Kin and companions: Gender and sociability in ancient China and Greece.

详细信息   

• 作者：Zhou ; Yiqun.
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：2004
• 导师：Yu, Anthony C.
• 毕业院校：The University of Chicago
• 专业：Literature, Comparative.;Women's Studies.;History, Ancient.;Literature, Classical.;Literature, Asian.;Theater.
• CBH：3125659
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：17469195
• Pages：435

文摘

My dissertation seeks to contribute to the growing field of Sino-Hellenic comparative research not only by introducing a new subject matter but also by exploiting hitherto insufficiently tapped primary sources and exploring a more rigorous methodology of comparison and textual analysis.;Stepping outside of the established and important areas of comparative science, philosophy, and historiography, the dissertation is a comparative study of gender relations in ancient China and Greece as they were reflected in various sociable contexts, including festivals, religious feasts, and ordinary drinking parties. For Greek primary sources I use epic, lyric, drama (tragic and comic), biographies, and philosophical and didactic writings, and the Chinese materials mainly comprise lyric poetry, history, and ritual and didactic texts.;The dissertation shows that two different patterns of sociability, both between the sexes and among individuals of the same sex, and both within and outside the family, may be discerned in the two societies despite the fact that they were both organized by sexual separation and dominated by men. Whereas intense sexual rivalry and antagonism and strong homosocial bonds characterized Greece, China exhibited a much lower level of gender conflict, much more serious same-sex intergenerational tension, and much weaker same-sex friendships. I argue that the entire set of differences has to be understood in terms of the different familial and social structures and the different ideals of achievement and excellence in the two traditions. Combining a sociological interest with close readings of texts, the dissertation tackles such central questions as the existence of large historical and cultural patterns in gender relations, the relationship between representation and reality, and the use of comparison for dealing with those questions.