Auspicious Animals

Auspicious Animals
Author: Jun'ichi Uchiyama
Publisher: Pie International
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9784756254290

The world of mythical creatures born from human imagination. Many imaginary animals believed to be auspicious symbols of good fortune originated in ancient China. The most famous ones are the "Big Four" the Winged Dragon, the Chinese Phoenix, Qilin (a hooved chimeric creature) and the Spirit Turtle. There are many more, not only from China, but also from Japan and other regions around the world. This book showcases illustrated artworks, along with sculptures and applied arts, featuring these good omens. The collection, totaling around 240 pieces, is accompanied by rich, enjoyable and approachable text by Jun'ichi Uchiyama, a professor at Miyagi Gakuin Women's University.

Animals Through Chinese History

Animals Through Chinese History
Author: Roel Sterckx
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108428150

This innovative collection opens a door into the rich history of animals in China. This title is also available as Open Access.

Cross-Cultural Design Methods, Practice and Impact

Cross-Cultural Design Methods, Practice and Impact
Author: P.L.Patrick Rau
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2015-07-18
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3319209078

The two LNCS volume set 9180-9181 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Cross-Cultural Design, CCD 2015, held as part of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2015, in Los Angeles, CA, USA in August 2015, jointly with 15 other thematically similar conferences. The total of 1462 papers and 246 posters presented at the HCII 2015 conferences were carefully reviewed and selected from 4843 submissions. These papers of the two volume set address as follows: LNCS 9180, Cross-Cultural Design: Methods, Practice and Impact (Part I), addressing the following major topics: cross-cultural product design, cross-cultural design methods and case studies, design, innovation, social development and sustainability and LNCS 9181, Cross-Cultural Design: Applications in Mobile Interaction, Education, Health, Transport and Cultural Heritage (Part II), addressing the following major topics: cultural aspects of social media and mobile services, culture for transport and travel, culture for design and design for culture and culture for health, learning and games.

Animals and the Law in Antiquity

Animals and the Law in Antiquity
Author: Saul M. Olyan
Publisher: SBL Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2021-08-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1951498844

Animal law has become a topic of growing importance internationally, with animal welfare and animal rights often assuming center stage in contemporary debates about the legal status of animals. While nonspecialists routinely decontextualize ancient texts to support or deny rights to animals, experts in fields such as classics, biblical studies, Assyriology, Egyptology, rabbinics, and late antique Christianity have only just begun to engage the topic of animals and the law in their respective areas. This volume consists of original studies by scholars from a range of Mediterranean and West Asian fields on a variety of topics at the intersection of animals and the law in antiquity. Contributors include Rozenn Bailleul-LeSuer, Beth Berkowitz, Andrew McGowan, F. S. Naiden, Saul M. Olyan, Seth Richardson, Jordan D. Rosenblum, Andreas Schüle, Miira Tuominen, and Daniel Ullucci. The volume is essential reading for scholars and students of both the ancient world and contemporary law.

Creatures of Empire

Creatures of Empire
Author: Virginia DeJohn Anderson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780195304466

Book Review

The Mythic Chinese Unicorn

The Mythic Chinese Unicorn
Author: Jeannie Thomas Parker
Publisher: FriesenPress
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2018-01-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1525522132

This is the first book in the English language to explore the origin and significance of the mythic Chinese unicorn and its influence on later unicorn myths. It proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Chinese unicorn was not the qilin, but a one-horned female goat-like beast called the zhi (pronounced jhuhr). It also examines the real animals upon which the myth was based. Its most significant finding, however, is that the unicorn zhi was the ultimate symbol of justice under the law in ancient China. Making judicious use of all available evidence, historical, epigraphical, archaeological, art historical and scientific, this book explains how the myth of the unicorn began in China and then gradually spread to other parts of Asia and Europe.

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Animals

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Animals
Author: Chloë Taylor
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 884
Release: 2024-05-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1040005888

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Animals is a diverse and intersectional collection which examines human and more-than-human animal relations, as well as the interconnectedness of human and animal oppressions through various lenses. Comprising fifty chapters, the book explores a range of debates and scholarship within important contemporary topics such as companion animals, hunting, agriculture, and animal activist strategies. It also offers timely analyses of zoonotic disease pandemics, mass extinction, and the climate catastrophe, using perspectives including feminist, critical race, anti-colonial, critical disability, and masculinities studies. The Routledge Companion to Gender and Animals is an essential reference for students in gender studies, sexuality studies, human-animal studies, cultural studies, sociology, and environmental studies.

Selfless Offspring

Selfless Offspring
Author: Keith N. Knapp
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2005-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0824874552

Both Western and Chinese intellectuals have long derided filial piety tales as an absurd and grotesque variety of children’s literature. Selfless Offspring offers a fresh perspective on the genre, revealing the rich historical worth of these stories by examining them in their original context: the tumultuous and politically fragmented early medieval era (A.D. 100–600). At a time when no Confucian virtue was more prized than filial piety, adults were moved and inspired by tales of filial children. The emotional impact of even the most outlandish actions portrayed in the stories was profound, a measure of the directness with which they spoke to major concerns of the early medieval Chinese elite. In a period of weak central government and powerful local clans, the key to preserving a household’s privileged status was maintaining a cohesive extended family. Keith Knapp begins this far-ranging and persuasive study by describing two related historical trends that account for the narrative’s popularity: the growth of extended families and the rapid incursion of Confucianism among China’s learned elite. Extended families were better at maintaining their status and power, so patriarchs found it expedient to embrace Confucianism to keep their large, fragile households intact. Knapp then focuses on the filial piety stories themselves—their structure, historicity, origin, function, and transmission—and argues that most stem from the oral culture of these elite extended families. After examining collections of filial piety tales, known as Accounts of Filial Children, he shifts from text to motif, exploring the most common theme: the "reverent care" and mourning of parents. In the final chapter, Knapp looks at the relative burden that filiality placed on men and women and concludes that, although women largely performed the same filial acts as men, they had to go to greater extremes to prove their sincerity.