A history of reading in late Imperial China, 1000-1800 / by Li Yu.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-335).

Includes abstract and vita.
Advisor: Galal Walker, Dept. of East Asian Languages and Literatures.
Ph.D. Ohio State University (2003)

Abstract: This dissertation is a historical ethnographic study on the act of reading in late imperial China. Focusing on the practice and representation of reading, I present a mosaic of how reading was conceptualized, perceived, conducted, and transmitted from the tenth to the eighteenth centuries. My central argument is that reading, or dushu, was an indispensable component in the tapestry of cultural life and occupied a unique position in the landscape of social history in late imperial China. Reading is not merely a psychological act of individuals, but also a set of complicated social practices determined and conditioned by social conventions. The dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 discusses motivation, scope, methodology, and sources of the study. I introduce a dozen different Chinese terms related to the act of reading. Chapter 2 examines theories and practices of how children were taught to read. Focusing on four main pedagogical procedures, namely memorization, vocalization, punctuation, and explication, I argue that the loud chanting of texts and the constant anxiety of reciting were two of the most prominent themes that ran through both the descriptive and prescriptive discourses on the history of reading in late imperial China. Chapter 3 delineates a culture of reading dominated by males through a discussion of key elements of this culture: reading habits, the treatment of books, the hygiene of reading, reading paraphernalia, the elite conceptions of reading, and popular attitudes toward reading. Chapter 4 investigates women's reading, including their road to literacy, and representations of what and how they read. I argue that what caused the growing patriarchal anxiety over women₂s education during the late imperial period was not the rise in female literacy or the growth of female erudition, but rather the expansion of women's literate practices, particularly writing in the sphere of men. Chapter 5 probes the questions of why and how non-Han peoples learned to read Chinese. I investigate the cases of four different groups: "alien rulers" (Khitans, Jurchens, and Mongols), Jesuits, Chinese Jews, and Koreans. Chapter 6 reflects on the influence of the culture of reading on contemporary Chinese society, offers pedagogical considerations of teaching Chinese as a foreign language, takes issue with some Western paradigms of reading and orality, and provides suggestions for future research.

Local access dig.pdf. [Li Yu-Reading Late Imperial China.pdf]

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See" "Messenger of the Sacred Heart” Li Wenyu (1840-1911) and the Jesuit Periodical Press in Late Qing Shanghai" / Joachim Kurtz. p. 81.
Keywords: Li Wenyu 李問漁, Chinese-Christian authors, Imprimerie de T'ou-sè-wèi, Tushanwan 土山灣印書館, Zikawei/Xujiahui 徐家匯.

Acknowledgements - Contributors – Abbreviations.
From Woodblocks to the Internet: Chinese Printing, Publishing, and Literary Fields in Transition, circa 1800 to 2008 / Christopher A. Reed.
MODERN PRINT CULTURE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Commercial Woodblock Publishing in the Qing (1644-1911) and the Transition to Modern Print Technology / Cynthia Brokaw - Modernization without Mechanization: The Changing Shape of Fiction on the Eve of the Opium War / Ellen Widmer.
NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND THE TRANSITION TO MODERN PRINT CULTURE
Messenger of the Sacred Heart: Li Wenyu (1840-191 l), and the Jesuit Periodical Press in Late Qing Shanghai / Joachim Kurtz. - The Uses of Genres in the Chinese Press from the Late Qing to the Early Republican Period / Andrea Janku. - Printing the Sound of Cosmopolitan Beijing: Dialect Accents in Nineteenth-Century Martial Arts Fiction / Paize Keulemans.
Spreading the Dharma with the Mechanized Press: New Buddhist Print Cultures in the Modern Chinese Print Revolution, 1866-1949 / Jan Kiely.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF PRINT CAPITALISM
Culture, Commerce, and Connections: The Inner Dynamics of New Culture Publishing in the Post-May Fourth Period / Ling Shiao. - Reading and Writing Zhejiang Youth: Local Textual Economies and Cultural Production in Republican Jiangnan / Robert Culp - Advancing the (Gutenberg) Revolution: The Origins and Development of Chinese Print Communism, 1921-1947 / Christopher A. Reed.
PRINT IN THE INTERNET ERA
Consuming Secrets: China's New Print Culture at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century / Daria Berg. - Chinese Internet Literature and the Changing Field of Print Culture / Guobin Yang. - Resistance is Futile: Control and Censorship of the Internet in China / Gudrun Wacker.
Comprehensive Bibliography: p. 383-417.

Local access dig.pdf. [From Woodblocks to the Internet.pdf]

Pt. 1. Introduction -- pt. 2. Commercial publishing and the expanding market for books -- pt. 3. Publishing for specialized audiences -- pt. 4. The book as a visual medium.

On the history of the book in China / Cynthia J. Brokaw -- The ascendance of the imprint in China / Joseph McDermott -- Of three mountains street : the commercial publishers of Ming Nanjing / Lucille Chia -- Constructing new reading publics in Late Ming China / Anne E. McLaren -- Reading the best-sellers of the nineteenth century : commercial publishing in Sibao / Cynthia J. Brokaw -- Niche marketing for late Imperial fiction / Robert E. Hegel -- Printing as performance : literati playwright-publishers of the Late Ming / Katherine Carlitz -- Qing publishing in non-Han languages / Evelyn S. Rawski -- "Preserving the bonds of kin" : genealogy masters and genealogy productions in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area in the Qing and Republican periods / Xu Xiaoman -- Visual hermeneutics and the act of turning the leaf : a genealogy of Liu Yuan's Lingyan ge / Anne Burkus-Chasson -- Didactic illustrations in printed books / Julia K. Murray.

Local access dig.pdf. [Brokaw-Printing and Book Culture.pdf]
Also available in both physical book and online at Gleeson Library.

Scholars and their marginalia in late imperial China / by Yinzong Wei.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Intro -- Contents -- Figures and Tables -- Conventions -- Chart of Historical Periods -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Chapter 2 Chinese Interpretive Texts: Annotations, Commentaries and Marginalia -- 1 Contents and Features -- 1.1 Zhushu/Annotations: Proposing Meanings from the Classics -- 1.2 Pingdian/Commentaries: In-Depth Understanding of LiteraryFeatures -- 1.3 Pijiao/Marginalia: Hand-Written Reading Responses -- 2 Forms and Circulation -- 2.1 Annotations: From Oral Transmission to Writing on Paper -- from Separation to Combination -- 2.2 Commentaries: Reshaping Chinese Books -- 2.3 Marginalia: Anywhere, Any Color -- Chapter 3 The "Reading Seed": He Zhuo and His Marginalia -- 1 He Zhuo: The "Reading Seed" -- 2 He Zhuo's Scholarly Transition -- 3 A Pioneer of Textual Criticism -- 4 Reading He Zhuo's Historical Comments -- 5 The Stigmatization of a Scholar -- Chapter 4 Scholarly Communities and the Transcription of Marginalia -- 1 He Zhuo and His Students: Transcription of the Teacher's Marginalia -- 2 Scholarly Communities and the Transcription of Marginalia -- 3 Booksellers and Scribes and Their Role in the Marginalia Culture -- 4 Shaping the Text of the Classics -- 5 Marginalia Culture -- Chapter 5 The Writing of Scholarly Lives in Marginalia -- 1 Temporal and Spatial Records in Marginalia -- 2 The Artistic Lives of Scholars -- 3 The Mental World of Scholars -- Chapter 6 Edited Reading: The Printing of Marginalia in the Qing Dynasty -- 1 The Printing of the Yimen dushu ji -- 1.1 From Notation Book to Marginalia -- 1.2 The Compilation of the Yimen dushu ji -- 1.3 The Selection and Omission of Marginalia: The Hou Hanshu as Example -- 2 Printing Marginalia alongside the Main Text -- 3 The Printing of Collation Notes -- 4 The Flourishing of Collation Biji -- 5 The Merits of Printing -- Chapter 7 Epilogue -- 1 Marginalia and the Evidential Research -- 2 Invisible Scholars and the Intellectual History of the Qing -- Appendix Books Containing He Zhuo's Marginalia and Their Transcriptions -- Bibliography -- Index

"Marginalia are a variety of writings and symbols written by readers in book margins. This study focuses on marginalia and explores the reading practices and the scholarly culture of late Imperial China. Beginning in the late Ming and early Qing, more scholars devoted themselves to reading and collating ancient texts. They developed the habit of writing marginalia while reading, of transcribing other readers' marginalia, and of printing marginalia, all of which formed a particular scholarly culture. This book explores how this culture developed, gained momentum, and shaped the styles, lives, thoughts, and mind states of scholars in the Qing dynasty"-- Provided by publisher.

Local access dig.pdf. [Wei-Scholars marginalia.pdf]

Link to Brill eBooks via BC Libraries

Introduction -- 1. The Making of an Imprint in China, 1000 - 1800 -- 2. The Ascendance of the Imprint in China -- 3. Distribution of Books and Literati Culture -- 4. The Problem of Access in the World of Chinese Learning -- 5. Ameliorations and a Community of Learning -- 6. Literati Writings and the Case of Qian Jinren 錢進仁 -- Notes -- Bibliographical Notes on Studies Useful for the Writing of This Book -- Glossary -- Index.

"Joseph McDermott traces the history of the book in China from 1000 to 1800, illustrating the Chinese experience with books through comparisons to other civilizations, particularly those in Europe. He presents novel analyses of the changes in Chinese woodblock book-making over several centuries and a new view of the period in which the printed book replaced the manuscript. He also explores the distribution and marketing structure of books and the history of book collecting. This broad and comprehensive account of the development of printed Chinese culture from 1000 to 1800 is written for anyone interested in the history of the book. It also offers important new insights into book culture and its place in society for the student of Chinese history and culture"--OCLC #239488520

Local access dig.pdf. [McDermott-Social History Chinese Book.pdf]