these'realist'novels are profoundly imaginative. In this study, Ulka Anjaria challenges the distinction between early twentieth-century social realism and modern-day magical realism, arguing that realism in the colony functioned as a mode of experimentation and aesthetic innovation – not merely as mimesis of the'real world'. By examining novels from the 1930s across several Indian languages, Anjaria reveals how Indian authors used realist techniques to imagine alternate worlds, to invent new subjectivities and relationships with the Indian nation and to question some of the most entrenched values of modernity. Addressing issues of colonialism, Indian nationalism, the rise of Gandhi, religion and politics, and the role of literature in society, Anjaria's careful analysis will complement graduate study and research in English literature, South Asian studies and postcolonial studies.
Text and Tradition in South India by
Essays on Telugu and South Indian literature and culture by distinguished Telugu scholar Narayana Rao.
Translating India by
The cultural universe of urban, English-speaking middle class in India shows signs of growing inclusiveness as far as English is concerned. This phenomenon manifests itself in increasing forms of bilingualism (combination of English and one Indian language) in everyday forms of speech - advertisement jingles, bilingual movies, signboards, and of course conversations. It is also evident in the startling prominence of Indian Writing in English and somewhat less visibly, but steadily rising, activity of English translation from Indian languages. Since the eighties this has led to a frenetic activity around English translation in India's academic and literary circles. Kothari makes this very current phenomenon her chief concern in Translating India. The study covers aspects such as the production, reception and marketability of English translation. Through an unusually multi-disciplinary approach, this study situates English translation in India amidst local and global debates on translation, representation and authenticity. The case of Gujarati - a case study of a relatively marginalized language - is a unique addition that demonstrates the micro-issues involved in translation and the politics of language. Rita Kothari teaches English at St. Xavier's College, Ahmedabad (Gujarat), where she runs a translation research centre on behalf of Katha. She has published widely on literary sociology, postcolonialism and translation issues. Kothari is one of the leading translators from Gujarat. Her first book (a collaboration with Suguna Ramanathan) was on English translation of Gujarati poetry (Modern Gujarati Poetry: A Selection, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 1998). Her English translation of the path-breaking Gujarati Dalit novel Angaliyat is in press (The Stepchild, Oxford University Press). She is currently working on an English translation of Gujarati short stories by women of Gujarat, a study of the nineteenth-century narratives of Gujarat, and is also engaged in a project on the Sindhi identity in India.
Untouchable Fictions by
Untouchable Fictions considers the crisis of literary realism- progressive, rural, regionalist, experimental- in order to derive a literary genealogy for the recent explosion of Dalit ("untouchable" caste) fiction. Drawing on a wide array of fiction from Premchand and Renu in Hindi to Mulk Raj Anand and V.S. Naipaul in English, Gajarawala illuminates the dark side of realist complicity: a hidden aesthetics and politics of caste. How does caste color the novel? What are its formal tendencies? What generic constraints does it produce? Untouchable Fictions juxtaposes the Dalit text, and its radical critique, with a history of progressive literary movements in South Asia. Gajarawala reads Dalit writing dialectically, doing justice to its unique and groundbreaking literary interventions while also demanding that it be read as an integral moment in the literary genealogy of the 20th and 21st century. How might we trace the origins of the rise of Dalit fiction in the critical "realism" of the Progressive Writers Association of the 1930s, or in the gaps laid bare by the peasant novel of the 1950s? And what kind of dialogue does "untouchable caste" writing with its more famous counterpart: the Anglophone fiction of the last few decades? Under Gajarawala's lens the aesthetic languages of Hindi and English are intertwined and caste becomes a central category of literary analysis. This book, grounded in the fields of postcolonial theory, South Asian literatures, and cultural studies will be important for all readers interested in the problematic relations between aesthetics and politics, between social movements and cultural production. Engaged as it is with contemporary theories of realism and the problem of aesthetics, it would also be of interest to students of English, comparative literature, contemporary Third World literature, and historians of literary movements. More specifically, as a text that considers recent developments in genre theory and South Asian fiction, it would interest scholars of the Indian and Indian Anglophone novel. Finally, this project, as an interrogation of caste politics in the cultural sphere, is an important contribution to the burgeoning field of Dalit studies.
The A to Z of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater by
"The A to Z of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater" presents a broad perspective on the development and history of literature-narrative, poetry, and drama-in modern Japan. This book offers a chronology, introduction, bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors, literary and historical developments, trends, genres, and concepts that played a central role in the evolution of modern Japanese literature.
The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature by
This history of Japanese literature provides comprehensive coverage of the premodern and modern eras in a single volume. Arranged topically in a series of short, accessible chapters for easy access and reference, it gives insight into both canonical texts and many lesser known, popular genres, from centuries-old folk literature to the detective fiction of modern times. Various period introductions provide an overview of recurrent issues that span many decades, if not centuries. It also places Japanese literature in a wider East Asian tradition of Sinitic writing and provides comprehensive coverage of women's literature as well as new popular literary forms, including manga (comic books).
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature by
Featuring choice selections from the core anthologies The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868–1945, and The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From 1945 to the Present, this collection offers a concise yet remarkably rich introduction to the fiction, poetry, drama, and essays of Japan's modern encounter with the West. Spanning a period of exceptional invention and transition, this volume is not only a critical companion to courses on Japanese literary and intellectual development but also an essential reference for scholarship on Japanese history, culture, and interactions with the East and West.The first half covers the three major styles of literary expression that informed Japanese writing and performance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: classical Japanese fiction and drama, Chinese poetry, and Western literary representation and cultural critique. Their juxtaposition brilliantly captures the social, intellectual, and political challenges shaping Japan during this period, particularly the rise of nationalism, the complex interaction between traditional and modern forces, and the encroachment of Western ideas and writing. The second half conveys the changes that have transformed Japan since the end of the Pacific War, such as the heady transition from poverty to prosperity, the friction between conflicting ideologies and political beliefs, and the growing influence of popular culture on the country's artistic and intellectual traditions. Featuring sensitive translations of works by Nagai Kafu, Natsume Soseki, Oe Kenzaburo, Kawabata Yasunari, Mishima Yukio, and many others, this anthology relates an essential portrait of Japan's dynamic modernization.
Contemporary Japanese Literature by 
Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater by
With the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan opened its doors to the West and underwent remarkable changes as it sought to become a modern nation. Accompanying the political changes that Western trade ushered in were widespread social and cultural changes. Newspapers, novels, poems, and plays from the Western world were soon adapted and translated into Japanese. The combination of the rich storytelling tradition of Japan with the realism and modernism of the West produced some of the greatest literature of the modern age. Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater presents a broad perspective on the development and history of literature_narrative, poetry, and drama_in modern Japan. This book offers a chronology, introduction, bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors, literary and historical developments, trends, genres, and concepts that played a central role in the evolution of modern Japanese literature.
Islands of Protest by
Literature is an important vehicle to further knowledge of other cultures, and English translations of Okinawan literary works have had a major impact on the field of Okinawan studies. Yet the riches of Okinawa's literature have yet to be adequately mined. Islands of Protest attempts to address this lacuna with this new selection of critically acclaimed modern and contemporary works in English.
Japanese and Western Literature by
Japanese and Western Literature delves deeply into Japanese culture to discover the concepts that similarize and differentiate Japanese and Western literary creations. Paralleling Japanese literary creations and fundamental thought with those of the West, the author draws many illuminating comparisons: for example, between the novels of Murasaki Shikibu and Marcel Proust, between the Portuguese poet Torga and the haiku master Issa, and between the picaresque novel in Japan and in the West. Contrastive studies are also made into such concepts as time, nature, love, and tragedy.This broad yet incisive survey of Japanese literarily genres and themes is more than a comparative study of literature, however; it is an attempt to grasp the core of Japanese culture by setting it against world culture. From this born a complex of new ideas and problems, and author is able to probe the extent of Western influence on Japanese fiction, poetry, and essays in the past hundred years.
Japanese and Western Literature by
Japanese and Western Literature delves deeply into Japanese culture to discover the concepts that similarize and differentiate Japanese and Western literary creations. Paralleling Japanese literary creations and fundamental thought with those of the West, the author draws many illuminating comparisons: for example, between the novels of Murasaki Shikibu and Marcel Proust, between the Portuguese poet Torga and the haiku master Issa, and between the picaresque novel in Japan and in the West. Contrastive studies are also made into such concepts as time, nature, love, and tragedy.This broad yet incisive survey of Japanese literarily genres and themes is more than a comparative study of literature, however; it is an attempt to grasp the core of Japanese culture by setting it against world culture. From this born a complex of new ideas and problems, and author is able to probe the extent of Western influence on Japanese fiction, poetry, and essays in the past hundred years.
Medieval Japanese Writers by
Essays on some of the most prominent writers of Japan's medieval period, covering the twelfth through sixteenth centuries. Includes discussion of various genres, including: short prose works called companion tales; theatrical forms; fictional tales of all varieties and poetry. During this period literacy expanded to include military clans, and cultural centers appeared complete with libraries and meeting halls, as literacy expanded to other classes.
Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature by
Literature, like food, is, in Terry Eagleton's words,'endlessly interpretable,'and food, like literature,'looks like an object but is actually a relationship.'So how much do we, and should we, read into the way food is represented in literature? Reading Food explores this and other questions in an unusual and fascinating tour of twentieth-century Japanese literature. Tomoko Aoyama analyzes a wide range of diverse writings that focus on food, eating, and cooking and considers how factors such as industrialization, urbanization, nationalism, and gender construction have affected people's relationships to food, nature, and culture, and to each other. The examples she offers are taken from novels (shosetsu) and other literary texts and include well known writers (such as Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Hayashi Fumiko, Okamoto Kanoko, Kaiko Takeshi, and Yoshimoto Banana) as well as those who are less widely known (Murai Gensai, Nagatsuka Takashi, Sumii Sue, and Numa Shozo).Food is everywhere in Japanese literature, and early chapters illustrate historical changes and variations in the treatment of food and eating. Examples are drawn from Meiji literary diaries, children's stories, peasant and proletarian literature, and women's writing before and after World War II. The author then turns to the theme of cannibalism in serious and popular novels. Key issues include ethical questions about survival, colonization, and cultural identity. The quest for gastronomic gratification is a dominant theme in'gourmet novels.'Like cannibalism, the gastronomic journey as a literary theme is deeply implicated with cultural identity. The final chapter deals specifically with contemporary novels by women, some of which celebrate the inclusiveness of eating (and writing), while others grapple with the fear of eating. Such dread or disgust can be seen as a warning against what the complacent'gourmet boom'of the 1980s and 1990s concealed: the dangers of a market economy, environmental destruction, and continuing gender biases.Reading Food in Modern Japanese Literature will tempt any reader with an interest in food, literature, and culture. Moreover, it provides appetizing hints for further savoring, digesting, and incorporating textual food.
Refining Nature in Modern Japanese Literature by
This book examines the literature of Shiga Naoya, who is highly regarded in modern Japan for his unique style and methods of describing his personal experiences and emotions. Contributing new findings to the field of scholarship on Shiga, this study focuses in particular on Shiga's nature-inspired writings and discusses how he created some vivid images of nature that became famous and still linger in Japanese people's minds. Shiga's remarkable sensitivity toward nature and the influences he received from earlier writers in Japan and abroad is examined. The complexity and depth of his understanding of nature is further revealed in his fascination with the supernatural, which also contributed to the creation of his literary style.
Sat Haruo and Modern Japanese Literature by
In Satō Haruo and Modern Japanese Literature, Charles Exley examines Satō's novels and short stories from the 1910 s through the 1930s, placing them in discursive and historical context.
Shock and Naturalization in Contemporary Japanese Literature by
This study introduces the concepts of naturalization and naturalized modernity, and uses them as tools for understanding the way modernity has been experienced and portrayed in Japanese literature since the end of the Second World War.
The Strong and the Weak in Japanese Literature by
This book uses texts from classical to modern Japanese literature to examine concepts of'respect for the strong', as a notion of an evolutionary society, and'sympathy for the weak', as a notion of a non-violent and changeless egalitarian society. The term strong refers not just to those with strength and power. It also includes other ideal attributes such as beauty, youth and goodness. Similarly, the term weak implies not only the weak and infirm, but also the disadvantaged, the indecent, the unsophisticated and those generally shunned by society. The former are associated not only with the power of life, competition, evolution, progress, development, ability, effectiveness, efficiency, individuality, the future, hope and romance, but also with violence, fighting, bullying, discrimination and sacrifice. The latter, in contrast, invoke notions of peace, egalitarianism, anti-discrimination and welfare, as well as stagnation, retreat, retrogression, degeneration and the decline of vital powers. By using these two concepts Murakami skillfully weaves a narrative that is part literary criticism, part social commentary. As such the book will be of huge interest to not only scholars and students of Japanese literature, but also those of Japanese society and culture.
Traditional Japanese Literature by
Haruo Shirane's critically acclaimed Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, contains key examples of both high and low styles of poetry, drama, prose fiction, and essays. For this abridged edition, Shirane retains substantial excerpts from such masterworks as The Tale of Genji, The Tales of the Heike, The Pillow Book, the Man'yoshu, and the Kokinshu. He preserves his comprehensive survey of secular and religious anecdotes (setsuwa) as well as classical poems with extensive commentary. He features no drama; selections from influential war epics; and notable essays on poetry, fiction, history, and religion. Texts are interwoven to bring into focus common themes, styles, and allusions while inviting comparison and debate. The result is a rich encounter with ancient and medieval Japanese culture and history. Each text and genre is enhanced by extensive introductions that provide sociopolitical and cultural context. The anthology is organized by period, genre, and topic—an instructor-friendly structure—and a comprehensive bibliography guides readers toward further study.
Anthology of Korean Literature by
This books offers a comprehensive sampling of the major genres of poetry and prose written from about A.D. 600 to the end of the nineteenth century. The book contains a dazzling array of myths and legends, essays and biographies, love poems and Zen poems, satirical tales and tales of wonder, stories of adventure and of heroism, as well as quieter works treating the farmer's works and days and the pleasures and sorrows of the simple life.
Crisis of Gender and the Nation in Korean Literature and Cinema by
Crisis of Gender and the Nation in Korean Literature and Cinema is about the changing constructs of modernity, masculinity, and gender relations and discourses in Korean literature and cinema during the crucial decades of the colonial and postcolonial era, based on close historical examination and a wide-ranging theoretical foundation that look at both western and Korean language sources. It examines Korean literary and cinematic texts from the period that spans from the1920s to the 1960s to reveal the ways in which many arrivals of modernity in Korea_through the traumatic pathways and contexts of colonialism, nation building, war, and industrialization_destabilize and set in flux the notions of gender, class, and nationhood. It probes into some of the most significant aspects of Korean culture in the earlier part of the twentieth century through an interdisciplinary inquiry that deploys methods and seminal texts from the fields of Korean Studies, Comparative Literature, Postcolonial Studies, and Film Studies. Each chapter is an exploration of a decade, organized around questions about modernity, gender, class, and the nation that are central to understanding the selected texts and their contexts. The nation of Korea has been under threat since the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945). Crisis of Gender and the Nation critically analyzes the cultural responses of the nation and its gendered subjects in crisis, represented in a selection of Korean literary and cinematic texts from the colonial period, beginning in the 1920s, to the postcolonial period, up to the 1960s, through the lens of both Western and Korean discourses of gender and postcolonial inquiries of literature and film. It delineate the connection between the construction of the nation as a unified, sovereign entity and the ideal of the new Korean masculinity, to show how Korea's Confucian patriarchal tradition and its hold on the national imagination endures over the turbulent decades under examination, by adapting to the new surroundings and social mores, even while its core assumptions and values remain unchanged in significant ways.
Early Korean Literature by
Preeminent scholar and translator David R. McCann presents an anthology of his own translations of works ranging across the major genres and authors of Korean writing—stories, legends, poems, historical vignettes, and other works—and a set of critical essays on major themes.A brief history of traditional Korean literature orients the reader to the historical context of the writings, thus bringing into focus this rich literary tradition. The anthology of translations begins with the Samguk sagi, or History of the Three Kingdoms, written in 1145, and ends with'The Story of Master Hô,'written in the late 1700s. Three exploratory essays of particular subtlety and lucidity raise interpretive and comparative issues that provide a creative, sophisticated framework for approaching the selections.
Figuring Korean Futures by
This book is the story of the emergence and development of writing for children in modern Korea. Starting in the 1920s, a narrator-adult voice began to speak directly to a child-reader. This child audience was perceived as unique because of a new concept: the child-heart, the perception that the child's body and mind were transparent and knowable, and that they rested on the threshold of culture. This privileged location enabled writers and illustrators, educators and psychologists, intellectual elite and laypersons to envision the child as a powerful antidote to the present and as an uplifting metaphor of colonial Korea's future. Reading children's periodicals against the political, educational, and psychological discourses of their time, Dafna Zur argues that the figure of the child was particularly favorable to the project of modernity and nation-building, as well as to the colonial and postcolonial projects of socialization and nationalization. She demonstrates the ways in which Korean children's literature builds on a trajectory that begins with the child as an organic part of nature, and ends, in the post-colonial era, with the child as the primary agent of control of nature. Figuring Korean Futures reveals the complex ways in which the figure of the child became a driving force of nostalgia that stood in for future aspirations for the individual, family, class, and nation.
A History of Korean Literature by
This is a comprehensive narrative history of Korean literature. It provides a wealth of information for scholars, students and lovers of literature. Combining both history and criticism the study reflects the latest scholarship and offers a systematic account of the development of all genres. Consisting of twenty-five chapters, it covers twentieth-century poetry, fiction by women and the literature of North Korea. This is a major contribution to the field and a study that will stand for many years as the primary resource for studying Korean literature.
An Introduction to Classical Korean Literature: from Hyangga to P'ansori by 
Literature and Film in Cold War South Korea by
Korean writers and filmmakers crossed literary and visual cultures in multilayered ways under Japanese colonial rule (1910--1945). Taking advantage of new modes and media that emerged in the early twentieth century, these artists sought subtle strategies for representing the realities of colonialism and global modernity. Theodore Hughes begins by unpacking the relations among literature, film, and art in Korea's colonial period, paying particular attention to the emerging proletarian movement, literary modernism, nativism, and wartime mobilization. He then demonstrates how these developments informed the efforts of post-1945 writers and filmmakers as they confronted the aftershocks of colonialism and the formation of separate regimes in North and South Korea.
Modern Korean Literature by
The sixth book in Kegan Paul International's'Korean Culture Series', this volume contains thirty stories that have been selected on the basis of historical interest and literary worth, each representing a monumental moment in the history of Korean Literature. The ten stories in the first part share the common theme of the Korean experience of the confrontation between man and woman; in some stories the relationship is portrayed as innocent and pure, in others the relationship becomes more sophisticated and complex. The ten stories in the second part all deal with old Korean or the old Korean way of life - the Korea of byegone days, which is gradually disappearing in the face of industrialization and internationalization. The third group of stories reveals modern Korea in the process of change during the period of the Japanese Occupation, the liberation from the Occupation, and the Korean War. All thirty stories may serve as social documents. From the time of ideological chaos following the independence of Korea in 1945 up to the fall of the USSR in the 1980s, modern Korean literature has been powerfully swayed by Marxist ideology one way or another. Literature has an important role to play in its portrayal of the relations between society and individual people, and it has a particularly vital social function in developing or undeveloped countries. However, the stories in this anthology are not just historical documents. They represent the peak of literary achievements by great and gifted writers in the first half of this century. It is remarkable to find so many talented writers producing so many powerful works of art in a short span of just over 50 years between 1908 and 1965. This anthology is an invitation to readers to grasp how much Korea has attained in the process of its modernization.
Questioning Minds by
Available for the first time in English, the ten short stories by modern Korean women collected here touch in one way or another on issues related to gender and kinship politics. All of the protagonists are women who face personal crises or defining moments in their lives as gender-marked beings in a Confucian, patriarchal Korean society. Their personal dreams and values have been compromised by gender expectations or their own illusions about female existence. They are compelled to ask themselves'Who am I?''Where am I going?''What are my choices?'Each story bears colorful and compelling testimony to the life of the heroine. Some of the stories celebrate the central character's breakaway from the patriarchal order; others expose sexual inequality and highlight the struggle for personal autonomy and dignity. Still others reveal the abrupt awakening to mid-life crises and the seasoned wisdom that comes with accepting the limits of old age.The stories are arranged in chronological order, from the earliest work by Korea's first modern woman writer in 1917 to stories that appeared in 1995—approximately one from each decade. Most of the writers presented are recognized literary figures, but some are lesser-known voices. The introduction presents a historical overview of traditions of modern Korean women's fiction, situating the selected writers and their stories in the larger context of Korean literature. Each story is accompanied by a biographical note on the author and a brief critical analysis. A selected bibliography is provided for further reading and research.Questioning Minds marks a departure from existing translations of Korean literature in terms of its objectives, content, and format. As such it will contribute to the growth of Korean studies, increasing the availability of material for teaching Korean literature in English, and stimulate readership of its writers beyond the confines of the peninsula.
Representations of Femininity in Contemporary South Korean Women's Literature by
This book discusses perceptions of femininity in contemporary South Korea and the extent to which fictional representations in South Korean womens fiction of the 1990s challenges the enduring association of the feminine with domesticity, docility and passivity. While existing literature addresses Korean womens legal, educational, political and employment issues, this study is the first to analyse the cultural values that define femininity in the context of the Korean cultural imagination, concentrating on literary representations of femininity.
Score One for the Dancing Girl, and Other Selections from the Kimun Ch'onghwa by
Score One for the Dancing Girl presents more than a hundred stories from an early-nineteenth-century collection of yadam stories, the Kimun ch'onghwa (“Compendium of Records of Hearsay”). Prose tales that feature historical people and places but may also include fantastical elements, the yadam stories in this volume feature ghosts and magic, courtesans and sex, and court politics. They constitute both an entertaining literary collection and a rich treasure trove of information about life in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Korea.The first volume in an ongoing series of translations of classic Korean literature by the Canadian missionary James Scarth Gale (1863–1937), Score One for the Dancing Girl includes the original literary Sinitic (hanmun) text and Gale's English translation. Both the hanmun and English are extensively annotated. Introductory essays by Ross King and Si Nae Park discuss the yadam genre, Gale's life and career, and the ways in which his background as a Christian missionary affected the translations.
Writers of the Winter Republic by
Writers of the Winter Republic emerged as the conscience of their troubled yet formative times. A question of politics lies at the heart of this book, which seeks to understand how and why a time of political oppression and censorship simultaneously expanded the practice and everyday relevance of literature. By animating the lives and works of the men who shaped this period, the book offers readers an illuminating literary, cultural, and political history of the era.
