Please join the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago (CEAS) for their East Asia by the Book! CEAS Author Talks featuring Professors Rivi Handler-Spitz, Associate Professor of Asian Language & Cultures at Macalester College, Pauline C. Lee, Associate Professor of Chinese Religions & Cultures at Saint Louis University, and Haun Saussy, Professor of Comparative Literature, Social Thought, and East Asian Languages & Civilzations at the University of Chicago, on Tuesday, May 4, at 5:00 p.m. (Central Daylight Time).
The Objectionable Li Zhi: Fiction, Criticism, and Dissent in Late Ming China (University of Washington Press, 2021)
Iconoclastic scholar Li Zhi (1527–1602) was a central figure in the cultural world of the late Ming dynasty. His provocative and controversial words and actions shaped print culture, literary practice, attitudes toward gender, and perspectives on Buddhism and the afterlife. Although banned, his writings were never fully suppressed, because they tapped into issues of vital significance to generations of readers. His incisive remarks, along with the emotional intensity and rhetorical power with which he delivered them, made him an icon of his cultural moment and an emblem of early modern Chinese intellectual dissent. In this volume, leading China scholars demonstrate the interrelatedness of seemingly discrete aspects of Li Zhi’s thought and emphasize his far-reaching impact on his contemporaries and successors. In doing so, they challenge the myth that there was no tradition of dissidence in premodern China.
Professor Ann Waltner, Professor in the Department of History at the University of Minnesota will serve as Discussant.
To register for this event, please click the Zoom link HERE.
This event is sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago and the Seminary Co-op Bookstores. Initiated in 2016, this annual series showcases CEAS faculty, alumni, and special guests who provide author talks and book launches as a way to engage the broader community in conversations regarding key scholarship on East Asia.
