By Yu Zhang Chinese Animation: Multiplicities in Motion marks a decisive moment in the institutionalization of Chinese animation studies. Emerging from the 2021 inaugural conference of the Association for Chinese Animation Studies (ACAS), the volume does more than collect essays: it declares the consolidation of a field. Published by Harvard University Asia Center, it signals that … Continue reading Chinese Animation: Multiplicities in Motion, edited by Daisy Yan Du (lead editor), John A. Crespi, and Yiman Wang. Harvard University Asia Center, 2025. 464 pp. Harvard Contemporary China Series 21. →

By Cassandra Guan In Anime’s Knowledge Cultures, Jinying Li makes a compelling intervention into the fields of anime studies, digital media studies, and East Asian cultural studies. The book explores the rise of a transnational “knowledge class,” whose ethos appears in the more or less interchangeable figures of the geek, the otaku, and the zhai, through the … Continue reading Anime’s Knowledge Cultures: Geek, Otaku, Zhai, by Jinying Li. University of Minnesota Press, 2024. 344 pp. →