Anti-Japan

“Anti-Japan is a timely intervention that unpacks the entangled complexity of contemporary East Asian subjectivities across China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. One of the very few creative authorities on the politics of popular culture, Leo T. S. Ching produces historically and locally grounded work that continues to focus on mental-psychic conditions from which to locate the unresolved contradictions of Japanism and Americanism, as well as sources of hope beyond the nation-state. A must read.” - Kuan-Hsing Chen, author of Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization

“Filled with innovative, unique, and sensitive insights, Anti-Japan offers a brilliantly crafted critique of nationalist responses to the incomplete decolonization of East Asia following World War II. Leo T. S. Ching interrogates the historicity and limits of these responses while painstakingly excavating the possibilities of reckoning with the violence and trauma produced by Japanese colonialism, imperialism, and militarism. Ching's work is transnational and postnationalist in the best sense.” - Takashi Fujitani, author of Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during World War II

"Anti-Japan is a timely analysis of the complex relationships among countries in East Asia as the political and economic power relationship in the region is rapidly reconstructed." - Linda Wang, International Social Science Review

“This creative, thought-provoking, and deeply insightful book speaks to multiple cross-disciplinary audiences, including specialists and general readers in East Asian history, culture, and politics. It would also be of interest to anyone interested in memory, postcolonial studies, nationalism, and postconflict resolution and reconciliation.”

“This thought-provoking book will help readers reevaluate and contextualize various literary works, films, testimonies, music videos, video games, and other aspects of popular culture.... Throughout the book, the author underscores the incomplete decolonization of East Asia that contributed to the rise of anti-Japanese and pro-Japanese sentiments in the region.” - Takashi Yoshida, Journal of Asian Studies

“Leo Ching’s book Anti-Japan is a timely and relevant addition to the discussions surrounding the recent developments in Northeast Asia.” - Joon Oh, China Report

“This thought-provoking book will help readers reevaluate and contextualize various literary works, films, testimonies, music videos, video games, and other aspects of popular culture.... [T]his book provokes readers to reevaluate issues related to historical reconciliation in East Asia.” - Takashi Yoshida, Journal of Japanese Studies

“What Ching’s book does to set it apart from what is a fairly crowded field is to situate his analysis across the disciplinary boundaries of cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and the burgeoning studies of affect and emotions.... This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book and deserves to be read widely.” - Caroline Rose, Pacific Affairs

“[Ching’s] nuggets about the big picture of anti-Japanese sentiment across East Asia interspersed with close readings of works from Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea paint a fascinating, complex, and ultimately convincing picture of why anti-Japanese sentiment remains such an issue in East Asia.” - Philip Seaton, Japan Forum