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"Rea, Christopher G"
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The age of irreverence
The Age of Irreverencetells the story of why China's entry into the modern age was not just traumatic, but uproarious. As the Qing dynasty slumped toward extinction, prominent writers compiled jokes into collections they called \"histories of laughter.\" In the first years of the Republic, novelists, essayists and illustrators alike used humorous allegories to make veiled critiques of the new government. But, again and again, political and cultural discussion erupted into invective, as critics gleefully jeered and derided rivals in public. Farceurs drew followings in the popular press, promoting a culture of practical joking and buffoonery. Eventually, these various expressions of hilarity proved so offensive to high-brow writers that they launched a concerted campaign to transform the tone of public discourse, hoping to displace the old forms of mirth with a new one they calledyoumo(humor).Christopher Rea argues that this period-from the 1890s to the 1930s-transformed how Chinese people thought and talked about what is funny. Focusing on five cultural expressions of laughter-jokes, play, mockery, farce, and humor-he reveals the textures of comedy that were a part of everyday life during modern China's first \"age of irreverence.\" This new history of laughter not only offers an unprecedented and up-close look at a neglected facet of Chinese cultural modernity, but also reveals its lasting legacy in the Chinese language of the comic today and its implications for our understanding of humor as a part of human culture.
eBook
China's Literary Cosmopolitans
China's Literary Cosmopolitans offers a comprehensive introduction to the intertwined literary careers of Qian Zhongshu (1910-98) and Yang Jiang (b. 1911) and explains why they have come to represent compelling models of Chinese-centric literary cosmopolitanism.
eBook
The business of culture : cultural entrepreneurs in China and Southeast Asia, 1900-65
The Business of Culture examines the rise of Chinese cultural entrepreneurs, businesspeople who risked financial well-being and reputation by investing in multiple cultural enterprises in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rich in biographical detail, the interlinked case studies featured in this volume introduce three distinct archetypes: the cultural personality, the tycoon, and the collective enterprise. These portraits reveal how rapidly evolving technologies and growing transregional ties created fertile conditions for business success in the cultural sphere. They also highlight strategies used by cultural entrepreneurs around the world today.
eBook
Humans, beasts, and ghosts
Qian Zhongshu was one of twentieth-century China's most ingenious literary stylists, one whose insights into the ironies and travesties of modern China remain stunningly fresh. Between the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the Communist takeover in 1949, Qian wrote a brilliant series of short stories, essays, and a comedic novel that continue to inspire generations of Chinese readers.
With this long-awaited translation, English-language readers can immerse themselves in the invention and satirical wit of one of the world's great literary cosmopolitans. This collection brings together Qian's best short works, combining his iconoclastic essays on the \"book of life\" fromWritten in the Margins of Life(1941) with the four masterful short stories ofHuman, Beast, Ghost(1946). His essays elucidate substantive issues through deceptively simple subjects-the significance of windows versus doors, for example, or the blind spots of literary critics-and assert the primacy of critical and creative independence. His stories blur the boundaries between humans, beasts, and ghosts as they struggle through life, death, and resurrection. Christopher G. Rea situates these works within China's wartime politics and Qian's literary vision, highlighting significant changes that Qian Zhongshu made to different editions of his writings and providing unprecedented insight into the author's creative process.
eBook
Great Books and Free Wine
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) When I was accepted into Columbia's PhD program in modern Chinese literature in the spring of 2002, I was working as a bank regulator in San Francisco. Above all, I live with his maxim that \"the literary historian's first task is always the discovery and appraisal of excellence\"-a reminder that the critic, like the novelist, should aim to create works of lasting value.
Journal Article
Opening Up \Modern Chinese Literature\: A Conversation with David Der-wei Wang
[...] K. C. Chang ... from the Harvard Sociology Department happened to be coming to Taiwan for a conference so he volunteered to interview me in Taiwan. [...] do you read differently as a literary critic and as a private reader, and have your reading practices changed at all over the years? [...] how do you feel the field of modern Chinese literary studies has changed over the years? DD W:
Journal Article
\Three Dollars in National Currency\: A One-Act Comedy by Ding Xilin
\"Three Dollars in National Currency (San kuai qian guobi\" 三 槐 錢 國 幣, 1939), a little-known one-act comedy, was written in southwestern China during the third year of the Second Sino-Japanese War by Ding Xilin 丁; 西 林 (1893-1974), one of twentieth-century China's pioneering playwrights. The introduction highlights the play's significance both as a turning point in Ding Xilin's creative oeuvre and as a comedic exploration of the geopolitics of wartime China's \"Greater Rear Area.\"
Journal Article