BRIANNA HIRAMI WRITES — Cho Nam-Joo’s eye opening novel, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, displays how South Korea’s demoralizing rules and societal norms negatively affect the lives of Korean women. This straightforward novel wastes no time by jumping right into Kim Jiyoung’s, the protagonist’s, story about how sexism casually dictates the lives…
ALEC FARMER WRITES – Monkey King: Journey to the West (2021) is a translation of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. The book has its origin in China’s Ming dynasty from author Wu Cheng’en, and since its inception, the story of Sun Wukong, Tang Sanzang, and…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese novels) — Loneliness, a newly standardized leitmotif in Japanese literature, is the driving force behind much of modern Japan’s social dilemmas and Natsuko Imamura’s unnerving novel. Beyond that, the fear over taking risks and forging new relationships frames the narrative…
TOM PLATE WRITES — In its quixotic quest for certainty about China – mortal threat or mere robust competitor? – the American consensus now claims to have taken the measure of China and is not in doubt. It would be better if it were. A fictive western mind may be creating…
CLAIRE GUTE WRITES — When people think of pirates, they often imagine long ago pirates such as Britain’s West Indies’ Blackbeard, or fictional pirates like Jack Sparrow from the Disney amusement park ride, Pirates of the Caribbean. But the issue of piracy plagues many of the world’s oceans, and the…
TOM PLATE WRITES — Maybe the United Nations – fumbling, hopelessly bureaucratic, partly-corrupt – is in fact beyond redemption. Just forget about it: Let it career down the slippery slope of mediocrity and geopolitical irrelevance and splash ignominiously into New York’s East River — like some waterside condo with a…
AIDAN SMITH-FAGAN WRITES — Japan’s Defense and Deputy Prime Ministers have both recently affirmed their government’s willingness to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion from the Chinese mainland. Those statements also coincided with a recent report from the Financial Times detailing joint US-Japanese military exercises in the hotly…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese novels) – People often dwell on the existential concept of death and what it means to die. But what does it mean to be born? To be alive? For the beautiful, talented, and wealthy, life would seem to be a cornucopia of joyous excitement and…
TOM PLATE WRITES — There are always concerns about Japan, with its background of not only brilliant accomplishments but also unforgettable aggressions; but now that Japan is in the foreground again, if with cheerless Olympics, historic debt and China rise, who can be sure what’s next? Recall that the geopolitically…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – Are you feeling disillusioned with the relentless hustle and colorless monotony of metropolis living? Do you feel like another cog in the capitalist machine? Do you crave a simpler life? Consider adopting and adhering to the daily…
TOM PLATE WRITES — Given the relentless Western media verdict about “China’s increasing assertiveness,” it might seem surprising that across Asia doubts about America’s own continental conduct proceed apace. Yet this goes little reported back in the U.S. Nonetheless, within some government and policy circles in Indonesia, Japan and Singapore –…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – How does a global war affect regular people caught in its wake of devastation? How long do those effects linger on and how should a society react to them? Shaw Kuzki’s heart-wrenching tale, Soul Lanterns (2021), aims…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of great new books from Japan) – Many are already well aware of love’s fragility, but At the End of the Matinee (2021) proves that love can also be incredibly resilient. Based on a true story, Keiichiro Hirano’s book depicts an agonizing…
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – This imaginative and captivatingly ambiguous recent release by Murakami reads like a game of two truths and a lie (in this case, seven truths and a lie). First Person Singular (2021) presents its audience with eight entrancing…
EVENT — The Loyola Marymount University Center for Asian Business, in collaboration with the Center for International Business Education, presented a special webinar on April 22th 2021 with Victor Cha, Senior Vice President and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Dr. Cha holds…
VALERIA GURROLA WRITES — April 30th, 2021, marks US President Biden’s first one hundred days since taking office in January at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic in the United States. He has wasted no time setting the tone for the future of North Korean relations. North Korea must denuclearize—or…
