The Cultural Politics of Old Things in Mid-Tang China

A cross-generic examination of the discursive representations of a changing relationship to a specific subcategory of things that are observable in writings from early to medieval China, this essay suggests that these representations denote the appearance of a culture of sentimentality about old, wo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Tian, Xiaofei 1971- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: American Oriental Society [2020]
In: JAOS
Year: 2020, Volume: 140, Issue: 2, Pages: 317-343
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:A cross-generic examination of the discursive representations of a changing relationship to a specific subcategory of things that are observable in writings from early to medieval China, this essay suggests that these representations denote the appearance of a culture of sentimentality about old, worn-out things at the turn of the ninth century. This culture of sentimentality indicates a deep-seated anxiety about the blurred boundary, on a conceptual and ideological level, between humans and things, and bespeaks the complex dynamics in the relationship of self and other at a time of profound cultural and intellectual changes, in which the textual representations of dilapidated ordinary things of daily life participated. It anticipates and yet remains profoundly different from Northern Song antiquarianism, thus showing gaps and fissures in the neat, familiar teleological narrative of the “Tang-Song transition.”
ISSN:2169-2289
Contains:Enthalten in: American Oriental Society, JAOS
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.2.0317