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Popular Reverence and Commercial Publishing in Late Ming Hagiographic Literature |
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Author |
Ganany, Noga (著)
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Source |
Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies
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Volume | v.6 n.2 Special Issue |
Date | 2023.10 |
Pages | 18 - 29 |
Publisher | Cambria Press |
Publisher Url |
http://www.cambriapress.com/
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Location | New York, US [紐約州, 美國] |
Content type | 期刊論文=Journal Article |
Language | 英文=English |
Note | 1. Special Issue: Religion and Local Society.
2. Author Affiliation: University of Cambridge, UK. |
Keyword | hagiography; print culture; literature; immortals; Ming; Zhenwu; Lü Dongbin |
Abstract | The turn of the seventeenth century saw a surge in the publication of illustrated hagiographic narratives (chushen zhuan 出身傳), or ‘origin narratives’, in the book meccas of Jiangnan and Fujian. These commercially published books recount the miraculous lives of widely-worshiped cult figures, from Buddhist deities and Daoist immortals to Confucian sages and local heroes. Highly entertaining yet encyclopaedic in scope, origin narratives repackaged the life and lore of their revered protagonists into ‘vernacular’ narratives (xiaoshuo 小說) that seem to have targeted a wide readership. The cultic worship and sacred geographies of the protagonists of origin narratives take centre stage in their main narratives and feature prominently in the paratexts of these books (such as prefaces, postfaces, and appendices), offering practical, current information on the reverence of the protagonists. The incorporation of ‘religious’ materials in the main texts and paratexts of origin narratives highlights the multiple roles that commercial publishers played in late Ming society as cultural agents and producers of knowledge. Origin narratives, I argue, provided commercial publishers with a particularly profitable platform to engage with local cults while promoting their own intellectual and worldly interests. |
Table of contents | Abstract 18 Keywords 18 Introduction 19 What are Origin Narratives? 19 Texts and Paratexts 22 Publishing, Religion, and Local Society: Some Preliminary Conclusions 25 Bibliography 27 Abbreviations 27 Primary Sources 27 Secondary Sources 28 |
ISSN | 25762923 (P); 25762931 (E) |
DOI | 10.15239/hijbs.06.02.02 |
Hits | 57 |
Created date | 2024.08.23 |
Modified date | 2024.08.27 |

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