Martial Arts in the Modern World
Title | Martial Arts in the Modern World PDF eBook |
Author | Thomas A. Green |
Publisher | Praeger |
Pages | 346 |
Release | 2003-11-30 |
Genre | Psychology |
ISBN |
Martial arts, once restricted to a few specific locations and practiced by small groups of devotees, have truly spread throughout the world. The plethora of tae kwando and karate dojos in U.S. shopping malls attests to the popularity of various kinds of martial arts in this country. Though generally perceived and advertised as means of self-defense, body sculpting, and self-discipline, martial arts are actually social tools that respond to altered physical, social, and psychological environments. This book examines how practitioners have responded to stimuli such as feminism, globalism, imperialism, militarism, nationalism, slavery, and the commercialization of sport. In a series of chapters devoted to Asian, African, and European systems of the late 19th to early 21st centuries, the authors examine the forces and philosophies that shaped fighting arts in diverse cultural settings. Because of political, social, and economic factors, this period witnessed the spread of martial arts to areas outside of their original contexts. Some of these arts flourished in their new environments, but others did not. The authors demonstrate that martial arts are not the conservative strongholds of tradition posited by conventional wisdom, but are instead responsive and mutable barometers of change. This book is essential for students of multicultural dialogues and devotees of martial arts performance and practice.
Living the Martial Way
Title | Living the Martial Way PDF eBook |
Author | Forrest E. Morgan |
Publisher | |
Pages | 324 |
Release | 1992 |
Genre | Body, Mind & Spirit |
ISBN | 9780942637762 |
A step-by-step aooroiach to applying the Japanese warriors mind set to martial training and daily life.
The Martial Arts Book
Title | The Martial Arts Book PDF eBook |
Author | Laura Scandiffio |
Publisher | Annick Press |
Pages | 68 |
Release | 2003 |
Genre | Juvenile Nonfiction |
ISBN | 9781550377767 |
The history and philosophy of the various martial arts and how they have evolved to today's practice.
Martial Arts Studies
Title | Martial Arts Studies PDF eBook |
Author | Paul Bowman |
Publisher | Rowman & Littlefield |
Pages | 205 |
Release | 2015-04-09 |
Genre | Sports & Recreation |
ISBN | 1783481293 |
The phrase “martial arts studies” is increasingly circulating as a term to describe a new field of interest. But many academic fields including history, philosophy, anthropology, and Area studies already engage with martial arts in their own particular way. Therefore, is there really such a thing as a unique field of martial arts studies? Martial Arts Studies is the first book to engage directly with these questions. It assesses the multiplicity and heterogeneity of possible approaches to martial arts studies, exploring orientations and limitations of existing approaches. It makes a case for constructing the field of martial arts studies in terms of key coordinates from post-structuralism, cultural studies, media studies, and post-colonialism. By using these anti-disciplinary approaches to disrupt the approaches of other disciplines, Martial Arts Studies proposes a field that both emerges out of and differs from its many disciplinary locations.
Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge
Title | Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge PDF eBook |
Author | D. S. Farrer |
Publisher | State University of New York Press |
Pages | 265 |
Release | 2011-12-01 |
Genre | Sports & Recreation |
ISBN | 1438439687 |
This landmark work provides a wide-ranging scholarly consideration of the traditional Asian martial arts. Most of the contributors to the volume are practitioners of the martial arts, and all are keenly aware that these traditions now exist in a transnational context. The book's cutting-edge research includes ethnography and approaches from film, literature, performance, and theater studies. Three central aspects emerge from this book: martial arts as embodied fantasy, as a culturally embedded form of self-cultivation, and as a continuous process of identity formation. Contributors explore several popular and highbrow cultural considerations, including the career of Bruce Lee, Chinese wuxia films, and Don DeLillo's novel Running Dog. Ethnographies explored describe how the social body trains in martial arts and how martial arts are constructed in transnational training. Ultimately, this academic study of martial arts offers a focal point for new understandings of cultural and social beliefs and of practice and agency.
Hong Kong Martial Artists
Title | Hong Kong Martial Artists PDF eBook |
Author | Daniel Miles Amos |
Publisher | Rowman & Littlefield |
Pages | 230 |
Release | 2021-03-24 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 1786615444 |
This imaginative and innovative study by Daniel Miles Amos, begun in 1976 and completed in 2020, examines sociocultural changes in the practices of Chinese martial artists in two closely related and interconnected southern Chinese cities, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. The initial chapters of the book compare how sociocultural changes from World War II to the mid-1980s affected the practices of Chinese martial artists in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong and neighboring Guangzhou in mainland China. An analysis is made of how the practices of Chinese martial artists have been influenced by revolutionary sociocultural changes in both cities. In Guangzhou, the victory of the Chinese Communist Party lead to the disappearance in the early 1950s of secret societies and kungfu brotherhoods. Kungfu brotherhoods reappeared during the Cultural Revolution, and subsequently were transformed again after the death of Mao Zedong, and China’s opening to capitalism. In Hong Kong, dramatic sociocultural changes were set off by the introduction of manufacturing production lines by international corporations in the mid-1950s, and the proliferation of foreign franchises and products. Economic globalization in Hong Kong has led to dramatic increases both in the territory’s Gross Domestic Product and in cultural homogenization, with corresponding declines in many local traditions and folk cultures, including Chinese martial arts. The final chapters of the book focus on changes in the practices of Chinese martial arts in Hong Kong from the years 1987 to 2020, a period which includes the last decade of British colonial administration, as well as the first quarter of a century of rule by the Chinese government.
The Way of the Warrior
Title | The Way of the Warrior PDF eBook |
Author | Chris Crudelli |
Publisher | Penguin |
Pages | 364 |
Release | 2008-09-29 |
Genre | Sports & Recreation |
ISBN | 0756651859 |
Drawing on the vast body of styles practiced around the world, including ancient and obscure styles from every continent on the planet, The Way of the Warrior is an indispensable, one-stop reference work for anyone interested in the martial-arts canon.