Book Description
"This book examines the interconnection between the idea of monstrosity and the emergence of Chinese cultural identity since the Song dynasty. Chinese vernacular literature matured during the Southern Song period and coincided with society's growing apprehension of foreignness. As society's perception of the other fluctuated between acceptance and abhorrence following the Mongolian conquest of the Middle Kingdom and the subsequent political desire to return to a fixation with the concept of Han during the Ming dynasty, the idea of monstrosity was adopted by these works as a logical vessel for contemplating the question of identity. Unlike other forms of written work in China, vernacular literature developed out of the necessity to cater to the masses. As such, they provide a unique window to understand society's reaction to the cultural and political milieu of the time. By resituating the production of these works within this cultural backdrop, the importance of this study lies both in the foregrounding of the manifestation of Chinese cultural identity in the literary world and the proposition of its importance to our understanding of the cultural politics since the Song dynasty. Beyond its timely discussion of the background and historical genealogy of how Chineseness is conceptualized, this book specifically addresses the effect of the contentiousness of ethnicity on the identity question. In doing so, it explores how this gradual historical transformation of Chinese cultural identity is closely tied to xenophobia and the reimagination of foreignness as reflected in the idea of monstrosity"--
