For close to two hundred years, the ideas of Shakespeare have inspired incredible work in the literature, fiction, theater, and cinema of China, Taiwan,... and Hong Kong. From the novels of Lao She and Lin Shu to Lu Xun's search for a Chinese "Shakespeare," and from Feng Xiaogang's martial arts films to labor camp memoirs, Soviet-Chinese theater, Chinese opera in Europe, and silent film, Shakespeare has been put to work in unexpected places, yielding a rich trove of transnational imagery and paradoxical citations in popular and political culture. Chinese Shakespeares is the first book to concentrate on both Shakespearean performance and Shakespeare's appearance in Sinophone culture and their ambiguous relationship to the postcolonial question. Substantiated by case studies of major cultural events and texts from the first Opium War in 1839 to our times, Chinese Shakespeares theorizes competing visions of "China" and "Shakespeare" in the global cultural marketplace and challenges the logic of fidelity-based criticism and the myth of cultural exclusivity. In his critique of the locality and ideological investments of authenticity in nationalism, modernity, Marxism, and personal identities, Huang reveals the truly transformative power of Chinese Shakespeares.

This bestselling introduction to Chinese society uses the themes of resistance and protest to explore the complexity of life in contemporary China. An... interdisciplinary and international team of China scholars draw on perspectives from sociology, anthropology, psychology, history and political science and covers a broad range of issues. Topics covered include: labour and environmental disputes rural and ethnic conflict migration legal challenges intellectual and religious dissidence opposition to family planning. The newly revised, third edition adds two new chapters on gender and the family, and the reform of the Hukou system thus providing a comprehensive text for both undergraduates and specialists in the field, encouraging the reader to challenge conventional images of contemporary Chinese society.

Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius is based on the most up-to-date archaeological discoveries. It introduces new data, as well as new ways to think... about them - modes of analysis that, while familiar to archaeological practitioners in the West and in Japan, are herein applied to evidence from the Chinese Bronze Age for the first time. The treatment of social stratification, clan and lineage organisation, as well as gender and ethnic differences will be of interest to those involved in the general or comparative analysis of grand themes in the Social Sciences.

Describes in chilling, yet affectionate, detail the disintegration of a wealthy Ottoman family, both financially and emotionally. It is rich with the... scent of fin de sieclé Istanbul in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. His mother was a beauty, married at thirteen, as befitted a Turkish woman of her class. His grandmother was an eccentric autocrat, determined at all costs to maintain her traditional habits. But the war changed everything. Death and financial disaster reigned, the Sultan was overthrown, and Turkey became a republic. The red fez was ousted by the cloth cap, and the family was forced to adapt to an unimaginably impoverished life. Filled with brilliant vignettes of old Turkish life, such as the ritual weekly visit to the hamam, as it tells the ""other side "" of the Gallipoli story, and its impact on one family and the transformation of a nation. ""It is just as though someone had opened a door marked `Private' and showed you what was inside.... A most interesting and affectionate book.""-Sir John Betjeman. ""A wholly delightful book.""-Harold Nicolson

Furniture, when you really stop to think about it, has a surprisingly small number of uses: for sitting or lying on, for storing things in, and to ... provide flat surfaces on which to dine, write, or perform other tasks. Nonetheless, furniture designers throughout history have drawn on a seemingly endless supply of creativity to give expression to contemporary sensibilities through the design of these ubiquitous objects. This second edition of Charles Boyce's exhaustive Dictionary of Furniture chronicles artistic and cultural currents of past and present, using changing furniture as a looking glass through which to learn about the time in which it was made. Boyce shares amusing and fascinating anecdotes illustrating the links between furniture design and the larger world. Louis XIV of France, for instance, required French aristocrats to imitate the extravagantly luxurious architecture and furnishings of Versailles in order to control their wealth. In China, chairs with names like "chair of the old man who has been drinking" or "chair like a hanging lantern shaped like a chair" enjoyed popularity throughout the Song and Ming dynasties. In a comprehensive listing of entries from "Aalto, Hugo Alvar Henrik" to "Zui Weng Yi," Boyce illuminates readers about furniture styles, construction details, terminology, furniture designers, and design movements throughout history and throughout the world. He includes information on European-inspired classical, baroque, rococo, pop, and modernist styles, among many others. A helpful guide to buying furniture is included, and offers advice on how to settle on a budget, how to determine what you need for your space, how to ensure against fraud, and what to do if you are unhappy with a purchase. This helpful reference will surely prove handy for both furniture enthusiasts and those looking to redecorate or refresh their homes. --Robin Donovan

Many colorful theatrical activities can be found throughout China. The best known and most unique of these is perhaps traditional Chinese opera, which... has a history of over 800 years. However, since the early twentieth century, following increased contact with the West, drama without music has also become popular in China. The development and prosperity of modern drama has created a new landscape for Chinese theater, which, as a whole, has become more diverse. In this illustrated introduction Fu Jin explores the origins and development of this distinctive branch of the Chinese arts.

"Chinese philosophy before our Christian era is emphasized in this nontechnical summary of Chinese thought. Professor Creel also deals with... Confucianism, the ideas of Mo-tsu and Mencius, Taoism, Legalism, and their variations and adaptations. As an introduction for the general reader, this book stands among the best."—China: A Resource and Curriculum Guide"There exists nowhere else such a well-written presentation of the main trends in Chinese thought in so brief a space. The text is not cluttered with Chinese names and the pages are not weighed down with footnotes—but the references are there for those who want them, with suggestions for further readings. This is a book which can be understood by those who have never read anything else about China."—The New York Times Book Review

Chinese script, grammar and vocabulary are taught from scratch, enabling the book to be used as an introduction to Classical Chinese literature. It is... also suitable as a part of a course in Classical Chinese, with or without previous knowledge of Chinese. The exercises are structured and progressive so each is restricted to the vocabulary and grammar met so far. It will also be of interest to ethnic Chinese wishing to recover their cultural roots.

As China experiences tremendous economic and social transformation in the reform years, language use in China has also undergone remarkable changes in... the past couple decades: the national obsession with learning the global English, which becomes both a resource for modernization and a source of contention; the expanding use of local languages and dialects in mass media, where standard Mandarin is promoted and legally prescribed as the principal language; the emergence of the Internet language that has become a creative source for constructing a distinct youth identity; the Cantonese writing movement that challenges the hegemony of the Chinese writing system, which is traditionally based on northern Mandarin, to name a few. The nine papers collected in this volume examine recent trends in language use in mainland China, and the associated social, economic, political, and cultural manifestations. Drawing on their backgrounds and expertise in sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and cultural studies, the authors offer interdisciplinary, insightful, and critical analysis of linguistic struggles and linguistic politics in contemporary China. As such, the carefully presented details of emerging language use in this book will be of value to scholars interested in language and culture in contemporary China. It may be used as a supplementary text for students in Chinese (socio-)linguistics, Chinese language, Chinese cultural studies, Chinese anthropology, Chinese sociology, and Chinese studies in general.

This portrait of social change in the North China plain depicts how the world of the Chinese peasant evolved during an era of war and how it in turn... shaped the revolutionary process. The book is based on evidence gathered from archives and interviews with villagers and rural officials.

Characters: 3 male, 3 femaleComedyThe Wongs are American as apple pie. Desdemona dreams of Princeton but could use some help with her calculus. Her... brother Upton wants to be a World of Warcraft champion but needs more free time to train. Upton solves both their problems by bringing an indentured servant home one day, but they soon discover that "Ching Chong" has American dreams of his own!An irreverent new comedy by Lauren Yee is skewering every cliché about Asian American identity. The show won the 2007 Yale Playwrights Festival."...a lively, likable show! Playwright Lauren Yee gleefully highlights the assimilated life of the Wongs, who defy the stereotype of the hard driving Chinese-American family. It's clever and her insights are astute!" -Ken Jaworowski, New York Times"...a wildly inventive, raucously funny ride. Though rooted in Asian American literary tradition, this play upends its conventions with inspired irreverence. You have not seen anything like this before. The fourth wave of Asian American playwriting has arrived!" -David Henry Hwang, New York Times"a smart, fast-paced comedy that wrings laughs from the topics of cultural identity and assimilation. Neither predictable nor politically correct, it's a satirical cartoon that has heart and even occasional poignancy" -Theatremania.com, Patrick Lee"Yee's characters have a substantial basis in camp...Ching Chong Chinaman shines in its countless bit parts and joking asides..." -Nicole Villeneuve, Backstage"Wildly funny...makes hilarious splash in melting pot" -Contra Costa Times"Whip-smart and very funny... Particularly clever is Yee's deft use of magical realism." -East Bay Express "Fast, furious and very funny... an exhilarating send-up" -Berkeley Daily Planet "Great laughs...unexpectedly moving" -Examiner.com

Concise and incisive, each interpretive biography in the Library of World Biography Series focuses on a person whose actions and ideas either... significantly influenced world events or whose life reflects important themes and developments in global history.