Talk by Manling Luo, Paul McNutt Associate Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Indiana University Bloomington.
Thursday, October 30, 2025
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Bunche Hall 10383
Duan Chengshi’s
Miscellaneous Morsels from the South Side of Mount You (
Youyang zazu 酉陽雜俎) is a collection of narratives and informational items on wide-ranging subjects. While its fascinating content has attracted a lot of critical attention, this talk proposes a “paratextual reading” to illuminate patterns of Duan’s collecting and compilatory practices. His case offers important insight into the broader trends of sharing what one had seen and heard, or the “culture of informal storytelling” in medieval China.
Manling Luo is associate professor of Chinese literature at Indiana University. Her research explores medieval literature, culture, and history, with particular attention to the social life of narratives, literati culture, gender, spatiality, and religious literature. Her publications include a monograph,
Literati Storytelling in Late Medieval China (University of Washington Press, 2015), and an edited volume,
Cross-Generic Perspectives on Traditional Chinese Literature (Brill, 2025).
Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies