Christopher Rea | Department of Asian Studies
BOOKS China’s Chaplin: Comic Stories and Farces by Xu Zhuodai Da bujing de niandai: Jindai Zhongguo xin xiaoshi (The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China). The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection. The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China. China’s Literary Cosmopolitans: Qian Zhongshu, Yang Jiang and the World of Letters. The Business of Culture: Cultural Entrepreneurs in China and Southeast Asia, 1900-65. (A collection of translated essays and short stories from Xie zai rensheng bianshang (1941) and Ren, shou, gui(1946), with a critical introduction. Here’s a video introduction to the book.) EDITED JOURNAL ISSUES William Sima and Christopher G. Rea, eds. “Focus on The China Critic (Zhongguo pinglun zhoubao).” A combined issue of China Heritage Quarterly, nos. 30/31 (June/September 2012). Link to full issue (HTML). JOURNAL ARTICLES (with Henry Jenkins). “The Ancient Art of Falling Down: Vaudeville Cinema between Hollywood and China,” MCLC Resource Centre Publications (Aug. 2017). Article (HTML). Article (PDF) “The ‘Critic Eye’ of Qian Zhongshu,” Chinese Arts & Letters 2:2 (Oct. 2015), pp. 98-118. Article (PDF) “Great Books and Free Wine” (in memory of C.T. Hsia), Chinese Literature Today 4:1 (2014). Article (HTML) “The Critic at Large.” China Heritage Quarterly, 30/31 (June/Sept. 2012). Article (HTML) “‘The Critic Eye (piyan)’.” China Heritage Quarterly, 30/31. Article (HTML) “On Lun.” China Heritage Quarterly, 30/31. Article (HTML) “‘To Thine Own Self Be True’: One Hundred Years of Yang Jiang.” Renditions, no. 76 (Fall 2011), pp. 7-14. “Yang Jiang’s Conspicuous Inconspicuousness: A Centenary Writer in China’s ‘Prosperous Age.’” China Heritage Quarterly, 26 (June 2011). Article (HTML) (with Nicolai Volland). “Comic Visions of Modern China: Introduction.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 20: 2 (Fall 2008), pp. v-xviii. Article (PDF) “Comedy and Cultural Entrepreneurship in Xu Zhuodai’s Huaji Shanghai.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 20:2 (Fall 2008), pp. 40-91. Abstract (HTML). Article (PDF) “‘I Envy You Your New Teeth and Hair’: Humor, Self-Awareness, and Du Fu’s Poetic Self-Image.” T’ang Studies, No. 23/24 (2005-2006), pp. 47-89. Article (PDF). BOOK CHAPTERS “Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang: A Literary Marriage.” In The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature. Kirk A. Denton, ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016, pp. 231-236. Article (PDF) “Introduction: All the World’s a Book.” In China’s Literary Cosmopolitans, pp. 1-13. “The Institutional Mindset: Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang on Marriage and the Academy.” In China’s Literary Cosmopolitans, pp. 157-178. “All Will Come Out in the Washing.” In China’s Literary Cosmopolitans, pp. 227-231. (with Nicolai Volland). “Introduction.” In The Business of Culture, pp. 3-8. Full text (PDF). “Enter the Cultural Entrepreneur.” In The Business of Culture, pp. 9-31. Full text (PDF). (with Sai-Shing Yung). “One Chicken, Three Dishes: The Cultural Enterprises of Law Bun.” In The Business ofCulture, pp. 150-177. Full text (PDF) “Tianxia you zei: Mingdai ‘pianjing’ ‘Dupian xinshu’” (World of Thieves: The Ming Dynasty Swindling Classic “A New Book for Foiling Swindles”). In Cong Moluo dao Nuobei’er: Wenxue, jingdian, xiandai yishi (From Mara Poetry to the Nobel Prize: Literary Classics and Modern Consciousness). Ko Chia cian and Cheng Yu-yu, eds. Taipei: Rye Field, 2015, pp. 304-317. Full text (PDF) “Spoofing (e’gao) Culture on the Chinese Internet.”In Humour in Chinese Life and Culture: Resistance and Control in Modern Times. Jessica Milner Davis and Jocelyn Chey, eds. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013, pp. 149-172. Publisher’s description (HTML). Chapter (PDF). “Foreword.” Twelve Towers: Short Stories by Li Yu, bilingual edition. Retold by Nathan Mao and Weiting R. Mao. Beijing: Foreign Language Research and Teaching Press, 2011, pp. 1-6. Preview (HTML). Chapter (PDF) SHORTER TRANSLATIONS Shamlet: A Ten-Act Play by Lee Kuo-Hsiu. A translation with introduction prepared for Shakespearean Adaptations in East Asia: A Critical Anthology of Shakespearean Plays in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Alexa Huang and Ryuta Minami, eds. (Under contract with Eureka Press, U.K.; distributed in U.S. by Routledge) Long Live the Missus! (Taitai wansui, 1947), directed by Sang Hu; screenplay by Eileen Chang. MCLC Online Publications (May 2019). Subtitled film and script (HTML). Xu Zhuodai. “Opening Day Advertisement.” Renditions, no. 87 & 88 (Spring/Autumn 2017), pp. 192-202 (with “Introduction to Xu Zhuodai” on pp. 189-191). Issue contents (HTML). Essays by Huang Chunming, Wang Zhenhe, and Zhong Mingde. In: The Columbia Sourcebook of Literary Taiwan. Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, Michelle Yeh, and Ming-ju Fan, eds. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. Xu Zhuodai. “The Secret Room.” Renditions, no. 77 & 78 (Spring/Autumn 2012), pp. 78-86. Issue contents(HTML). Full text (PDF). Zhang Letian. “Consuming the Absurd: Satire and Humour in Contemporary Chinese Art.” Go Figure!: Contemporary Chinese Art. Claire Roberts, ed. Canberra: National Portrait Gallery of Australia, 2012, pp. 58-70.Book description (HTML). Full text (PDF). Yang Jiang. “Heart’s Desire: Act I.” Renditions, no. 76 (Autumn 2011), pp. 15-33. Excerpt (HTML). Full text (PDF). Yang Jiang. “What a Joke.” Renditions, no. 76 (Autumn 2011), pp. 34-67. Issue contents (HTML). Full text (PDF). Ding Xilin. “Three Dollars in National Currency: A One-Act Comedy by Ding Xilin,” with critical introduction. Asian Theatre Journal, Vol. 25, no. 2 (Fall 2008), pp. 173-192. Full text (PDF) BOOK REVIEWS “Hong Kong on the Brain.” Review of Hon Lai-chu. The Kite Family. Translated by Andrea Lingenfelter. Hong Kong: East Slope, 2016. Los Angeles Review of Books China channel, 11 December 2017. Pi-Ching Hsu. “Feng Menglong’s Treasury of Laughs: A Seventeenth-Century Anthology of Chinese Humour.” Ming Studies 76 (Oct. 2017): 107-109. “Shanghailanders: A look back at the myth of salacious Shanghai.” Review of Taras Grescoe. Shanghai Grand: Forbidden Love and International Intrigue on the Eve of the Second World War. Toronto: HarperAvenue, 2016. Literary Review of Canada, July/August 2016. Review (PDF) Yu Hua. Brothers: A Novel. Tr. Eileen Cheng-yin Chow and Carlos Rojas. New York: Pantheon, 2009. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture Resource Centre (online), October 2011. Review (PDF). Review (HTML). Chinese version (PDF). Alexander Huang. Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. China Review International, 16:4 (2009), pp. 521-526. Review (PDF) GENERAL MEDIA / BLOG “From the Year of the Ape to the Year of the Monkey,” The China Story (2 Mar. 2016). Article (HTML). Article (PDF) “Spawn of China’s One-Child Policy,” Asia Pacific Memo (5 Nov. 2015). Article (HTML) “Idle Words on C.T. Hsia’s A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (in Chinese). Article (PDF) “Mo Yan’s Nobel Prize in Literature,” Asia Pacific Memo (15 Oct. 2012). Article (HTML) “China ‘vindicated’ by Mo Yan’s Nobel literature prize,” Radio Australia (12 Oct. 2012). Interview (MP3, HTML) (with Ji Jin). “Qian Zhongshu yu Yang Jiang toushi” (New perspectives on Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang), Mingpao Monthly (1 Mar. 2011). Article (HTML) (in Chinese) “China’s Nobel Prize Complex, circa 1946,” Toronto Star (10 Dec. 2010). Article (HTML). Article (PDF) “‘Life, it’s been said, is one big book…’: One hundred years of Qian Zhongshu,” The China Beat (21 Nov. 2010). Article (PDF). Chinese version (HTML) “An Interview with David Der-wei Wang” (2007) (in Chinese). Full text (PDF)
Translated and with an introduction by Christopher Rea
Ithaca, NY: Cornell East Asia Series, 2019. Publisher. Podcast.
By Lei Qinfeng (Christopher Rea); translated by Hui-Lin Hsu. Publisher. Books.com.tw. Review 1. Review 2. Excerpt. Radio feature.
Taipei, Taiwan: Rye Field, 2018.
Imperfect Understanding: Intimate Portraits of Chinese Celebrities
By Wen Yuan-ning and others; edited by Christopher Rea
Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2018. Publisher. Amazon. Q&A. MCLC review.
By Zhang Yingyu (fl. 1600s); translated by Christopher Rea and Bruce Rusk.
New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2017. Publisher. Amazon. Ming dynasty edition. Sample story 1. Sample story 2. Q&A. Review. MCLC Review. Sinica Podcast interview. Audio interview. Video introduction.
By Christopher Rea
Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015. Levenson Prize. Publisher; Amazon. E-book. Kindle. Author Q&A. Illustrated Q&A. New York Times. Rorotoko. MCLC review. Audio interview (68 mins). Video interview (6 mins). Read excerpts here and here (HTML).
Edited by Christopher Rea
Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015.
Edited by Christopher Rea and Nicolai Volland
Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2015; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015. Introduction (PDF).
Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays by Qian Zhongshu.
Edited by Christopher G. Rea
New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Read the first story (HTML). Chinese introduction (PDF).
Christopher G. Rea, ed. “Yang Jiang.” A special issue of Renditions, no. 76 (Fall 2011). Link to table of contents and extracts (HTML)
Christopher G. Rea and Nicolai Volland, eds. “Comic Visions.” A special issue of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 20: 2 (Fall 2008).
Link to introduction (PDF) and abstracts (HTML)
“Cong keting dao zhanchang: lun Ding Xilin de kangzhan xiju Miaofeng shan” (From the Parlor to the Battlefield: Ding Xilin’s Wartime Comedy Mount Miaofeng). Dangdai zuojia pinglun (Contemporary Writers’ Review), Jan. 2006, pp. 124-131. Article (PDF)
“‘He’ll Roast All Subjects That Might Need the Roasting’: Puck and Mr. Punch in 19th-c. China.” In Asian Punches: A Transcultural Affair. Hans Harder and Barbara Mittler, eds. Berlin: Springer, 2013, pp. 389-422.Publisher’s description (HTML). Chapter (PDF).
“Qian Zhongshu de zaoqi chuangzuo” (Qian Zhonghu’s Early Creative Works). In Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo de shi yu xue: xiang Xia Zhiqing xianzheng zhiqing (History and Learning in Modern Chinese Literature: A Tribute to C.T. Hsia). David Der-wei Wang, ed. Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe, 2010. Simplified character version (HTML).
“Cong keting dao zhanchang: lun Ding Xilin de kangzhan xiju” (From the Parlor to the Battlefield: Ding Xilin’s Wartime Comedies) [in Chinese]. In Wenxue xinglü yu shijie xiangxiang (Traveling Chinese Literatures and World Imaginations). David Der-wei Wang and Ji Jin, eds. Nanjing: Jiangsu Educational Press, 2007, pp. 165-187. Chapter (PDF). Chapter (HTML).
“‘Zuori fei jinri’: Tian Zhuangzhuang Xiaocheng zhi chun zhong lishi yuyang de youling zaixian” (Hauntings of Historical Desire in Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Springtime in a Small Town [in Chinese]. In Xiangxiang de benbang: xiandai wenxue shiwu lun (National Imaginaries: 15 Perspectives on Modern Chinese Literature). David Der-wei Wang and Kim Chew Ng, eds. Taipei: Rye Field Publishing, 2005, pp. 161-180. Chapter (PDF).
Xu Zhuodai. “The Fiction Material Wholesaler.” Renditions, 67 (Spring 2007), pp. 47-62. Issue contents (HTML).