The Dance of “Old” and “New” in Chinese Print Culture, 1860s-1955

Bibliographic Data

ID14670828
AuthorsCynthia Brokaw (John Brown University, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume30
Issue3
Pages281-324
Publication date2017-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889717000163
PMID29019454
OpenAlexW2762740588
LanguageEN
References cited23

Argument Scholars of modern Chinese publishing and book culture focus on the dramatic transformations that took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the new technologies that enabled “mass” printing and the development of “modern” genres of print. They often neglect the fact that xylography remained a working technology through much of the Republican period and even into the People's Republic of China. Here I examine the continued use of woodblock printing and the continuing popularity of “traditional” textual genres from two perspectives. First, from a “bottom up” perspective, I examine the production and sale of woodblock texts in rural markets, often in the face of efforts by both the Republic and the People's Republic to prohibit their use. Second, from a perspective from the top, I consider the deliberate choices made by the government, some elite book collector-publishers, and Daoist and Buddhist devotees to print certain works xylographically

Aesthetics · Art · Dance · Literature · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Chinese history and philosophy · Japanese History and Culture

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