Cambria Press is proud to announce the new book Texts and Transformations: Essays in Honor of the 75th Birthday of Victor H. Mair edited by Haun Saussy (University of Chicago). Contributors are Mark Bender, Nicola Di Cosmo, Phyllis Granoff, Wilt L. Idema, Mabel Lee, Perry Link, Tansen Sen, Koichi Shinohara, Jerome Silbergeld, Tanya Storch, Emma J. Teng, David Der-wei Wang, Ellen Widmer, and Mimi Yiengpruksawan.
From the introduction by Haun Saussy: “Although fluent in such genres as translation, annotation, didactic expansion, stylistic appreciation, ingenious allegory, identification of common threads, life and works, intercultural comparison, and reframing, Victor Mair has always been drawn to the mystery genre. In even the best-settled accounts of literature and culture, something requires explanation. With his roving attention and boundless curiosity, Victor Mair keeps Chinese studies on the move. The essays of this book—with their breadth of concern, their carefully documented scholarship, and the boldness of some of their conclusions—is a fitting homage to Victor Mair, whose readers, students, and colleagues have long recognized the same qualities in him.”
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
List of Figures
Introduction: From the Cave of a Thousand Books: An Appreciation of Victor Mair (Haun Saussy)
Chapter 1: On Translation: How and Why Can Something Less than a Mirror Be Useful? (Perry Link)
Chapter 2: Gao Xingjian’s Chan-Inspired Absurdist Aesthetics (Mabel Lee)
Chapter 3: Sinophone Intervention with China: Between National and World Literature (David Der-wei Wang)
Chapter 4: A Tale without Shape or Shadow: The Wedding, The War, and The Court Case of the Mouse and the Cat in Traditional Chinese Popular Literature (Wilt L. Idema)
Chapter 5: Maligned Exchanges: The Uyghur-Tang Trade in the Light of Climate Data (Nicola Di Cosmo)
Chapter 6: Imagery of Archery and Accoutrements in Epics from Southwest China (Mark Bender)
Chapter 7: Passing for Chinese: Reading Hybridity in Wang Tao’s “The Story of Mary” [Meili xiaozhuan] (Emma J. Teng)
Chapter 8: Learning from Editions: Nü yuhua [Female Jail Flower] As Seen in Two Early Printings (Ellen Widmer)
Chapter 9: The Chinese Garden as an Intellectual Enterprise (Jerome Silbergeld)
Chapter 10: Fotudeng’s Spell Practice and the Dharani Recitation Ritual (Koichi Shinohara)
Chapter 11: The Not-So-Long Arm of the Law: Monastics and the Royal Court (Phyllis Granoff)
Chapter 12: Who Guards the Buddha-Word? The Samgha’s Precarious Position in Matters of Scriptural Authority (Tanya Storch)
Chapter 13: Yijing and the Buddhist Cosmopolis of the Seventh Century (Tansen Sen)
Chapter 14: Countdown to 1051: Some Preliminary Thoughts on the Periodization of the Buddhist Eschaton in Heian and Liao (Mimi Yiengpruksawan)
Notes and Index
Posted by: Ben Goodman <bgoodman@cambriapress.com>