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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2017

        Asia in Western fiction

        by Robin Winks

        Any reader who has ever visited Asia knows that the great bulk of Western-language fiction about Asian cultures turns on stereotypes. This book, a collection of essays, explores the problem of entering Asian societies through Western fiction, since this is the major port of entry for most school children, university students and most adults. In the thirteenth century, serious attempts were made to understand Asian literature for its own sake. Hau Kioou Choaan, a typical Chinese novel, was quite different from the wild and magical pseudo-Oriental tales. European perceptions of the Muslim world are centuries old, originating in medieval Christendom's encounter with Islam in the age of the Crusades. There is explicit and sustained criticism of medieval mores and values in Scott's novels set in the Middle Ages, and this is to be true of much English-language historical fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even mediocre novels take on momentary importance because of the pervasive power of India. The awesome, remote and inaccessible Himalayas inevitably became for Western writers an idealised setting for novels of magic, romance and high adventure, and for travellers' tales that read like fiction. Chinese fictions flourish in many guises. Most contemporary Hong Kong fiction reinforced corrupt mandarins, barbaric punishments and heathens. Of the novels about Japan published after 1945, two may serve to frame a discussion of Japanese behaviour as it could be observed (or imagined) by prisoners of war: Black Fountains and Three Bamboos.

      • Trusted Partner
        Medicine
        November 2019

        Migrant architects of the NHS

        South Asian doctors and the reinvention of British general practice (1940s-1980s)

        by Julian Simpson, Keir Waddington

        Migrant architects of the NHS draws on forty-five oral history interviews and extensive archival research to offer a radical reappraisal of how the National Health Service was made. It tells the story of migrant South Asian doctors who became general practitioners in the NHS. Imperial legacies, professional discrimination and an exodus of UK-trained doctors combined to direct these doctors towards work as GPs in some of the most deprived parts of the UK. In some areas, they made up over half of the general practitioner workforce. The NHS was structurally dependent on them and they shaped British society and medicine through their agency. Aimed at students and academics with interests in the history of immigration, immigration studies, the history of medicine, South Asian studies and oral history. It will also be of interest to anyone who wants to know more about how Empire and migration have contributed to making Britain what it is today.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2024

        Russian strategy in the Middle East and North Africa

        by Derek Averre

      • Trusted Partner
        Medicine
        September 2023

        Situating religion and medicine in Asia

        Methodological insights and innovations

        by Michael Stanley-Baker

        This edited volume presents the latest research on the intersection of religion and medicine in Asia. It features chapters by internationally known scholars, who bring to bear a range of methodological and geographic expertise on this topic. The book's central question is to what extent 'religion' and 'medicine' have overlapped or interrelated in various Asian societies. Collectively, the contributions explore a number of related issues, such as: which societies separated out religious from medical concerns, at which times and in what ways? Where have medicine and religion converged, and how has such knowledge been defined by scholars and cultural actors? Are 'religion' and 'medicine' the best terms by which scholars can grapple with knowledge about the sacred and the self, destiny and disease?

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2023

        Monarchies and decolonisation in Asia

        by Robert Aldrich, Cindy McCreery

        With original case studies of a more than a dozen countries, Monarchies and decolonisation in Asia offers new perspectives on how both European monarchs who reigned over Asian colonies and Asian royal houses adapted to decolonisation. As colonies became independent states (and European countries, and other colonial powers, lost their overseas empires), monarchies faced the challenges of decolonisation, republicanism and radicalism. These studies place dynasties - both European and 'native' - at the centre of debate about decolonisation and the form of government of new states, from the sovereigns of Britain, the Netherlands and Japan to the maharajas of India, the sultans of the East Indies and the 'white rajahs' of Sarawak. It provides new understanding of the history of decolonisation and of the history of modern monarchy.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        February 2019

        Contemporary Korean cinema

        Culture, identity and politics

        by Hyangjin Lee

        The first in-depth, comprehensive study of Korean cinema offering original insight into the relationships between ideology and the art of cinema from East Asian perspectives. Combines issues of contemporary Korean culture and cinematic representation of the society and people in both North and South Korea. Covers the introduction of motion pictures in 1903, Korean cinema during the Japanese colonial period (1910-45) and the development of North and South Korean cinema up to the 1990s. Introduces the works of Korea's major directors, and analyses the Korean film industry in terms of film production, distribution and reception. Based on this historical analysis, the study investigates ideological constructs in seventeen films, eight from North Korea and nine from South Korea.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2016

        Postcolonial minorities in Britain and France

        by Shailja Sharma

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        The Arctic in the British imagination 1818–1914

        by Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie, Rob David

        The Arctic region has been the subject of much popular writing. This book considers nineteenth-century representations of the Arctic, and draws upon an extensive range of evidence that will allow the 'widest connections' to emerge from a 'cross-disciplinary analysis' using different methodologies and subject matter. It positions the Arctic alongside more thoroughly investigated theatres of Victorian enterprise. In the nineteenth century, most images were in the form of paintings, travel narratives, lectures given by the explorers themselves and photographs. The book explores key themes in Arctic images which impacted on subsequent representations through text, painting and photography. For much of the nineteenth century, national and regional geographical societies promoted exploration, and rewarded heroic endeavor. The book discusses images of the Arctic which originated in the activities of the geographical societies. The Times provided very low-key reporting of Arctic expeditions, as evidenced by its coverage of the missions of Sir John Franklin and James Clark Ross. However, the illustrated weekly became one of the main sources of popular representations of the Arctic. The book looks at the exhibitions of Arctic peoples, Arctic exploration and Arctic fauna in Britain. Late nineteenth-century exhibitions which featured the Arctic were essentially nostalgic in tone. The Golliwogg's Polar Adventures, published in 1900, drew on adult representations of the Arctic and will have confirmed and reinforced children's perceptions of the region. Text books, board games and novels helped to keep the subject alive among the young.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2020

        Defense of the West

        by Stanley R. Sloan, Lawrence Freedman

      • Trusted Partner
        July 2021

        The World of the North

        Between Ragnarok and welfare utopia: A cultural-historical deconstruction

        by Bernd Henningsen

        — Analysis of how we view Europe's North and how this image emerged — An outsider's perspective on Nordic societies and their self image — Serves as an introduction into Northern European culture and society Our image of Northern Europe has been shaped by projections and desires in the long history of encounters: berserkers and war atrocities, bad weather, beautiful nature, stable political systems, social welfare, equality and prosperity, peacefulness, low corruption, hygge and Bullerby – all this is part of the Nordic narrative. But what about the religious, linguistic and ethnic homogeneity, what about the muchvaunted Nordic cooperation? How do politics "work" in the North? Why are Northern Europeans the happiest people?

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2022

        Crossing borders and queering citizenship

        Civic reading practice in contemporary American and Canadian writing

        by Zalfa Feghali

        Can reading make us better citizens? In Crossing borders and queering citizenship, Feghali crafts a sophisticated theoretical framework to theorise how the act of reading can contribute to the queering of contemporary citizenship in North America. Providing sensitive and convincing readings of work by both popular and niche authors, including Gloria Anzaldúa, Dorothy Allison, Gregory Scofield, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Erín Moure, Junot Díaz, and Yann Martel, this book is the first to not only read these authors together, but also to discuss how each powerfully resists the exclusionary work of state-sanctioned citizenship in the U.S. and Canada. This book convincingly draws connections between queer theory, citizenship studies, and border studies and sheds light on how these connections can reframe our understanding of American Studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2013

        Building a neighborly community

        Post-cold war China, Japan, and Southeast Asia

        by Daojiong Zha, Weixing Hu

        Building a neighborly community, available for the first time in paperback, explores the political economy of post-cold war East Asian co-operation by examining the history of intra-regional co-operation, against the background of China's rise and Japan's relative decline, both real and perceived. The book in particular examines how East Asian states have dealt with the South China Sea as a region-wide security challenge and the imperative for self-help after the 1997 economic crisis. The book builds on the explanatory strength of analytical eclecticism, and ultimately concludes that China, South Korea, Japan, and ASEAN states have aimed for constructing a neighborly community. The fundamental differences between a neighborly community and the kind of community that has emerged in Europe and North America are that qualification for membership is not conditional, the process of routine interactions is itself one of reassurance, the aim of inter-state interactions is to foster acceptance of each other, and changes in a member's foreign policy behaviour are accepted. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2022

        Nordic Gothic

        by Maria Holmgren Troy, Johan Hõglund, Yvonne Leffler, Sofia Wijkmark

        Nordic Gothic traces Gothic fiction in the Nordic region from its beginnings in the nineteenth century, with a main focus on the development of Gothic from the 1990s onwards in literature, film, TV and new media. The volume gives an overview of Nordic Gothic fiction in relation to transnational developments and provides a number of case studies and in-depth analyses of individual narratives. It creates an understanding of this under-researched cultural phenomenon by showing how the narratives make visible cultural anxieties haunting the Nordic countries, their welfare systems, identities and ideologies. Nordic Gothic examines how figures from Nordic folklore function as metaphorical expressions of Gothic themes and Nordic settings are explored from perspectives such as ecocriticism and postcolonialism. The book will be of interest to researchers and post- and- undergraduate students in various fields within the Humanities.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        New frontiers

        Imperialism's new communities in East Asia, 1842–1953

        by Robert Bickers, Christian Henriot

        In the new world order mapped out by Japanese and Western imperialism in East Asia after the mid-nineteenth century opium wars, communities of merchants and settlers took root in China and Korea. New identities were constructed, new modes of collaboration formed and new boundaries between the indigenous and foreign communities were literally and figuratively established. Newly available in paperback, this pioneering and comparative study of Western and Japanese imperialism examines European, American and Japanese communities in China and Korea, and challenges received notions of agency and collaboration by also looking at the roles in China of British and Japanese colonial subjects from Korea, Taiwan and India, and at Chinese Christians and White Russian refugees. This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of the history and anthropology of imperialism, colonialism's culture and East Asian history, as well as contemporary Asian affairs.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        September 2024

        The mediated Arctic

        Poetics and politics of contemporary circumpolar geographies

        by Johannes Riquet

        The mediated Arctic analyses the multiple relations between geography and cultural production that have long shaped - and are currently transforming - the circumpolar world. It explores how twenty-first-century cultural practitioners imagine and poeticise various elements of Arctic geography, and in doing so negotiate pressing environmental, (geo)political, and social concerns. From the plasmatic force of ice in Disney's Frozen films to the spatial vocabulary of circumpolar Indigenous hip hop, it addresses Arctic geographical imaginaries in a wide range of media, including literature, cinema, comic books, music videos, and cartographic art. The book brings together a plurality of voices from within and outside the circumpolar North, both in terms of the works analysed and in its own collaborative scholarly practice. The book bridges Indigenous and Southern mediations of the Arctic and combines different epistemologies to do justice to these imaginaries in their diversity.

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