Austen in Asia

This pioneering collection delves into Jane Austen's enduring legacy in the East, exploring her significance to  East-West relations, Westernization, and Asian identities. It enriches Austen studies by integrating Asian viewpoints on feminism, queer theory, postcolonialism, and her reception and adaptations. The essays examine Austen's relevance in contemporary Asia, her historical ties to the region, and diverse Asian responses from the 20th century to recent adaptations. Spanning academic and popular media, it covers translations, critiques, and creative interpretations in various formats. Though not exhaustive, it offers insights from India, Pakistan, China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, contributing to a nuanced understanding of Austen's global impact.

Chapter 1.Introduction.- Part I.Japan.- Chapter 2.Translation and Transformation in Japanese Reception of Austen’s Novels.- Chapter 3.Austen’s Influence on Natsume Soseki.- Chapter 4.Jane Austen and Manga Adaptation:Emotional Intercourse between the Heroine,the Author, and the Readers in Yoko Hanabusa’s Emma.- Chapter 5.Pride and Prejudice as Angels’ Ladder: Jane Austen in Takarazuka Musical Theatre. -Part II.Korea.- Chapter 6.Queer Literacy in Transcultural Re-reading of Some Truths Universally Acknowledged.-Part III.Taiwan.- Chapter 7.Romantic Austen in Taiwan, 1949-2018.- Chapter 8.Taiwan and Britain:Cross-cultural networks in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.- Part IV.India.- Chapter 9.“Nabobs, gold mohrs, and palanquins”: Colonel Brandon’s Colonial Past in Sense and Sensibility.-Chapter 10.Resonances and Influences of Pride and Prejudice in India:The Marriage Plot in Colonial and Postcolonial Indian Fiction.- Chapter 11.Austen’s Paradoxical Place in Indian Cinema.- Chapter 12.Emma in Bollywood:The Small World of Aisha.-Part V.Pakistan.- Chapter 13.Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan:Soniah Kamal’s Postcolonial Retelling in Unmarriageable.- Chapter 14.Austenistan.

Tristanne Connolly is Professor of English at St. Jerome’s University in the University of Waterloo, Canada. She is the author of William Blake and the Body (2002) and several articles on British Romantic literature in relation to gender and sexuality, science and medicine, and religion. She has edited ten essay collections, and her digital edition of Erasmus Darwin’s The Loves of the Plants is forthcoming with Romantic Circles. 

Kimiyo Ogawa is Professor in the Department of English Studies at Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan. She is the author of The Ethics of Care and Empowerment (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2021), and the editor of Johnson in Japan (Bucknell University Press, 2020) with Mika Suzuki. She is interested in how advances in medical and physiological science informed representations of mind and human behaviour in a range of eighteenth-century novels. She co-hosted the Jane Austen & Co. online lecture series “Asia and the Regency” with Inger Brody and Anne Fertig.