Inventing the Chinese Short Story

Undergraduate / Graduate

This class will trace the emergence of the vernacular short story as a new genre in the late Ming and early Qing. We will focus on the seventeenth-century story collections of Feng Menglong, Ling Mengchu, Aina Jushi, and Li Yu, whose stories map the social whole of late imperial China-from merchant schemes to courtesan romances, from the friendships of students to the follies of emperors. Alongside close readings of selected stories, we will examine the structure, sources, and publication histories of these collections and locate them in a broader discussion of the meanings and functions of vernacular literature. All readings in English, though students with Chinese reading ability will be encouraged to read the original texts