I am talking today to Mingwei Song about his new book, Fear of Seeing: A Poetics of Chinese Science Fiction (Columbia UP, 2023). The book is a sweeping account of contemporary Chinese science fiction that begins by asking, has “anything new arrived with the new century that redefined contemporaneousness?” As listeners might guess, in Song’s account, the aest ... Show More
Nov 20
Luke Gibson, "Reading Sanskrit: A Complete Step-By-Step Introduction with Texts from the Buddhist Tradition" (Columbia UP, 2025)
This textbook offers a fresh approach to learning Sanskrit, the ancient language at the heart of South Asia’s vast religious, philosophical, and literary heritage. Designed for independent learners and classrooms alike, it provides a uniquely in-depth and immersive introduction t ... Show More
41m 2s
Nov 1
Martin Moore and Thomas Colley, "Dictating Reality: The Global Battle to Control the News" (Columbia UP, 2025)
From the United States to China and from Brazil to India, an authoritarian approach to news is spreading across the world. Increasingly, the media is no longer a check on power or a source of objective information but a means by which governments and leaders can propagate their v ... Show More
1 h
Oct 28
Diane Ravitch, "An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else" (Columbia UP, 2025)
For many years, Diane Ravitch was among the country’s leading conservative thinkers on education. The cure for what ailed the school system was clear, she believed: high-stakes standardized testing, national standards, accountability, competition, charters, and vouchers. Then Rav ... Show More
1h 2m
Jan 2022
378 Liu Xinwu and the "Scar Literature" of China (with Jeremy Tiang) | Bharati Sneak Preview (with Mira Sundara Rajan)
In this episode, Jacke talks to Jeremy Tiang about his new translation of The Wedding Party, a Chinese classic contemporary novel written in the early 1980s by Liu Xinwu, one of the originators of what has been termed "scar literature." PLUS we feature a sneak preview of our conv ... Show More
49m 26s
Feb 2022
Peggy Wang, "The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking to Peggy Wang about her new book, The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art (Minnesota University Press, 2021). In the book, Wang asks readers to reconsider the term “global” and “world” in relation to the (often simplistically ... Show More
1h 8m
May 2024
Ian Johnson, "Sparks: China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Even as most contemporary states look to history in order to legitimize their existence in some way or other, the past – and narrations of it – hold particular weight in China. This is not a new phenomenon, for which pasts to elevate and which to suppress has long been a concern ... Show More
1h 6m
Dec 2021
Shaoling Ma, "The Stone and the Wireless: Mediating China, 1861–1906" (Duke UP, 2021)
In this episode, I interview Shaoling Ma, professor of Humanities (Literature) at Yale-NUS about her new book, The Stone and the Wireless: Mediating China, 1861-1906 (Duke UP, 2021). In this fascinating book, Ma grapples with theoretical and historical questions of media and medi ... Show More
1h 5m
Apr 2024
Xiaofei Kang, "Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942-1953" (Oxford UP, 2023)
China’s communist revolution has an intricate relationship with gender and religion. In Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942-1953 (Oxford UP, 2023), Xiaofei Kang moves the two themes to the center stage in the Chinese Re ... Show More
1h 24m
Oct 2021
Hongjian Wang, "Decadence in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture: A Comparative and Literary-Historical Reevaluation" (Cambria Press, 2020)
European Decadence, a controversial artistic movement that flourished mainly in late-nineteenth-century France and Britain, has inspired several generations of Chinese writers and literary scholars since it was introduced to China in the early 1920s. Translated into Chinese as tu ... Show More
1h 26m
May 2011
Dagmar Schaefer, “The Crafting of the 10,000 Things: Knowledge and Technology in Seventeenth-Century China” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
In her elegant work of historical puppet theater The Crafting of the 10,000 Things: Knowledge and Technology in Seventeenth-Century China (University of Chicago Press, 2011), Dagmar Schaefer introduces us to the world of scholars and craftsmen in seventeenth-century China through ... Show More
58m 38s
Jul 2022
Japanese Literature in WWII
Today we’re talking about the 1930s and 40s in Japan—fascism, World War Two, and the American Occupation.In particular, how did 20 years of censorship shape Japanese literature?
We're also taking a look at the life and work of Akiyuki Nosaka, whose novella, "Grave of the Fir ... Show More
41m 21s