Physiognomy in Ming China: Fortune and the Body
ISBN: 9789004429550
Platform/Publisher: BRILL / BRILL
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: International courts.;

In Physiognomy in Ming China: Fortune and the Body , Xing Wang investigates the intellectual and technical contexts in which the knowledge of physiognomy ( xiangshu ) was produced and transformed in Ming China (1368-1644 C.E.). Known as a fortune-telling technique via examining the human body and material objects, Xing Wang shows how the construction of the physiognomic body in many Ming texts represent a unique, unprecedented 'somatic cosmology'. Applying an anthropological reading to these texts and providing detailed analysis of this technique, the author proves that this physiognomic cosmology in Ming China emerged as a part of a new body discourse which differs from the modern scholarly discourse on the body.


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