The Writing of Weddings in Middle-Period China
Text and Ritual Practice in the Eighth through Fourteenth Centuries
Format:Hardback
Publisher:State University of New York Press
Published:5th Apr '07
Should be back in stock very soon
A groundbreaking work that treats writing as a ritual practice and texts as ritual objects.
Approaching writing as a form of cultural practice and understanding text as an historical object, this book not only recovers elements of the ritual practice of Middle-Period weddings, but also reassesses the relationship between texts and the Middle-Period past. Its fourfold narrative of the writing of weddings and its spirited engagement with the texts-ritual manuals, engagement letters, nuptial songs, calendars and almanacs, and legal texts-offer a form and style for a cultural history that accommodates the particularities of the sources of the Chinese imperial past.
"…The Writing of Weddings in Middle-Period China … beautifully marries pathbreaking insights drawn from different disciplines, including gender studies, archaeology, and cultural anthropology." — Philosophy East & West
"Christian de Pee has written an extraordinary book … The heart of the book is de Pee's masterful textual analysis … de Pee is only bringing 'another' perspective, albeit … a very important and brilliantly presented one, to our search for the 'truth' about China's middle period." — Journal of Asian Studies
"…recommended to scholars of Chinese social history and anthropology for its textual sources and detailed information." — Journal of Chinese Religions
"In many ways this is a remarkable book. It is replete with detailed and interesting data that relate to the celebration of weddings in the 'middle-period' of China's history—the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties." — Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
"De Pee presents a new theoretical approach to Middle-Period history. In so doing he sees texts as ritual objects in themselves (in various historical forms, often no longer extant), and he sees writing as a ritual practice embedded in a historical context. This book is pathbreaking and highly erudite. It sets a new standard for historical inquiry in the China field. It will unquestionably be recognized as a seminal work in its own field and beyond." — Bettine Birge, author of Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction in Sung and Yüan China (960–1368)
ISBN: 9780791470732
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 635g
380 pages