Women and national trauma in late imperial Chinese literature / Wai-Yee Li.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Li, Wai-yee, author.

Series:

Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series ; 92.

Harvard-Yenching Institute monograph series ; 92

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chinese literature--Qing dynasty, 1644-1912--History and criticism.

Chinese literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 638 pages )

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London : Harvard University Asia Center : Harvard University Press, [2014]

Summary:

The Ming-Qing dynastic transition in seventeenth-century China was an epochal event that reverberated in Qing writings and beyond; political disorder was bound up with vibrant literary and cultural production. Women and National Trauma in Late Imperial Chinese Literature focuses on the discursive and imaginative space commanded by women. Encompassing writings by women and by men writing in a feminine voice or assuming a female identity, as well as writings that turn women into a signifier through which authors convey their lamentation, nostalgia, or moral questions for the fallen Ming, the book delves into the mentality of those who remembered or reflected on the dynastic transition, as well as those who reinvented its significance in later periods. It shows how history and literature intersect, how conceptions of gender mediate the experience and expression of political disorder. Why and how are variations on themes related to gender boundaries, female virtues, vices, agency, and ethical dilemmas used to allegorize national destiny? In pursuing answers to these questions, Wai-yee Li explores how this multivalent presence of women in different genres provides a window into the emotional and psychological turmoil of the Ming-Qing transition and of subsequent moments of national trauma. 2016 Joseph Levenson Book Prize, Pre-1900 Category, China and Inner Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781684170760

1684170761

OCLC:

1132227195

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9781684170760 DOI