The New East Asian Studies Podcasts in the Age of AI

Dive into the complex interplay of breaking news and scholarly insights in this special episode. As South Korea declares martial law under President Yoon Suk Yeol, we explore the immediate political and social ramifications alongside a deeper academic analysis. Drawing from historical texts and contemporary political studies, we contextualize the unfolding crisis within South Korea's journey from...

Several million rural inhabitants of Vietnam’s northern deltas made the decision to move during the twentieth century, seeking to make new homes in the country’s highlands. This book offers a historical analysis of the political economy of migration, stimulated by the French colonial and independent socialist states. It shows how socialist policies especially changed the face of the highlands, as...

Sexualities and Power explores the intersections of gender, sexuality, and politics through the lens of historical and cultural narratives. Drawing on seminal works like Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality and Afsaneh Najmabadi's Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards , this podcast challenges simplistic notions of repression, modernity, and identity. Delve into topics like the "repressive...

China's one-child rule is unassailably one of the most controversial social policies of all time. In the first book of its kind, Susan Greenhalgh draws on twenty years of research into China's population politics to explain how the leaders of a nation of one billion decided to limit all couples to one child. Focusing on the historic period 1978-80, when China was just reentering the global capital...

Journey into the heart of the Tibetan plateau with Echoes of the Plateau , a podcast exploring the rich tapestry of Tibet's history, culture, and identity. Drawing insights from works like Matthew Kapstein's The Tibetans and Sam van Schaik's Tibet , we delve into the rise of the Tibetan Empire, the emergence of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lamas' influence, and the socio-political complexities surr...

This book charts the vicissitudes of a rural community of papermakers in Sichuan. The process of transforming bamboo into paper involves production-related and social skills, as well as the everyday skills that allowed these papermakers to survive in an era of tumultuous change. The Chinese revolution—understood as a series of interconnected political, social, and technological transformations—was...

The last decades of the Ming dynasty, though plagued by chaos and destruction, saw a significant increase of publications that examined advances in knowledge and technology. Among the numerous guides and reference books that appeared during this period was a series of texts by Song Yingxing (1587–1666?), a minor local official living in southern China. His  Tiangong kaiwu , the longest and most pr...

During the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the censorious attitude that characterized China's post-1989 official response to contemporary art gave way to a new market-driven, culture industry valuation of art. Experimental artists who once struggled against state regulation of artistic expression found themselves being courted to advance China's international image. In  Experimental Beijing...

Today, most Uyghurs are Muslims. For centuries, however, Uyghurs were Buddhists. By around 1000 CE, they, like many of their neighbors, had decisively turned toward the Dharma, and a golden age of Uyghur Buddhism flourished under the Mongol empire. Dwelling along the Silk Road in what is now northwestern China, they stood at the center of Buddhist Eurasia, linking far-flung regions and traditions....

At the intersection of art and religious history, this work suggests a fresh method for studying Chinese gods and sacred places. Susan Naquin tells the full story of the transformations of the Lady of Mount Tai, North China’s most important female deity, and her mountain home. This generously illustrated visual history presents a rich array of overlooked statues, prints, murals, and paintings of g...

Founded in 1676 during a cosmopolitan early modern period, Mindroling monastery became a key site for Buddhist education and a Tibetan civilizational center. Its founders sought to systematize and institutionalize a worldview rooted in Buddhist philosophy, engaging with contemporaries from across Tibetan Buddhist schools while crystallizing what it meant to be part of their own Nyingma school. At...

This is a brilliant book, one that will appeal to specialists and nonspecialists alike. In graceful prose, and with both erudition and sensitivity, Nicole Willock reveals a world most of us could never have seen. The title,  Lineages of the Literary , announces her work as a textual study. Willock delights in the subtleties of the texts, and she conveys some of that delight to those of us who do n...

An innovative look at how families in Ming dynasty China negotiated military and political obligations to the state How did ordinary people in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) deal with the demands of the state? In  The Art of Being Governed , Michael Szonyi explores the myriad ways that families fulfilled their obligations to provide a soldier to the army. The complex strategies they developed to man...

Prasenjit Duara offers the first systematic account of the relationship between the nation-state, nationalism, and the concept of linear history. Focusing primarily on China and including discussion of India, Duara argues that many historians of postcolonial nation-states have adopted a linear, evolutionary history of the Enlightenment/colonial model. As a result, they have written repressive, exc...

A major new history of North and South Korea, from the late nineteenth century to the present day   Korea has a long, riveting history—it is also a divided nation. South Korea is a vibrant democracy, the tenth largest economy, and is home to a world-renowned culture. North Korea is ruled by the most authoritarian regime in the world, a poor country in a rich region, and is best known for the cult...

This collection presents and analyzes inquest records that tell the stories of ordinary Korean people under the Choson court (1392-1910). Extending the study of this period, usually limited to elites, into the realm of everyday life, each inquest record includes a detailed postmortem examination and features testimony from everyone directly or indirectly related to the incident. The result is an a...

This podcast episode delves into Russia's "Turn to the East" policy, analyzing its evolving relationships with China and other Asian nations. Featuring insights from Gilbert F. Rozman, Gaye Christoffersen, and James D.J. Brown, we explore the complexities of Sino-Russian cooperation and competition, particularly in Central Asia, and the impact on regional stability and the sovereignty of smaller s...

After the fall of the Qing empire, amid nationalist and socialist upheaval, Buddhist monks in the Mongolian frontiers of the Soviet Union and Republican China faced a chaotic and increasingly uncertain world. In this book, Matthew King tells the story of one Mongolian monk's efforts to defend Buddhist monasticism in revolutionary times, revealing an unexplored landscape of countermodern Buddhisms...

By the middle of the third century B.C.E. in China there were individuals who sought to become transcendents  (xian)― deathless, godlike beings endowed with supernormal powers. This quest for transcendence became a major form of religious expression and helped lay the foundation on which the first Daoist religion was built. Both  xian  and those who aspired to this exalted status in the centuries...

Tibetan biographers began writing Jetsun Milarepa's (1052--1135) life story shortly after his death, initiating a literary tradition that turned the poet and saint into a model of virtuosic Buddhist practice throughout the Himalayan world. Andrew Quintman traces this history and its innovations in narrative and aesthetic representation across four centuries, culminating in a detailed analysis of t...

Is Confucianism a religion? If so, why do most Chinese think it isn't? From ancient Confucian temples, to nineteenth-century archives, to the testimony of people interviewed by the author throughout China over a period of more than a decade, this book traces the birth and growth of the idea of Confucianism as a world religion. The book begins at Oxford, in the late nineteenth century, when Friedri...

In this episode, we dive into expert insights from discussions hosted by the Harvard Asia Center and the Harriman Institute at Columbia University on the impact of Russia's war in Ukraine on Asia. As the conflict unfolds, the strategic relationship between China and Russia has become more complex, with significant implications for the stability of the Asia-Pacific region. We explore the nuanced pe...

The goddess Guanyin began in India as the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, originally a male deity. He gradually became indigenized as a female deity in China over the span of nearly a millennium. By the Ming (1358–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) periods, Guanyin had become the most popular female deity in China. In  Becoming Guanyin , Yuhang Li examines how lay Buddhist women in late imperial China forged...

This study of Cambodian nationalism brings to life eight turbulent decades of cultural change and sheds new light on the colonial ancestry of Pol Pot's murderous dystopia. Penny Edwards re-creates the intellectual milieux and cultural traffic linking Europe and empire, interweaving analysis of key movements and ideas in the French Protectorate of Cambodge with contemporary developments in the Metr...

This episode delves into the profound impact of China's economic engagement with Latin America, inspired by the insights from Dragonomics by Carol Wise and The China Triangle by Kevin P. Gallagher. We explore how China's insatiable demand for commodities like soybeans, copper, and petroleum has reshaped Latin American economies over the past two decades. Join us as we analyze the benefits and chal...