Printed Books and Theater in the Late Ming
Yuming He, Assistant Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago
Monday, February 13, 2006
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
10383 Bunche Hall
UCLA
Chinese society and culture underwent rapid and fundamental change during the last century of the Ming dynasty (mid-16th - 17th centuries). An important driving force behind this change was the way in which popular, market-oriented cultural spheres such as the theater and printing industries came to exert unprecedented influence on the everyday life of an exceptionally broad spectrum of society. By closely reading a group of texts termed "drama miscellanies," Professor He examines the specific modes of interplay between theater and printing, and how they shaped the imaginary space of late Ming society, as well as how they influenced the emergence of a new pattern of textual transmission.
Yuming He is assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. She did her B.A. and M.A. work in the Chinese Department of Peking University, and completed her Ph.D. in 2003 at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research and teaching interests include the literary and cultural history of late imperial China, and Chinese book history. Her current work focuses on the book market of late-Ming China, particularly newly popularized publication genres of that period: encyclopedias, literary miscellanies, collections of games, jokes, and other entertainment literature.
Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies
