Obscene Things by Naifei Ding - 9780822329015

Obscene ThingsSexual Politics in Jin Ping Mei\nAuthor(s): Naifei Ding\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Duke University Press, United States\nImprint: Duke University Press\nISBN-13: 9780822329015, 978-0822329015\nSynopsis\nIn Obscene Things Naifei Ding intervenes in conventional readings of Jin Ping Mei, an early scandalous Chinese novel of sexuality and sexual culture. After first appearing around 1590, Jin Ping Mei was circulated among some of Chinas best known writers of the time and subsequently was published in three major recensions. A 1695 version by Zhang Zhupo became the most widely read and it is this text in particular on which Ding focuses. Challenging the preconceptions of earlier scholarship, she highlights the fundamental misogyny inherent in Jin Ping Mei and demonstrates how traditional biases-particularly masculine biases-continue to inform the concerns of modern criticism and sexual politics.\nThe story of a seductive bondmaid-concubine, sexual opportunism, domestic in.