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Lost in the Spanish Quarter
As seen in the New York Times Book Review. Set in the passionate, intense, and crumbling neighborhood known as the Spanish Quarter of Naples, comes a tale of two students searching for love and belonging in the city they so desperately want to call home. Years after leaving Naples with a broken heart, Heddi receives an email from her first love. Although she now lives in New Zealand, just the thought of the Spanish Quarter’s narrow, winding streets sparks the pain of longing. Heddi had found her place in that city built on Roman ruins and set against a sleeping volcano. A place she wants to call home despite being l’americana or the American. For Heddi’s group of university friends, Na...
Transforming the Void
Transforming the Void: Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions considers paths to self-cultivation and salvation that are patterned on human embryological development or procreative imagery in the religions of China and Japan. Focusing on Taoism, Esoteric Buddhism, Shinto, Shugendō, and local religious traditions, the contributors to the volume provide new insight into how the body’s generative processes are harnessed as powerful metaphors for spiritual attainment. This volume offers an in-depth examination of the religious dimensions of embryology and reproductive imagery, topics that have been hitherto solely approached through the lens of the history of medicine. Contributors include: Brigitte Baptandier, Catherine Despeux, Grégoire Espesset, Christine Mollier, Fabrizio Pregadio, Dominic Steavu, Lucia Dolce, Bernard Faure, Iyanaga Nobumi, Anna Andreeva, Kigensan Licha, Gaynor Sekimori.
Zibuyu, “What The Master Would Not Discuss”, according to Yuan Mei (1716 - 1798): A Collection of Supernatural Stories (2 vols)
Although the preface says that the tales in this collection of supernatural stories should not be taken seriously and just aim to dispel boredom, Zibuyu is a work with different reading levels, which allows to uncover several deep trends, taboos and fantasies of late imperial intellectual circles. Disgust, surprise and laughter are constantly evoked, by continually attracting and repulsing the reader. Yuan Mei’s approach guides the reader to an adventure in the dangerous recesses of the self. It is a sort of allegoric fantastic reflection on the relative and polyphonic essence of human beings, the multiplicity of selves from psychological perception, and a challenge to the traditional biographical and historical perspective for the unreliability of destiny. Dreams, madness, delusions and other extreme cognitive and affective conditions, abnormal events, gods and spirits, and the dark world of death lead to a reversal of perspective and destroy the Apollonian vision of the social-centered Confucian orthodoxy. With introduction, translation and comments.
Nomads on Pilgrimage
Nomads on Pilgrimage: Mongols on Wutaishan (China), 1800-1940 is a social history of the Mongols’ pilgrimages to Wutaishan in late imperial and Republican times. In this period of economic crisis and rise of nationalism and anticlericalism in Mongolia and China, this great Buddhist mountain of China became a unique place of intercultural exchanges, mutual borrowings, and competition between different ethnic groups. Based on a variety of written and visual sources, including a rich corpus of more than 340 Mongolian stone inscriptions, it documents why and how Wutaishan became one of the holiest sites for Mongols, who eventually reshaped its physical and spiritual landscape by their rites and strategies of appropriation.
Shan'ge, the 'Mountain Songs'
Mountain Songs is a collection of folk songs edited by the famous writer Feng Menglong (1574-1646). By this innovative work - mainly written in the Suzhou dialect - he aimed to revitalize poetry through the power of popular songs. This collection is very significant to the understanding of the characters of the mobile society of Jiangnan and the vitality of its intellectual world. The songs deal with the lives of common people: women, often prostitutes, boatmen, peasants, hunters, fishers and paddlers. Their spirit is far from the orthodox moral intents that Zhu Xi advocated for interpreting the Shijing, and their language is often vulgar and full of crude expressions or salacious double meanings and contains allusions to sexual and erotic behaviour.
A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship
Through a detailed analysis of epistolary writing, A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship: Spiritual Ambitions, Intellectual Debates, and Epistolary Connections brings to life the Buddhist discourse of a network of lay disciples who debated the value of Chan versus Pure Land, sudden versus gradual enlightenment, adherence to Buddhist precepts, and animal welfare. By highlighting the differences between their mentor, the monk Zhuhong 袾宏 (1535-1615), and his nemesis, the Yangming Confucian Zhou Rudeng 周汝登 (1547-1629), this work confronts long-held scholarly views of Confucian dominance to conclude that many classically educated, elite men found Buddhist practices a far more attractive option. Their intellectual debates, self-cultivation practices, and interpersonal relations helped shape the contours of late sixteenth-century Buddhist culture.
Archaeological and Visual Sources of Meditation in the Ancient Monasteries of Kuča
In Archaeological and Visual Sources of Meditation in the Ancient Monasteries of Kuča, Angela F. Howard and Giuseppe Vignato use diverse methodological approaches from archaeology, art history and religious studies to reconstruct monastic life and practices in the rock monasteries on the northern Silk Route (ca. 200-650). Analysis of the caves’ function, meditation manuals, and the cave murals highlights the centrality of meditation, a fundamental duty of Kuča monastics. This interdisciplinary study utilizes hitherto unpublished line drawings, maps, and photographs to reconstruct and interpret the architecture and décor of Kuča caves, thus revealing the close links between the spiritual and the physical, between doctrinal teaching and practice and the lay-out and décor of the monasteries.
Questioning Science in East Asian Contexts
Questioning Science in East Asian Contexts brings together twelve essays written by Yung Sik Kim addressing various questions about the social and cultural contexts of science in East Asia. Most of the essays deal with the relationship between science and Confucianism, especially the roles that Confucian thought, values, and institutions have on the development of science. Kim shows that this relationship is very complex and multifaceted, and cannot be dealt with in a simplistic manner. Kim offers comparative perspectives and discusses the problems of intercultural comparisons; he demonstrates that in spite of the potential dangers that accompany these comparisons, they should be made nonetheless as they allow for a better understanding of the situation in East Asia.
Doing Good and Ridding Evil in Ming China: The Political Career of Wang Yangming
In Doing Good and Ridding Evil in Ming China: The Political Career of Wang Yangming, George L. Israel offers a detailed study of this influential Neo-Confucian philosopher’s official career and military campaigns.
Rome Guide
A guide for the independent traveller to Rome, and the adjacent marvels of southern Italy. It starts by describing a choice of over 100 hotels and restaurants in the city, from deluxe establishments through to simple, inexpensive places offering wonderful value. All are described in detail and are accompanied by a guide to Roman cuisine and wine.
