Christopher Rea - Böcker

Plenty of books tell you how to do research. This book helps you figure out WHAT to research in the first place, and why it matters.The hardest part of research isn't answering a question. It's knowing what to do before you know what your question is. Where Research Begins tackles the two challenges every researcher faces with every new project: How do I find a compelling problem to investigate-one that truly matters to me, deeply and personally? How do I then design my research project so that the results will matter to anyone else?This book will help you start your new research project the right way for you with a series of simple yet ingenious exercises. Written in a conversational style and packed with real-world examples, this easy-to-follow workbook offers an engaging guide to finding research inspiration within yourself, and in the broader world of ideas.Read this book if you (or your students): have difficulty choosing a research topicknow your topic, but are unsure how to turn it into a research projectfeel intimidated by or unqualified to do researchworry that you're asking the wrong questions about your research topichave plenty of good ideas, but aren't sure which one to commit tofeel like your research topic was imposed by someone elsewant to learn new ways to think about how to do research.Under the expert guidance of award-winning researchers Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea, you will find yourself on the path to a compelling and meaningful research project, one that matters to you-and the world.

Plenty of books tell you how to do research. This book helps you figure out WHAT to research in the first place, and why it matters.The hardest part of research isn't answering a question. It's knowing what to do before you know what your question is. Where Research Begins tackles the two challenges every researcher faces with every new project: How do I find a compelling problem to investigate-one that truly matters to me, deeply and personally? How do I then design my research project so that the results will matter to anyone else?This book will help you start your new research project the right way for you with a series of simple yet ingenious exercises. Written in a conversational style and packed with real-world examples, this easy-to-follow workbook offers an engaging guide to finding research inspiration within yourself, and in the broader world of ideas.Read this book if you (or your students): have difficulty choosing a research topicknow your topic, but are unsure how to turn it into a research projectfeel intimidated by or unqualified to do researchworry that you're asking the wrong questions about your research topichave plenty of good ideas, but aren't sure which one to commit tofeel like your research topic was imposed by someone elsewant to learn new ways to think about how to do research.Under the expert guidance of award-winning researchers Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea, you will find yourself on the path to a compelling and meaningful research project, one that matters to you-and the world.

The Age of Irreverence tells the story of why China's entry into the modern age was not just traumatic, but uproarious. As the Qing dynasty slumped toward extinction, prominent writers compiled jokes into collections they called histories of laughter." In the first years of the Republic, novelists, essayists and illustrators alike used humorous allegories to make veiled critiques of the new government. But, again and again, political and cultural discussion erupted into invective, as critics gleefully jeered and derided rivals in public. Farceurs drew followings in the popular press, promoting a culture of practical joking and buffoonery. Eventually, these various expressions of hilarity proved so offensive to high-brow writers that they launched a concerted campaign to transform the tone of public discourse, hoping to displace the old forms of mirth with a new one they called youmo (humor). Christopher Rea argues that this period from the 1890s to the 1930s transformed how Chinese people thought and talked about what is funny.Focusing on five cultural expressions of laughter jokes, play, mockery, farce, and humor he reveals the textures of comedy that were a part of everyday life during modern China's first age of irreverence." This new history of laughter not only offers an unprecedented and up-close look at a neglected facet of Chinese cultural modernity, but also reveals its lasting legacy in the Chinese language of the comic today and its implications for our understanding of humor as a part of human culture.

The Age of Irreverence tells the story of why China’s entry into the modern age was not just traumatic, but uproarious. As the Qing dynasty slumped toward extinction, prominent writers compiled jokes into collections they called “histories of laughter.” In the first years of the Republic, novelists, essayists and illustrators alike used humorous allegories to make veiled critiques of the new government. But, again and again, political and cultural discussion erupted into invective, as critics gleefully jeered and derided rivals in public. Farceurs drew followings in the popular press, promoting a culture of practical joking and buffoonery. Eventually, these various expressions of hilarity proved so offensive to high-brow writers that they launched a concerted campaign to transform the tone of public discourse, hoping to displace the old forms of mirth with a new one they called youmo (humor).Christopher Rea argues that this period—from the 1890s to the 1930s—transformed how Chinese people thought and talked about what is funny. Focusing on five cultural expressions of laughter—jokes, play, mockery, farce, and humor—he reveals the textures of comedy that were a part of everyday life during modern China’s first “age of irreverence.” This new history of laughter not only offers an unprecedented and up-close look at a neglected facet of Chinese cultural modernity, but also reveals its lasting legacy in the Chinese language of the comic today and its implications for our understanding of humor as a part of human culture.

The first critical analysis of Chinese "cultural entrepreneurs," businesspeople whose entrepreneurial endeavours in China and Southeast Asia the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries transformed the cultural sphere.

From the late nineteenth- to the mid-twentieth century, changing technologies and growing transregional ties provided unprecedented opportunities for the entrepreneurially minded in China and Southeast Asia. The Business of Culture examines the rise of Chinese "cultural entrepreneurs," businesspeople who risked financial well-being and reputation by investing in multiple cultural enterprises in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rich in biographical detail, the interlinked case studies featured in this volume introduce three distinct archetypes: the cultural personality, the tycoon, and the collective enterprise. These portraits reveal how changes in social and economic conditions created the fertile soil for business success; conditions that are similar to those emerging in China today.

China’s Literary Cosmopolitans offers a comprehensive introduction to the literary oeuvres of Qian Zhongshu (1910-98) and Yang Jiang (b. 1911). It assesses their novels, essays, stories, poetry, plays, translations, and criticism, and discusses their reception as two of the most important Chinese scholar-writers of the twentieth century.In addition to re-evaluating this married couple’s intertwined literary careers, the book also explains why they have come to represent such influential models of Chinese literary cosmopolitanism. Uncommonly well-versed in Western languages and literatures, Qian and Yang chose to live in China and write in Chinese. China’s Literary Cosmopolitans argues for their artistic importance while analyzing their works against the modern cultural imperative that Chinese literature be worldly.