Playing with Plays: Drama and Early Modern Chinese Media Ecologies
Series: Studies in the History of Chinese Texts; 18;
- Publisher's listprice EUR 109.00
-
45 207 Ft (43 055 Ft + 5% VAT)
The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.
- Discount 8% (cc. 3 617 Ft off)
- Discounted price 41 591 Ft (39 611 Ft + 5% VAT)
Subcribe now and take benefit of a favourable price.
Subscribe
45 207 Ft
Availability
Estimated delivery time: In stock at the publisher, but not at Prospero's office. Delivery time approx. 3-5 weeks.
Not in stock at Prospero.
Why don't you give exact delivery time?
Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.
Product details:
- Publisher BRILL
- Date of Publication 16 October 2025
- ISBN 9789004714328
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages280 pages
- Size 235x155 mm
- Weight 613 g
- Language English 696
Categories
Short description:
This book is an in-depth exploration of the mutual transformation of drama and media environments in early modern China. It develops a new model of drama history to account for the whole continuum of cultural experiences that encompassed writer, reader, illustrator, singer, and many others.
MoreLong description:
How was drama experienced in early modern China? It was not tied to a single medium such as the page or the stage, but operated in a media ecology—an environment in which it integrated other arts and media while being refashioned in a variety of arts and media.
This book explores a wide range of cultural experimentation, collectively termed “playing with plays:” the theatricality embedded in commentary, the poetic and visual imagination arising from drama illustrations, the interactions between reading and singing arias, the imbrication of reading plays and practicing religion, and the ludic act of writing playful essays on drama. Through engaging these disparate phenomena with media studies, the book advances a new model for thinking about drama history, and shows the entwinement of plays and different forms of media in shaping perception, molding experience, and enabling new subject positions to emerge in early modern China.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements
List of Figures X
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 Plays and Media
2 Media Studies as an Approach to Early Modern Chinese Drama
3 Media, Remediation, Media Ecology
4 Playing with Plays
5 Chapter Overview
1 Remediating Li Zhi for Drama
1 Names That Became Brands
2 The Media Environment of Drama Publishing
3 Affective Immersion and the Experience of Immediacy
4 Mosuo and the Experience of Hypermediacy
5 The Inevitability of Mediation
6 Virtual Theater on the Margins of Plays
7 Conclusion
2 Hypermedial Illustration
1 Drama Illustrations in the Late Ming: Trends and Shifts
2 A Social Typology of Figures
3 “Figure-in-Landscape”: Size, Proportion, and the Mode of Viewing
4 Three Types of “Figure-in-Landscape”: Traveler, Fisherman, and Female Performer
5 Conclusion
3 The Media Ecology of Qu Singing
1 The Protean Culture of Qu
2 Qu: the Legitimate Heir to a Poetic-Musical Tradition
3 The Social World of Qu Connoisseurship: between Text and Experience
4 The Interplay among Qu Singing, Publishing, and Connoisseurship
5 A Connoisseur in the Making: Ling Mengchu and Publishing
6 Constraints by the Singing Culture
7 A Connoisseur in the Making: Ling Mengchu and Qu Performance
8 Conclusion
4 Media as Messages in The Sixth Book of Genius
1 The Medium for the Message, or the Medium as the Message
2 The “Multimedia” Sixth Book of Genius
3 The Medium of Spirit Writing: Affect and Efficacy
4 The Medium of Buddhist Sermon: between Orality and Writing
5 Reading Xixiang ji and the Invocation of a Spirit Medium
6 Sermonizing in the Commentary
7 The Medium of Gong’an Dialogues: Orality and Performativity
8 Gong’an-like Dialogues in the Commentary
9 Conclusion
5 Hypermediacy in Eight-Legged Essays on Plays
1 Xi and Youxi, Theater and Gameplay
2 The Eight-Legged Essay as Gameplay
3 Playful Eight-Legged Essays in Print
4 Eight-Legged Essays on Drama: (Not) Playing by the Rules
5 Qing and Hypermediacy in Qian Shu’s Elegant Taste
6 Playing with Moral Passion in Eight-Legged Essays on Pipa ji
7 Conclusion
Epilogue
Appendix 1: Selected Playful Eight-Legged Essays on Xixiang ji
Appendix 2: Playful Eight-Legged Essays on Pipa ji
Bibliography
Index
