Join a community of readers interested in the Asia Pacific this winter!
We’ll provide the online link, moderator and the community of fellow readers interested in learning more about the Asia Pacific region; all you need to bring is the book!
This winter, we’ve selected two popular titles; the first exploring recent developments in China’s project in developing “the largest, most terrifyingly effective surveillance state in history” and the second analyzing the rise and vast proliferation of Japanese pop culture in today’s globalized world.
Join us for either or both book club meetings; be sure to reserve your spot today (registration links below).
We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State by Kai Strittmatter
Wednesday, January 12th, 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm, Online via Zoom
This event is free and open to the USF community and wider public.
Strittmatter, Kai. We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China’s Surveillance State. Custom House, 2021.
This book is available in e-book and print formats. The USF Library has also ordered the e-book.
Moderator: Melissa Dale, PhD, Executive Director and Associate Professor, Center for Asia Pacific Studies
Named a Notable Work of Nonfiction of 2020 by the Washington Post
“As heard on NPR’s Fresh Air, We Have Been Harmonized, by award-winning correspondent Kai Strittmatter, offers a groundbreaking look, based on decades of research, at how China created the most terrifying surveillance state in history.
China’s new drive for repression is being underpinned by unprecedented advances in technology: facial and voice recognition, GPS tracking, supercomputer databases, intercepted cell phone conversations, the monitoring of app use, and millions of high-resolution security cameras make it nearly impossible for a Chinese citizen to hide anything from authorities.” Read More>>
What reviewers have to say about We Have Been Harmonized:
“An engrossing, deeply reported survey of today’s China, a place that is part George Orwell, part Aldous Huxley.” — Dina Temple-Raston, Washington Post, “Notable Nonfiction of 2020”
“Terrifying. … This chilling book reveals just how far China has already gone in monitoring and controlling its citizens digitally. … China is attempting a shift unprecedented in global politics. It wants to combine the powers of a strong authoritarian regime with cutting-edge technology to create the most sophisticated surveillance state in history. Kai Strittmatter’s deeply researched and compellingly argued book makes the case that this is significant not just for China but for the world. … A warning call.” — Rana Mitter, Sunday Times (UK), a “Best Book of the Year so Far”
“In this fine-grained and alarming portrait of modern-day China, Strittmatter details how President Xi Jinping’s ‘thirst for power’ and the tools of big data and artificial intelligence are paving the way for ‘the return of totalitarianism under digital garb.’ … Drawing on a wealth of experience in China, Strittmatter stuffs the book with telling details and incisive analysis. Even veteran China watchers will be impressed and enlightened.”— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“We Have Been Harmonized is a terrifying portrait of life under unprecedented government surveillance – and a dire warning about what could happen anywhere under the pretense of national security.”
Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World by Matt Alt
Wednesday, January 26th, 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm, Online via Zoom
This event is free and open to the USF community and wider public.
Alt, Matt. Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World. Crown, 2020.
This book is available in e-book and print formats.
The USF Library has also ordered the e-book.
Moderator: Melissa Dale, PhD, Executive Director and Associate Professor, Center for Asia Pacific Studies
“Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon, online imageboards and emojis. But as Japan media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation, these novelties did more than entertain. They paved the way for our perplexing modern lives.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Japan seemed to exist in some near future, gliding on the superior technology of Sony and Toyota. Then a catastrophic 1990 stock-market crash ushered in the ‘lost decades’ of deep recession and social dysfunction. The end of the boom should have plunged Japan into irrelevance, but that’s precisely when its cultural clout soared—when, once again, Japan got to the future a little ahead of the rest of us.”
“A kinetic canter through the social history of globalized Japanese culture.”—Peter Guest, Mekong Review
“From karaoke to manga, emoji to Pokémon, the creations of modern Japanese style have transformed that country and daily life around the world. Pure Invention is a delightful and highly informed view of the people, ideas, and insights behind this pop-cultural revolution.”—James Fallows, author of China Airborne
“The rise of Japanese popular culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is an incredible story. Alt tells this story with verve and panache, giving a comprehensive overview of Japan’s soft power that is informative, enlightening, and always entertaining.”—Susan Napier, professor of Japanese studies at Tufts University and author of Miyazakiworld
We hope to see you at one or both of our book club meetings. We look forward to discussing these fascinating new books with you!
