Download or read book A Chinese Bestiary written by Richard E. Strassberg and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-03 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Chinese Bestiary presents a fascinating pageant of mythical creatures from a unique and enduring cosmography written in ancient China. The Guideways through Mountains and Seas, compiled between the fourth and first centuries b.c.e., contains descriptions of hundreds of fantastic denizens of mountains, rivers, islands, and seas, along with minerals, flora, and medicine. The text also represents a wide range of beliefs held by the ancient Chinese. Richard Strassberg brings the Guideways to life for modern readers by weaving together translations from the work itself with information from other texts and recent archaeological finds to create a lavishly illustrated guide to the imaginative world of early China. Unlike the bestiaries of the late medieval period in Europe, the Guideways was not interpreted allegorically; the strange creatures described in it were regarded as actual entities found throughout the landscape. The work was originally used as a sacred geography, as a guidebook for travelers, and as a book of omens. Today, it is regarded as the richest repository of ancient Chinese mythology and shamanistic wisdom. The Guideways may have been illustrated from the start, but the earliest surviving illustrations are woodblock engravings from a rare 1597 edition. Seventy-six of those plates are reproduced here for the first time, and they provide a fine example of the Chinese engraver's art during the late Ming dynasty. This beautiful volume, compiled by a well-known specialist in the field, provides a fascinating window on the thoughts and beliefs of an ancient people, and will delight specialists and general readers alike.
Download or read book Island Fantasia written by Wei-Ping Lin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-07 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off southeast China, was suddenly transformed into a military frontline in 1949 by the Cold War and the Communist-Nationalist conflict. The army occupied the islands, commencing more than 40 long years of military rule. With the lifting of martial law in 1992, the people were confronted with the question of how to move forward. This in-depth ethnography and social history of the islands focuses on how individual citizens redefined themselves and reimagined their society. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, Wei-Ping Lin shows how islanders used both traditional and new media to cope with the conflicts and trauma of harsh military rule. She discusses the formation of new social imaginaries through the appearance of 'imagining subjects', interrogating their subjectification processes and varied uses of mediating technologies as they seek to answer existential questions. This title is Open Access.
Download or read book Portrait of a Greek Imagination written by Michael Herzfeld and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropologist Michael Herzfeld first met Greek novelist Andreas Nenedakis in the courtyard of a public library. Their enduring friendship prompted Herzfeld to reconsider both the contours of fiction and the nature of anthropology. Part biography and part ethnography, PORTRAIT OF A GREEK IMAGINATION is Herzfeld's contextualization of Nenedakis's life, as it was both lived and fictionalized. 10 photos.
Download or read book Modern Selfhood in Translation written by Limin Chi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the development of Chinese translation practice in relation to the rise of ideas of modern selfhood in China from the 1890s to the 1920s. The key translations produced by late Qing and early Republican Chinese intellectuals over the three decades in question reflect a preoccupation with new personality ideals informed by foreign models and the healthy development of modern individuality, in the face of crises compounded by feelings of cultural inadequacy. The book clarifies how these translated works supplied the meanings for new terms and concepts that signify modern human experience, and sheds light on the ways in which they taught readers to internalize the idea of the modern as personal experience. Through their selection of source texts and their adoption of different translation strategies, the translators chosen as case studies championed a progressive view of the world: one that was open-minded and humanistic. The late Qing construction of modern Chinese identity, instigated under the imperative of national salvation in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War, wielded a far-reaching influence on the New Culture discourse. This book argues that the New Culture translations, being largely explorations of modern self-consciousness, helped to produce an egalitarian cosmopolitan view of modern being. This was a view favoured by the majority of mainland intellectuals in the post-Maoist 1980s and which has since become an important topic in mainland scholarship.
Download or read book Lost Voices of Modernity written by Denise Gimpel and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2001-08-31 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lost Voices of Modernity uncovers the story of the most popular and perhaps the most maligned modern Chinese literary journal, Xiaoshuo yuebao (The Short Story Magazine). First published in Shanghai in 1910, Xiaoshuo yuebao boasted a circulation of ten thousand within its first three years of publication. Scholars have long characterized the journal as little more than superficial popular entertainment (primarily action/adventure and love stories) and attributed its early popularity to an urban audience's need for distraction and escape. Now, however, Denise Gimpel's persuasive and effective study reveals a journal of serious appearance and intent. By placing publication, contributions, and contributors within their specific cultural, social, and political contexts, Gimpel provides an astonishingly cogent picture of a reform-through-fiction project created and managed by a dedicated body of writers attempting to address the concerns of the day. Xiaoshuo yuebao informed the growing reading public of national and international issues, science, and foreign lands. Read in context, the stories, essays, plays, and poems published in its pages--largely in the form of the "new fiction" that had been hailed as the sociopolitical cure-all of the early twentieth century--constitute a panorama of the reforms being discussed at the time at all levels of public and private life.
Download or read book The Chinese Vernacular Story written by Patrick Hanan and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1981 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Companion to Modern Chinese Literature written by Yingjin Zhang and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-08-13 with total page 699 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wide-ranging Companion provides a vital overview of modern Chinese literature in different geopolitical areas, from the 1840s to now. It reviews major accomplishments of Chinese literary scholarship published in Chinese and English and brings attention to previously neglected, important areas. Offers the most thorough and concise coverage of modern Chinese literature to date, drawing attention to previously neglected areas such as late Qing, Sinophone, and ethnic minority literature Several chapters explore literature in relation to Sinophone geopolitics, regional culture, urban culture, visual culture, print media, and new media The introduction and two chapters furnish overviews of the institutional development of modern Chinese literature in Chinese and English scholarship since the mid-twentieth century Contributions from leading literary scholars in mainland China and Hong Kong add their voices to international scholarship
Download or read book Modern Chinese Writers written by Helmut Martin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume gathers personal reflections on life and literature by 44 of China's leading authors. It aims to illustrate how Chinese society and its creative writing have supported, competed and fought with each other for the past 40 years and more. Much of what is revealed here is mundane, but the pressure of bringing art to social and political causes, indeed the universal pressure to survive, forges this collection into a very human document. The strengths and weaknesses of these essays offer a window on those of modern Chinese literature itself. Realism was the favoured literary doctrine of the day, and, reflecting this, most of these essays speak for themselves - about war, revolution, betrayal and commitment.
Download or read book The Classic Chinese Novel written by C T Hsia and published by The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. This book was released on 2016-02-15 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: C. T. Hsia examines six landmark texts: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, Journey to the West, Chin P'ing Mei, The Scholars, and Dream of the Red Chamber. In addition to providing historical and bibliographical information, he critiques structure and style, as well as major characters and episodes in relation to moral and philosophical themes. C. T. Hsia cites Western classics for comparison and excerpts each novel. Hailed as a classic upon its publication in 1968, The Classic Chinese Novel has remained the best singlevolume critical introduction to the subject.
Download or read book Divination Mythology and Monarchy in Han China written by Michael Loewe and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-09-15 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese empires were established by force of arms, but sustained by religious rites and intellectual theory. The four centuries from 206 BC to AD 220 witnessed major changes in the state cults and the concepts of monarchy, while various techniques of divination were used to forecast the future or to solve immediate problems. Michael Loewe examines these changes and the links between religion and statecraft. While both mythology and the traditions nurtured by the learned affected the concept and practice of monarchy throughout the period, the political and social weaknesses of the last century of Han rule bring into question the success that was achieved by the imperial ideal. Nevertheless, that ideal and its institutions were of prime importance for the understanding of Han times and for the influence they exercised on China's later dynasties.
Download or read book Chinese Theater written by Colin Mackerras and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the first concise introduction to the splendid variety of the Chinese theatrical tradition. It presents a rounded perspective on the development of Chinese theater by considering all of its major aspects—history and social context, performance, costume, makeup, actors, playwrights, and theaters—and by discussing all the major forms of Chinese theater, including the Beijing opera, which arose in the eighteenth century, and the spoken play, an entirely twentieth-century form. Its contributors are uniquely qualified to write about the Chinese theater. They have enjoyed an intimate relationship with their subject, both as academics and as theater workers, and they have combined a deep knowledge of Chinese theater with a high regard for its long tradition and continuing vitality. The book is intended for general as well as more specialized readers. Those with an interest in theater as a worldwide phenomenon and those wanting a new light on Chinese culture and society will find it equally useful. To those with a particular interest in Chinese theater, it will be a rich and important resource.
Download or read book Chinese Narrative written by Andrew H. Plaks and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Chinese narrative, and especially the genres of colloquial fiction, have been subjected to intensive scholarly scrutiny, no comprehensive volume has provided a framework that would permit an overall view of the tradition. The distinguished contributors to this volume have taken an important first step in making possible the consideration of Chinese narrative at the level of comparative and general literary scholarship. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Sources of Western Zhou History written by Edward L. Shaughnessy and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1992-01-08 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thousands of ritual bronze vessels discovered by China's archaeologists serve as the major documentary source for the Western Zhou dynasty (1045-771 B.C.). These vessels contain long inscriptions full of detail on subjects as diverse as the military history of the period, the bureaucratic structure of the royal court, and lawsuits among the gentry. Moreover, being cast in bronze, the inscriptions preserve exactly the contemporary script and language. Shaughnessy has written a meticulous and detailed work on the historiography and interpretation of these objects. By demonstrating how the inscriptions are read and interpreted, Shaughnessy makes accessible in English some of the most important evidence about life in ancient China.
Download or read book The Ch u Silk Manuscript written by Noel Barnard and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Chinese Drama written by Colin Mackerras and published by Beijing : New World Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume relates and analyzes the history of Chinese drama from its beginnings during the Song Dynasty until the end of 1988. There are two parts, one dealing with tradition and the old society down to 1949, the other with the New China. Among the world's civilizations China has one of the longest and finest traditions of drama. There is enormous variety in the many different styles of regional theater, and some of the minority nationalities have their own traditional forms as well. This is not only a fascinating topic but an important one for the arts of the world.
Download or read book Before Confucius written by Edward L. Shaughnessy and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the original composition of China's oldest books, the Classic of Changes, the Venerated Documents, and the Classic of Poetry, and attempts to restore their original meanings.
Download or read book Theatre Double Game written by Samuel Selden and published by . This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This original and useful contribution to knowledge about the theatre focuses on the playgoer. Samuel Selden shows how artists in the playhouse serve the playgoer as creators and guides while they participate in the double game of theatre. He shows how theatre at its best excites, illumines, and fulfills its spectators in a spirit of play, and demonstrates how the skilled theatre artist creates this kind of stimulating experience in the playhouse. Originally published in 1969. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
