Record of the Listener: Selected Stories from Hong Mai's Yijian Zhi - Softcover

Mai, Hong

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1624666841 ISBN 13: 9781624666841

Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2018

Synopsis

"Scholars who know classical Chinese have been reading and citing Hon Mai's wonderful collection for many years. Now students can access these informative materials through Zhang's lively English translations. They are both fun to read and deeply informative about daily life, religion, markets, and multiple social groups in the twelfth century. The comprehensive thematic guide allows readers to locate tales by subject matter, making this collection of 100 narratives ideal for classroom use."
—Valerie Hansen, Yale University

About this title

About the Author

Cong Ellen Zhang is Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia.

Review

"With these selections and translations from hong Mai's Record of the Listener, Zhang discloses, for the very first time to anglophone students and scholars, the variety and complexity of late medieval Chinese society. . . . Here we see representations of all social classes and occupations and all religious vocations—Buddhist monks, Daoist priests, Confucian literati, diviners, and mediums—as they interact to resolve familial tensions, realize their personal aspirations, and gain control over both their lives and their afterlives. . . . Zhang provides an extensive and lucid Introduction to Hong Mai and the Song Dynasty, as well as a unique thematic index that will allow teacher and student to cross-reference all the stories and reconstruct a picture of Chinese society in the twelfth century in far greater detail than is possible for any other medieval society, east or west. Brava!"
—Edward L. Davis, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

"This readable and reliable translation of 100 selected narratives from Hong Mai's Yijian Zhi is ideal for courses in Chinese history or religion. Some of the best medieval Chinese ghost stories are around in these pages."
—Paul R. Goldin, University of Pennsylvania

"Hackett has published a considerable number of excellent books in various areas of premodern Chinese Studies. Slim, straightforward, and affordable, especially in paperback form, these books are usually of outstanding scholarly quality and thus perfectly suited for undergraduate teaching. In the last decade, translations from vernacular Chinese literature have formed a particularly interesting part of Hackett’s repertoire. . . . Record of the Listener: Selected Stories from Hong Mai’s Yijian zhi will not only make for immensely useful teaching materials, especially for instructors who want to venture beyond the usual anthology pieces, but hopefully also reach appreciative readers beyond the classroom."
—Antje Richter, University of Colorado, in Journal of the American Oriental Society
 

Edition details

• Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1624666841
• ISBN 13: 9781624666841
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 160