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Author: Antje Richter, Associate Professor of Chinese at the University of Colorado, Boulder
Moderator: Xiaofei Tian, Ford Foundation Professor of East Asian Studies, Harvard University
Registration appreciated for planning purposes.
About the Book: Health and the Art of Living offers reflections on health and illness in early medieval Chinese literature (ca. 200βca. 600). Surveying a range of literary sourcesβessays, prefaces, correspondence, religious scriptures, and poetryβit explores the spectrum of views on health and illness expressed in these texts. Part One, centered on the essay βNurturing the Vital Breathβ in Liu Xieβs Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, reveals the deep concern of writers, troubled by overwork and excessive mental exertion, with the preservation and cultivation of their literary creativity. For them, the ability to write was inextricably connected with their social roles as officials. Part Two turns to self-narratives of health and illness in authorial prefaces, informal notes, formal letters, and official communications. Writers of these texts depicted their physical condition according to specific rhetorical purposes, whether that was to legitimize authorship, maintain intimate relationships, or avoid office. Part Three describes the rise of sickbed poetry, shaped by Xie Lingyun and the VimalakΔ«rti-nirdeΕa-sΕ«tra, which established illness as a topic in the refined literature of the period. Drawing attention to the grounding of literature in the lived experience of their creators, this book illuminates the conditions of literary production in early medieval China.
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