Books in the Asian Thought and Culture series

The fascinating story of Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) changing himself while trying to change the religious faith of the Chinese has been told many times. As a Jesuit, Ricci pushed Christian evangelism by claiming a theistic affinity with Confucianism and by presenting himself as a defender of Confucian orthodoxy from Buddhism.

This book guides the reader to the emerging Ecozoic Era when humans will be present upon the Earth in a mutually enhancing manner. Indeed, this book calls for an Ecozoic spirituality that is timely and much needed. It also illustrates an important direction for theology and spirituality and for deep ecumenism that is yet to be fully realized and opens more doors for such dialogue.

Language of Images is the result of a long and sustained engagement with Tantric practitioners and philosophical and exegetical texts. Due to its synthetic approach of utilizing multiple ways to read cultural artifacts, this work stands alone in its attempt to unravel the esoteric domains of Tantric practice by means of addressing the culture of visualization.

Examines Malay literature by Chinese peranakan authors in the Dutch East Indies between 1915 and 1940. In this book, the narratives, some of them based on sensational murder trials reported in the news, offer insights into women's lives and experiences and glimpses of female agency.

How and why do some places in the world become symbols of illusive paradise, and what does this mean for their residents? This book examines the origins of a Euro-American fascination with places imagined to exist outside of Modernity. It offers a lens on the politics of development, modernization, and cultural preservation.

Wandering Between Two Worlds: The Formative Years of Cao Xueqin 1715-1745 is a biographical account of the first 30 years of the life of the eighteenth-century Chinese novelist who wrote Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber).

From Beauty Fear to Beauty Fever

A Story of Ambivalent Modernization in Bangladesh and West Bengal

Marriage as Political Strategy and Cultural Expression is the first comprehensive study of Mongolian royal marriages from World Empire (1206-1279) to the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) in Asia. This study examines the Mongolian royal family¿s marriage strategies and the political implications of these royal marriages, specifically, the intermarriages between the Mongolian royal house and its allies, including the Onggirat, the Oirat, and other Mongol peoples as well as the Uighur State and Korea in Central and East Asia. This book concludes that the short lifespans of Mongol royalty after Khubilai Khan were the result of consanguineous marriage and inbreeding ¿ genetic factors that contributed to the collapse of the Mongol dynasty.

This volume engages with the work of E. Douglas Lewis, who has made major contributions to the understanding of Eastern Indonesia, ethnography, culture, and religion, as well as a neurobiologically informed anthropology.

«Nuogao ji» (Records of Nuogao) is the title of five juan of the ninth-century miscellany entitled Youyang zazu, by Duan Chengshi (c. 800-863). «Nuogao ji» is made up of anecdotes and notices that focus on the strange or supernatural. Simultaneously reminiscent of earlier zhiguai works and characteristic of Tang xiaoshuo writing, this book is an important text for the study of both change and continuity in Chinese informal narratives. This is the first complete English translation of «Nuogao ji.»

Expressionism and Its Deformation in Contemporary Chinese Theatre is the first scholarly book to explore the deep and intricate relationship between Expressionism and contemporary Chinese drama, attempting to assume the critical task of challenging these dramatists while delineating the contours of the most recent trends of Chinese theatre.

The last century of Ming rule (1368-1644) in China saw an unparalleled and short-lived loosening of the restraints of conventional Confucian morality in both art and literature. This title presents a translation of two novellas that are representative of that trend.