Methods and Algorithms

Approaches and methods in comparative education are of obvious importance, but do not always receive adequate attention. This second edition of a well-received book, containing thoroughly updated and

The first exhaustive English-language history and analysis of the Chinese opera genre, Kunqu. In Kunqu: A Classical Opera of Twenty-First-Century China, Joseph S. C. Lam offers a holistic and interdisciplinary view of Kunqu, a 600-year-old genre of Chinese opera that has been fashionably performed inside and outside of China. The first comprehensive and scholarly book on Kunqu written in English, this book explains how and why the genre charms and signifies Chinese culture, history, and personhood. Approaching the genre from several perspectives, ranging from those of performers and producers to those of casual audiences, dedicated connoisseurs, and scholarly critics, Lam also employs a judicious blend of Chinese and international theories and methods. Herein, he establishes the significance of Kunqu not only in the sphere of Chinese music but among the cultural heritage and performing arts at a global level as well.

Simply keeping the mind clear and calm was, for many post-Tang Daoists, the path to eternal life and freedom. Through sheer serenity, practitioners believed they could attain immunity to hunger, eliminate sexual function, suspend breath and pulse, engage in astral travel, and command spirits and natural forces.In his meticulously researched study, Stephen Eskildsen examines how this perspective informed Daoist internal alchemists after the Tang dynasty (618–907), including prominent representatives of the Quanzhen tradition in the north and the Nanzong in the south. Drawing on a wide array of textual sources, he analyzes the teachings of figures like Qiu Chuji (1143–1227), Yin Zhiping (1169–1251), Zhang Boduan (ca. 984–1082), Bai Yuchan (1194– 1229), Li Daochun (fl. 1288–1292), Yu Yan (ca. 1253–1314), and Wu Shouyang (1574–after 1641), among others. These adepts emphasized passive, straightforward methods that they believed gave rise to spontaneous psychic, sensory, and physiological p

This publication, and the accompanying exhibition, presents the vital contributions of two of Japan's most remarkable artists, Kurosaki Akira and Nakabayashi Tadayoshi, who participated in and influenced the twentieth-century renaissance of printmaking in Japan. This cultural phenomenon grew as the artists underwent rigorous training while maintaining a robust interest in traditional printing methods, such as the world-renowned woodblock technique. Coupled with their innovative experimentation, the two printers spearheaded a revival that expanded upon established printing techniques. The unusual juxtaposition of two contemporary artists emphasises both Kurosaki and Nakabayashi's masterpieces and their individual contributions to the ongoing development of Japanese printmaking. This pairing also highlights the distinctiveness, cultural relevance and novelty of their work. Both born in 1937 and similarly trained, Kurosaki and Nakabayashi pursued different topics and employed dis

Jonathan Stalling’s experimental approach to bridging art, poetics, and linguistics imagines a world where individual value systems are no longer translated into the language of other mediums, but foster conscious “interlanguages.” Stalling writes, “Meeting in the middle, ‘interlanguages’ are spaces where one learns a new language without having left one’s home fully behind; these situations can result in richly generative interlingual and intercultural estuaries which provide new ways of imagining.” Stalling’s conceptual language art fuses Classical Chinese poetics and linguistics with modern algorithms to create art installations and poetry that transform Chinese into English and English into Chinese in new and surprising ways.With a visual gallery of Stalling’s work, an interview with the artist, a critical introduction by the editor, and critical chapters written by the comparative literature scholar Timothy Billings and Chinese Linguist Liu Nian, the volume provides readers with a

In the early twentieth century, Chinese traditional architecture and the French-derived methods of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts converged in the United States when Chinese students were given scholarships

This book includes twenty-five articles on the biology and practical cultivation of three groups of mushroom: Volvariella, Pleurotus, and Auricularia, and on their nutritional value, genetical breedin

This volume covers five areas: dynamic light scattering, coherent imaging, optical ellipsometry, computer interfaced microscopy, and fluorescence imaging.