City of Marvel and Transformation: Chang'an and Narratives of Experience in Tang Dynasty China Book PDF, ePub eBook

Join our eBook service for unlimited books & audiobooks. Get a free 7 day subscription! ↓↓↓↓↓


Book Descriptions:
During the Tang dynasty, the imperial capital of Chang'an (present-day Xi'an) was unrivaled in its monumental scale, with about one million inhabitants dwelling within its walls. It was there that one of the most enduring cultural and political institutions of the empire--the civil service examinations--took shape, bringing an unprecedented influx of literati men to the city seeking recognition and official status by demonstrating their literary talent. To these examination candidates, Chang'an was a megalopolis, career launch pad, and most importantly, cultural paradigm. As a multifaceted lived space, it captured the imaginations of Tang writers, shaped their future aspirations, and left discernible traces in the writings of this period. City of Marvel and Transformation brings this cityscape to life together with the mindscape of its sojourner-writers. By analyzing narratives of experience with a distinctive metropolitan consciousness, it retrieves lost connections between senses of the self and a sense of place. Each chapter takes up one of the powerful shaping forces of Chang'an: its siren call as a destination; the unforeseen nooks and crannies of its urban space; its potential as a ""media machine"" to broadcast images and reputations; its demimonde--a city within a city where both literary culture and commerce took center stage. Without being limited to any single genre, specific movement, or individual author, the texts examined in this book highlight aspects of Chang'an as a shared and contested space in the collective imagination. They bring to our attention a newly emerged interval of social, existential, and geographical mobility in the lives of educated men, who as aspirants and routine capital-bound travelers learned to negotiate urban space. Both literary study and cultural history, City of Marvel and Transformation goes beyond close readings of text; it also draws productively from research in urban history, anthropology, and studies of space and place, building upon the theoretical frameworks of scholars such as Michel de Certeau, Henri Lefebvre, and Victor Turner. It is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship in Chinese studies on the importance of cities and city life. Students and scholars of premodern China will find new ways to understand the collective concerns of the lettered class, as well as new ways to understand literary phenomena that would eventually influence vernacular tales and the Chinese novel. By asking larger questions about how urban sojourns shape subjectivity and perceptions, this book will also attract a wide range of readers interested in studies of personhood, spatial practice, and cities as living cultural systems in flux, both ancient and modern.

City of Marvel and Transformation: Chang'an and Narratives of Experience in Tang Dynasty China by Linda Rui Feng

From reader reviews:

Karen Imes:

The book City of Marvel and Transformation: Chang'an and Narratives of Experience in Tang Dynasty China make one feel enjoy for your spare time. You should use to make your capable considerably more increase. Book can to become your best friend when you getting stress or having big problem using your subject. If you can make reading a book City of Marvel and Transformation: Chang'an and Narratives of Experience in Tang Dynasty China to be your habit, you can get much more advantages, like add your capable, increase your knowledge about a few or all subjects. You may know everything if you like open up and read a e-book City of Marvel and Transformation: Chang'an and Narratives of Experience in Tang Dynasty China. Kinds of book are a lot of. It means that, science publication or encyclopedia or other individuals. So , how do you think about this e-book?

Jeffrey Osburn:

Spent a free a chance to be fun activity to do! A lot of people spent their free time with their family, or their particular friends. Usually they performing activity like watching television, gonna beach, or picnic in the park. They actually doing same every week. Do you feel it? Do you wish to something different to fill your own personal free time/ holiday? Could possibly be reading a book is usually option to fill your free of charge time/ holiday. The first thing that you'll ask may be what kinds of e-book that you should read. If you want to try out look for book, may be the book untitled City of Marvel and Transformation: Chang'an and Narratives of Experience in Tang Dynasty China can be good book to read. May be it is usually best activity to you.

Darren Billups:

Reading can called imagination hangout, why? Because when you find yourself reading a book particularly book entitled City of Marvel and Transformation: Chang'an and Narratives of Experience in Tang Dynasty China your head will drift away trough every dimension, wandering in every aspect that maybe unfamiliar for but surely can be your mind friends. Imaging each and every word written in a e-book then become one form conclusion and explanation that maybe you never get just before. The City of Marvel and Transformation: Chang'an and Narratives of Experience in Tang Dynasty China giving you one more experience more than blown away your brain but also giving you useful information for your better life with this era. So now let us demonstrate the relaxing pattern this is your body and mind will probably be pleased when you are finished studying it, like winning a casino game. Do you want to try this extraordinary shelling out spare time activity?

Cami Raley:

You may get this City of Marvel and Transformation: Chang'an and Narratives of Experience in Tang Dynasty China by look at the bookstore or Mall. Just simply viewing or reviewing it can to be your solve issue if you get difficulties for your knowledge. Kinds of this e-book are various. Not only by written or printed and also can you enjoy this book by means of e-book. In the modern era similar to now, you just looking because of your mobile phone and searching what their problem. Right now, choose your personal ways to get more information about your reserve. It is most important to arrange you to ultimately make your knowledge are still revise. Let's try to choose correct ways for you.