The Sword or the Needle : The Female Knight-errant ("xia") in Traditional Chinese Narrative

This study focussing on narratives about female knights-errant (nüxia) cuts along a thematic line in Chinese literary history, and thus seeks to contribute to understanding and appreciation mainly in three fields of inquiry: the formation of narrative subgenre; the literary representation of gender; and the particularities of the Chinese knight-errantry narrative. It traces the processes of textual collecting, editing, rewriting, and intertextual referencing by which narratives about female knights-errant were invented as, and forged into, a thematic sub-genre. The narratives about a character type who boldly transgresses gender boundaries are studied as an exemplary case for a general inquiry into the subversive significance of images of gender-bending strong female characters in the Chinese narrative tradition. Finally, the present study investigates into representations of the practice of Chinese knight-errantry, which includes assassination for social policing, private vengeance, and banditry.

Die Reihe Welten Ostasiens der Schweizerischen Asiengesellschaft stellt repräsentative The aim of the series Worlds of East Asia of the Swiss Asia Society is to publish high-quality, La série Mondes de l''Extrême-Orient de la Société Suisse-Asie publie des recherches de Arbeiten aus der facettenreichen akademischen Forschung vor. Sie nimmt Studien zu den representative work issuing from academic research on all aspects of East Asia. It comprises, qualité représentatives de la recherche académique sur les cultures et sociétés de l''Asie ostasiatischen Kulturen und Gesellschaften in Gegenwart und Vergangenheit in den and receives, studies on present-day and historical East Asian cultures and societies covering orientale. Elle propose des études dans des domaines variés comme l''art, la littérature, et la pensée, anciens ou modernes, ainsi que des traductions et interprétations de sources. Bereichen Kunst, Literatur und Denken sowie Übersetzungen und Interpretationen von the fields of art, literature and thought as well as translations and interpretations of important Quellentexten auf. sources.