Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2023 -

This reviewer had the opportunity to meet Ma Yuan in 2001, when he had just started his academic career in Shanghai. Now, 20 years later, the prolific writer has established a second wave in his career as a novelist, so this first book-length study of him in the English language is extremely welcome. But though Gatherer's nuanced analysis of Ma Yuan's intriguing metafictional narratives and self-reflexive devices is impressive, the absence of biographical information is disappointing. Gatherer (Chinese, Univ. of Queensland, Australia) offers close readings of Ma Yuan's defining works of the avant-garde, Fabrication (1986) and The Allure of the Gangdise Mountains (1985), in addition to less-known works published before the author had forged his unique "Ma Yuan style" (p. 79) of metafiction/avant-gardism/postmodernism. The second half of the book comprises readings of the novels Ma Yuan has written since 2012. Gatherer argues that throughout his career, Ma Yuan has employed two distinct narrative modes, metafiction and realism, but has used them in symbiosis--unlike contemporary writers Yu Hua and Ge Fei, who had a distinct avant-garde period followed by a shift toward a realist period.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.

This fascinating work of linguistic anthropology is based on both the author's fieldwork in the Philippines and his meticulous and wide-ranging research. Kelly (Univ. of New England, Australia) treats the endangered Eskayan language more like a multifaceted, animate character in a historical narrative than a quiescent subject of stuffy academic scrutiny. He also takes care to center Eskaya voices in his telling of the story of this unique language, still used by an estimated 550 people on the island of Bohol in the Visayan region of the Philippines. Kelly immediately makes clear that Eskayan serves triple roles: it is a living language; a subversive, anticolonial disrupter; and a unifying force for the Indigenous population of Bohol. Kelly provides ample context in his exploration of the origins and current status of Eskayan, and although the language itself is relatively obscure, this engaging monograph is likely to be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, history, political science, linguistics, and Southeast Asian studies. Photographs, illustrations, and maps add a visual dimension to the discussion.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

China's history, language, and civilization have been profoundly attested to and corrected since the first recognition, in 1899, of oracle bone inscriptions (OBI) dating back to the late Shang dynasty (c. 1250-1045 BCE). One can infer that there must have been a long period leading up to the formation of OBI and probably different origins as well because the OBI are rather consistent in form, adequate in terms of parts of speech, and considerably abundant in lexicon. Dematte (RISD) developed her 2010 paper of the same title into the current book. Drawing from theoretical, archaeological, and textual evidence, she approaches her subject from anthropological and historical perspectives, inevitably bringing the discussion and debate over the origins of Chinese writing to a greater audience, both in China and overseas. Dematte argues that before the Taosi graphs, the Dawenkou-Liangzhu-Shijiahe tradition, whose inscribed graphs are connected with rituals in the late Neolithic (3000-2300 BCE), represents the beginning thread of Chinese writing. Illustrated with more than 100 figures and several hundred graphs, this volume offers a moderately comprehensive investigation of the prehistoric origins of Chinese writing. The author also draws theoretical support from works on, for example, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Mesoamerican records as well as works on Chinese.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Li (Harvard) employs everything from literary classics to anecdotes in analyzing the preoccupation of late imperial Chinese elites with valued objects ranging from love tokens to antique collectables. In chapter 1, Li contrasts the crassly commodified view of human beings in the Ming novel Plum in a Golden Vase with the way the Qing novel Dream of Red Mansions often anthropomorphizes treasured things, such as fallen blossoms that seemingly deserve a ritualistic burial. Chapter 2 explores how things can flesh out the dichotomy of vulgarity versus elegance through Dream of Red Mansions's portrayal of the rustic Grannie Liu's interactions with urbane youths in the Jia family's Grand View Garden. Chapter 3 discusses how people can distinguish between genuine and fake things of apparent value through such vehicles as vignettes within selected operatic texts. Among other insights, the last chapter reveals how precious things lost during the overthrow of a dynasty may be surprisingly rediscovered in a later era. An epilogue, endnotes, and a bibliography round out this erudite monograph with conveniently interspersed Chinese characters.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Taken together the 35 essays collected in this book constitute a historically and thematically broad study of Korean literature, probably the most extensive exploration of current issues available in English. The first three parts--"Premodern and Early Modern Korean Literature," "Modernity and the Colonial Period," and "Liberation and Contemporary Korean Literature"--offer insights into such subjects as print culture, gender dynamics, transgressions, the development of the novel, coloniality and decolonization, art and politics, humanism, diaspora, and North Korean literature. The final part, "Queer Studies, World Literature, the Digital Humanities," looks at these thematically rich areas of inquiry from several important trans- and interdisciplinary perspectives. In addition to the works cited at the end of each essay and the comprehensive index, the volume includes an invaluable list of English translations of works of Korean literature that are, according to the introduction, being made available through a searchable online database. This volume will undoubtedly prove invaluable. Readers will welcome the groundbreaking research by leading figures in the field, as well as the extent of the literary materials and critical perspectives covered.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.