Comparative Print Culture: A Study of Alternative Literary Modernities (New Directions in Book History)

"If we de-europeanize the historical narrative of the development of print, and of its motive power in generating modern social and political formations, and further pluralize that 'modernity' to 'alternative modernities,' what will be the result? Taking this question as a point of departure, the contributors to Comparative Print Culture provide vibrant studies of the role of print in effecting, and reflecting, individual sensibilities, collective networks, and political movements self-defined as 'modern,' working with considerable temporal range, a global span, and careful inflection for cultural difference." --Heather Murray, University of Toronto, Canada "A succinct and accomplished contribution to this growing field." --Robert Fraser, The Open University, UK "This is a fascinating collection of essays that brings together a number of hitherto under-represented and overlooked aspects of print cultural histories of Asia in a global comparative context. In doing so, the authors create a novel space to chart the development of modernities and trace formations of knowledge, but also creations of entertainment cultures across continents." --B. Venkat Mani, University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, author of Recoding World Literature: Libraries, Print Culture, and Germany's Pact with Books Drawing on comparative literary studies, postcolonial book history, and multiple, literary, and alternative modernities, this collection approaches the study of alternative literary modernities from the perspective of comparative print culture. The term comparative print culture designates a wide range of scholarly practices that discover, examine, document, and/or historicize various printed materials and their reproduction, circulation, and uses across genres, languages, media, and technologies, all within a comparative orientation. This book explores alternative literary modernities mostly by highlighting the distinct ways in which literary and cultural print modernities outside Europe evince the repurposing of European systems and cultures of print and further deconstruct their perceived universality. Rasoul Aliakbari (PhD) has taught English Studies, Comparative and World Literature, and Writing and Communication Studies at the University of Alberta, MacEwan University, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, and NorQuest College, all in Canada Acknowledgments 6 Contents 8 Notes on Contributors 10 List of Figures 14 Chapter 1: Comparative Print Culture and Alternative Literary Modernities: A Critical Introduction to Frameworks and Case Studies 15 Works Cited 34 Chapter 2: Song Dynasty Classicism and the Eleventh Century “Print Modernity” 37 1 Prologue: Ancient Moderns 37 2 China’s Early Print History and the Song Dynasty 39 3 Song Neo-Classicism and “Modern” Editions of Han and Liu 42 4 Reception of Printed Neoclassicism: The Case of Ouyang Xiu 47 5 Postscript: Time and Text 51 Bibliography 52 Chapter 3: Alternative Imaginaries of the Modern Girl: A Comparative Examination of Canadian and Australian Magazines 54 1 Introduction 54 2 (Con)Texts in Comparison 58 2.1 The Home 58 2.2 Mayfair 61 2.3 The Western Home Monthly 64 2.4 The Australian Woman’s Mirror 66 3 Conclusions 69 Works Cited 71 Chapter 4: The Making of a National Hero: A Comparative Examination of Köroğlu the Bandit 74 1 Introduction 74 2 Contexts 75 2.1 Who Is Köroğlu? 75 2.2 The Historical Identity of Köroğlu 76 2.3 The Earliest Recorded Versions of Köroğlu 77 2.4 The Influence of European Romanticism on the Köroğlu Story 82 2.5 Köroğlu’s Changing Image in Turkey 84 2.6 Ancient Folkloric Motifs and Conflations Relating to Köroğlu’s Idealization 87 2.7 Köroğlu’s Changing Image in Azerbaijan 88 3 Conclusions 91 Works Cited 93 Chapter 5: Between Poetry and Reportage: Raúl González Tuñón, Journalism and Literary Modernization in 1930s Argentina 95 1 Introduction 95 2 A Modern Genre 96 3 Raúl González Tuñón in the 1930s Argentina 98 3.1 The Reporter as a Poet 98 3.2 The Poet as a Reporter 106 4 Conclusion 111 Works Cited 112 Chapter 6: New Fiction as a Medium of Public Opinion: The Utopian/Dystopian Imagination in Revolutionary Periodicals in Late Qing China 116 1 Introduction 116 2 New Fiction as a Medium of Public Opinion 119 3 China’s Partition and Revolutionary Periodicals 123 4 Conclusion: Popularizing Utopian Visions Via New Fiction 128 Works Cited 129 Chapter 7: Nineteenth-Century African American Publications on Food and Housekeeping: Negotiating Alternative Forms of Modernity 133 1 Introduction 133 2 Housekeeping Guides by Black Authors: Anticipating Efficient Management While Also Seeking Justice 136 3 An 1881 African American Cookbook: The West, Gender, and Modernity 144 4 Conclusion 148 Works Cited 149 Primary Sources 149 Secondary Sources 150 Chapter 8: Progressing with a Vengeance: The Woman Reader/Writer in the African Press 152 1 Introduction 152 2 Discussions 155 3 Conclusion 167 Works Cited 169 Chapter 9: Fashioning the Self: Women and Transnational Print Networks in Colonial Punjab 173 1 Introduction 173 2 The Context of the Novel 175 2.1 Women and the Print Sphere in Punjab 177 2.2 The Author 179 2.3 The Plot of the Novel 181 2.4 Print Networks and Communities of Affect 183 2.5 The New Woman and Cosmopolitanism 186 2.6 Location in Hinduism 188 2.7 The Choice of Language 189 2.8 The Genre of the Novel 189 3 Conclusion 190 Works Cited 190 Chapter 10: Crafting the Modern Word: Writing, Publishing, and Modernity in the Print Culture of Prewar Japan 193 1 Introduction 193 2 Prewar Print Culture 194 3 Writing 196 4 Publishing 203 5 Conclusion 208 Works Cited 209 Chapter 11: “Books for Men”: Pornography and Literary Modernity in Late Nineteenth-Century Brazil 212 1 Introduction 212 2 Context: The Pornographic Book Market in Late Nineteenth-Century Brazil 214 3 Texts/Contexts in Comparison: Re-Tooling of Humanism, Libertinism, and Naturalism as an Alternative to European and Domestic Novelism and Realism 216 3.1 Convent Evenings by M. L. and Anticlerical Pornography 219 3.2 Voluptuousness: 14 Gallant Tales by Rabelais and the New Pornography 221 3.3 Album of Caliban and Polished Pornography 223 4 Conclusions 227 Works Cited 228 Chapter 12: Print Culture and the Reassertion of Indigenous Nationhood in Early-Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada 231 1 Introduction 231 2 Con(text)s in Comparison 232 3 Conclusions 245 Works Cited 246 Index 251