China’s Literary Cosmopolitans

Christopher Rea (Ph.D., Columbia) is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China (California, 2015), co-editor of The Business of Culture: Cultural Entrepreneurs in China and Southeast Asia (UBC Press, 2015), and editor of Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays by Qian Zhongshu (Columbia, 2011).

"[T]his edited volume makes a crucial contribution to the fields of Chinese studies and literary studies by offering a new model for theorizing cosmopolitanism outside a Eurocentric paradigm, built on meticulous analyses of Qian’s and Yang’s works. […] China’s Literary Cosmopolitans will be an indispensable text for scholars seeking to investigate the relationship between the provincial and the cosmopolitan, the particular and the universal, literature and politics, and the nation and the world." - Inhye Han, Ewha Womans University, in: MCLC Resource Center Publication (September, 2016)"论文集的出版将助力海内外学者重新审视这两位学者型作家对中国文学和世界文学的重大贡献，助推他们的作品在西方的译介、传播与研究。第一次将钱锺书、杨绛定位于“文学世界主义者”，从全新的角度评价他们对中国文学和世界文学做出的突出贡献。第一次在英语世界相对完整地研究杨绛的作品，是海外杨绛研究的扛鼎之作。第一次较为系统地、别出心裁地出版钱锺书、杨绛研究的论文集，给海内外钱锺书、杨绛研究吹来一缕清风。" - 余承法, 中南民族大学, 当代作家评论 (2016年2期) / Yu Chengfa, South-Central University for Nationalities, in: Contemporary Writers Review (March, 2016)"[This volume] brings the English-language scholarship on both authors up to date. At the same time it is a useful tool and stepping stone to more studies about the fascinating works of Yang Jiang and Qian Zhongshu." - Monika Motsch, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, in: Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies, 64.2 (December 2016)"China’s Literary Cosmopolitans offers both a valuable introduction to two outstanding cultural figures, and innovative scholarship on aspects of their work which have previously received less scholarly attention." - Richard King, University of Victoria, in: Pacific Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 1 (March 2017)"These essays illumine their very influential contributions to the development of Chinese literary and cultural forms and their lifelong negotiations with their changing audiences about the positions they could occupy and the work they could do...Rea and his colleagues have woven together many threads of a narrative about the course this pre-eminent Chinese literary couple charted over nearly eight decades of risks and challenges." - Ellen Soullière, Massey University, in: New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies (June 2017)

• Introduction: All the World’s a Book, Christopher ReaAcknowledgements1.Yang Jiang’s Wartime Comedies; Or, the Serious Business of Marriage, Amy D. Dooling2. “Passing Handan without Dreaming”: Passion and Restraint in the Poetry and Poetics of Qian Zhongshu, Wang Yugen3.Self-Deception and Self-Knowledge in Yang Jiang’s Fiction, Judith M. Amory4.How to do Things with Words: Yang Jiang and the Politics of Translation, Carlos Rojas5. Guanzhui bian, Western Citations, and the Cultural Revolution, Ronald Egan6.The Pleasures of Lying Low: Yang Jiang and Chinese Revolutionary Culture, Wendy Larson7.The Institutional Mindset: Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang on Marriage and the Academy, Christopher Rea8.“All Alone, I Think Back on We Three”: Yang Jiang’s New Intimate Public, Jesse Field9.The Cosmopolitan Imperative: Qian Zhongshu and “World Literature,” Theodore HutersAll Will Come Out in the Washing, Christopher ReaAppendix: Works in English by Qian Zhongshu and Yang JiangBibliography