The Inner Quarters and Beyond


Book Description

Only recently has the enormous literary output of women writers of the Ming and Qing periods (1368-1911) been rediscovered. Through these valuable texts, we apprehend in ways not possible earlier the complexity of women’s experiences in the inner quarters and their varied responses to challenges facing state and society. Writing in many genres, women engaged with topics as varied as war, travel, illness, love, friendship, female heroism, and religion. Drawing on a library of newly digitized resources, this volume's eleven chapters describe, analyze, and theorize these materials. They question previous assumptions about women’s lives and abilities, open up new critical space in Chinese literary history and offer new perspectives on China’s culture and society. “This volume rewrites the history of Chinese women’s literature by taking a truly inter-disciplinary (instead of merely multi-disciplinary) approach. In so doing, it ends up illuminating the centrality of writing women to the social, political, and intellectual lives of the Chinese empire from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.” Prof. Dorothy Ko, Barnard College, Columbia University, author of Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding (California, 2005).




The Inner Quarters


Book Description

The Sung Dynasty (960-1279) was a paradoxical era for Chinese women. This was a time when footbinding spread, and Confucian scholars began to insist that it was better for a widow to starve than to remarry. Yet there were also improvements in women's status in marriage and property rights. In this thoroughly original work, one of the most respected scholars of premodern China brings to life what it was like to be a woman in Sung times, from having a marriage arranged, serving parents-in-law, rearing children, and coping with concubines, to deciding what to do if widowed. Focusing on marriage, Patricia Buckley Ebrey views family life from the perspective of women. She argues that the ideas, attitudes, and practices that constituted marriage shaped women's lives, providing the context in which they could interpret the opportunities open to them, negotiate their relationships with others, and accommodate or resist those around them. Ebrey questions whether women's situations actually deteriorated in the Sung, linking their experiences to widespread social, political, economic, and cultural changes of this period. She draws from advice books, biographies, government documents, and medical treatises to show that although the family continued to be patrilineal and patriarchal, women found ways to exert their power and authority. No other book explores the history of women in pre-twentieth-century China with such energy and depth.




Women’s Poetry of Late Imperial China


Book Description

This study of poetry by women in late imperial China examines the metamorphosis of the trope of the "inner chambers" (gui), to which women were confined in traditional Chinese households, and which in literature were both a real and an imaginary place. Originally popularized in sixth-century "palace style" poetry, the inner chambers were used by male writers as a setting in which to celebrate female beauty, to lament the loneliness of abandoned women, and by extension, to serve as a political allegory for the exile of loyal and upright male ministers spurned by the imperial court. Female writers of lyric poetry (ci) soon adopted the theme, beginning its transition from male fantasy to multidimensional representation of women and their place in society, and eventually its manifestation in other poetic genres as well. Emerging from the role of sexual objects within poetry, late imperial women were agents of literary change in their expansion and complication of the boudoir theme. While some take ownership and de-eroticizing its imagery for their own purposes, adding voices of children and older women, and filling the inner chambers with purposeful activity such as conversation, teaching, religious ritual, music, sewing, childcare, and chess-playing, some simply want to escape from their confinement and protest gender restrictions imposed on women. Women's Poetry of Late Imperial China traces this evolution across centuries, providing and analyzing examples of poetic themes, motifs, and imagery associated with the inner chambers, and demonstrating the complication and nuancing of the gui theme by increasingly aware and sophisticated women writers.




Journey to the Inner Circle, and Beyond


Book Description

Are you ready to fully connect with your own creatively unfolding inner truths? That challenge -- and opportunity -- confronts readers of Journey to the Inner Circle, and Beyond: One Man's Search for His True Self, a true story by noted trainer/coach/movement specialist Blaise Eagleheart. In exploring the depths of Blaise's mid-1980s experiences, readers will be creatively moving through their own personal life journey. "These freeing inner worlds are the one common thread all Mankind has that will allow anyone to ascend to the higher aspects within the God Consciousness that they are," Blaise explains. Be prepared to enter into a world of illusion, of feeling, of question, of sensitivity, of awareness, and of truth. Be open enough to seriously question the realities that exist and circulate within your current life concept and belief structure. Blaise writes, "As I peeled the layers away, I knew that to find the answers I would have to give up my life to the intelligence that first consummated my life journey at the moment of my conception. The evolution of the journey from the outer world in Chapter 1 to the experience of my death in Chapter 11 -- my ideas, my questions, my insights and my knowledge -- all was transcribed to paper in the event I did not survive the journey. To find the truth I had to be willing to give up my existence, not intellectually, but emotionally, and through experience, not through words." Author Blaise Eagleheart lives in Victoria, B.C., where he is the owner and operator of Natural Movement Centre. He is an Integrated Movement Specialist, Medical Exercise Specialist and Personal Trainer. As someone who has always 'walked his own creative path, ' Blaise became passionately aware of how the mind, body and emotions are functionally integrated and how they operate individually and collectively. He has openly shared his awareness with others to make the world a better place. Blaise has always been a warrior, consciously confronting illusionary beliefs to find his own experiential truths. He physically trained as a fanatic throughout his twenties, challenging his self-imposed beliefs in order to find the endless possibilities of his creative movements through unorthodox training methods. He played and coached rugby at club, Island and Provincial levels, before immersing himself in the martial art of Chien Lung. He also studied Eastern healing arts and other energy-based disciplines. He then opened a dojo with his Teacher, where he taught biomechanics of movement and life skills, as well as martial art classes for children and adults. Blaise continues to incorporate this martial art philosophy in his work at Natural Movement Centre. Contact Blaise Eagleheart through www.NaturalMovementCentre.com.




Beyond Oslo, the Struggle for Palestine


Book Description

With new talks in the Middle East Peace Process about to begin, the shadows of previous negotiations fall heavily across all involved. In this powerful and absorbing testimony, one of leading figures of the Oslo talks, former Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie ('Abu Ala') takes us behind closed doors and inside the negotiating rooms of Wye River, Stockholm and Camp David, where the terms of peace and a Palestinian state were sketched out, argued over, and eventually lost. Larger than life figures emerge from the minutes of these dramatic meetings - released here for the first time. Qurei recounts both the Israelis' intractability and the dynamic inside the Palestinian camp with candour and insight. This indispensable first-hand account provides a completely new perspective on the history, issues and personalities that will determine the future of the Middle East.




Moon Budapest & Beyond


Book Description

From soaking up Budapest's poignant history and vibrant nightlife to soaking in thermal baths, savor one of Europe's most stunning cities with Moon Budapest & Beyond. Explore In and Around the City: Get to know Budapest's most interesting neighborhoods, like Castle Hill, South Buda, South Pest, and the historic Jewish quarter, and nearby areas, including Gödöllö, Lake Balaton, the Eger wine country, Pécs, and more Go at Your Own Pace: Choose from multiple itinerary options designed for foodies, history buffs, art lovers, outdoor adventurers, and more See the Sights: Soak in the thermal Széchenyi baths, meander through Magyar history at the Hungarian National Museum, or take in views of the city from 170 meters above the Danube. See Europe's largest synagogue and catch a performance at the palatial Opera House. Hike to the top of the Elizabeth Lookout, or go cave-diving in the Buda Hills Get Outside the City: Explore the vineyards of the Valley of Beautiful Women, stroll through historic Hungarian folk villages, or go canyoning in the Pilis Hills Savor the Flavors: Grab a mouthwatering lángos from a food truck, tuck into a rich authentic goulash, linger over coffee at a riverside café, or indulge in contemporary farm-to-table cuisine Experience the Nightlife: Hop between eclectic ruin bars in the bustling Jewish Quarter or attend a Saturday "Sparty" in one of the city's famous spas. Sample Hungarian wines at a tasting room, sip creative concoctions at a cocktail bar, and watch the sunset over the Danube with a local craft beer in hand Get to Know the Real Budapest: Follow honest suggestions from Budapest local Jennifer D. Walker Full-color photos and detailed maps, including a full-color foldout map Handy Tools: Background information on Budapest's history and culture, plus tips on sustainable travel, what to pack, where to stay, and how to get around Day trip itineraries, favorite local spots, and strategies to skip the crowds: Take your time with Moon Budapest & Beyond. Exploring more of Eastern Europe? Check out Moon Prague & Beyond.




Crossing the Gate


Book Description

In Crossing the Gate, Man Xu examines the lives of women in the Chinese province of Fujian during the Song dynasty. Tracking women's life experience across class lines, outside as well as inside the domestic realm, Xu challenges the accepted wisdom about women and gender roles in medieval China. She contextualizes women in a much broader physical space and social network, investigating the gaps between ideals and reality and examining women's own agency in gender construction. She argues that women's autonomy and mobility, conventionally attributed to Ming-Qing women of late imperial China, can be traced to the Song era. This thorough study of Song women's life experience connects women to the great political, economic, and social transitions of the time, and sheds light on the so-called "Song-Yuan-Ming transition" from the perspective of gender studies. By putting women at the center of analysis and by focusing on the local and the quotidian, Crossing the Gate offers a new and nuanced picture of the Song Confucian revival.







Women in World History


Book Description

Women in World History brings together the most recent scholarship in women's and world history in a single volume covering the period from 1450 to the present, enabling readers to understand women's relationship to world developments over the past five hundred years. Women have served the world as unfree people, often forced to migrate as slaves, trafficked sex workers, and indentured laborers working off debts. Diseases have migrated through women's bodies and women themselves have deliberately spread religious belief and fervor as well as ideas. They have been global authors, soldiers, and astronauts encircling the globe and moving far beyond it. They have written classics in political and social thought and crafted literary and artistic works alongside others who were revolutionaries and reform-minded activists. Historical scholarship has shown that there is virtually no part of the world where women's presence is not manifest, whether in archives, oral testimonials, personal papers, the material record, evidence of disease and famine, myth and religious teachings, and myriad other forms of documentation. As these studies mount, the idea of surveying women's past on a global basis becomes daunting. This book aims to redress this situation and offer a synthetic world history of women in modern times.




Beyond Tradition and Modernity


Book Description

Beyond Tradition and Modernity is a collection of original essays which considers the complexities behind the dramatic changes generated in China during the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century. As men and women literally-or metaphorically- crossed into new geographical worlds, they came to express their understanding of the expanding universe in a variety of ways which cannot be neatly labeled either traditional or modern. The contributors to this volume demonstrate how the creativity of these writers marked a new moment in historical and literary practices transcending this usual binary and simple teleology. Their essays expose how the ethnographic, literary, and educational projects of these men and women gave voice to new ideals and ideas that reflect the changing boundaries of gender at this time.