Books in the Global Asias series

Foreign Accents sets forth a historical poetics of verse by writers of Chinese descent in the U.S. from the early twentieth century to the present. With readings of works by Ezra Pound, Li-young Lee, Marilyn Chin, Ha Jin, and John Yau, this study charts the dimensions of Asian American verse as an evolving and contested counterpoetic formation.

Through an examination of England's obsession with Chinese things throughout the long eighteenth century, this book argues that chinoiserie in literature and material culture played a central role in shaping emergent conceptions of taste and subjectivity.

Lin Shu, Inc. explores the dynamic interactions between literary translation, commercial publishing, and the politics of "traditional" Chinese culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as it traces how Lin Shu and a team of translators brought classic Western novels by Melville, Stowe, Dickens, and others to China.

The book looks at translation from many angles: it explores how translations change the languages in which they occur, how works introduced from other languages become part of the consciousness of native speakers, what strategies translators must use to secure acceptance for foreign works, and the history of translation in China.

Nation and Aesthetics shows curious connections between nationalism and aesthetics through examining various fields such as art, language, and religion. This connection is not accidental, but inherent. Nation connects capitalism and the state, thus creating the problematic modern social formation of capital-nation-state.

Through an examination of England's obsession with Chinese things throughout the long eighteenth century, A Taste for China argues that chinoiserie in literature and material culture played a central role in shaping emergent conceptions of taste and subjectivity.