Overview

How was drama experienced in early modern China? It was not tied to a single medium such as the page or the stage, but operated in a media ecology—an environment in which it integrated other arts and media while being refashioned in a variety of arts and media. This book explores a wide range of cultural experimentation, collectively termed “playing with plays:” the theatricality embedded in commentary, the poetic and visual imagination arising from drama illustrations, the interactions between reading and singing arias, the imbrication of reading plays and practicing religion, and the ludic act of writing playful essays on drama. Through engaging these disparate phenomena with media studies, the book advances a new model for thinking about drama history, and shows the entwinement of plays and different forms of media in shaping perception, molding experience, and enabling new subject positions to emerge in early modern China.

Full Product Details

Author:   Yinghui Wu
Publisher:   Brill
Imprint:   Brill
Volume:   18
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 2.40cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.613kg
ISBN:  

9789004714328

ISBN 10:   9004714324
Pages:   292
Publication Date:   16 October 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements List of Figures X Abbreviations Introduction  1 Plays and Media  2 Media Studies as an Approach to Early Modern Chinese Drama  3 Media, Remediation, Media Ecology  4 Playing with Plays  5 Chapter Overview 1 Remediating Li Zhi for Drama  1 Names That Became Brands  2 The Media Environment of Drama Publishing  3 Affective Immersion and the Experience of Immediacy  4 Mosuo and the Experience of Hypermediacy  5 The Inevitability of Mediation  6 Virtual Theater on the Margins of Plays  7 Conclusion 2 Hypermedial Illustration  1 Drama Illustrations in the Late Ming: Trends and Shifts  2 A Social Typology of Figures  3 “Figure-in-Landscape”: Size, Proportion, and the Mode of Viewing  4 Three Types of “Figure-in-Landscape”: Traveler, Fisherman, and Female Performer  5 Conclusion 3 The Media Ecology of Qu Singing  1 The Protean Culture of Qu  2 Qu: the Legitimate Heir to a Poetic-Musical Tradition  3 The Social World of Qu Connoisseurship: between Text and Experience  4 The Interplay among Qu Singing, Publishing, and Connoisseurship  5 A Connoisseur in the Making: Ling Mengchu and Publishing  6 Constraints by the Singing Culture  7 A Connoisseur in the Making: Ling Mengchu and Qu Performance  8 Conclusion 4 Media as Messages in The Sixth Book of Genius  1 The Medium for the Message, or the Medium as the Message  2 The “Multimedia” Sixth Book of Genius  3 The Medium of Spirit Writing: Affect and Efficacy  4 The Medium of Buddhist Sermon: between Orality and Writing  5 Reading Xixiang ji and the Invocation of a Spirit Medium  6 Sermonizing in the Commentary  7 The Medium of Gong’an Dialogues: Orality and Performativity  8 Gong’an-like Dialogues in the Commentary  9 Conclusion 5 Hypermediacy in Eight-Legged Essays on Plays  1 Xi and Youxi, Theater and Gameplay  2 The Eight-Legged Essay as Gameplay  3 Playful Eight-Legged Essays in Print  4 Eight-Legged Essays on Drama: (Not) Playing by the Rules  5 Qing and Hypermediacy in Qian Shu’s Elegant Taste  6 Playing with Moral Passion in Eight-Legged Essays on Pipa ji  7 Conclusion Epilogue Appendix 1: Selected Playful Eight-Legged Essays on Xixiang ji Appendix 2: Playful Eight-Legged Essays on Pipa ji Bibliography Index

Reviews

Author Information

Yinghui Wu, Ph.D. (2014), Washington University in St. Louis, is Associate Professor of Chinese at University of California, Los Angeles. She has published on print culture, popular culture, and intermediality in early modern China. She is also a co-editor of Emotions in Non-Fictional Representations of the Individual, 1600-1850: Between East and West (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions