Japanese Grammar: The Connecting Point is instrumental for anyone learning Japanese who seeks to gain a firm grasp of the most important aspect of the language: verb usage. Learning Japanese may seem to be a daunting task, but Dr. Nomura's book will help readers conjugate verbs into a variety of formats, construct sentences systematically, and hold intelligible conversations in Japanese. He groups all Japanese verbs into clusters, creating a method of how each of those groups conjugate, and then demonstrates how to combine various verb forms with auxiliary expressions to form complex sentences. Not only is this method excellent for beginners, as it creates a solid foundation for learners to increase their language ability and attain fluency at a rapid rate, but also for intermediate and advanced levels, as it will help them solidify their verb usage and use Japanese with greater confidence. Learners will also benefit from Dr. Nomura's method because they will be able to shift the level of formality in any conversational situation according to what is culturally appropriate. Furthermore, when a new verb is uttered by other people, the learner will be able to immediately apply the agglutinative process described in this grammar book and generate sentences with a variety of suffixes in a culturally appropriate manner.

This book approaches political demands for reconciliation from the perspective of postcolonial literary criticism and theory, demonstrating that reading can have potentially radical social and political effects.--From book jacket.

In A Culture of Rights, Benjamin Authers reads novels by authors including Joy Kogawa, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, and Jeanette Armstrong alongside Canadian legal texts and constitutional rights cases.

Where do Canadians encounter religious meaning? Not where they used to! In ten lively and wide-ranging essays, William Closson James examines various derivations of the sacred in contemporary Canadian culture. Most of the essays focus on the religious aspects of modern Canadian English fiction — for example, in essays on the fiction of Hugh MacLennan, Morley Callaghan, Margaret Atwood and Joy Kogawa. But James also explores other, non-literary events and activities in which Canadians have found something transcendant or revelatory. Each of the chapters in Locations of the Sacred can be read independently as a discrete analysis of its subject. Taken as a whole, the essays make up a powerful argument for a new way of looking at the religious in contemporary Canada — not in the traditional ways of being religious, but in activities and locations previously thought to be “secular.” Thus, the domains and modes of the religious are expanded, not restricted.

"A beautifully written and original discussion of Asian American performance and the politics of the everyday. The Racial Mundane illustrates how Asian Americans, whether historically marginalized or celebrated as model minorities, have come into the public eye, and will surely open up important new dialogues on Asian American culture and racial representation."--Josephine Lee, author of Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage

Asian American literature dates back to the close of the 19th century, and during the years following World War II it significantly expanded in volume and diversity. Monumental in scope, this encyclopedia surveys Asian American literature from its origins through 2007. Included are more than 270 alphabetically arranged entries on writers, major works, significant historical events, and important terms and concepts. Thus the encyclopedia gives special attention to the historical, social, cultural, and legal contexts surrounding Asian American literature and central to the Asian American experience. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and cites works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography of essential print and electronic resources. While literature students will value this encyclopedia as a guide to writings by Asian Americans, the encyclopedia also supports the social studies curriculum by helping students use literature to learn about Asian American history and culture, as it pertains to writers from a host of Asian ethnic and cultural backgrounds, including Afghans, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Iranians, Indians, Vietnamese, Hawaiians, and other Asian Pacific Islanders. The encyclopedia supports the literature curriculum by helping students learn more about Asian American literature. In addition, it supports the social studies curriculum by helping students learn about the Asian American historical and cultural experience.