Sinographies: Writing China

by Eric Hayot (Editor), Eric Hayot (Editor), Haun Saussy (Editor)

The essays in this thought-provoking volume investigate ideas of China and Chineseness by means of a broad range of texts, languages, and contexts that surround what the editors call the “various written Chinas” through history. Analyzing discourse of civilization, geography, ethics, ethnicity, writing, and differences about China—from within the country and from outside—this work deliberately disrupts the boundaries that have previously defined China as an object of study. Sinographies depends on a respect for the power of texts to shape realities both backward and forward, to create or foreclose possibilities not only of interpretation but of experience. To this end, the essays examine topics as various as colonialism, literary modernism, translation, anime, and Tibet. As a whole, the volume imagines sinography as a new methodological approach to the study of China, one that clears unexpected ground for new kinds of comparative work. Timothy Billings, Middlebury College; Christopher Bush, Princeton U; Rey Chow, Brown U; Danielle Glassmeyer, U of Alabama, Birmingham; Timothy Kendall; Walter S. H. Lim, National U of Singapore; Lucien Miller, U of Massachusetts; David Porter, U of Michigan; Carlos Rojas, U of Florida; Steven J. Venturino, Loyola U; Henk Vynckier, Tunghai U, Taiwan. Eric Hayot is associate professor of comparative literature at the Pennsylvania State University. Haun Saussy is Bird White Housum Professor of comparative literature at Yale University. Steven G. Yao is associate professor of English at Hamilton College.

Genres: China

408 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Eric Hayot is professor of comparative literature and Asian studies at the Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of The Elements of Academic Style (Columbia, 2014), On Literary Worlds (2012), and The Hypothetical Mandarin (2009).

Reviews

[Jessica Zu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again I only read the sections assigned by my professor. Overall, I'm impressed by the argument about the sinography and how to reinvent a Chineseness that does not fall into traps of binaries and remains open and inclusive. Oddly enough, it also deepens my understanding of historiography: cultural studies of history is a study of the production conditions of history or the historical study of history itself--pretty much like Yinshun call to use Buddhist method to study Buddhism.