| Popis: |
Whatever moved the people of a thousand years ago to wall up a roomful of documents, one consequence, unknowable at the time, of their action was to create the conditions for the emergence of the scholarly species we know as Victor Mair. Victor Mair's mind is Dunhuangian, if the expression may be permitted: polyglot, heteroclite, multimedia, syncretic, vernacular, with strong currents flowing from presumed margins to presumed center and back again. It contains a well-organized Indo-Chinese compartment and holds items from many other linguistic areas arranged in singular ways. It is a Silk Road kind of mind, a place of interaction, exchange, and overlay. […] Although fluent in such genres as translation, annotation, didactic expansion, stylistic appreciation, ingenious allegory, identification of common threads, life and works, intercultural comparison, and reframing, Victor Mair has always been drawn to the mystery genre. In even the best-settled accounts of literature and culture, something requires explanation. With his roving attention and boundless curiosity, Victor Mair keeps Chinese studies on the move. The essays of this book—with their breadth of concern, their carefully documented scholarship, and the boldness of some of their conclusions—is a fitting homage to Victor Mair, whose readers, students, and colleagues have long recognized the same qualities in him. This edited volume consists of contributions of the world's leading Asianists to honor the 75th birthday of Professor Victor Mair. |
