In addition to my fiction, I have also worked on more academic pieces on the Asian martial tradition from my perspective as an anthropologist. As a matter of fact, the inspiration for becoming a novelist was my conviction that it could be a type of “applied anthropology” where I used some of the knowledge I had gained and whatever modest insights followed to craft stories that were as informative as they were fun to read.
Mike DeMarco at Via Media Publishing labored for years on his Journal of Asian Martial Arts, and I was honored to have served as an associated editor and to contribute occasional pieces over the years. Mike has come out with an edited volume of pieces from JAMA that focus on academic approaches to martial arts research It features some of the best people practicing, thinking about, and writing on the martial arts (how I got included is a mystery). For readers not familiar with JAMA, it’s a great compendium of some thoughtful pieces. For folks new to the topic it’s a great overview. In any case, it’s a book well worth having.
John Donohue 