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A history of reading in late Imperial China, 1000-1800

Yu, Li
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1054655134

Abstract Details

2003, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, East Asian Languages and Literatures.
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 women’s 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.
GALAL WALKER (Advisor)
371 p.
History of Reading; Late Imperial China; Reading Pedagogy; Female Literacy; Culture of Reading; Ethnic Studies; Practice and Representation of Reading

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Yu, L. (2003). A history of reading in late Imperial China, 1000-1800 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1054655134

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Yu, Li. A history of reading in late Imperial China, 1000-1800. 2003. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1054655134.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Yu, Li. "A history of reading in late Imperial China, 1000-1800." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1054655134

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2003, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.