Symptoms of an Unruly Age

Rivi Handler-Spitz

ISBN 10: 0295741503 / ISBN 13: 9780295741505

Published by University of Washington Press, 2017

About this Item

Num Pages: 256 pages, 5 black & white illustrations, 5 illus. BIC Classification: 1FPC; DS; HBJF. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). . . 2017. Illustrated. Hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780295741505

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Symptoms of an Unruly Age
• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0295741503
• ISBN 13: 9780295741505
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Symptoms of an Unruly Age compares the writings of Li Zhi (1527–1602) and his late-Ming compatriots to texts composed by their European contemporaries, including Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Cervantes. Emphasizing aesthetic patterns that transcend national boundaries, Rivi Handler-Spitz explores these works as culturally distinct responses to similar social and economic tensions affecting early modern cultures on both ends of Eurasia.

The paradoxes, ironies, and self-contradictions that pervade these works are symptomatic of the hypocrisy, social posturing, and counterfeiting that afflicted both Chinese and European societies at the turn of the seventeenth century. Symptoms of an Unruly Age shows us that these texts, produced thousands of miles away from one another, each constitute cultural manifestations of early modernity.

The open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.

About the Author

Rivi Handler-Spitz is associate professor of Chinese language and literature at Macalester College.