Novel Medicine Healing, Literature, and Popular Knowledge in Early Modern China
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Andrew Schonebaum is associate professor of Chinese literature at the University of Maryland. He is the coeditor of Approaches to Teaching “The Story of the Stone” (Dream of the Red Chamber).
<p>"Groundbreaking. . . . Explores not only the textual interplay of novel medicine and medical fiction, but also their roles as important literary genres in disseminating vernacular knowledge about health, illness, healing, and the body."</p>
- Robert E. Hegel, Nan Nu: Men, Women, & Gender in China
<p>"<i>Novel Medicine</i> is an innovative comparison of medical lore and fictional practice. . . . This is an important study, one that should be read by anyone seriously interested in late imperial Chinese culture; it demonstrates the interactions between realms of knowledge that modern specialized fields so easily overlook."</p>
- Harry Yi-Jui Wu, Medical History
<p>"Like an early Chinese novel, Andrew Schonebaum’s book Novel Medicine both informs and titillates. . . . This is innovative scholarship. . . . Schonebaum’s expansive conception and meticulous research make Novel Medicine an eye-opening read, one that I particularly recommend to historians of medicine and of gender and sexuality."</p>
- Hilary A. Smith, Bulletin of the History of Medicine
<p>"Offers exciting new literary and historical methods for unraveling the many intersections between medicine and literature that should be of great interest to readers engaged with the medical humanities, the cultural history of medicine, and late imperial Chinese history."</p>
- Marta Hanson, Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review
<p>"This book is a highly original contribution to the scholarship on traditional Chinese fiction. I very much hope that students of traditional Chinese medicine (and of the introduction of Western medicine into China) will find this work equally fascinating and enlightening."</p>
- Wilt L. Idema, Journal of the American Oriental Society (JAOS)
<p>"Andrew Schonebaum has written an insightful and original historical work on popular medicine and literature in late imperial China."</p>
Journal of Asian Studies
<p>"<i>Novel Medicine</i> offers an intriguing opportunity to reorient the study of Chinese medical history toward a broader categorization of ‘medical texts,’ and therefore a more accurate understanding of late imperial worldviews and medical beliefs. . . . Schonebaum’s fascinating subject matter provides a thoroughly engaging read."</p>
Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) - Modern
<p>"Straddling the lines between fields like Chinese literature, medical history, and even gender studies, <i>Novel Medicine</i> is eye-opening in its interdisciplinary rigor."</p>
Asian Medicine
By examining the dynamic interplay between discourses of fiction and medicine, Novel Medicine demonstrates how fiction incorporated, created, and disseminated medical knowledge in China, beginning in the sixteenth century. Critical readings of fictional and medical texts provide a counterpoint to prevailing narratives that focus only on the “literati” aspects of the novel, showing that these texts were not merely read, but were used by a wide variety of readers for a range of purposes. The intersection of knowledge—fictional and real, elite and vernacular—illuminates the history of reading and daily life and challenges us to rethink the nature of Chinese literature.
The open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.
DOI: 10.6069/9780295806327
By examining the dynamic interplay between discourses of fiction and medicine, Novel Medicine demonstrates how fiction incorporated, created, and disseminated medical knowledge in China, beginning in the sixteenth century.
"The genius of this book is to take what appears to be three disparate realms—healing/medicine, literature, and religion—and demonstrate that they shared a common ‘literary logic.’ The world before the introduction of modern science and bio-medicine is thus revealed to be wrought of a surprising and equally valid common sense. In focusing on recycling, quotations, and oblique references among familiar and obscure texts, Schonebaum has painted a dynamic picture of vernacular knowledge on the eve of China’s modernity."
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Andrew Schonebaum is associate professor of Chinese literature at the University of Maryland. He is the coeditor of Approaches to Teaching “The Story of the Stone” (Dream of the Red Chamber).