{"product_id":"intransitive-encounter-9780231188029","title":"Intransitive Encounter","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNan Z. Da offers an in-depth study of nineteenth-century Sino-U.S. literary interactions that highlights their lack of transpacific interpollination. \u003ci\u003eIntransitive Encounter\u003c\/i\u003e is an unconventional and theoretically rich reflection on global meetings and imaginings that do not fit the patterns proclaimed by postcolonial and literary studies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this bracingly intelligent and impressively researched study of nineteenth-century Sino-U.S. encounters, Nan Z. Da focuses on transnational exchanges in which not much of anything is exchanged and worlds are not transformed.  The result is a transformative book that challenges assumptions about transnationalism and maps out productive new ways of exploring the limits of cultural exchange. -- Robert S. Levine, author of \u003ci\u003eRace, Transnationalism, and Nineteenth-Century American Literary Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNan Z. Da has written the first great book on nineteenth-century Sino-U.S. literary relations and a truly great book on the current state of comparative literature. Da's beautiful readings of what she calls the many 'intransitive encounters' between Chinese and American literature demonstrate the ways in which the idea of a global, East-West world literature is a fantasy that obscures the much more interesting differences, failures, and untranslatable moments that have generated a long history of literary criticism. This book should be required reading for students and scholars of American and comparative literature. -- Virginia Jackson, University of California, Irvine\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eIntransitive Encounter\u003c\/i\u003e offers nothing less than a complete reimagining of the literary encounter. With acuity, archival sensitivity, and analytic insight, Nan Z. Da argues that previous assumptions about transnational literary contact have perpetuated a hermeneutic that crosses out as much as it crosses over—and that what gets crossed out is precisely an opportunity to see the literary as a different kind of encounter. -- R. John Williams, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Buddha in the Machine: Art, Technology, and the Meeting of East and West\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDa makes a unique contribution to transpacific literary studies and suggests a new approach to transnationalism that is theoretically sophisticated, historically revisionist, and potentially paradigm changing. \u003ci\u003eIntransitive Encounter \u003c\/i\u003eis a work of great originality, imagination, and erudition. -- Yunte Huang, University of California, Santa Barbara\u003cbr\u003eHighly recommended. * Choice *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eIntransitive Encounter\u003c\/i\u003e’s methodological and theoretical contributions will resonate far beyond its field. At the heart of the book and the Sino-U.S. encounters it elucidates are a set of concerns—about the purpose of translation, the limits of cross-cultural communication, the dynamics of literary influence, the materiality and occasionality of literary objects, and what literature can make thinkable or actionable in the world—that are at the center of conversations in modernist studies, comparative literature, cross-cultural communications, and transnational literary studies. * Modernism\/modernity *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction: Intransitivity\u003cbr\u003e1. Indifference in the Open: Squandering Washington Irving\u003cbr\u003e2. Extreme Reformality: Burning Bridges with Ralph Waldo Emerson\u003cbr\u003e3. Incommunicative Exchange: Yung Wing’s Impersonal Schemes\u003cbr\u003e4. The Things Things Do Not Have to Say: Longfellow to Dong Xun\u003cbr\u003e5. Open Books: Qiu Jin’s Feminist Reading Time\u003cbr\u003e6. Harmless Exaggeration: Edith Eaton’s Tweaks and Glitches\u003cbr\u003eEpilogue: Untracking Encounter\u003cbr\u003eAppendix 1. A Note on Chinese Language Appearances in the Book\u003cbr\u003eAppendix 2. Lexicon\u003cbr\u003eAppendix 3. Historical Movements, Treaties, Organizations, Institutions\u003cbr\u003eAppendix 4. List of Chinese Primary Sources\u003cbr\u003eAppendix 5. List of Chinese Names\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eIndex","brand":"Columbia University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49400331010391,"sku":"9780231188029","price":52.7,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780231188029.jpg?v=1730470409","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/intransitive-encounter-9780231188029","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}