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.

"Occasionally, a book is published that makes the ‘expert’ reviewer wish that he or she might have had the chance to read it before ever publishing anything on the topic at hand. Martial Arts Studies is just such a book ... Paul Bowman has done a wonderful job of both delightfully entangling us in the object of study and disrupting perhaps too comfortable relationships with the boundaries of our respective disciplines." - Martial Arts Studies