Gendering Asia

11/01/2023

Book Launch Today at 15:00- hybrid or in person!
https://www.fhs.se/en/swedish-defence-university/events/2022-11-25-book-launch-waves-of-upheaval-in-myanmar-gendered-transformations-and-political-transitions.html

Välkommen till lanseringen av Waves of Upheaval in Myanmar: Gendered Transformations and Political Transitions där några av kapitelförfattarna presenterar delar av boken.

20/12/2022

Long time, no see! We're happy to announce the sale of our newest book 'Waves of Upheaval in Myanmar' 🥳

📬💫🎉Now Available for Sale Worldwide!

Happy to announce that 𝐖𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐔𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐦𝐚𝐫: 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 edited by Jenny Hedström and Elisabeth Olivius has arrived at our warehouse and is available now (⚠️postal strikes in the UK).
▶▶Get the book here: https://www.niaspress.dk/book/waves-of-upheaval-in-myanmar/
📚 E-Book version to come out next week!

09/05/2022

🎤 Interview with Peter A. Jackson and Benjamin Baumann on their newest book "Deities and Divas".
🎧 Listen to the full episode now: https://megaphone.link/NBN7394725222

Deities and Divas is the first book to trace commonalities between q***r and religious cultures in Southeast Asia and the West. The book details the very prominent roles that gay men and trans women are playing in the spirit medium cults rapidly growing in Myanmar, Thailand and beyond.

🔦 Find the book in the NIAS Press Webshop: https://www.niaspress.dk/product/deities-and-divas/

📕NEW PODCAST OUT 📕 Links below
How does q***r life fit into Buddhism and ritual? What role do gay men and trans women play in the practice of spirit mediumship and how do q***r spirit mediums mediate between Thailand’s religious fields? How can we understand the increasing numbers of q***r spirit mediums across mainland Southeast Asia?
Peter A. Jackson and Benjamin Baumann provide important insights into their new book “Deities and Divas, Q***r Ritual Specialists in Myanmar, Thailand and Beyond” (NIAS Press 2021). Deities and Divas is the first book to trace commonalities between q***r and religious cultures in Southeast Asia and the West. The book details the very prominent roles that gay men and trans women are playing in the spirit medium cults rapidly growing in Myanmar, Thailand and beyond.

🔗 Find the book in the NIAS Press Webshop: https://www.niaspress.dk/product/deities-and-divas/

Peter A. Jackson is Emeritus Professor in Thai cultural history at the Australian National University. Over the past four decades, he has written extensively on religion, gender and s*xuality in modern Thailand as well as critical approaches to Asian area studies. His ongoing research includes studying media and masculinity in Thai gay cultures and religion and ritual in Thai communities affected by HIV.
Benjamin Baumann is an assistant professor at the University of Heidelberg. His ethnographic work examines rural lifeworlds, socio-cultural identities and local language games in Thailand's lower Northeast, focusing on how the ghostly structures the imagination, reproduction of social collectives and communal sentiments of belonging.
The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.

We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.

About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dk

Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

18/06/2020

‘Gender and the Path to Awakening’ Post Author:admin Post published:June 18, 2020 Post Category:author / book review / Buddhism / Thailand Post Comments:0 Comments By Emma Kiedyk Martin Seeger is ‘a rare case among western scholars of Thai Buddhism and culture’, says Thai thinker and activis...

11/05/2020

Read the first post in the newly launched NIAS Press blog here. Last week, 'Alien Romance' explores romantic relationships aborad, agency and work-life balance for domestic workers abroad. Let us know what you think!

Maria Bo Niok at her home in Wonosobo, Java, 2019. Alien Romance admin November 1, 2019 author / Indonesia / women 0 Comments As our inaugural post, we bring you a fascinating on the agency of Indonesian domestic workers when engaging in relationships abroad. By Jafar Suryomenggolo, editor and trans...

29/01/2020

'What locations do women’s bodies occupy within India’s systems of caste, kinship and state domination? How have neoliberalisation and consumerism transformed older practices of s*xual coercion and patriarchal norms?'

This article by Manali Desai asks these and other questions, shedding some light on historic and current gender issues in India.

Falling demand for female labour and rising dowry thresholds as factors behind mounting attacks on women; gang-rape as an instrument of caste-oppression; a culture of impunity in conflict zones; son-preference, girl-aversion and the missing. Manali Desai surveys the modalities of violence against wo...

25/11/2019

Book review: Breast Cancer Meanings - Journeys Across Asia, Cynthia Chou and Miriam Koktvedgaard Zeitzen (NIAS Press, 2019)

'Throughout Asia, as this book demonstrates, decisions
to act on breast cancer are strongly influenced by fear, shame, and spiritual belief that often lead to the delay or refusal of treatment. (...) This book provides the medical professionals and the general public with valuable narratives on the cultural meanings behind the well-known statistics of breast cancer. It contains new insights on how non-medical factors affect breast cancer treatment.'
by Solita Sarwono in Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Vol. 175, No. 4 (2019).

Solita Sarwono, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Vol. 175, No. 4 (2019), pp. 577-579

20/05/2019

Thank you Gerakbudaya Bookshop - Penang for reminding us of Wesak today.
'Making Fields of Merit', by Monica Lindberg Falk (2007) addresses religion and gender relations through the lens of the lives, actions and role in Thai society of an order of Buddhist nuns.
See more: http://www.niaspress.dk/books/making-fields-merit

FOR WESAK. It's Wesak (Vesak, Vaiśākha) today, celebrating the birth, enlightenment and death (Parinirvāna) of Gautama Buddha in the Theravada or southern tradition. Here we highlight just a few of the scores of books on our shelves the look at different aspects of Buddhist beliefs, arts, culture and society.
→ Giles Béguin's Buddhist Art: An Historical and Cultural Journey (River Books) argues that Buddhist art represents the one truly unifying factor of the entire Asian continent and has become a fundamental part of its shared world heritage.
→ Robert E. Fisher's Buddhist Art and Architecture (Thames & Hudson) is still the best introductory guide to this phenomenally diverse tradition. It includes not only frescoes, relief carvings, colossal statues, silk embroideries and bronze ritual objects but also rock-cut shrines with a thousand Buddhas, glorious stupas and pagodas, the massive 'mandala in stone' of Borobudur and the entire temple complexes at Angkor.
→ Mohamed Yusoff Ismail's Buddhism and Ethnicity: Social Organization of a Buddhist Temple in Kelantan (ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute) is a finely grained ethnography of a Buddhist temple in a Siamese village of the east coast of Malaysia.
→ Monica Lindberg Falk's Making Fields of Merit (NIAS Press) examines how religion plays an important role in establishing gender boundaries. The growth in recent decades of self-governing nunneries (samnak chii) and the increasing interest of Thai women in a Buddhist monastic life are notable changes in the religion–gender dynamic.
→ Wondrous Brutal Fictions (Columbia University Press) presents eight Buddhist tales from the 17th-century Japanese sekkyo and ko-joruri puppet theatres. Both poignant and disturbing, they range from stories of cruelty and brutality to tales of love, charity and outstanding filial devotion.
→ Philip Coggan's Spirit Worlds: Cambodia, the Buddha and the Naga (John Beaufoy) is an absorbing study of Cambodian religion and beliefs covering everything from the role of monks in everyday life to beliefs in ghosts, gods and shamans.
→ The edited volume, Champions of Buddhism (NUS Press) deals with an element of belief that is hidden at the margins of Burmese Buddhism and culture. The cults of the weikza shape Burmese culture by bringing together practices of supernatural power and a mission to protect Buddhism.
→ Llewelyn Morgan's The Buddhas of Bamiyan (Harvard University Press) examines the two colossal figures of the Buddha overlooked the fertile Bamiyan Valley on the Silk Road in Afghanistan, which stood for 1400 years. Witness to a melting pot of passing monks, merchants and armies, the Buddhas embodied the intersection of East and West, and their destruction by the Taliban in 2001 provoked international outrage.
Peace and Enlightenment.

05/10/2018

Another brilliant review of Hongwei Bao's 'Q***r Comrades' has been published in the recent issue of Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics'.

In here reviewer Xiaodong Lin says:

"Hongwei Bao’s monograph, Q***r Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism in Postsocialist China is a timely book as issues of gender and s*xuality are at a particular critical moment in China. Bao is an established scholar in the field of critical theory and cultural studies and Q***r Comrades demonstrates his highly sophisticated theoretical innovation, while at the same time, remaining accessible for a wide readership.

[...]

Last, but not least, one of the strengths in Bao’s book is that he does not shy away from political and human rights issues. The book demonstrates his continuing commitment to engaging with LGBT communities and issues through his rich and detailed empirical data, as well as his nuanced analytical approach. Overall, I consider Q***r Comrades will become one of the key texts in the field of Q***r Studies."

Read the full review here:http://www.lectitopublishing.nl/viewpdf/q***r-comrades-gay-identity-and-tongzhi-activism-in-postsocialist-china-3893.pdf

30/08/2018

New title out! Though not in the Gendering Asia series it might be of interest anyway. It is Martin Seeger's 'Gender and the Path to Awakening' published by Silkworm Books and NIAS Press.

Read more below.

08/08/2018

We are pleased to see that the first review of Hongwei Bao's 'Q***r Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism in Postsocialist China' (2018) has been published, by the Modern Chinese Literature and Culture Resource Center. And what a brilliant review!

The reviewer, Ari Larissa Heinrich (University of California, San Diego), calls the book:

"(...) an eminently teachable resource for students interested in understanding some of the early twenty-first century figurations that have informed contemporary Mainland Chinese cultural practices around gay identities."

And concludes:

"As we enter a time when the market-friendly and acontextual global narratives of “coming out” or “marriage equality” threaten to eclipse or even erase more complex understandings of twenty-first century q***r Chinese (and Sinophone) histories, a nuanced and engaged work like Hongwei Bao’s becomes even more important. Q***r Comrades should be on the syllabus of any class about q***r activisms in China and beyond."

Read the full review here: http://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/heinrich/