Eric Hayot Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Program in Asian Studies Pennsylvania State University's Books

The Hypothetical Mandarin : Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain

Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain

By: Eric Hayot Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Program in Asian Studies Pennsylvania State University

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The Hypothetical Mandarin : Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain

Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain

By: Eric Hayot Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Program in Asian Studies Pennsylvania State University

Why has the West for so long and in so many different ways expressed the idea that the Chinese have a special relationship to cruelty and to physical pain? What can the history of that idea and its expressions teach us about the politics of the West's contemporary relation to China? And what does it tell us about the philosophy of modernity? The Hypothetical Mandarin is, in some sense, a history of the Western imagination. It is also a history of the interactions between Enlightenment philosophy, of globalization, of human rights, and of the idea of the modern. Beginning with Bianchon and Rastignac's discussion of whether the former would, if he could, obtain a European fortune by killing a Chinese mandarin in Balzac's Le Pere Goriot (1835), the book traces a series of literary and historical examples in which Chinese life and European sympathy seem to hang in one another's balance. Hayots wide-ranging discussion draws on accounts of torture, on medical case studies, travelers tales, photographs, plasticized corpses, polemical broadsides, watercolors, and on oil paintings. His analyses show that the historical connection between sympathy and humanity, and indeed between sympathy and reality, has tended to refract with a remarkable frequency through the lens called "China," and why the story of the West's Chinese pain goes to the heart of the relation between language and the body and the social experience of the modern human being. Written in an ebullient prose, The Hypothetical Mandarin demonstrates how the network that intertwines China, sympathy, and modernity continues to shape the economic and human experience.

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294

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Oxford University Press, USA

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ISBN 10

0199700117

ISBN 13

9780199700110

Chinese Dreams

Pound, Brecht, Tel Quel

By: Eric R. J. Hayot

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Chinese Dreams

Pound, Brecht, Tel Quel

By: Eric R. J. Hayot

China’s profound influence on the avant-garde in the 20th century was nowhere more apparent than in the work of Ezra Pound, Bertolt Brecht, and the writers associated with the Parisian literary journal Tel quel. Chinese Dreams explores the complex, intricate relationship between various “Chinas”—as texts—and the nation/culture known simply as “China”—their context—within the work of these writers. Eric Hayot calls into question the very means of representing otherness in the history of the West and ultimately asks if it might be possible to attend to the political meaning of imagining the other, while still enjoying the pleasures and possibilities of such dreaming. The latest edition of this critically acclaimed book includes a new preface by the author. “Lucid and accessible . . . an important contribution to the field of East-West comparative studies, Asian studies, and modernism.” —Comparative Literature Studies “Instead of trying to decipher the indecipherable ‘China’ in Western literary texts and critical discourses, Hayot chose to show us why and how ‘China’ has remained, and will probably always be, an enchanting, ever-elusive dream. His approach is nuanced and refreshing, his analysis rigorous and illuminating.” —Michelle Yeh, University of California, Davis

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239

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University of Michigan Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0472024930

ISBN 13

9780472024933

The Hypothetical Mandarin Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain

By: Eric Hayot

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The Hypothetical Mandarin Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain

By: Eric Hayot

Beginning with Bianchon and Rastignac's discussion of whether the former would, if he could, obtain a European fortune by killing a Chinese mandarin in Balzac's Le Pere Goriot (1835), this book traces a series of literary and historical examples in which Chinese life and European sympathy seem to hang in one another's balance. Hayots wide-ranging discussion draws on accounts of torture, on medical case studies, travelers tales, photographs, plasticized corpses, polemical broadsides, watercolors, and on oil paintings. His analyses show that the historical connection between sympathy and humanity, and indeed between sympathy and reality, has tended to refract with a remarkable frequency through the lens called "China," and why the story of the West's Chinese pain goes to the heart of the relation between language and the body and the social experience of the modern human being.

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293

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195377966

ISBN 13

9780195377965

Humanist Reason

A History. An Argument. A Plan

By: Eric Hayot

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Humanist Reason

A History. An Argument. A Plan

By: Eric Hayot

Ask just about any humanist, and you will hear that the humanities are in a crisis. Facing utilitarian approaches to education, the corporatization of the university, plummeting enrollments, budget cuts, and political critiques from right, left, and center, humanists find themselves on the defensive. Eric Hayot argues that it is time to make a positive case for what the humanities are and what they can become. Hayot challenges scholars and students in the humanities to rethink and reconsider the work they do. Examining the origins of the humanist ethos in nineteenth-century Germany and tracing its philosophical roots back to Immanuel Kant, Hayot returns to the history of justifications for the humanities in order to build the groundwork for their future development. He develops the concept of “humanist reason” to understand the nature of humanist intellectual work and lays out a series of principles that undergird this core idea. Together, they constitute a provocative intellectual and practical program for a new way of thinking about the humanities, humanist thought, and their role in the university and beyond. Rather than appealing to familiar ethical or moral rationales for the importance of the humanities, Humanist Reason lays out a new vision that moves beyond traditional disciplines to demonstrate what the humanities can tell us about our world.

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337

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Columbia University Press

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0231552378

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9780231552370

Book's by Eric Hayot Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Program in Asian Studies Pennsylvania State University

The Hypothetical Mandarin : Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain

The Hypothetical Mandarin : Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain

Chinese Dreams

Chinese Dreams

The Hypothetical Mandarin Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain

The Hypothetical Mandarin Sympathy, Modernity, and Chinese Pain

Humanist Reason

Humanist Reason

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