Self as Image in Asian Theory and Practice

This is the third in a series dealing with the concept of self and its importance in understanding Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cultures. The authors examine the relationship between self and image and its significance in attaining a deeper knowledge of Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cultures. The relationship between self and image is as complex as it is fascinating. It takes on different meanings and significances in diverse cultures. In this volume, the focus of attention is largely on representational practices and symbolic media, such as literature, cinema, art, and dance. By examining both classical and contemporary works associated with China, India, and Japan, the authors seek, on the one hand, to demonstrate the intricate relationship between self and image and, on the other, to make use of that relationship to further our understanding of these cultures.

Table of Contents:
Editor's Preface PART ONE: SOME PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS Introduction to Part One Wimal Dissanayake 1. Symbolic Expressions and the Self Arthur C. Danto PART TWO: SELF AS IMAGE IN CHINESE THEORY AND PRATICE Introduction to Part Two Roger T. Ames 2. Figures of Identity: Topoi and the Gendered Subject in Chinese Art Stephen J. Goldberg 3. Construction and Insertion of the Self in Song and Yuan Painting John Hay 4. Stylization and Invention: The Burden of Self-Expression in The Scholars Martin W. Huang 5. Unseen Lives: The Emotions of Everyday Existence Mirrored in Chinese Popular Poetry of the Mid-Seventeenth to Mid-Nineteenth Century Mark Elvin 6. The Self in Transition: Moral Dilemma in Modern Chinese Drama Kwok-kan Tam and Terry Siu-han Yip PART THREE: SELF AS IMAGE IN INDIAN THEORY AND PRACTICE Introduction to Part Three Wimal Dissanayake 7. Self as Image in the Natural Poetry of Kalidasa and Du Fu Wimal Dissanayake 8. Late Colonial and Postcolonial Selves in Hindu and Marathi Poetry Vinay Dharwadker 9. Communal Self and Cultural Imagery: The Katha Performance Tradition in South India Gayathri Rajapur Kassebaum 10. Carving a Self: Feminist Consciousness, the Family, and the Socialization Process: A Study of Ashapurna Devi's Trilogy Shivani Banerjee Chakravorty 11. Satyajit Ray's Secret Guide to Exquisite Murder: Creativity, Social Criticism, and the Partitioning of the Self Ashis Nandy PART FOUR: SELF AS IMAGE IN JAPANESE THEORY AND PRACTICE Introduction to Part Four Thomas P. Kasulis 12. "Impersonality" in Basho: Neo-Confucianism and Japanese Poetry Arthur H. Thornhill III 13. Zen and Artistry Thomas P. Kasulis 14. Perceptions of Self in Modern Japanese Literature: Two Adaptations of Classical Chinese Historiography Nobuko Miyama Ochner 15. Analog, Figure, Avatar: Explorations of the Self in Modern Japanese Fiction Lucy Lower 16. The Persistence of Self as Body and Personality in Japanese Buddhist Art Willa Jane Tanabe 17. Art and the Construction of Self and Subject in Japan Mara Miller List of Contributors Index

About the Author :
Roger T. Ames is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii. In addition to co-editing all three volumes in this series, his major publications include The Art of Rulership: A Study of Ancient Chinese Political Thought; Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth, and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture (with David L. Hall); Anticipating China: Thinking through the Narratives of Chinese and Western Culture (with David L. Hall); Thinking Through Confucius (with David L. Hall); all published by SUNY Press. He is also the co-editor of the SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Thomas P. Kasulis teaches in the Department of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University. In addition to co-editing all three of these volumes, he annotated and translated The Body: Toward an Eastern Mind-Body Theory by Yasuo Yuasa and co-edited The Recovery of Philosophy in America: Essays in Honor of John Edwin Smith (with Robert Cummings Neville), also published by SUNY Press. Wimal Dissanayake has been a Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii and is a Visiting Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He co-edited, with Thomas P. Kasulis and Roger T. Ames, both Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice and Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice, also published by SUNY Press.

Review :
"The topic is significant and the essays provide even greater insights when combined with their first two volumes. In particular, the work is so clear that I would have no hesitation using this book as an undergraduate text in a variety of courses. I believe that if new students of Asian philosophy studied these volumes focusing on the concept of self, then they would have a superb start in approaching a great variety of literature representative of each tradition. Once the implicit concept of self is made explicit, a new world is opened to the new interpreter of Asian literature, history, architecture, philosophy, religion, and language." - David Edward Shaner, Furman University