Encountering China: Early Modern European Responses

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Encountering China addresses the responses of early modern travelers to China who, awed by the wealth and sophistication of the society they encountered, attempted primarily to build bridges, to explore similarities, and to emulate the Chinese, though they were also critical of some local traditions and practices. Contributors engage critically with travelogues, treating them not just as occasional sources of historical information but as primary, literary texts deeply revelatory of the world they describe. Contributors reach back to the earliest European writings available on China in an effort to broaden and nuance our understanding of European contact with the Middle Kingdom in the early modern period. While the primary focus of these essays is the external gaze European sources about China contributors also tease out aspects of the Chinese world-view of the time, thus generating a conversation between Chinese literary and historical texts and European ones.

Author Bio

Rachana Sachdev is associate professor of English and coordinator of Asian Studies at Susquehanna University. She has published several articles on early modern gynecological discourses, and her current research focuses on representations of infanticide and the position of children in Asia in early modern European travel writing. She is co-editing, with Todd Myers, Teaching Southeast Asia: Culture as a Medium for Meaning Across the Disciplines.

Qingjun Li is assistant professor of Asian Studies and Chinese Language at Belmont University, Tennessee and also associate professor of English at Zhengzhou University, P.R. China, where she has been twice recognized as the Teacher of Excellence. She is author of three books and numerous articles. Her research interests are in Chinese American Literature, Women's Literature, and Comparative Literature.