Research Catalog

Title

Sanctity and self-inflicted violence in Chinese religions, 1500-1700 / Jimmy Yu.

Author

Yu, Jimmy Yung Fung, 1968-

Publication

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, c2012.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 272 p. : ill.; 25 cm.

Summary

"In this illuminating study of a vital but long overlooked aspect of Chinese religious life, Jimmy Yu reveals that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, self-inflicted violence was an essential and sanctioned part of Chinese culture. He examines a wide range of practices, including blood writing, filial body-slicing, chastity mutilations and suicides, ritual exposure, and self-immolation, arguing that each practice was public, scripted, and a signal of cultural expectations. Individuals engaged in acts of self-inflicted violence to exercise power and to affect society, by articulating moral values, reinstituting order, forging new social relations, and protecting against the threat of moral ambiguity. Self-inflicted violence was intelligible both to the person doing the act and to those who viewed and interpreted it, regardless of the various religions of the period: Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and other religions. This book is a groundbreaking contribution to scholarship on bodily practices in late imperial China, challenging preconceived ideas about analytic categories of religion, culture, and ritual in the study of Chinese religions."--Publisher's website.

Subject

• Self-mutilation > Religious aspects > History > 16th century
• Rites and ceremonies > China > History > 16th century
• Violence > Religious aspects > History > 16th century
• Self-mutilation > Religious aspects > History > 17th century
• Rites and ceremonies > China > History > 17th century
• Violence > Religious aspects > History > 17th century
• China > Religious life and customs

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [219]-256) and index.

Contents

A Culture in Flux: Historical Background -- Embodying the Text through Blood Writing -- Nourishing the Parent with One's Own Flesh -- Chaste Widows as Entertainment and Revenants -- Exposing and Burning the Body for Rain -- Conclusion.

Call Number

JFE 13-2487

ISBN

• 9780199844883 (hardcover : alk. paper)
• 0199844887 (hardcover : alk. paper)
• 9780199844906 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0199844909 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 9780199844890 (ebk.)
• 0199844895 (ebk.)

LCCN

• 2011035537
• 40021249269

OCLC

753912277

Author

Yu, Jimmy Yung Fung, 1968-

Title

Sanctity and self-inflicted violence in Chinese religions, 1500-1700 / Jimmy Yu.

Imprint

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, c2012.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (p. [219]-256) and index.

Other Standard Identifier

40021249269

Research Call Number

JFE 13-2487