New Book - Free Online

Open Access Monograph Announcement

 

We are delighted to announce that Deconstructing Martial Arts by Paul Bowman has now been published, free online, by Cardiff University Press.

 

As an open access research monograph, the book is free to download, store, print and share.

 

Physical copies of the book will also soon be available to purchase via all the usual retailers. In the spirit of open access, we have kept the price for physical copies as low as possible – cost-price.

 

The book can be downloaded as a whole, or individual chapters can be selected and downloaded.

 

About the Book

 

Deconstructing Martial Arts explores key aspects of 'martial arts' to reveal the ways that their construction always involves political, ideological and mythological dimensions. It asks: What is the essence of martial arts? What is their place in or relationship with culture and society? In answering such questions, Deconstructing Martial Arts analyses issues and debates that arise in scholarly, practitioner and popular cultural discussions and treatments of martial arts and argues that martial arts are dynamic and variable constructs whose meanings and values regularly shift, mutate and transform, depending on the context. They serve multiple functions and can be valued and devalued in numerous ways. The book argues that the process of deconstructing martial arts is an invaluable approach to both the scholarly study of martial arts in culture and society and also to wider understandings of what and why martial arts are. Placing martial arts in relation to core questions and concerns of media and cultural studies around identity, value, orientalism, and embodiment, Deconstructing Martial Arts introduces and elaborates deconstruction as a rewarding method of cultural studies.

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Introduction: (De)Constructing Martial Arts (Studies)

·      Deconstructing What?

·      Constructing Martial Arts Studies

·      The Construction of this Book

 

Chapter One: The Triviality of Martial Arts Studies

·      Introduction

·      Triviality Studies

 

Chapter Two: Theory Before Definition in Martial Arts Studies

·      Dealing with Disciplinary Difference

·      Approaching Martial Arts Studies

·      Hoplological Hopes

·      Moving from 'thing itself' to 'field itself'

·      The Paradigms of Martial Arts Studies

·      Against Definition

·      For Theory

·      Defining Problems: Relationality before Definition

·      Changing Discourses

·      Optimistic Relations

·      Alternative Discourses

·      The Stabilization of Martial Arts

 

Chapter Three: Martial Arts and Media Supplements

·      Martial Bodies

·      Martial Movements

·      Moving from Primary to Supplementary

·      Disciplined Movements

 

Chapter Four: On Embodiment

·      Introduction (Trigger warning)

·      A Brief History of No Body

·      Being Haunted by the Body

·      In The Beginning Was The Word – and pictures

·      How To Do Things With Guts

·      Simulacra and Stimulation

·      The Body of Knowledge

·      For Better or for Worse, in Sickness and in Health

 

Chapter Five: A Bit of Taoism

·      A Bit of Orientation

·      A Bit of Taoism

·      Taoism's Travels

·      The Circulation of Yin-Yangs

·      Eurotaoism

·      A Bit of East is East and West is West

·      A Bit of Difference

·      Getting it, a Bit

 

Chapter Six: Mindfulness and Madness in Martial Arts Philosophy

·      Training Rust

·      Zen Again

·      Philosophize-a-babble

·      Madfulness Meditation

·      Philosology and Psychosophy

 

Chapter Seven: Fighting Talk: Martial Arts Discourse in Mainstream Films

·      Introduction

·      Popular Cultural Discourse

·      Methodological Matrix

·      Blurred Lines

·      Liminal Cases

·      Libidinal Cases

·      From Kinky to Kingly to General

·      Fighting Talk

·      Conclusion

 

Conclusion: Drawing the line

 

 

About the Author

 

Paul Bowman is professor of cultural studies at Cardiff University. He is founder and director of the Martial Arts Studies Research Network, founding co-editor of the journal Martial Arts Studies, and author and editor of numerous works on film, media and cultural studies. Before Deconstructing Martial Arts, his most recent books were Mythologies of Martial Arts (2017) and the edited collection The Martial Arts Studies Reader (2018).

 

The book is available for download here:

https://cardiffuniversitypress.org/site/books/10.18573/book1/