This dissertation looks beyond the prevailing view of Pu Songling’s (1640-1715) Liaozhai zhiyi as an undisputed classic of Chinese literature, positing that much of the work’s cultural relevance and popular appeal derives from its status as “minor discourse” rooted in the tradition of the ghost tale. The first half of the dissertation examines the ghosts depicted within Liaozhai, reconnecting their tamed and feminized images with their dark and anarchic origins. The second half studies the reception of Liaozhai, chronicling the book’s cultural ascension from xiaoshuo, in the original sense of a minor form of discourse fraught with generic and ideological tensions, to a major work of fiction (xiaoshuo in its modern sense). However, the book’s canonical status remains unsettled, haunted by its heterogeneous literary and cultural roots. The Introduction reviews current scholarship on Liaozhai, justifying the need to further investigate the relationship between popular perceptions of Liaozhai and the Chinese notion of ghosts. Chapter One delineates Pu Songling’s position in late imperial ghost discourse and examines how the ghost tale reflects his ambivalence toward being a Confucian literatus. Chapter Two reads Pu Songling’s “The Painted Skin” in conjunction with its literary antecedents, demonstrating that Pu’s uses of both zhiguai and chuanqi modes are essential for the exploration of the ghost’s critical and creative potential. Chapter Three takes up the issues of genre, canon and ideology in the “remaking” of the book by Qing dynasty critics, publishers and commentators, a process in which Liaozhai gains prestige but Liaozhai ghosts become aestheticized into objects of connoisseurship. Chapter Four looks at the ruptures in modern ghost discourse that paradoxically create new vantage points from which Liaozhai regains its “minor” status, most notably in Hong Kong ghost films. The Conclusion revisits “The Painted Skin,” a Liaozhai story that exemplifies the complex cultural ramifications of the ghost. The dissertation combines a study of Liaozhai’s textual formation and its subsequent history of reception with a dialogic inquiry into the ghost, which occupies a highly contested field of cultural discourse, functioning variously as a psychological projection, a token of belief, a literary motif and an aesthetic construction.

The reform-minded aspect of Wang's writing is frequently emphasized while its rhetorical component is overlooked. Similarly, in texts which appear poetic in nature the underlying subject matter of reform fails to be recognized. Both rhetoric and its antithesis function in tandem in all of Wang's texts, the one serving to balance the other; stylistic writing serves to soften political discourse. When Wang writes poetically, the problem of reform is served through allusion. In contrast, when direct terminology is employed, this is balanced by rhetorical analogy (often citing the past to prove the present, jie gu yu jin). Because his subject matter is predominantly political, Wang's memorials and prose texts are well known, while his poetry has remained in relative obscurity. Nevertheless, even the memorials rely on the balance of rhetoric and aesthetics, which he describes in his best known text "Shang Ren Zong Huang Di Yan Shi Shu".

The subject of my thesis is the comparative study of classical Chinese folk songs. Based on Jeffrey Wainwright, George Lansing Raymond, and Liu Xie’s theories, this study was conducted from four perspectives: theme, content, prosody structure and aesthetic features. The purposes of my thesis are to trace the originality of 160 folk songs in Shijing and 47 folk songs in Han yuefu, to illuminate the origin of Chinese folk songs and to demonstrate the secularism reflected in Chinese folk songs. My research makes contribution to the following four areas: it explores the relation between folk songs in Shijing and Han yuefu and compares the similarities and differences between them; it reveals the poetic kinship between Shijing and Han yuefu; it evaluates the significance of the common people’s compositions; and it displays the unique artistic value and cultural influence of Chinese early folk songs.

The subject of my thesis is the comparative study of classical Chinese folk songs. Based on Jeffrey Wainwright, George Lansing Raymond, and Liu Xie’s theories, this study was conducted from four perspectives: theme, content, prosody structure and aesthetic features. The purposes of my thesis are to trace the originality of 160 folk songs in Shijing and 47 folk songs in Han yuefu, to illuminate the origin of Chinese folk songs and to demonstrate the secularism reflected in Chinese folk songs. My research makes contribution to the following four areas: it explores the relation between folk songs in Shijing and Han yuefu and compares the similarities and differences between them; it reveals the poetic kinship between Shijing and Han yuefu; it evaluates the significance of the common people’s compositions; and it displays the unique artistic value and cultural influence of Chinese early folk songs.

The reform-minded aspect of Wang's writing is frequently emphasized while its rhetorical component is overlooked. Similarly, in texts which appear poetic in nature the underlying subject matter of reform fails to be recognized. Both rhetoric and its antithesis function in tandem in all of Wang's texts, the one serving to balance the other; stylistic writing serves to soften political discourse. When Wang writes poetically, the problem of reform is served through allusion. In contrast, when direct terminology is employed, this is balanced by rhetorical analogy (often citing the past to prove the present, jie gu yu jin). Because his subject matter is predominantly political, Wang's memorials and prose texts are well known, while his poetry has remained in relative obscurity. Nevertheless, even the memorials rely on the balance of rhetoric and aesthetics, which he describes in his best known text "Shang Ren Zong Huang Di Yan Shi Shu".

This dissertation looks beyond the prevailing view of Pu Songling’s (1640-1715) Liaozhai zhiyi as an undisputed classic of Chinese literature, positing that much of the work’s cultural relevance and popular appeal derives from its status as “minor discourse” rooted in the tradition of the ghost tale. The first half of the dissertation examines the ghosts depicted within Liaozhai, reconnecting their tamed and feminized images with their dark and anarchic origins. The second half studies the reception of Liaozhai, chronicling the book’s cultural ascension from xiaoshuo, in the original sense of a minor form of discourse fraught with generic and ideological tensions, to a major work of fiction (xiaoshuo in its modern sense). However, the book’s canonical status remains unsettled, haunted by its heterogeneous literary and cultural roots. The Introduction reviews current scholarship on Liaozhai, justifying the need to further investigate the relationship between popular perceptions of Liaozhai and the Chinese notion of ghosts. Chapter One delineates Pu Songling’s position in late imperial ghost discourse and examines how the ghost tale reflects his ambivalence toward being a Confucian literatus. Chapter Two reads Pu Songling’s “The Painted Skin” in conjunction with its literary antecedents, demonstrating that Pu’s uses of both zhiguai and chuanqi modes are essential for the exploration of the ghost’s critical and creative potential. Chapter Three takes up the issues of genre, canon and ideology in the “remaking” of the book by Qing dynasty critics, publishers and commentators, a process in which Liaozhai gains prestige but Liaozhai ghosts become aestheticized into objects of connoisseurship. Chapter Four looks at the ruptures in modern ghost discourse that paradoxically create new vantage points from which Liaozhai regains its “minor” status, most notably in Hong Kong ghost films. The Conclusion revisits “The Painted Skin,” a Liaozhai story that exemplifies the complex cultural ramifications of the ghost. The dissertation combines a study of Liaozhai’s textual formation and its subsequent history of reception with a dialogic inquiry into the ghost, which occupies a highly contested field of cultural discourse, functioning variously as a psychological projection, a token of belief, a literary motif and an aesthetic construction.

The following dissertation is a philosophical exploration of the cosmology of the Zhuangzi, arguing it is meontological due to the prominence afforded the Chinese word wu 無, rendered as both nothingness and nonbeing. It puts forth the argument that the Zhuangzi’s cosmology creates a relationship whereby nonbeing and being are intertwined under the purview of Dao 道. As a result, the text’s axiology is unique in that it states cosmological freedom is attainable via uniting with primal nothingness. Chapter one seeks to disprove the notion that nonbeing cannot be anything but a transcendental other by arguing that Dao is a negatively creative source that simultaneously gives birth to nonbeing and being, making it impossible for nonbeing to be nihilistic or seen as an absolute void. Chapter two delves into the manifestation of things and how the sage, as an epitome of the naturalness of Dao, follows the becoming and returning of things to the One, darkening himself in nothingness in order to cultivate his life. Chapter three poses the question of whether or not the ontological movement of things is temporal and how temporality can even be possible considering the meontological nature of the universe. The next two chapters focus on the arts of useful uselessness and forgetting, the two principal means by which the sage achieves harmony with the oneness of things. Chapter six concludes by arguing that freedom attained by perfecting the arts of uselessness and forgetfulness is not rooted in ethical virtue but is the pinnacle of one’s cosmological relationship with Dao and is embodied in the act of carefree wandering. Zhuangzi’s cosmology is thus rooted in the life force of nothingness and doing away with ontic distinctions so as to return to natural equanimity and stillness of spirit.

The following dissertation is a philosophical exploration of the cosmology of the Zhuangzi, arguing it is meontological due to the prominence afforded the Chinese word wu 無, rendered as both nothingness and nonbeing. It puts forth the argument that the Zhuangzi’s cosmology creates a relationship whereby nonbeing and being are intertwined under the purview of Dao 道. As a result, the text’s axiology is unique in that it states cosmological freedom is attainable via uniting with primal nothingness. Chapter one seeks to disprove the notion that nonbeing cannot be anything but a transcendental other by arguing that Dao is a negatively creative source that simultaneously gives birth to nonbeing and being, making it impossible for nonbeing to be nihilistic or seen as an absolute void. Chapter two delves into the manifestation of things and how the sage, as an epitome of the naturalness of Dao, follows the becoming and returning of things to the One, darkening himself in nothingness in order to cultivate his life. Chapter three poses the question of whether or not the ontological movement of things is temporal and how temporality can even be possible considering the meontological nature of the universe. The next two chapters focus on the arts of useful uselessness and forgetting, the two principal means by which the sage achieves harmony with the oneness of things. Chapter six concludes by arguing that freedom attained by perfecting the arts of uselessness and forgetfulness is not rooted in ethical virtue but is the pinnacle of one’s cosmological relationship with Dao and is embodied in the act of carefree wandering. Zhuangzi’s cosmology is thus rooted in the life force of nothingness and doing away with ontic distinctions so as to return to natural equanimity and stillness of spirit.

At roughly the same historical conjuncture when it began to be articulated as a concept marking a return of the repressed within the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank, the doppelganger motif became the subject of a veritable explosion of literary attention in 1920s Japan. Several authors – including Akutagawa Ryûnosuke, Edogawa Rampo, Tanizaki Jun’ichirô, and others – repeatedly deployed the doppelganger motif in their fictions against the backdrop of rapid urbanization, imperial expansion, and the restructuring of all aspects of everyday life by a burgeoning commodity culture. Interestingly, as if enacting the very compulsion to repeat embodied by the doppelganger on a historical register as well, a repetition of this proliferation of doppelganger images is apparent in the contemporary conjuncture, in the works of authors like Abe Kôbô, Murakami Haruki, or Shimada Masahiko, as well as in the films of Tsukamoto Shinya or Kurosawa Kiyoshi. To date, much of the previous scholarship on the figure of the doppelganger tends to be preoccupied with the attempt to locate its origins, whether in mythic or psychical terms. In contrast to this concern with fixing the figure to an imagined essence, in my dissertation, I instead place emphasis on the doppelganger’s enactment of repetition itself through an examination at the figure through the prism of the problem of genre, in terms of how it has come to be discursively constituted as a genre itself, as well as its embodiment of the very logic of genre in its play on the positions of identity and difference. By historicizing its formation as a genre, it becomes possible to productively situate not only the proliferation of images of the doppelganger in 1920s Japan but also its repetitions, resignifications, and critical articulations in the present within the the shifting constellation of relations among various discourses and practices that organize colonial and global modernity – language and visuality, the space of empire and the construction of ethno-racial identities, libidinal and material economies – that structure (yet are nevertheless exceeded by) its constitution as a concept.

This thesis aims to explore translation theory in modern China to shed light on the thought of inter-culturality through translation in the age of globalization, focussing on the works of Lu Xun and Qian Zhongshu. This paper attempts to unveil the constitution of modernization, the cultural way of crossing boundary, and the construction of imaginary otherness. The first chapter examines the methodological problems of translation in Lu Xun and Qian Zhongshu, separately, to demonstrate their contributions to Chinese modern translation theory from aesthetic viewpoints. The second chapter discusses the purpose of translation, investigating the cultural meaning of boundary crossing in translation. The third chapter examines the problems of the translatability and untranslatability from Lu Xun’s and Qian Zhongshu’s aspects, by contrasting with the concept of differences and translatability in post-structuralism theory, discussing the possibilities of mutual understanding between two cultures and languages through the imagined other in translation.