Description
Book SynopsisExplores the intersection of Chinese legal practice with writing in many different social contexts.
Trade Review"[F]resh ways . . . to apprehend both legal writing and the ways in which such writing resonated with both popular cultural conceptions and the ideologically driven imperatives of the state. . . . Scholars using legal writing in their own research need to read this book."
-- Bradly W. Reed * China Review International *
"By treating law as literature, several essays bring methods of literary analysis to bear on legal materials and open up new questions for the study of law in China. By demonstrating the importance of narrativity and rhetoric in legal case records, these scholars do not dwell on how just or unjust was the system, but instead move the focus to how different historical actors adopted narrative strategies to pursue what were often divergent interests."
* The Historian *
"I recommend this book in the strongest of terms. It makes an exceptionally important contribution both to the study of law and to the study of literature and their intimate and inextricable relations in late imperial China."
* Chinese Literature *
"Writing and Law in Late Imperial China is a very substantial addition to the revived and now flourishing discourse on law, culture and society in late-imperial China. It cleverly extends our knowledge . . . . [and] points the way for future language and law research on imperial China."
* China Quarterly *
"Will prove valuable and stimulating to the field of Chinese legal studies."
* Journal of Asian Studies *
"The worth of the topic and its coverage here can hardly be over-stated. We are increasingly appreciating the Chinese interest—- literary as well as personally relevant—- in the law over the millennia. Indeed, Chinese fascination seems to transcend that in the West, because for many Chinese, disputes and their litigation begun during life might continue in the hereafter, not toward a remote Judgment Day, but toward concrete justice in an underworld tribunal."
* Journal of Asian History *
Table of ContentsPreface
Abbreviations and Terminology
Introduction: Writing and the Law / Robert E. Hegel
Part One | Rhetoric and Persuasion
1. Making a Case: Characterizing the Filial Son / Maram Epstein
2. Explaining the Shrew: Narratives of Spousal Violence and the Critique of Masculinity in Eighteenth-Century Criminal Cases / Janet Theiss
3. Between Oral and Written Cultures: Buddhist Monks in Qing Legal Plaints / Yasuhiko Karasawa
4. The Art of Persuasian in Literature and Law / Robert E. Hegel
Part Two | Legal Discourse and the Power of the State
5. Filial Felons: Leniency and Legal Reasoning in Qing China / Thomas Buoye
6. The Discourse on Insolvency and Negligence in Eighteenth-Century China / Pengsheng Chiu
7. Poverty Tales and Statutory Politics in Mid-Qing Fraud Cases / Mark McNicholas
8. Indictment Rituals and the Judicial Continuum in Late Imperial China / Paul R. Katz
Part Three | Literature and Legal Procedure
9. Reading Court Cases from the Song and the Ming: Fact and Fiction, Law and Literature / James St. Andre
10. Beyond Bao: Moral Ambiguity and the Law in Late Imperial Chinese Narrative Literature / Daniel M. Youd
11. Genre and Justice in Late Qing China: Wu Woyao's Strange Case of Nine Murders and Its Antecedents / Katherine Carlitz
Part Four | Retrospective
12. Interpretive Communities: Legal Meaning in Qing Law / Jonathan Ocko
Glossary
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
