Chinese Studies
The Origins of Chinese Literary Hermeneutics
Explores how China’s oldest poetry collection was interpreted in a Confucian exegetical text—the Mao Commentary—in the mid-second century BCE.
Curses of the Kingdom of Xixia
Reality merges with illusion in this novel of northwestern China.
The Chinese Love Story from the Tenth to the Fourteenth Century
Traces the development of the Chinese love story during the Song and Yuan dynasties.
The China Record
Detailed assessment of the People's Republic of China as an alternative mode of political system and as a distinctive model of socioeconomic development.
A Walk in the Night with Zhuangzi
A complete translation and analysis of "All Things Flow into Form" (Fan wu liu xing), a recently discovered manuscript from the Warring States period (481–221 BCE).
The Future of China's Past
Addresses the question of China's rise and what it portends for the future.
Adventures in Chinese Realism
Relates Chinese Realism to contemporary political and ethical challenges, such as in international relations and the morality of the public sector.
Technical Arts in the Han Histories
The first concerted attempt to analyze how the histories Shiji and Hanshu described the technical arts as they were applied in vital areas of the administration of pre-Han and Han China.
Persons Emerging
Offers three neo-Confucian understandings of broadening the Way as broadening oneself, through an ongoing process of removing self-boundaries.
Lore and Verse
Explores how poetry was used to disseminate and interpret history in early medieval China.
The Emergence of Word-Meaning in Early China
Posits the origin of a specifically Chinese concept of “word-meaning,” and sheds new light on the linguistic ideas in early Chinese philosophical texts.
The Chinese Liberal Spirit
The first English-language translation of an important figure in modern Confucian thought.
The Contemplative Foundations of Classical Daoism
Brings early Daoist writings into conversation with contemporary contemplative studies.
Friendship and Hospitality
Offers a comparative and deconstructive reading of the cross-cultural encounter between the Jesuits and their Confucian hosts in late Ming China.
Convenient Criticism
Explains why and how local critical reporting can exist in China despite the kinds of media control that are the hallmarks of authoritarian rule.
Human Beings or Human Becomings?
Argues that Confucianism and other East Asian philosophical traditions can be resources for understanding and addressing current global challenges such as climate change and hunger.
Hu Feng
A study of Hu Feng as a literary critic and case study on how intellectual work can respond to political pressure.
Abolishing Boundaries
Offers new perspectives on modern Chinese political thought.
Revealing/Reveiling Shanghai
Examines Shanghai both as a real city and an imaginary locale, from diverse cultural and disciplinary perspectives.
Confucian Role Ethics
Argues that the only way to understand the Confucian vision of the consummate moral life is to take the tradition on its own terms.
The Politics of People
Explores the cultural dimensions of protest and dissent in China, focusing on dramatic forms of bodily, spatial, strategic, and artistic performativity.
In Pursuit of the Great Peace
Examines the Great Peace (taiping), one of the first utopian visions in Chinese history, and its impact on literati lives in Han China.
Imagining China in Tokugawa Japan
Pioneering study of the localization of Chinese culture in early modern Japan, using legends, classics, and historical terms as case studies.
Literate Community in Early Imperial China
Through an examination of archaeologically recovered texts from China’s northwestern border regions, argues for widespread interaction with texts in the Han period.
Following His Own Path
Critically introduces the philosophical system of Li Zehou, one of the most significant modern scholars of Chinese history and culture.
Heaven Is Empty
Offers a new perspective on the relationship between religion and the creation of the first Chinese empires.
Found in Transition
Presents an updated account of Hong Kong and its culture two decades after its reversion to China.
The Gender Legacy of the Mao Era
Shows that the feminist interventions of the Mao era (1949–1976) continue to influence contemporary Chinese women.
Appreciating the Chinese Difference
A wide-ranging exploration and critical assessment of the work of a major figure in Chinese and comparative philosophy.
Reading for the Moral
Reassesses didacticism in seventeenth-century Chinese vernacular fiction and challenges the view that the late Ming was a notoriously immoral time.
Having a Word with Angus Graham
Critical reflections on the work of Angus Charles Graham, renowned Western scholar of Chinese philosophy and sinology.
Bodies in China
Engages with Chinese philosophy to offer new conceptual models for reframing gender, bodies, and aesthetics.
Intimate Memory
Sheds new light on pre-modern Chinese gender relationships in the context of marriage, male Confucian literati self-presentation, and social networks.
Language as Bodily Practice in Early China
Challenges the idea held by many prominent twentieth-century Sinologists that early China experienced a “language crisis. ”
Birth in Ancient China
Reveals cultural paradigms and historical prejudices regarding the role of birthing and women in the reproduction of society.
Between History and Philosophy
Analyzes the use of anecdotes as an essential rhetorical tool and form of persuasion in various literary genres in early China.
The China Order
Examines the rising power of China and Chinese foreign policy through a revisionist analysis of Chinese civilization.
Expressing the Heart's Intent
Using Li Zehou’s theories of aesthetics, argues for the importance of the arts to philosophy.
Journey of a Goddess
First English translations of a novel and two play excerpts based on tales of the goddess Chen Jinggu, an eighth-century shaman and present-day cult deity.
Military Thought in Early China
Provides a systematic and comprehensive survey of writings on military philosophy in early China.
Forget Chineseness
Critiques the idea of a Chinese cultural identity and argues that such identities are instead determined by geopolitical and economic forces.
China's Lonely Revolution
Presents a new view of the Chinese revolution through the lens of the local Communist movement in Hainan between 1926 and 1956.
Marionette Plays from Northern China
English-language translations of traditional plays from the marionette puppet theater of Northern China.
The Heir and the Sage, Revised and Expanded Edition
A comprehensive analysis of the transformations of ancient history in early Chinese texts.
Crossing the Gate
Challenges the accepted wisdom about women and gender roles in medieval China.
The Rhetoric of Hiddenness in Traditional Chinese Culture
Considers the role of hiddenness in the history of cultural production in premodern China.
Fabricating an Educational Miracle
Illustrates the changing significance of what it means to be educated, rural, and ethnic in Southwest China.
A Great Undertaking
Explores the social disruption resulting from industrialization in a Chinese coalmining community at the turn of the twentieth century.
The Chinese Market Economy, 1000–1500
Documents the rise and fall of a market economy in China from 1000-1500.
The Creation of Wing Chun
Looks at southern Chinese martial arts traditions and how they have become important to local identity and narratives of resistance.
Daoism, Meditation, and the Wonders of Serenity
An overview of Daoist texts on passive meditation from the Latter Han through Tang periods.
In the Shadows of the Dao
Challenges standard views of the origins of the Daodejing, revealing the work’s roots in a tradition of physical cultivation.
These Bones Shall Rise Again
David N. Keightley’s seminal essays on the origins of Chinese society are brought together in one volume.
Red God
The career of communist revolutionary Wei Baqun, one of China’s “three great peasant leaders” and man of the southern frontier.
Communication and Cooperation in Early Imperial China
Challenges traditional views of the Qin dynasty as an oppressive regime by revealing cooperative aspects of its governance.
Reconstructing the Confucian Dao
Discusses how Zhou Dunyi's thought became a cornerstone of neo-Confucianism.
Chinese through Song, Second Edition
An innovative approach to teaching Chinese language and culture, using folk and popular songs.
Lost in Transition
Looks at the fate of Hong Kong’s unique culture since its reversion to China.
Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China
Explores the religious, political, and cultural significance attributed to music in early China.
Dubious Facts
An innovative approach to historical records assesses how evidence claims and policy arguments were put forth in the royal courts of early China.
The Shaman and the Heresiarch
The first book-length study in English of the Chinese classic, the Li sao (Encountering Sorrow). Includes translations of the Li sao and the Nine Songs.
China's America
A fascinating look at Chinese perceptions of the United States and the cultural and political background that informs them.
Mortality in Traditional Chinese Thought
A wide-ranging exploration of traditional Chinese views of mortality.
What Is Enlightenment
A cross-cultural work which reinvigorates the consideration of enlightenment.
When Huai Flowers Bloom
Depicts the Cultural Revolution through stories in a variety of voices.
Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China
An exploration of Chinese during a time of monumental change, the period after the fall of the Han dynasty.
Interpretation and Literature in Early Medieval China
Explores the new literary and interpretive milieu that emerged in the years following the decline of China’s Han dynasty.
Patronage and Community in Medieval China
A vivid portrait of the culture of a provincial military society in China’s early medieval period and its interactions with the southern imperial court.
The Making of a Family Saga
Looks at China’s Ginling College, the women’s missionary institution of higher learning that developed a discourse of family, recasting the Chinese Confucian family ideal as a female and Christian one.
Teaching the Silk Road
Advocating a global as opposed to a Eurocentric perspective in the college classroom, discusses why and how to teach about China's Silk Road.
Asian Texts — Asian Contexts
Provides an overview of some of the great texts of Asian philosophy and religion along with an exploration of the contexts in which they arose.
Expanding Process
Brings Chinese Daoist and Confucian thought into conversation with Western process, pragmatic, and naturalist philosophy and theology.
China and the International System, 1840-1949
Examines the images, hopes, and fears that were evoked during China’s century-long subservience to external powers.
The Talent of Shu
Presents the intellectual world of early medieval Sichuan through a critical biography of historian and classicist Qiao Zhou.
Wang in Love and Bondage
The first English translation of work by Wang Xiaobo, one of the most important writers of twentieth-century China.
The Chinese and Opium under the Republic
Examines China’s attempts to control the opium economy in the early twentieth century.
Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty
A reappraisal of Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty, finding that his legacy provided the foundation for the celebrated civilization of the Tang dynasty.
The Yijing and Chinese Politics
Discusses interpretations of the Yijing (the I Ching or Book of Changes) during the Northern Song period and how these illuminate the momentous changes in Chinese society during this era.
Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900-1949
Shows how Chinese intellectuals with varying politics envisioned the peasantry and its role in changing society during the first half of the twentieth century.
Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi
A diverse collection of interpretive essays on the third-century B. C.E. Daoist classic, the Zhuangzi, which continues the long commentarial tradition on this work and underscores its relevance to our own time and place.
Surviving on the Gold Mountain
The first comprehensive work on Chinese American women's history covering the past 150 years.
State Sacrifices and Music in Ming China
Presents historical, ritual, and musical data preserved in authentic Ming documents illustrating the significance of state sacrifices in imperial China.
Lu Xun and Evolution
Lu Xun (1881-1936), China's greatest modern writer, remains important today both as an official icon and a patron saint of dissent. This book deals with Lu Xun's struggle to make sense of the "Darwinian Revolution." It illuminates not only Lu Xun's thought, but also the current crisis in Chinese thought caused by the loss of faith in Marxism.
Legitimating the Chinese Economic Reforms
Argues that the legitimacy of the Chinese government relies on two factors: the national myth of revolution and ideological orthodoxy.
From Deluge to Discourse
Proposes a sweeping theory of flood myths, applies it to a particular text, the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan, and opens up the world of Chinese fiction to an entirely new type of analysis based on a psychoanalytic theory of the symbol.
The T'ai-Chi Ch'uan Experience
The leading proponent in America of the Wu style discusses the spiritual and aesthetic meanings of t'ai chi ch'uan.
Lukang
An anthropological study of the social organization and local history in Lukang, a city in Taiwan.
Economic Transition and Political Legitimacy in Post-Mao China
Traces the role of ideas in Chinese economic reform from 1978 to the present, exploring the conversion of China's policymakers to capitalist economic thinking.
The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China
This book explores the profound cultural impact of the civil service examinations during the period when they first became the primary means of government recruitment.
China Under Jurchen Rule
This is the most extensive study of Chin dynasty history in any language. It demonstrates the importance of cultural developments in North China under the Chin (1115-1234).
Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature and Society
"Only women and inferior men are difficult to deal with." — Confucius
Two thousand years after Confucius, the contributors to this book ask if Chinese women have succeeded in changing their status as ...
Taoist Meditation
Isabelle Robinet's Taoist Meditation is the first and only scholarly study to discuss the ancient Mao-shan Taoist tradition of visionary meditation while, at the same time, helping to clarify the little ...
In Search of the Dharma
This is the first and only book in English on modern Chinese Buddhism written by a practicing Chinese monk. Chen-hua provides a rare eyewitness account of Chinese monastic life and Buddhist practices ...
Art of the Bedchamber
This is the first comprehensive anthology of the Chinese sexology classics, the world's oldest and most advanced tradition of sexual yoga. While remaining accessible to the general reader, the translation ...
Violence in China
In this volume, Lipman and Harrell explore the prevalence and ubiquity of violence in China, a society whose official norms value harmony and condemn conflict. The book investigates violence in a wide ...
Sanctioned Violence in Early China
This book provides new insight into the creation of the Chinese empire by examining the changing forms of permitted violence—warfare, hunting, sacrifice, punishments, and vengeance. It analyzes the ...
Drama in the People's Republic of China
This is the first book ever published in the West on drama in the People's Republic of China. The plays, playwrights, theories, and performances range from the play that inflamed the Cultural Revolution ...
The South China Silk District
The material in this book is framed and organized through the themes of world system's theory -- such as incorporation, commercialization of agriculture, industrialization, proletarianization, and the ...
Criminal Justice in Post-Mao China
The post-Mao commitment to modernization, coupled with a general revulsion against the lawlessness of the Cultural Revolution, has led to a significant law reform movement in the People's Republic of ...