{"id":1717,"date":"2013-03-05T10:30:34","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T02:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1717"},"modified":"2013-03-04T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-04T09:00:00","slug":"chinese-literature-dissertation-reviews-esther-sunkyung-kleins-history-of-a-historian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1717","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Literature Dissertation Reviews: Esther Sunkyung Klein’s History of a Historian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sima <\/a>Dissertation Reviews <\/a>has posted Vincent Leung<\/a>‘s review of Esther Sunkyung Klein<\/a>‘s The History of a Historian<\/a>: Perspectives on the Authorial Roles of Sima Qian<\/em><\/em><\/em>. Here\u2019s how it begins:<\/p>\n

Sima Qian \u53f8\u99ac\u9077 (ca. 145 or 135 BCE-86 BCE) once famously declared that his monumental Shiji <\/em>\u53f2 \u8a18 (ca. 91 BCE) is intended not for readers in his own time but for those in posterity. The reason for such an authorial gesture, unusual in the early Chinese corpus, is unclear, but in any event he would not have been disappointed had he been able to witness the tremendous reception of the Shiji<\/em> in the last two millennia. It is fair to say that the Shiji<\/em> is one of the most widely read texts in the entire Chinese literary tradition. This is easily attested by the staggering amount of commentaries on it throughout the imperial period as well as the numerous articles and monographs devoted to its study over the last century. This voluminous scholarship represents an expectedly diverse range of readings of the Shiji<\/em>, with the nevertheless common goal of articulating the significance of the Shiji<\/em> as intended by its compiler Sima Qian <\/em>by reconstructing an accurate and relevant context for its composition. Readings that disagree on the significance of the Shiji<\/em> are essentially disagreements over how it should be properly contextualized in relation to its author and\/or the supposed historical condition of the early Han, and over the last two millennia as many contexts motivating Sima Qian have been imagined as there have been readers of the Shiji<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dissertation Reviews has posted Vincent Leung‘s review of Esther Sunkyung Klein‘s The History of a Historian: Perspectives on the Authorial Roles of Sima Qian. Here\u2019s how it begins: Sima Qian \u53f8\u99ac\u9077 (ca. 145 or 135 BCE-86 BCE) once famously declared … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[623,3,16],"tags":[982,818,983],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-rH","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1370,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1370","url_meta":{"origin":1717,"position":0},"title":"Bookslut Reviews Notes on the Mosquito","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The online literary journal Bookslut has posted Greer Mansfield's excellent review of my translation of Xi Chuan titled \"Notes on Xi Chuan\u2019s Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems.\" Here's an excerpt: Xi Chuan has translated Borges and even written a poem about him, but these prose poems bring to mind\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1914,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1914","url_meta":{"origin":1717,"position":1},"title":"Chinese Literature Dissertation Reviews: Foreign Echoes & Discerning the Soil","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Dissertation Reviews has posted Brian Skerratt's review of my dissertation, Foreign Echoes and Discerning the Soil: Dual Translation, Historiography, and World Literature in Chinese Poetry. 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Its luxurious petals have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dissertation Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Dissertation Reviews","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=623"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3685,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3685","url_meta":{"origin":1717,"position":3},"title":"Jeffrey Yang on Burton Watson (1925 \u2013 2017)","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"April 8, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In honor of Burton Watson\u2019s passing, I am collecting statements and memories from friends and fans, to be posted as they come in. The following comment is from Jeffrey Yang, poet, translator, and editor at New York Review Books and New Directions: For me, Burton Watson exists as an emanation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Burton Watson remembrance"","block_context":{"text":"Burton Watson remembrance","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=1774"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2422,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2422","url_meta":{"origin":1717,"position":4},"title":"Qian Zhongshu’s Patchwork, translated by Duncan Campbell","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Brill has published Qian Zhongshu's \u9322\u937e\u66f8 Patchwork: Seven Essays on Art and Literature \u4e03\u7db4\u96c6, translated by Duncan Campbell. Patchwork: Seven Essays on Art and Literature presents in English translation a number of essays written by the Chinese literary scholar and novelist Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998). One of the great minds of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1031,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=1031","url_meta":{"origin":1717,"position":5},"title":"Liu Qian reviews Jonathan Stalling’s Yingelishi","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"July 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Following up on her interview with Jonathan Stalling, World Literature Today has published Liu Qian's \u5218\u5029 review of Yingelishi. Here's how it begins: Our appreciation of poetry almost always takes place within a single language. Although poems written in one language can be translated into other languages, often-translated poems lose\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.worldliteraturetoday.com\/sites\/default\/files\/2012\/July\/yingelishi_jonathanstalling.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1718,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717\/revisions\/1718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}