Reading China: Fiction, History and the Dynamics of Discourse: Essays in Honour of Professor Glen Dudbridge (China Studies)

This volume develops a new style of reading Chinese sources, as pioneered in Chinese Studies by Professor Glen Dudbridge, providing fascinating new insights into Chinese literature, history and popular culture. The analysis of self-fashioning, representation and political propaganda sheds new light on Chinese perceptions of the world. This groundbreaking volume opens a new window on both modern and traditional Chinese literature, history and popular culture, demonstrating how a new style of reading brings us - the modern reader - closer to understanding how Chinese citizens perceived their world and what their writings reveal about the culture that produced them. Following the pioneering work of Professor Glen Dudbridge, this book brings together eight studies that develop a new style of reading Chinese sources by exploring the dynamics of discourse across open boundaries: those of fiction and history, literary and non-literary sources, official and vernacular culture, prose and poetry, records past and present, lost and extant, vernacular and classical, traditional and modern. Each chapter discusses how authors, editors and publishers use representation, editing and selection as means of self-fashioning and political propaganda 1. Liaozhai Zhiyi And Chinese Vernacular Fiction / Allan H. Barr -- 2. The Allusive Mode Of Production : Text, Commentary, And Illustration In The Tianzhang Ge Edition Of Xixiang Ji (the Story Of The Western Wing) / Li-ling Hsiao -- 3. Narrating The Passage Of Text : Reading Multiple Editions Of The Nineteenth-century Novel Huayue Hen (traces Of Flowers And The Moon) / Chloe Starr -- 4. Conflicting Discourse And The Discourse Of Conflict : Eremitism And The Pastoral In The Poetry Of Ruan Dacheng (c. 1587-1646) / Alison Hardie -- 5. 'life' As They Knew It : Du Zhongyuan's Editorial Strategies For The Xinsheng (new Life) Weekly, 1934-35 / Rana Mitter. Edited By Daria Berg. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [299]-314) And Index.