Monstrosity and Chinese Cultural Identity

Monstrosity and Chinese Cultural Identity PDF Author: Isaac Yue
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781638570226
Category : Animals in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"This book examines the interconnection between the idea of monstrosity and the emergence of Chinese cultural identity since the Song dynasty. Chinese vernacular literature matured during the Southern Song period and coincided with society's growing apprehension of foreignness. As society's perception of the other fluctuated between acceptance and abhorrence following the Mongolian conquest of the Middle Kingdom and the subsequent political desire to return to a fixation with the concept of Han during the Ming dynasty, the idea of monstrosity was adopted by these works as a logical vessel for contemplating the question of identity. Unlike other forms of written work in China, vernacular literature developed out of the necessity to cater to the masses. As such, they provide a unique window to understand society's reaction to the cultural and political milieu of the time. By resituating the production of these works within this cultural backdrop, the importance of this study lies both in the foregrounding of the manifestation of Chinese cultural identity in the literary world and the proposition of its importance to our understanding of the cultural politics since the Song dynasty. Beyond its timely discussion of the background and historical genealogy of how Chineseness is conceptualized, this book specifically addresses the effect of the contentiousness of ethnicity on the identity question. In doing so, it explores how this gradual historical transformation of Chinese cultural identity is closely tied to xenophobia and the reimagination of foreignness as reflected in the idea of monstrosity"--

Monstrosity and Chinese Cultural Identity

Monstrosity and Chinese Cultural Identity PDF Author: Isaac Man Cheung Yue
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781621965312
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Book Description


Fear, Heterodoxy, and Crime in Traditional China

Fear, Heterodoxy, and Crime in Traditional China PDF Author: Tommaso Previato
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004699007
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
This multi-contributor volume examines the evolving relationship between fear, heterodoxy and crime in traditional China. It throws light on how these three variously interwoven elements shaped local policies and people’s perceptions of the religious, ethnic, and cultural “other.” Authors depart from the assumption that “otherness” is constructed, stereotyped and formalized within the moral, political and legal institutions of Chinese society. The capacity of their findings to address questions about the emotional dimension of mass mobilization, the socio-political implications of heterodoxy, and attributions of crime is the result of integrating multiple sources of knowledge from history, religious studies and social science. Contributors are Ágnes Birtalan, Ayumu Doi, Fabian Graham, Hung Tak Wai, Jing Li, Hang Lin, Tommaso Previato, and Noriko Unno.

Queering Gender, Sexuality, and Becoming-Human in Qing Dynasty Zhiguai

Queering Gender, Sexuality, and Becoming-Human in Qing Dynasty Zhiguai PDF Author: Thomas William Whyke
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9819942586
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
This book offers queer readings of Chinese Qing Dynasty zhiguai, ‘strange tales’, a genre featuring supernatural characters and events. In a unique approach interweaving Chinese philosophies alongside critical theories, this book explores tales which speak to contemporary debates around identity and power. Depictions of porous boundaries between humans and animals, transformations between genders, diverse sexualities, and contextually unusual masculinities and femininities, lend such tales to queer readings. Unlike previous scholarship on characters as allegorical figures or stories as morality tales, this book draws on queer theory, animal studies, feminism, and Deleuzian philosophy, to explore the ‘strange’ and its potential for social critique. Examining such tales enriches the scope of historic queer world literatures, offering culturally situated stories of relationships, desires, and ways of being, that both speak to and challenge contemporary debates.

Beauty and Monstrosity in Art and Culture

Beauty and Monstrosity in Art and Culture PDF Author: Chara Kokkiou
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003845657
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
This edited volume takes a new look at an old question: what is the relationship between beauty and monstrosity? How has the notion of beauty transformed through the years and how does it coincide with monstrous ontologies? Contributors offer an interdisciplinary approach to how these two concepts are interlinked and emphasize the ways the beautiful and the monstrous pervade human experience. The two notions are explored through the axis of human transformation, focusing on body, identity, and gender, while questioning both how humans transform their body and space as well as how humans themselves are gradually transformed in different contexts. The pandemic, gender crisis, moral crisis, sociocultural instability, and environmental issues have redefined beauty and the relationship we have with it. Exploring these concepts through the lens of human transformation can yield valuable insights into what it means to be human in a world of constant change. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, archaeology, philosophy, architecture, and cultural studies.

Monstrosity and Chinese Cultural Identity

Monstrosity and Chinese Cultural Identity PDF Author: ISAAC. YUE
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781621965046
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Book Description
Using four case studies on the developmental history of the fox demon, Zhang Fei, Sun Wukong, and Zhong Kui in vernacular literature, this book examines the interconnection between the idea of monstrosity (through its traditional connection to foreignness) and the emergence of Chinese cultural identity since the Song dynasty.

How Three Kingdoms Became a National Novel of Korea

How Three Kingdoms Became a National Novel of Korea PDF Author: Hyuk-chan Kwon
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004678328
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
This book is a comparative exploration of the impact of a celebrated Chinese historical novel, the Sanguozhi yanyi (Three Kingdoms) on the popular culture of Korea since its dissemination in the sixteenth century. It elucidates not only the reception of Chinese fiction in Chosŏn Korea (1392–1910), but also the fascinating ways in which this particular story lives on in modern Korea. The author specifically explores the dissemination, adaptations, and translations of the work to elucidate how Three Kingdoms has spoken to Korean readers. In short, this book shows how a quintessentially Chinese work equally developed into a Korean work.

Revolutionary Taiwan

Revolutionary Taiwan PDF Author: Catherine Lila Chou
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

Book Description
This book is in the Cambria Sinophone World Series, headed by Victor H. Mair (University of Pennsylvania). In the early 1990s, the people of Taiwan gained the right to vote for their executive and legislature. In building a democratic society, they transformed how they saw themselves and their homeland. The outcome of democratization was nothing less than revolutionary, producing a new, de facto nation and people that can be justly called "Taiwanese." Yet this revolution remains unfinished and incomplete. In an era of increasing US-China rivalry, the People's Republic of China (PRC) claims sovereignty over Taiwan and insists that "reunification" is the historic mission of all peoples on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The PRC threatens war with and over the island, inviting a crisis that would engulf the region and beyond. Common ideas about Taiwan-that it "split with China in 1949" or "sees itself as the true China"-fail to explain why the Taiwanese withstand pressure from the PRC to relinquish their democratic self-governance. Revolutionary Taiwan sheds light on this. Each chapter shows how democratization in Taiwan constituted a revolution, changing not just the form of government but also how Taiwanese people conceptualized the island, coming to see it a complete nation unto itself. At the same time, however, Beijing has blocked the "normal" endpoint of this revolution: an open declaration of statehood and welcome into the global community. Revolutionary Taiwan: Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order brings the Taiwan story to a general audience. It will appeal to students and readers interested in international relations, contemporary geopolitics, and East Asian Studies. Informed by years of academic research and life in Taiwan, this book provides an entry point to a remarkable place and people.

The Monster That Is History

The Monster That Is History PDF Author: Dewei Wang
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520238737
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
In ancient China a monster called Taowu was known for both its vicious nature and its power to see the past and the future. Since the seventeenth century, fictive accounts of history have accommodated themselves to the monstrous nature of Taowu. Moving effortlessly across the entire twentieth-century literary landscape, David Der-wei Wang delineates the many meanings of Chinese violence and its literary manifestations.

Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain

Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain PDF Author: J. Cohen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 113708670X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Book Description
This study examines the monsters that haunt twelfth-century British texts, arguing that in these strange bodies are expressed fears and fantasies about community, identity and race during the period. Cohen finds the origins of these monsters in a contemporary obsession with blood, both the literal and metaphorical kind.