New Book Tuesday! Anxious Cinephilia, Transpacific Attachments, andChina’s Green Religion

Our weekly list of new books is now available!

The Death of Idealism

Development and Anti-Politics in the Peace Corps

Meghan Elizabeth Kallman

Why do Peace Corps volunteers often return having lost their idealism? In The Death of Idealism, Meghan Elizabeth Kallman details the combination of social forces and organizational pressures that depoliticizes Peace Corps volunteers, channels their idealism toward professionalization, and leads to cynicism or disengagement.

New In Paper!

China’s Green Religion

Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future

James Miller

In China’s Green Religion, James Miller shows how Daoism orients individuals toward a holistic understanding of religion and nature. Explicitly connecting human flourishing to the thriving of nature, Daoism fosters a “green” subjectivity and agency that transforms what it means to live a flourishing life on earth.

From the Global Chinese Culture series

Transpacific Attachments

Sex Work, Media Networks, and Affective Histories of Chineseness

Lily Wong

Lily Wong studies the transpacific mobility and mobilization of the sex worker figure, illuminating the intersectional politics of racial, sexual, and class structures. Transpacific Attachments examines shifting depictions of Chinese sex workers in popular media from the early twentieth century to the present.