The dissident voice in US culture might almost be said to have been born with the territory. Its span runs from Roger Williams to Thoreau, Anne Bradstreet to Gertrude Stein, Ambrose Bierce to the New Journalism, The Beats to the recent Bad Subjects cyber-crowd. In this new study, A. Robert Lee aims to explore those counter-seams of modern American writing that sit outside, or at least awkwardly within, agreed literary canons. Specifically, Lee analyses three recent literary branches in the tradition: a re-envisioning of the whole Beat web or circuit; a consortium of postwar "outrider" voices Hunter Thompson to Joan Didion to Kathy Acker; and a latest purview of what, all too casually, has been designated "ethnic" writing.

Eight years after the second Palestinian uprising, the Oslo accords signed in 1993 seem to have failed. The reasons for the failure continue to fascinate students, politicians, researchers and policymakers alike. This book explores one of the major aspects of the bilateral peace process the composition and behaviour of the Palestinian negotiating team, which deeply impacted the outcome of the negotiations between 1991 and 1997. It focuses on the dynamics between the PLO leadership outside the occupied Palestinian territories and the grassroots leadership within the areas under Israeli control that led to conflicts of interest at the time of the final agreement. As the author was a part of the Palestinian leadership in the occupied territories, and was present during the negotiations process in Madrid and Washington DC, the book contains original, unpublished accounts, including those of the Washington bilateral negotiations and crucial internal Palestinian meetings. It is an excellent resource to gain an understanding of Palestinian behavior during peace talks, deterioration in peace-making efforts, the resulting radicalization, and the growing tendency towards violence.

This book addresses the growing academic concerns of the market-religion convergences in Asia.

Bringing together a group of leading scholars from Asia, Europe, Australia and North America, it discusses multiple issues regarding religious commodifications and their consequences across Asia's diverse religious traditions. Covering key issues in the anthropology and sociology of contemporary Asian religion, it draws theoretical implications for the study of religions in the light of the shift of religious institutions from traditional religious beliefs to material prosperity. The fact that religions compete with each other in a 'market of faiths' is also at the core of the analysis. The contributions show how ordinary people and religious institutions in Asia adjusted to, and negotiated with, the penetrative forces of a global market economy into the region's changing religio-cultural landscapes.

An excellent contribution to the growing demands of ethnographically and theoretically updated interpretations of Asian religions, Religious Commodifications in Asia will be of interest to scholars of Asian religion and new religious movements.

Drawing on first-hand materials collected from the Chinese and Japanese literature as well as interviews with more than twenty filmmakers and scholars Kinnia Shuk-ting Yau provides a solid historical account of the complex interactions between Japanese and Hong Kong film industries from the 1930s to 1970s.

The author describes in detail how Japan s efforts during the 1930s and 1940s to produce a "Greater East Asian cinema" led to many different kinds of collaborations between the filmmakers from China, Hong Kong and Japan, and how such development had laid the foundation for more exchanges between the cinemas in the post-war period. The period covered by the book is the least understood period of the East Asian film history. Filling the gaps surrounding one of the most important but least understood periods of Asian film history this books discusses facts and resources once obscured by controversial issues related to wartime affairs with new insights and perspectives.

This book is an invaluable source of information for understanding how the current East Asian film networks came into existence by looking beyond conventional single-case studies and adopting a transnational perspective in tracing the connections between different film industries.

The history of Chinese medicine hinges on three major turning points: the formation of canonical theory in the Han dynasty; the transformation of medicine via the integration of earlier medical theories and practices in the Song dynasty; and the impact of Western medicine from the nineteenth century onwards. This book offers a comprehensive overview of the crucial second stage in the evolution of Chinese medicine by examining the changes in Chinese medicine during the pivotal era of the Song dynasty. Scholars often characterize the Song era as a time of change in every aspect of political, social, intellectual or economic life. More specifically it focuses on three narratives of change: the emperor's interest in medicine elevated the status of medicine in the eyes of the elite, leading to an increased involvement of intellectuals and the literary elite in medicine government officials systematically revised, printed, and promulgated earlier heterogeneous medical manuscripts belonging to various traditions the government established unique imperially sponsored medical institutions to handle public health and other aspects of medicine. As the first book to study the transformation medicine underwent during the Song period this volume will appeal to Sinologists and scholars of the history of medicine alike.

The Sanskrit Mahabharata is one of the greatest works of world literature and pivotal for the understanding of both Hindu traditions and wider society in ancient, medieval and modern South Asia. This book presents a new synthesis of philological, anthropological and cognitive-linguistic method and theory in relation to the study of narrative text by focusing on the form and function of the Mahabharata in the context of early South Asia.

Arguing that the combination of structural and thematic features that have helped to establish the enduring cultural centrality of religious narrative in South Asia was first outlined in the text, the book highlights the Mahabharata's complex orientation to the cosmic, social and textual past. The book shows the extent to which narrative is integral to human social life, and more generally the creation and maintenance of religious ideologies. It highlights the contexts of origin and transmission and the cultural function of the Mahabharata in first millennium South Asia and, by extension, in medieval and modern South Asiaby drawing on both textual and epigraphic sources. The book draws attention to what is culturally specific about the origination and transmission of early South Asian narrative and what can be used to enrich our orientation to narrative in human social life more globally.

There are as many as 3,400 correspondents covering the United States, among them approximately 600 print and broadcast correspondents from European countries. The importance of the foreign correspondents corps stationed in the United States and of their work has increased commensurate with the world preeminence gained by the U.S. after World War II. This book examines the state of research on European foreign correspondence from the United States and on the corps of journalists that produces it. Contributions from both European and American authors examine the varied conceptual issues regarding foreign correspondence, the methodologies that have been employed in studies carried out on both sides of the Atlantic, and the theories that were and could be tested when studying the subject. The book serves as a prolegomena to future studies on foreign correspondence and correspondents.

The Germans were a very substantial minority in Russia, and many leading figures, including the Empress Catherine the Great, were German. Using rarely seen archival information, this book provides an account of the experiences of the Germans living in the Soviet Union from the early post-revolution period to the post-Soviet era following the collapse of communism. Setting out the history of this minority group and explaining how they were affected by the Soviet regime s nationality policies, the book:

• describes the character of the ethnic Germanic groups, demonstrating their diversity before the execution of the policy of systematic deportations by the Stalinist authorities from 1937 to 1947
• argues that there was not one but several episodes of deportation within this period
• considers the different dimensions of this policy, including the legal and economic structures of, and everyday life in, the Soviet special settlements
• investigates the women s dimension of deportation, especially the role of women in the preservation of ethnic identity among the afflicted groups
• explores the long term consequences of Soviet deportations and exile on the identity of the Soviet Germans.

Private enterprises have contributed significantly to China's recent economic growth and will play a key role in achieving China's goal of building a comprehensively well-society. But how can private enterprises help China mitigate its macroeconomic problems such as unemployment, income inequality, financial disintermediation, and an unhealthy economic cycle? And what are the main obstacles to private enterprise development? Private Enterprises and China s Economic Development answers these questions by identifying the range of cultural, political and financial challenges confronting China's private enterprises, and assessing their performance and potential. Contributors also analyse the experiences and lessons of other countries, and propose strategies and policies to help China promote private enterprise development.

Using the most up to date research on private enterprises, including detailed econometric analysis and national representative data, authors including economists, policy-makers and academics from the USA, China, Singapore and Canada comprehensively address the most important aspects of China s private enterprise development. As such this book will appeal to students, scholars and policy-makers alike with an interested in the Chinese economy, economic growth, comparative economics and transitional economics.

The most intense hopes and fears of our collective lives centre around large-scale events - from competitions, celebrations and festivals to environmental disasters, pandemics and terror attacks. The media are a crucial part of this process: they enable the planning, resource allocation and circulation of the vital information needed to mount major events. They are also where traces of events are stored for history. In short, large-scale and collective events have been, and still are, mediated. Starting from nineteenth-century industrialisation, Media and Events in History explains how contemporary life has become saturated with events. It discusses how they have come to involve extensive infrastructures, forms of control and anticipation, attention and participation, contingency and transformation, and articulations of the past and the future. Synthesising and developing insights from history, media studies, philosophy and the social sciences, Ytreberg surveys the rise of event-planning via mediation, and exposes the historical driving forces behind 'media events', global 'mega-events' and 'pseudo-events'. Revealing the importance of events in history, this eye-opening book will be of interest to students of media studies, history, historical sociology and cultural history, as well as the general reader.

International trade continues to expand robustly in East Asia and elsewhere, but global trade negotiations have collapsed and globalization is widely criticized. In this book, the participants of the thirtieth Pacific Trade and Development Conference--including the then-Director General of the World Trade Organization, and leading government officials, academics and executives from a dozen major Pacific Rim economies--debate whether global negotiations have ended once and for all, or are suffering temporarily from 'globalization fatigue;' whether East Asia's new regional partnerships will advance or undermine the global trading system; and whether the region's trade tensions with the United States will intensify or subside. They provide new empirical evidence on how trade affects the distribution of income, the location of pollution-intensive industries, the causes of 'outsourcing, ' the structure of the intellectual property regime, and international security. And they probe the implications of adjustment to globalization: how can countries reap the benefits of trade while controlling the risks faced by the poor and, perhaps more importantly, the politically strong? Challenges to the Global Trading System is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Asia-Pacific studies, international relations and development studies, as well as those with a more general interest in Asian studies.

Ever since the terrorist incident of September 11th a general understanding seems to have arisen among people that the challenges posed by Islam have now acquired human and global dimensions.

Popular Movements and Democratization in the Islamic World contains case studies of people s movements in diverse areas and periods, and it seeks to develop a comparative view of Islam and democracy that goes beyond the usual stereotype of Islam being incompatible with democracy. Unravelling the complexities that have arisen between Islam and democracy is the principal task of Islamic scholars, and this book will undoubtedly prove a starting point for all such endeavours.

While primarily intended for students and scholars, this timely and important text will prove of interest even to general readers with interests in Islamic studies.

This book uses a historical and theoretical focus to examine the key of issues of the Enlightenment, Orientalism, concepts of identity and difference, and the contours of different modernities in relation to both local and global shaping forces, including the spread of capitalism. The contributors present eight in-depth studies and a substantial theoretical introduction, utilizing primary and secondary sources in Turkish, Farsi, Chinese, not to mention English, French and German in the effort to engage materials and cultural perspectives from diverse regions. It provides a critical attempt to think through the potentialities and limitations of area-studies and 'civilizational' approaches to the production of knowledge about the modern world, and the often obscured relationship between the fragment and the whole, or the particular and universal. The book is an intervention in one of the most fundamental debates confronting the social science and humanities, namely how to understand global and local historical processes as interconnected developments affecting human actors. From Orientalism to Postcolonialism will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students in Cultural and Postcolonial Studies and Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies.

The Japanese economy is beginning to show signs of recovery after years of stagnation/deflation, but many Japanese policymakers warn that this economic growth may be sluggish: slower than in the United States and certainly slower than in other East Asian countries. Japan faces significant economic problems, including an aging population, a large fiscal deficit, and the need to adjust to the IT economy and to competition with the rest of East Asia. A slow growth scenario would greatly reduce opportunities for new productive investment and would make it increasingly difficult to provide for Japan's growing social needs. The authors of this book argue that Japan can and should grow more rapidly, and examine the reasons for the sluggish performance of the Japanese economy. For example, some Japanese economic sectors, particularly in distribution and finance, have failed to take advantage of new information and communications technology to accelerate the growth of productivity, as has happened in other countries, such as the US. Production function studies and econometric model simulations suggest that with appropriate policies the Japanese economy can grow more rapidly and deal with its future problems. The book posits a number of policy proposals which would help to accelerate Japan's economic growth This book will be of interest to students of the Japanese economy, macroeconomics and international economies, and also to policymakers and professionals interested in Japan's economy.

Throughout the twentieth century Taiwan was viewed as a model - whether in terms of a model colony, a model China or a development model. This perception was based on the notion of Taiwan undergoing an economic miracle and political developments. Yet much of Taiwan's history is unique and may not be readily replicable elsewhere.

Written by an impressive line up of contributors from the US, UK, Taiwan, France and Hong Kong, this book analyzes Taiwan's economic and political achievements, and asks whether it is possible to identify through the experience of a single nation - Taiwan - the makings of a replicable model.

This book will appeal to students and scholars of Taiwan, political economy, and Asia-Pacific regional development issues.

This much-needed work on ethnicity in Asia offers a major sociological analysis of Hui Muslims in contemporary China. Using both qualitative and quantitative data derived from fieldwork in Lanzhou between March 2001 and July 2004, it looks at the contrast between the urban life of the Han people, the ethnic majority in the city of Lanzhou, and the Hui people, the largest ethnic minority in the city, and assesses the link between minority ethnicity and traditional behaviour in urban sociology and research on ethnic groups of China. In-depth interviews and survey data provides a fresh perspective to the study of ethnic behaviour in China, and offers a rich account of Hui behaviour in seven aspects of urban life: neighbouring interaction, friendship formation, network behaviour, mate selection methods, spouse choice, marital homogamy, and household structure. Contributing to the global discourse on Islam, religious fundamentalism and modernity, this book will be invaluable to anyone interested in Chinese society, Islam, religion, development, urban studies, anthropology and ethnicity.

The transnational and diasporic dimensions of early Chinese migrant politics opened in the late nineteenth century when Chinese radical groups bent on overthrowing the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) vied with one another to win Chinese overseas to their modernizing projects, and immigrants who had suffered discrimination welcomed their proposals. The radicals' concentration on Chinese communities abroad as outposts of Chinese politics and culture strengthened the stereotype of Chinese as clannish, unassimilable, xenophobic, and deeply introverted. This book argues that such a view has its roots less in historical truth than in political and ideological prejudice and obscures a rich vein of internationalist practice in Chinese migrant or diasporic history, which the study aims to restore to visibility. In some cases, internationalist alliances sprang from the spontaneous perception by Chinese and other non-Chinese migrants or local workers of shared problems and common solutions in everyday life and work. At other times, they emerged from under the umbrella of transnationalism, when Chinese nationalist and anti-imperialist activists overseas received support for their campaigns from local internationalists; or the alliances were the product of nurturing by Chinese or non-Chinese political organizers, including anarchists, communists, and members of internationalist cultural movements like Esperantism. Based on sources in a dozen languages, and telling hitherto largely unknown or forgotten stories of Chinese migrant experiences in Russia, Germany, Cuba, Spain and Australia, this study will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese history, labour studies and ethnic/migration studies alike.

In the context of profound transformations in the professional, business, technological and social context of journalism, it is crucial for journalism studies and education to move beyond limited approaches to the discipline. Among the most significant changes affecting journalism worldwide is the emergence of startup culture, as more and more journalists strike out on their own. In Beyond Journalism, Deuze and Witschge combine extensive global and comparative fieldwork. Through rich case studies of journalism startups around the world, they provide deep insight into the promises and pitfalls of media entrepreneurship. Ultimately, they aim to recognize new and emerging voices as legitimate participants in the discourse about what journalism is, can be and should be. A bold manifesto as well as an in-depth empirical study, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of journalism, media, communication, and related disciplines.

Using case studies, interviews, and empirical sources, this book analyzes the strategies and impact of Internet use by civil society actors and asks how useful it is for their work - does the availability of Internet tools change the way citizens' groups work, does it influence their effectiveness, and does it do so differently in Japan from other countries?

Four fascinating studies take a closer look at the role of the Internet during the history textbook controversy; strategies of small citizen's groups; comparisons between internet use in Japan, Korea and Germany; and how the internet is used as a platform to discuss the dispatch of Japanese troops in Iraq.

Isa Ducke has produced an original work that will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese politics, media and information technology and civil society.

This volume examines Muslim societies across Europe, North Africa, Central Asia and South Asia from the eighteenth century to the present, providing fresh insight through comparison. Movements and populations covered include the nineteenth century North African Sansusi movement and its relationships to Sufis and Arabs of the region, Soviet and Chinese Central Asia, Muslim-Hindu relationships in South Asia, Muslims in Syria and Muslim immigrants in Europe.

Since the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War, the implications of China's rising power have come to dominate the security agenda of the Asia-Pacific region. This book is the first to comprehensively chart the development of Southeast Asia's relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to 2010, detailing each of the eleven countries' ties to the PRC and showing how strategic concerns associated with China's regional posture have been a significant factor in shaping their foreign and defence policies. In addition to assessing bilateral ties, the book also examines the institutionalization of relations between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China.

The first part of the book covers the period 1949-2010: it examines Southeast Asian responses to the PRC in the context of the ideological and geopolitical rivalry of the Cold War; Southeast Asian countries' policies towards the PRC in first decade of the post-Cold War era; and deepening ties between the ASEAN states and the PRC in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Part Two analyses the evolving relationships between the countries of mainland Southeast Asia - Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia - and China. Part Three reviews ties between the states of maritime Southeast Asia - Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei and East Timor - and the PRC. Whilst the primary focus of the book is the security dimension of Southeast Asia-China relations, it also takes full account of political relations and the burgeoning economic ties between the two sides. This book is a timely contribution to the literature on the fast changing geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region.

Winner of The Iranian World Prize for the Book of the Year 2007 in the Philosophy and Mysticism category.

This new and original text provides a timely re-examination of Islamic thought, presenting a stark contrast to the more usual conservative view.

The explanation of the relationship between God and humans, as portrayed in Islam, is often influenced by the images of God and of human beings which theologians, philosophers and mystics have in mind. The early period of Islam reveals a diversity of interpretations of this relationship. Elkaisy-Friemuth discusses the view of three scholars from the tenth and eleventh century: Abd al-Jabbar, Ibn Sina and Al-Ghazali, which introduce three different approaches of looking at the relationship between God and Humans.

God and Humans in Islamic Thought attempts to shed light on an important side of medieval rational thought in demonstrating its significance in forming the basis of an understanding of the nature of God, the nature of human beings and the construction of different bridges between them.

Featuring contributions from leading scholars of Iranian studies and / or comparative literature, this edited comprehensive and critical edited collection provides detailed scholarly analysis of Hedayat's life and work using a variety of methodological and conceptual approaches. Hedayat is the author of The Blind Owl, the most famous Persian novel both in Iran and in Europe and America. Many of his short stories are in a critical realist style and are regarded as among some of the best written in twentieth century Iran. But his most original contribution was the use of modernist, more often surrealist, techniques in Persian fiction. Thus, he was not only a great writer, but also the founder of modernism in Persian fiction. Yet both Hedayat's life and his death came to symbolize much more than leading writers would normally claim. He still towers over modern Persian fiction and will remain a highly controversial figure so long as the clash of the modern and the traditional, the Persian and the European, and the religious and the secular, has not led to a synthesis and a consensus.

Examining the role of dramatized narratives in Russian television, this book stresses the ways in which the Russian government under Putin use primetime television to express a new understanding of what it means to be Russian, answering key questions of national identity for modern Russians in dealing with their recent history: What really happened to us?' and, accordingly, Why?' The book covers important issues in Russian television today, including: * the reworking of new national' on-screen heroes * its relationship with classic literature * the revisionist portrayal of a romantic portrait of life in the Soviet era * the role of thematic elements such as love, fidelity, humour and irony * the particularly pressing problem of crime and its representation on screen as Mafia or police adventure, and its political usage by the Putin administration. This book provides a detailed account of the critical issues in contemporary Russian television, relating them to broader social and political developments in Russian society.

Arabic Rhetoric explores the history, disciplines, order and pragmatic functions of Arabic speech acts. It offers a new understanding of Arabic rhetoric and employs examples from modern standard Arabic as well as providing a glossary of over 448 rhetorical expressions listed in English with their translations, which make the book more accessible to the modern day reader. Hussein's study of Arabic rhetoric bridges the gap between learning and research, whilst also meeting the academic needs of our present time. This up-to-date text provides a valuable source for undergraduate students learning Arabic as a foreign language, and is also an essential text for researchers in Arabic, Islamic studies, and students of linguistics and academics.