Stanford University Press Blog

Lunar (Chinese) New Year, Chicago Style!

As we ring in the Lunar Year of the Dragon (along with Warren Buffett, who played "I've Been Working on the Railroad" on his banjo (!?) to the Chinese people in honor of), President Obama reminds us that "we are stronger because of our diversity; we are richer because of the different cultures that make up this country."  Having spent some time in Chicago, our President knows more about how the lunar year is celebrated there than most. 

Most of us think of the massive, colorful celebrations on the West Coast or in New York when we think about how the "Chinese New Year" (or the Spring Festival, as it is known in China) is celebrated in the US. Far fewer know about the vibrant community of Chinese Americans that developed around the same time (late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries) as its coastal counterparts.  In Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community Since 1870, Huping Ling offers the first comprehensive history of Chinese in Chicago, beginning with the arrival of the pioneering Moy brothers in the 1870s and continuing to the present.

Ling focuses on how race, transnational migration, and community have defined Chinese in Chicago. Drawing upon archival documents in English and Chinese, she charts how Chinese made a place for themselves among the multiethnic neighborhoods of Chicago, cultivating friendships with local authorities and consciously avoiding racial conflicts. Ling takes readers through the decades, exploring evolving family structures and relationships, the development of community organizations, and the operation of transnational businesses. She pays particular attention to the influential role of Chinese in Chicago's academic and intellectual communities and to the complex and conflicting relationships among today's more dispersed Chinese Americans in Chicago.

Enjoy, and Happy Lunar New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Mazzone, author of Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law, on SOPA

With an estimated 7,000 websites, including Wikipedia, Mozilla, Reddit and Wordpress, threatening to go dark on January 18 in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its companion bill, PIPA, we thought now might be a good time to take a a closer look at bills heading to Congress in the new session. 

For that we turn to Jason Mazzone, renowned legal scholar and author of Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property, and a recent piece he wrote for TorrentFreak, which we excert in part here:

"Title I of SOPA (dubbed the E-PARASITE Act) creates a “market-based system to protect U.S. customers and prevent U.S. funding of sites dedicated to theft of U.S. property.” It achieves this by empowering copyright owners who have a “good faith belief” that they are being “harmed by the activities” of a website to send a notice to the site’s payment providers (e.g. PayPal) and Internet advertisers to end business with the allegedly offending site.

The payment providers and advertisers that receive the notice must stop transactions with the site. No judicial review is required for the notice to be sent and for the payments and advertising curtailed—only the good faith representation of the copyright owner. Damages are also not available to the site owner unless a claimant “knowingly materially” misrepresented that the law covers the targeted site, a difficult legal test to meet. The owner of the site can issue a counter-notice to restore payment processing and advertising but services need not comply with the counter-notice.

There is also a catch: a site owner who issues a counter-notice automatically consents to being sued in U.S. courts (a strong disincentive for sites based abroad). With few checks at all, SOPA gives copyright owners a sharp tool to disrupt and shut down websites. Based on their past conduct, there is no reason to think that copyright owners will use this tool with any measure of restraint."

Jason Mazzone, author of Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law, on SOPA

With an estimated 7,000 websites, including Wikipedia, Mozilla, Reddit and Wordpress, threatening to go dark on January 18 in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its companion bill, PIPA, we thought now might be a good time to take a a closer look at bills heading to Congress in the new session. 

For that we turn to Jason Mazzone, renowned legal scholar and author of Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property, and a recent piece he wrote for TorrentFreak, which we excert in part here:

"Title I of SOPA (dubbed the E-PARASITE Act) creates a “market-based system to protect U.S. customers and prevent U.S. funding of sites dedicated to theft of U.S. property.” It achieves this by empowering copyright owners who have a “good faith belief” that they are being “harmed by the activities” of a website to send a notice to the site’s payment providers (e.g. PayPal) and Internet advertisers to end business with the allegedly offending site.

The payment providers and advertisers that receive the notice must stop transactions with the site. No judicial review is required for the notice to be sent and for the payments and advertising curtailed—only the good faith representation of the copyright owner. Damages are also not available to the site owner unless a claimant “knowingly materially” misrepresented that the law covers the targeted site, a difficult legal test to meet. The owner of the site can issue a counter-notice to restore payment processing and advertising but services need not comply with the counter-notice.

There is also a catch: a site owner who issues a counter-notice automatically consents to being sued in U.S. courts (a strong disincentive for sites based abroad). With few checks at all, SOPA gives copyright owners a sharp tool to disrupt and shut down websites. Based on their past conduct, there is no reason to think that copyright owners will use this tool with any measure of restraint."

With the Publication of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Volume Six, SUP and the Zohar Education Project Reach Mid-Point of Monumental Undertaking

Coming soon: next month marks both the publication of  The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, Volume Six (Stanford University Press and the Zohar Education Project, Inc., $55.00) and the midpoint of a monumental project: the authoritative new English translation of the masterpiece of the Jewish mystical tradition. The 12-volume Zohar: Pritzker Edition, translation and commentary by Daniel C. Matt, is based on a newly constructed critical text—the only modern text that draws on many variants in the early Aramaic manuscripts—and brings a hidden  treasure of Western Culture to lay readers, spiritual seekers, scholars and the Jewish community. 

Sefer ha-Zohar (The Book of Radiance) has amazed and overwhelmed readers ever since it emerged in medieval Spain toward the end of the thirteenth century. Written in a unique, lyrical Aramaic, this masterpiece of Kabbalah exceeds the dimensions of a normal book; it is virtually a body of literature, comprising over twenty discrete sections. The bulk of the Zohar consists of a fascinating mystical commentary on the Torah, from Genesis through Deuteronomy.  In it a group of rabbis wander the hills of Galilee, discovering and sharing secrets of Torah, interpreting the actions of biblical figures while encountering various astonishing characters.

This sixth volume of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition completes the Zohar's commentary on the book of Exodus. Some of the volume focuses on the Dwelling (or mishkan) built by Moses and the Israelites in the Sinai Desert. The mishkan symbolizes Shekhinah, the feminine presence of God who "dwells" on earth. The construction of the mishkan is intended to ensure Her intimacy with the people—and especially with Moses, who is actually called Her husband.

The dramatic episode of the Golden Calf receives special treatment. The worship of the calf is seen as a rejection of Shekhinah. Normally, She would have restrained the wrath of God's masculine aspect and prevented Him from striking Israel; but having been rejected, She instead departed, leaving the people vulnerable. Whereupon the blessed Holy One hinted to Moses that it was up to him to defend Israel from divine destruction. By invoking the three patriarchs, Moses pinned God's arms, as it were, and immobilized Him, saving his people.

Translating this keystone of Kabbalah presented enormous challenges for Daniel C. Matt, who is one of the world’s foremost authorities on Jewish mysticism. Not only was there no complete, reliable manuscript of the Zohar in the original Aramaic in existence anywhere in the world, but in all likelihood, none ever existed. Though the precise history of the Zohar is still shrouded in mystery, it is known to have originally circulated in fragments as a series of pamphlets or notebooks. Moses ben Shem Tov de Leon is thought to be the main creative force behind the Zohar, writing much of it himself, perhaps parts in collaboration with other Kabbalists. No complete Zohar existed until the middle of the 16th century, nearly 300 years later, when the booklets were gathered and printed as a single work in Italy. Unfortunately, the editors of the printed versions of the Zohar often rejected or revised original readings in the earlier handwritten manuscripts.

To prepare his translation, Daniel Matt had to pore over surviving Aramaic manuscripts and compare variant readings.  He has sought to restore both the content and lyrical flavor of the original, and has scraped away centuries of scribal errors and editorial doctoring of the text. As the reviews for the first two volumes indicate, Daniel Matt has produced the most authoritative translation we have ever had of the Zohar—a literal yet poetic rendering that is worthy of this mystical masterpiece.

Features that distinguish THE ZOHAR: PRITZKER EDITION:

• The first English translation of the Zohar by a recognized academic scholar.

• The only modern edition that goes directly to the source, unearthing many of the major surviving manuscripts in the original language. Working with these, Daniel Matt was able to produce, in addition to the translation and commentary, the first modern critical, authoritative Aramaic text of the Zohar (available here).

• It restores the sacred passion of the original, much of which was censored out by the genteel prose of the old English translation. A luxuriant garden of holy eros, the Zohar overflows with love between the souls of Israel and Shekhinah (God’s lovely bride), and especially between the male and female aspects of God.

• It is faithful to the literal content of the Zohar yet true to the lush imagery and colorful poetic voice of the original.

• It provides a running commentary side by side with the text that makes the mysteries of the Zohar accessible to the reader. The old English translation composed in the 1930s offers no running commentary, leaving the reader without any help in penetrating the Zohar’s unique terminology, multiple meanings, cryptic connotations, and esoteric symbolism.

• It corrects misunderstandings of the text, restoring terms and even entire sections that were omitted from the old English translation because they were unfamiliar or difficult.

 About Daniel C. Matt 

Daniel C. Matt is a leading authority on Jewish mysticism.  For over twenty years, he served as Professor of Jewish Spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.  He has also taught at Stanford University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  He has published numerous books, including The Essential Kabbalah; Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment; Zohar: Annotated and Explained; and God and the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony between Science and Spirituality.  Matt spent the years 1998-2002 in Jerusalem working on this translation and currently lives in Berkeley, California.

THE ZOHAR: PRITZKER EDITION

Translation and Commentary by Daniel C. Matt

Volume One: 536 pages - $49.95 - ISBN 0-8047-4747-4

Volume Two: 496 pages - $49.95 - ISBN: 0-8047-4868-3

Volume Three: 600 pages - $49.95 - ISBN: 0-8047-5210-7

Volume Four: 592 pages - $55.00 – ISBN: 0-8047-5712-7

Volume Five: 656 pages - $55.00 – ISBN: 0-8047-6219-8

Volume Six: 472 pages - $55.00 – ISBN: 0-8047-7663-6

 See also:  A Guide to the Zohar, by Arthur Green, $17.95 – ISBN: 0-8047-4908-6

 

The projected Volumes VII-IX will complete the Zohar's main commentary on the Torah. Volumes X-XII will include the Zohar's commentary on various other books of the Bible (such as Ruth and Song of Songs) as well as several independent compositions.

Stanford Announces Re-Launch of The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche!

 
With the publication this September of Dawn: Thought on the Presumptions of Morality (volume 5 in the series; translated by Brittain Smith, afterword by Keith Ansell-Pearson $21.95 paper/$65 cloth), Stanford University Press resumes publication of The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, the first complete, critical, and annotated English edition of all of Nietzsche's work. Begun in 1995 and on hiatus for over a decade, the series, organized originally by Ernst Behler and Bernd Magnus, is a translation of the celebrated Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden (1980) edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari.   

 In addition to corrected editions of all of Nietzsche’s published works, the series will also include his early unpublished writings while a Professor of Philology at the University of Basel; his notebooks for his published works, with preliminary drafts and variants; and the complete notebooks from his final years, much of which material was never reworked by Nietzsche into a published form. Each of the volumes will include the annotations and complete editorial apparatus provided by Colli and Montinari, supplemented by additional notes incorporating the latest findings of Nietzsche research. The translations, by a team of Germanists and Nietzsche scholars, have all been examined by the series editors to assure translation consistency across volumes, and have been carefully cross-referenced and indexed. Once complete, the translations in this series are likely to become the scholarly standard for all subsequent English-language Nietzsche scholarship.

 About the series editors: 

Alan D. Schrift is F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy and Department Chair at Grinnell College.  Duncan Large is Professor of Modern Languages at Swansea University.

 The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche IN NINETEEN VOLUMES: 

I           The Birth of Tragedy/Unpublished Basel Writings 1870–1873

2          Unfashionable Observations I–IV   1995

3          Human, All Too Human I/A Book For Free Spirits, 1997

4          Human, All Too Human II/Unpublished Fragments: Spring 1878–November 1879

5          Dawn: Thoughts on the Presumptions of Morality, 2011

6          The Gay Science/Idylls from Messina/Unpublished Fragments: Spring 1881–Summer 1882

7          Thus Spoke Zarathustra

8          Beyond Good and Evil/On the Genealogy of Morals 

9          The Case of Wagner/Twilight of the Idols/The Antichristian/Ecce Homo/Dionysus-Dithyrambs/Nietzsche ontra Wagner

10        Unpublished Fragments: From the Period of The Birth of Tragedy (Fall 1869–Spring 1872)

11        Unpublished Fragments: From the Period of Unfashionable Observations (Summer 1872–End 1874), 1999

12        Unpublished Fragments: From the Period of Human, All Too Human (Beginning 1875–Winter 1877/78)

13        Unpublished Fragments: From the Period of Dawn (Beginning 1880–Spring 1881)

14        Unpublished Fragments: From the Period of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (I: July 1882–Winter 1883/84)

15        Unpublished Fragments: From the Period of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (II: Spring 1884–Winter 1884/85)

16        Unpublished Fragments: April 1885–Spring 1886

17        Unpublished Fragments: Summer 1886–Fall 1887

18        Unpublished Fragments: November 1887–Beginning January 1889

19        Editors’ Afterwords/Chronology of Nietzsche's Life/General Index

 

Big Media has weighed in...what do you think?

For the past 10 days, the media has been all over Dick Cheney's new memoir, In My Time.  TV and radio talking heads, political and opinion columnists, bloggers and book reviewers: all express points of view ranging somewhere along a wide spectrum between the two extremes perhaps best exemplified by the Washington Post Book World's thrashing and the Wall Street Journal's rave.    

No matter where on the spectrum those points of view fall, each pays substantial attention to Cheney's depiction of his relationship with President G.W. Bush during their eight years in the White House.  Now that both key players in the Bush administration have published their memoirs, the time is right for a more, erm, objective consideration of that partnership. 

We suggest Shirley Anne Warshaw's highly acclaimed The Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney.  Pronounced "masterful" by Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's "Hardball" and NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show," and "provocative and valuable" by Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief, USA Today, The Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney is a critical tool to anyone wishing to form a complete historical picture of what happened during that  critical administration, and what it means of us and the world moving forward.