Kin-sum Li, Bronze Mirrors in Ancient China: Artistry and Technique
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2025).
ISBN: 9780295752907
Examines mass production in antiquity
Highly decorated mirrors are widely sought by museums with collections of Chinese art and are the most actively exchanged items in the art market of ancient Chinese bronzes. Featuring intricate designs that draw from those observable on woven bamboo, textiles, jade, and lacquered and painted objects of their time, these mirrors display intricate artistry. Motifs such as dragons, birds, and monsters interplay with layered decorative patterns. Most of what we know of these mirrors comes from their discovery in recent decades in tombs dating to early China. Despite their importance, this is the first book-length, scholarly study of Chinese bronze mirrors. Through research based on close examination and comparison of extant examples, Kin Sum Li offers a detailed analysis of how mirrors were designed and produced during the period from 500 to 200 BCE. He documents evidence of an emphasis on efficiency and division of labor in the production process that permitted artisans to apply expertise accumulated from long-term training and professional practice. Improvements in the production process eventually changed how mirror models and molds were prepared, as compared to earlier freehand carving. Collectively, mirror producers laid the foundations of a large commercial exchange network. Bronze Mirrors in Ancient China will be of interest to art historians, archaeologists, museum curators, art dealers, mirror collectors, and auction houses.
Cindy Yik-yi Chu and Beatrice Leung (eds)., The Palgrave Handbook of the Catholic Church in East Asia
(Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).
ISBN: 978-981-97-0658-7
This Handbook analyses explores the Catholic Church in East Asia following a chronological framework to trace events to the 21st century. This Handbook considers the horizontal strata of society through space, examining key issues such as church architecture, music and images, the Church's role in education, linguistic and translation issues surrounding Bible studies, evangelization and the building of Church hierarchy, religious formation, and gender relations. Exploring the Vatican’s relations with East Asian countries from the beginning of the Church in Asia, this Handbook offers a key reference to Asian Church history for students and researchers in Christianity studies, History, Cultural and Asian studies.
Kin-sum Li, Tea, Fragrance, and Music: Ephemeral Arts and the Formation of Scholar-Artist Communities in Northern Song China
(Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2024).
ISBN: 978-90-04-52890-1
This book explores one of the central questions among many disciplines: how communities are formed. It investigates this question through the perspectives of scholar-artist communities in Northern Song China. You will learn how some of the then popular ephemeral artistic practices, such as whisking tea, burning aromatic substances, and playing and listening to qin music, were performed. Through these practices related sensory experiences were generated. The formation process of communities invovled many other aspects such as the interplay among people, materials, ephemeral arts, and sensory experiences, which is hard to identify in pure textual sources.
Man-kong Wong and George Kam-wah Mak (eds)., Christianity and Education in Modern China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2024).
ISBN 978-988-8842-99-5
In Christianity and Education in Modern China, Wong Man Kong, George Kam Wah Mak, and other contributors demonstrate how Christianity served as a driving force in the development of modern education in China. Each of the chapters offers new insights into Christian involvement in different issues concerning education in modern China. The contributors examine how Christian missionaries and Chinese Christian educators interacted with China’s social, cultural, and political contexts. Also explored are the Christian legacies of higher education in mainland China and Taiwan, as well as how the spirit of Christian higher education in modern China has been carried on in Asia. This volume suggests that Western missionary and Chinese Christian perspectives of higher education were complementary with each other in modern China.
Cindy Yik-yi Chu, Cardinal John Tong Renewal within Tradition in the Catholic Church in Hong Kong
(Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).
ISBN: 9789819795918
This is a biography of Cardinal John Tong of Hong Kong, which charts his experiences through the Second World War, his time as a seminarian in Macau, and his studies in Rome during the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which represented a pivotal moment in modern Catholic Church history. Upon his return to Hong Kong, he became a prominent figure within the Church. His story provides a more critical insight into the development of the Church in Hong Kong and China. Since 1979, Cardinal Tong has made over one hundred visits to the mainland of China, thereby making a significant contribution to the development of the Church. This biography constitutes an invaluable historical record of the Church since 1979. The author has made effective use of the personal writings of Cardinal Tong, which have not been previously utilized and have not been included in any published materials until now. This book illuminates the pivotal role of Hong Kong, which has been largely overlooked in previous accounts. The history of the Chinese Catholic Church will undoubtedly require rewriting following the publication of this biography.
劉詠聰主編:《清代婦女傳記辭典》(蕭虹總編纂、陳玉冰副總主編;臺北:蘭臺出版社,2024年)。272 頁。
ISBN: 978-626-98677-1-4。
本書英文原版 Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: The Qing Period, 1644-1911 於 1998 年由紐約 M. E. Sharpe Inc. 出版,後有 Hong Kong University Press 1999 年再版。中文版原名《中國婦女傳記辭典:清代卷(1644-1911)》,於 2010 年由悉尼大學出版社出版。至 2024 年,蘭臺出版社再版此冊,易名《清代婦女傳記辭典》。全書以清代近二百名來自不同年代、種族、地區、階層之女性為傳主。參與撰傳的學者及譯者多達八十餘人,分別來自亞洲、歐洲和北美洲。
Noriaki Hoshino, Logics of Integration: Discourses on Multi-ethnic Empires and Transpacific Japanese Migration from the End of WWI to WWII
(Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2024).
ISBN: 978-90-04-70744-3
Logics of Integration, by Noriaki Hoshino, recounts the history of the relationship between modern Japanese transpacific migration and the formation of two multi-ethnic empires (Japan and the United States), focusing on intellectual discourses about migrants and their descendants.
This book adopts a transnational perspective, juxtaposing two multi-ethnic imperial formations, and develops a theoretical analysis of the discourses on mobility and national/territorial integration. Via this innovative approach, Dr. Hoshino reveals the unique role of Japanese migrants and their representation in the complicated power relationships between the two empires in the modern Pacific world.
鄺智文、蔡耀倫著:《孤獨前哨:再論一九四一年香港戰役》 香港:三聯書店(香港)有限公司,2024年。
ISBN:9789620454660。
本書作者利用現藏於中國香港、英國、日本等地檔案、以及作者私人蒐集多年的各種原始史料,從不同角度剖析各方自第一次世界大戰後的東亞戰略、備戰過程、作戰經過,並回顧香港政府民防工作的細節 ,在香港和東亞歷史背景下從新討論1941年香港戰役,並由此提供對二次大戰軍事史以及二十世紀初香港政治與社會歷史的觀察。