This singular work presents the most comprehensive and nuanced studies available in any Western language of Chinese aesthetic thought and practice during the Six Dynasties (A.D. 220–589). Despite a succession of dynastic and social upheavals, the literati preoccupied themselves with both the sensuous and the transcendent and strove for cultural dominance. By the end of the sixth century, their reflections would evolve into a sophisticated system of aesthetic discourse characterized by its own rhetoric and concepts. A prologue details the historical context in which Six Dynasties aesthetics arose and sketches out its major stages of development. The ten essays that follow bring fresh perspectives to bear on important writings on literature, music, painting, calligraphy, and gardening. Grounded in close readings of primary texts, they reveal the complex, dynamic interplay between life and art, the sensuous and the metaphysical, and the artistic and the philosophicaleligious that lies at the heart of the aesthetic thought and practice of the time. As a whole, the collection demonstrates that Six Dynasties achieved a sophistication in aesthetic thought comparable in many ways to that of the West: The discussion of disinterestedness in art, aesthetic judgment, and how mental images mediate between the supersensible and the sensible are reminiscent of Kant. The findings of various Chinese critics provide much food for thought in the broad fields of comparative literature and aesthetics. Chinese Aesthetics will fill a gap in Western sinological studies of the period. It will appeal to scholars and students in premodern Chinese literary studies, comparative aesthetics, and cultural studies and be a welcome reference to anyone interested in ancient Chinese culture. Contributors: Susan Bush; Zong-qi Cai; Kang-i Sun Chang; Ronald Egan; Robert E. Harrist, Jr.; Rania Huntington; Wai-yee Li; Shuen-fu Lin; Victor Mair; François Martin.
Western classical music has become as Chinese as Peking Opera, and it has woven its way into the hearts and lives of ordinary Chinese people. This lucidly written account traces the biographies of the bold visionaries who carried out this musical merger. Rhapsody in Red is a history of classical music in China that revolves around a common theme: how Western classical music entered China, and how it became Chinese. China's oldest orchestra was founded in 1879, two years before the Boston Symphony. Since then, classical music has woven its way into the lives of ordinary Chinese people. Millions of Chinese children take piano and violin lessons every week. Yet, despite the importance of classical music in China - and of Chinese classical musicians and composers to the world - next to nothing has been written on this fascinating subject. The authors capture the events with the voice of an insider and the perspective of a Westerner, presenting new information, original research and insights into a topic that has barely been broached elsewhere. "Every chapter is as exiting as it is revealing. The book is thoroughly researched, with superb bibliography. I am ecstatic; my students will be electrified." - Clive M. Marks, Chairman, The London College of Music, Trestee, Trinity College of Music and The London Philarmonic Orchestra
Pentasyllabic poetry has been a focus of critical study since the appearance of the earliest works of Chinese literary criticism in the Six Dynasties period. Throughout the subsequent dynasties, traditional Chinese critics continued to examine pentasyllabic poetry as a leading poetic type and to compile various comprehensive anthologies of it. The Matrix of Lyric Transformation enriches this tradition, using modern analytical methods to explore issues of self-expression and to trace the early formal, thematic, and generic developments of this poetic form. Beginning with a discussion of the Yüeh-fu and ku-shih genres of the Han period, Cai Zong-qi introdues the analytical framework of modes from Western literary criticism to show how the pentasyllabic poetry changed over time. He argues that changing practices of poetic composition effected a shift from a dramatic mode typical of folk compositions to a narrative mode and finally to lyric and symbolic modes developed in literati circles.
Solutions for Biot's Poroelastic Theory in Key Engineering Fields: Theory and Applications provides solutions related to soil-structure interactions based on a poroelasticity theory, including moving loads such as trains. This book provides the commonly used methods for solving Biot's formulations and conclusions on fully-saturated soil dynamics. It presents various solution methods used in Biot's theory, such as the integral transformation method, the wave potential decomposition method, the finite element, and the 2.5D finite element method. It is suitable for graduate students, researchers and engineers who are interested in the soil-structure interaction problem with Biot's theory, as well as engineers in several subdisciplines. - Focuses on the structure-saturated soil interactions based on Biot's theory - Provides solutions (analytical and numerical) related to soil-structure interactions based on a poroelasticity theory, including moving loads such as trains - Includes common and novel solution methods for Biot's formulation
Since I was a child, my fate had been strange. The fortune-teller said that this was basically death. In order to let this little life of mine breathe a little more, Grandpa made a "ghost bride" out of the girl he married from a young age. I did survive, but with this' damned girl 'pestering me everyday, it's practically a fate worse than death!
Understanding culture as a whole way of life, this book touches on various aspects of Sino-foreign interactions, tracing cultural exchanges depicted in Chinese and foreign sources, with particular attention to events or anecdotes in the Tang and Qing periods. In addition to a discussion of the Sogdians and Turks in medieval China, an investigation of the localization process of pugs and lions through different Chinese dynasties, an analysis of the incorporation of Manichaeism into Chinese culture, and the depiction of the "Kunlun slaves" in Chinese Buddhist texts, this book also examines the "caravan tea" trade between Russia and China, the Russian-American company's attempt to do business in Canton, the translation of the Three Character Classic in Russia, the "Russian case" in the Tianjin missionary incident, as well as the Dutch factory in Canton and the Dutch mission in Beijing. This book concludes with a discussion of Chinese workers in Southeast Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From Central Asia to the South China Sea to the northern border with Russia, this book reveals its great diversity, yet with an intense focus on China's interactions with the outside world. This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Chinese studies, medieval Central Asian studies, and those interested in world history.
Designed to work with the acclaimed course text How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology, the How to Read Chinese Poetry Workbook introduces classical Chinese to advanced beginners and learners at higher levels, teaching them how to appreciate Chinese poetry in its original form. Also a remarkable stand-alone resource, the volume illuminates China's major poetic genres and themes through one hundred well-known, easy-to-recite works. Each of the volume's twenty units contains four to six classical poems in Chinese, English, and tone-marked pinyin romanization, with comprehensive vocabulary notes and prose poem translations in modern Chinese. Subsequent comprehension questions and comments focus on the artistic aspects of the poems, while exercises test readers' grasp of both classical and modern Chinese words, phrases, and syntax. An extensive glossary cross-references classical and modern Chinese usage, characters and compounds, and multiple character meanings, and online sound recordings are provided for each poem and its prose translation free of charge. A list of literary issues addressed throughout completes the volume, along with phonetic transcriptions for entering-tone characters, which appear in Tang and Song-regulated shi poems and lyric songs.
This volume, originally published in China and translated into four other languages, presents a fascinating and unique account of the history of mathematics, divided into eight chronologically organized chapters. Tracing the development of mathematics across disparate regions and peoples, with particular emphasis on the relationship between mathematics and civilization, it examines mathematical sources and inspirations leading from Egypt, Babylon and ancient Greece and expanding to include Chinese, Indian and Arabic mathematics, the European Renaissance and the French revolution up through the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Each chapter explores connections among mathematics and cultural elements of the time and place treated, accompanying the reader in a varied and exciting journey through human civilizations. The book contemplates the intersections of mathematics with other disciplines, including the relationship between modern mathematics and modern art, and the resulting applications, with the aid of images and photographs, often taken by the author, which further enhance the enjoyment for the reader. Written for a general audience, this book will be of interest to anyone who's studied mathematics in university or even high school, while also benefiting researchers in mathematics and the humanities.
Published in China in 2010, Revolution and Its Narratives is a historical, literary, and critical account of the cultural production of the narratives of China's socialist revolution. Through theoretical, empirical, and textual analysis of major and minor novels, dramas, short stories, and cinema, Cai Xiang offers a complex study that exceeds the narrow confines of existing views of socialist aesthetics. By engaging with the relationship among culture, history, and politics in the context of the revolutionary transformation of Chinese society and arts, Cai illuminates the utopian promise as well as the ultimate impossibility of socialist cultural production. Translated, annotated, and edited by Rebecca E. Karl and Xueping Zhong, this translation presents Cai's influential work to English-language readers for the first time.
However, he was sold by his parents right after he got into trouble. He was even sold to the richest man in the Yun City. After the marriage, if he didn't like it, then it was forbidden! Don't let her come home after eleven! Don't make eye contact with other men! Don't be angry at him! One day, Pei Luoyi exploded in anger, "Gong Yan, I want to get a divorce! I have no human rights! " A certain someone drank tea calmly, "It's a deal for three years." Pei Luoyi looked up to the heavens and could not shed a tear. The indenture contract he had signed was destined to be fulfilled! Join Collection
She had just said goodbye at daybreak, but now she was his sister-in-law! He wanted to escape, but his sister-in-law chased him for thousands of miles with her big belly! What should he do? Was he inferior to the beasts, or was he to accept them all? What kind of life would the top young master, who had never been touched by a single leaf, have in front of the two sisters? Please wait and see!
With its comprehensive coverage of recent progress in metallic biomaterials, this reference focuses on emerging materials and new biofunctions for promising applications. The text is systematically structured, with the information organized according to different material systems, and concentrates on various advanced materials, such as anti-bacterial functionalized stainless steel, biodegradable metals with bioactivity, and novel structured metallic biomaterials. Authors from well-known academic institutes and with many years of clinical experience discuss all important aspects, including design strategies, fabrication and modification techniques, and biocompatibility.
The author, Dr. Liu Zheng-cai, helps clarify what the specifically Daoist contributions to the practice of acupuncture actually are. Included in this book are numerous short biographies of Daoist physicians, detailed explanations on the clinical use of such chrono-acupuncture techniques as midday/midnight point selection and the magic turtle eight methods, moxibustion techniques for longevity and emergencies, and other secret Daoist acupuncture lore. 260 pages.
Most current research on the evolution of China’s propaganda discourse only touches upon recent variations of official propaganda rhetoric grounded in popular media. Here, the research is extended by tapping into the most recently released popular cultural media narratives such as online documentaries, films, TV drama serials and education programs, all of which are enlisted and co-opted by the state for propaganda goals. This book maps out the cutting-edge expansions of official propaganda that are embedded in the entertainment industry of contemporary China. Its case studies bring to light the progression of the mainstream propaganda discourse in terms of its merging, cooperation and compromise with the commercial features of both the traditional and newly-emerging entertainment media. In particular, it examines a group of mass entertainment products which include two best-selling mainstream blockbusters, two on-line commercial web documentaries, the China Central Television Moon Festival Gala series, socialist revolutionary TV drama serials, and a prime time science and education program. In so doing, it forefronts the up-to-date developments and novelties of state propaganda: its motives, reasoning and approaches within the mediasphere of today’s China. Illustrating how the CCP propaganda apparatus and tactics evolve and become embedded in popular media products, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese studies, Media Studies and Popular Cultural Studies.
At the turn of the twentieth century, students returning from abroad introduced Beethoven to China. The composer's perseverance in the face of adversity and his musical genius resonated in a nation searching for a way forward. Beethoven remained a durable part of Chinese life in the decades that followed, becoming an icon to intellectuals, music fans and party cadres alike, playing a role in major historical events from the May Fourth Movement to the normalisation of US-China relations. Jindong Cai, whose love for the musician began during the Cultural Revolution, and culture journalist Sheila Melvin tell the compelling story of Beethoven and the Chinese people.
A child prodigy, Bull was admitted to the Bergen orchestra as first violin at the age of eight. He soon was idolized on both sides of the Atlantic for his superb improvisations and his ability to play the violin polyphonically. Though he was hailed as "the Paganini of the North," some critics labeled him a charlatan for his apparently magic tricks on the violin. Bull counted among his friends the great names of his era: Schumann and Lizst, Emerson and Wagner. Longfellow and Hans Christian Andersen modeled characters on him, and he was in part the inspiration for Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Although he spent most of his adult life abroad, Bull was a tireless promoter of Norwegian art and culture. His concert improvisations were rooted in his native slåtter (folkdance tunes), and he modified his own instrument using the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle as a model. By mid-century, Bull realized his dream of establishing a national theater in Bergen. He gave Henrik Ibsen a start in theater management, employed the poet Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, and promoted the music of Edvard Grieg. His attempt to establish a Norwegian colony, "Oleana," in the United States, however, failed through poor management. The words of the poet Aasmund Vinje, "That surely would be a man to write a book about," have been taken to heart by authors Einar Haugen and Camilla Cai. In addition to providing the first comprehensive listing of Bull's works (with full descriptions of all known sources), analyses of his compositions and their influences, and reviews of his performances, this biography gives life once again to a fascinating and flamboyant figure.
This book explores xiangsheng, one of the most popular folk art performance genres in China, its enlistment by official propaganda machine after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its revival in popularity under Guo Degang and his Deyun Club. Just as the 1950's saw the shift of xiangsheng 's social function from entertainment to the political tool of ‘serving the party’, Guo Degang has completed the paradigm shift by turning its focus back to ‘serving the people’ as a means of entertainment and social criticism. This volume examines how Guo has resurrected the essence of xiangsheng, successfully commercialised it in a market economy, and simultaneously deconstructed the official discourse through grassroots means.
This book attempts to connect artificial intelligence to primitive intelligence. It explores the idea that a genuinely intelligent computer will be able to interact naturally with humans. To form this bridge, computers need the ability to recognize, understand and even have instincts similar to humans. The author organizes the book into three parts. He starts by describing primitive problem-solving, discussing topics like default mode, learning, tool-making, pheromones and foraging. Part two then explores behavioral models of instinctive cognition by looking at the perception of motion and event patterns, appearance and gesture, behavioral dynamics, figurative thinking, and creativity. The book concludes by exploring instinctive computing in modern cybernetics, including models of self-awareness, stealth, visual privacy, navigation, autonomy, and survivability. Instinctive Computing reflects upon systematic thinking for designing cyber-physical systems and it would be a stimulating reading for those who are interested in artificial intelligence, cybernetics, ethology, human-computer interaction, data science, computer science, security and privacy, social media, or autonomous robots.
This comprehensive comparative study of Western and Chinese poetics begins with broad examinations of the two traditions over more than two and a half millennia. From these parallel surveys, a series of important theoretical questions arises: How do Western and Chinese critics conceptualize the nature, origin, and function of literature? What are the fundamental differences, if any, in their ways of thinking about literature? Can we account for these differences by examining Western truth-based and Chinese process-based cosmological paradigms? What are the major distinctive concepts of literature developed within Western and Chinese poetics? How have these concepts impacted the development of the two traditions at various times? After considering a wide range of major critical texts, Configurations of Comparative Poetics presents bold and cogent answers to these questions while shedding light on the distinctive orientations of Western and Chinese poetics. The second half of the book features four comparative case studies: Plato and Confucius on poetry; Wordsworth and Liu Xie on the creative process; the twentieth-century "Imagists" and their earlier Chinese counterparts on the relationship of the Chinese written character to poetics; and Derrida and the Madhyamika Buddhists on language and onto-theology. The author not only identifies an array of critical concerns shared by Western and Chinese critics, but also differentiates the conceptual models used by each and traces them to cosmological paradigms.
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