Kevin Maynard (English BA, 1972): The Iron Flute

We may have heard of, or even read, Sunzi's Art of War, but this anthology is the first opportunity that the majority of English-language readers will have to read first-hand accounts from those involved, one way or another, in the on-going conflicts in ancient China. The bleak and barren terrain, the inclement weather - icy blasts of wind, snow-blizzards one moment and sandstorms the next - the music of the steppes, reed-pipes sounding strange melodies across the frozen wasteland, troops setting out from some barracks on the Wall, never to return, the whitened piles of bones they leave behind after their deaths in battle, the widows and orphans pining for them thousands of miles away... these are recurring themes in this anthology which spans more than sixteen centuries and includes the work of 50 poets. Conventional 'border poems' (poems about heroism and the lot of the common soldier thousands of miles away from home) sit side by side with eyewitness accounts, and the majority of these poems are translated into English for the first time, which is what make s this anthology so important. The anthology's title is inspired by a famous painting of a poet who fashioned a sweet-sounding flute from an iron sword. As the translator, Kevin Maynard, says: "Out of the discord of war we humans can still conjure up sweet music. Find out more online.

The Exeter Society for Curriculum Studies: Just Education

The Exeter Society for Curriculum Studies announces the publication of Just Education on 14 May 2019. There will be a Launch Event at St Luke's, Exeter on Tuesday 14 May from 4.30-6pm in Room SC02. The book is an account of educational policy as experienced by the authors over their career lifetimes. It argues for a renewed respect for the profession of teaching in schools, colleges and universities. Alumni are warmly invited but please let Dr Michael Golby know if you want to attend.

Philippa Gates (MA History of Cinema and Popular Culture, 1999 and PhD Film and Visual Culture, 2002): Criminalization/Assimilation: Chinese/Americans and Chinatowns in Classical Hollywood Film

Criminalization/Assimilation traces how Classical Hollywood films constructed America’s image of Chinese Americans from their criminalization as unwanted immigrants to their eventual acceptance when assimilated citizens, exploiting both America’s yellow peril fears about Chinese immigration and its fascination with Chinatowns. Philippa Gates examines Hollywood’s responses to social issues in Chinatown communities, primarily immigration, racism, drug trafficking, and prostitution, as well as the impact of industry factors including the Production Code and star system on the treatment of those subjects. Looking at over 200 films, Gates reveals the variety of racial representations within American film in the first half of the twentieth century and brings to light not only lost and forgotten films but also the contributions of Asian American actors whose presence onscreen offered important alternatives to Hollywood’s yellowface fabrications of Chinese identity and a resistance to Hollywood’s Orientalist narratives.