Inventing MMA: Martial Arts Between Culture, Media and Sport
"Inventing MMA: Martial Arts Between Culture, Media and Sport" By Dr. Kyle Barrowman Introduction: Traditional Thinking In the Preface to his recent monograph The Invention of Martial Arts, Paul...
View ArticleCollecting Chinese Swords and other Weapons in late 19th Century Xiamen (Amoy)
Introduction: Xiamen and the Chinese Martial Arts Marketplace I am interested in the martial arts history of Fujian province. Many areas of China can rightly claim an illustrious past when it comes...
View ArticleAn Updated and Revised Social History of the Hudiedao (Butterfly Swords)
In January of 2013 I posted an essay titled "A Social and Visual History of the Hudiedao (Butterfly Sword) in the Southern Chinese Martial Arts." As a student of Wing Chun I have always been...
View ArticleLau Bun-A Kung Fu Pioneer in America
Choy Li Fut’s place in southern Chinese martial culture. Let me ask you a question. What was the largest and most socially important martial art in Guangdong during the late 19th and early 20th...
View ArticleThe Boxer Rebellion and the First Martial Arts Films
Confronting the Boxers It is probably an irony that I have written so little on the Boxer Uprising during my casual and academic discussion of the martial arts. It was a chance encounter with the...
View ArticleWhat Can the Opera Rebellion Teach us about the Social Toleration of Violence...
The Logic of Violence and its Relationship with the State My academic background and doctorate is in political science where I specialize in a sub-field called “international political economy.” That...
View ArticleOld or New? The Miaodao and Invention in Chinese Martial Arts
Searching for the Miaodao What exactly do historians mean when they assert that the Chinese martial arts being practiced throughout the world today are, for the most part, a relatively recent...
View ArticleThe Value of a Comparative Case: Jean-Marc de Grave discusses “The Training...
Introduction: A drift on the sea of knowledge. Let me ask you a question. Do you ever feel like you have too much to read, study or research? Are you familiar with that creeping feeling that you will...
View ArticleMythology of the Kukri: Sign and Symbol
Introduction: The Symbolic Language of Weapons Victor Turner, the cultural anthropologist, famously argued that all symbols are "multivocal," meaning a single symbol can take on a multiplicity of...
View ArticleThe Wing Chun Jo Fen: Norms and the Creation of a Southern Chinese Martial...
***I am happy to report that I am making good progress on my current writing project. But it is still an ongoing task, and one that consumed much of my weekend. As such our post for this Monday...
View Article“Fighting Styles” or “Martial Brands”? An economic approach to understanding...
***Today's post continues our discussion of economic markets and modernity in the Chinese martial arts. This essay, first posted in May of 2013, was one of my first attempts at hashing out these...
View ArticleRead it Now: Martial Arts Studies, Issue 11!
We are happy to announce that the Summer 2021 issue of the interdisciplinary journal Martial Arts Studies has been released and is now available for free download. Click here to see a complete list...
View ArticleHong Kong Martial Artists – A Review
Hong Kong Martial Artists, 2021, by Daniel Amos (Rowman&Littlefield). Daniel Miles Amos. 2021. Hong Kong Martial Artists: Sociocultural Change from World War II to 2020. Rowman & Littlefield....
View ArticleA Conversation With Daniel Amos on Ethnography and Hong Kong’s Martial Arts
John S. S. Long training with his teacher, Wong Lei, in Hong Kong, 1960. Source: http://www.seattlekungfuclub.com/ Introduction Regular readers of this blog with be no strangers to work of Daniel Amos....
View ArticleCall For Papers: Martial Arts, Tradition and Globalisation
Photo from the Cornell Wushu Club. What are you most looking forward to as international travel normalizes? If you are anything like me it is a return to in-person Martial Arts Studies conferences! Our...
View ArticleThe Woyao Dao and Regionalism in History and Martial Studies
LK Chen's Woyao Dao. Source: LKChensword.com Introduction A package containing two of LK Chen’s fine historical reproductions recently arrived at my door. So, of course, I find myself thinking about...
View ArticleBerlin 1936: Chinese Martial Arts on a Global Stage
Introduction The Olympics are once again being hosted by China and the eyes of the world are on Beijing. Martial arts don't really play any role in the Winter Games, but there seems to be more...
View ArticleThrough a Lens Darkly (67): Winter Training in Japanese Martial Arts
Group 1. Yonezawa Industrial School's Midwinter Training General Meeting. Winter Training In the "before times" some readers will remember that I ran a lightsaber combat club in Ithaca. To say that it...
View ArticleTowards a Political Hoplology: Violence and the Construction of Identity in...
Andrea Molle. 2021. Krav Maga and the Making of Modern Israel: For Zion’s Sake. Rowman & Littlefield. 2022. $105 Hardcover, $38 Kindle. “There is also another function of violence, and it is to...
View ArticleChinese Weapons and the Western Gaze
A Collection of Chinese Arms, Published in 1905, posted by Peter Dekker. Spring Cleaning I sat down this morning to work on a project looking at sword aficionados in China, their customers in the West,...
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