Books in the Asia Past & Present series

To Die and Not Decay is the only book-length study to date on early Chinese autobiographical writing and the cultural issues surrounding this particular genre. While other studies have regarded texts of the Han (206 BCE¿220 CE) and early medieval period (220¿589 CE) as antecedents for later authors, Matthew Wells focuses exclusively on earlier texts such as Ge Hong¿s (ca. 283¿343 CE) ¿Authorial Postface¿ to the Baopuzi Waipian and asks what they say about the development of subjectivity, individual identity, and historical consciousness in early China. By putting these texts in dialogue with contemporary literary criticism, Wells challenges Western approaches to autobiography that have largely dominated studies of early Chinese self narrative.

The Turn Against the Modern is a biography of the late Meiji social and cultural critic Taoka Reiun (1870-1912) who was known for his fierce attack on modernity. Reiun was convinced that the western conception of modernity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was based on an overly narrow, materialistic view of the world--one that placed far too much emphasis on commerce, profit, and utilitarianism--and he believed that this concept was rapidly emptying life of its richness, depth, and meaning. He, therefore, could not help but decry a world that had "squandered its spirit and vitality, forsaken its grandiose visions, and lost its sense of mystery, its very soul!" A careful reader of philosophy, religion, and literature, Reiun embraced a vision of history, society, and the future that marks him as an original and creative thinker whose understanding of what it means to be modern and human remains alive and vital today. This study vividly brings to life an overlooked contrarian whose writings tell us that Japan's modernization process was much more complex and controversial than the standard 'Meiji progress narrative' would have us believe. Taoka Reiun comes through in this exhaustively researched study as a powerful critic who thought capitalist materialism had robbed Japan of its soul--a much-censored opponent of slavish Westernization who insisted that modernity should spring from the creation of autonomous individuals (women as well as men). Loftus's analysis is incisive; his attention to Reiun's tumultuous personal life brings special energy to the work.