Kai-wing Chow – författare

A cutting-edge collection exploring identity-making in East AsiaThis is an interdisciplinary study of the cultural politics of nationalism and national identities in modern East Asia. Combining theoretical insights with empirical research, it explores the cultural dimensions of nationhood and identity-making in China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The essays address issues ranging from the complex relations between popular culture and national consciousness to the representation of ethnic/racial identity and gendered discourse on nationalism. The cutting-edge research on the diverse forms of cultural preacceptance and the various ways in which this participates in the construction and projection of national and ethnic identities in East Asia illuminates several understudied issues in Asian studies, including the ambiguity of Hong Kong identity during World War II and the intricate politics of the post-war Taiwanese trial of collaboration.Addressing a wide range of theoretical and historical issues regarding cultural dimensions of nationalism and national identities all over East Asia, these essays draw insights from such recent theories as cultural studies, postcolonial theories, and archival-researched cultural anthropology. The book will be important reading for students of Asian studies as well as for serious readers interested in issues of nationalism and culture.Kai-wing Chow is Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures. Kevin Doak is Associate Professor of History. Poshek Fu is Associate Professor of History and Cinema Studies. All three teach at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Despite the importance of books and the written word in Chinese society, the history of the book in China is a topic that has been little explored. This pioneering volume of essays, written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introduces the major issues in the social and cultural history of the book in late imperial China. Informed by many insights from the rich literature on the history of the Western book, these essays investigate the relationship between the manuscript and print culture; the emergence of urban and rural publishing centers; the expanding audience for books; the development of niche markets and specialized publishing of fiction, drama, non-Han texts, and genealogies; and more.

When did China make the decisive turn from tradition to modernity? For decades, the received wisdom would have pointed to the May Fourth movement, with its titanic battles between the champions of iconoclasm and the traditionalists, and its shift to more populist forms of politics. A growing body of recent research has, however, called into question how decisive the turn was, when it happened, and what relation the resulting modernity bore to the agendas of people who might have considered themselves representatives of such an iconoclastic movement. Having thus explicitly or implicitly 'decentered' the May Fourth, such research (augmented by contributions in the present volume) leaves us with the task of accounting for the shape Chinese modernity took, as the product of dialogues and debates between, and the interplay of, a variety of actors and trends, both within and (certainly no less importantly) without the May Fourth camp.

This pathbreaking work argues that the major intellectual trend in China from the seventeenth through the early nineteenth century was Confucian ritualism, as expressed in ethics, classical learning, and discourse on lineage.Reviews"Chow has produced a work of superb scholarship, fluently written and beautifully researched. . . . One of the landmarks of the current reconstruction of the social philosophy of the Qing dynasty. . . . Chow's book is indispensable. It has illuminating analyses of many mainstream writers, institutions, and social categories in eighteenth-century China which have never previously been examined."—Canadian Journal of History"Chow's monograph moves ritual to center stage in late imperial social and intellectual history, and the author makes a powerful case for doing so. . . . Because the author understands the intellectual history of late Ming and Qing as the history of a movement, or successive movements, of fundamental social reform, he has also made an important contribution to social and political history as these were related to intellectual history."—Journal of Chinese Religion"Chow's book is an excellent contribution to recent scholarship on the intellectual history of the Confucian tradition and provides a balance for other studies that have emphasized ideas to the exclusion of symbols."—The Historian

This book is a path-breaking study of print culture in early modern China. It argues that printing with both woodblocks and movable type exerted a profound influence on Chinese society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The book examines the rise and impact of print culture from both economic and cultural perspectives.In economic terms, the central issues were the price of books and the costs of book production. Chow argues that contrary to accepted views, inexpensive books were widely available to a growing literate population. An analysis of the economic and operating advantages of woodblock printing explains why it remained the dominant technology even as the use of movable type was expanding. The cultural focus shows the impact of commercial publishing on the production of literary culture, particularly on the civil service examination. The expansion of the book market produced publicity for literary professionals whose authority came to challenge the authority of the official examiners.

Explores the shifting terrain of Confucianism in Chinese history.Imagining Boundaries explores the mapping of the intellectual tradition of Confucianism in Chinese history. The authors show that the Confucian tradition is not a neatly packaged organic whole in which the constitutive parts fall naturally into place, but rather that it displays the ruptures of all cultural constructions. Accordingly, Confucianism has been configured and reconfigured in time in response to changing intellectual and historical circumstances.This anthology addresses the constant negotiation of the boundaries of Confucianism within itself and in relation to other intellectual traditions, the fluidity of the Confucian canon, the dialogical relations between text and discourse in establishing boundaries for the Confucian tradition, and the textual and discursive strategies employed in the imagining of boundaries, which expanded or restricted the intellectual space of Confucianism.Rejecting an interpretation of Confucianism as a homogenous master-narrative and worldview, the book uses the variegated histories of Confucianism to interrogate the tradition itself, unpacking and highlighting its complexity and diversity."Imagining Boundaries is an excellent anthology. The time is long overdue to read Confucian texts as historical artifacts, yet still appreciate the philosophical complexity of them." - Matthew Levey, Birmingham-Southern College"This work is more than sound…it is on the leading edge of the best work being done in the field." - John Berthrong, author of All Under Heaven: Transforming Paradigms in Confucian-Christian Dialogues[Contributors include Kai-wing Chow; Kandice Hauf; John B. Henderson; Tze-ki Hon; Hsiung Ping-chen; Yuet Keung Lo; On-cho Ng; Michael Nylan; and Lauren Pfister]