Observing the Unseen: Curiosity and Common Knowledge in Early Modern China (Paperback or Softback)

Schonebaum, Andrew

ISBN 10: 0295754230 / ISBN 13: 9780295754239

Published by University of Washington Press 4/28/2026, 2026

Observing the Unseen: Curiosity and Common Knowledge in Early Modern China. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780295754239

Synopsis:

Explores the relationship between fantastical literature and scientific inquiryWhat did early modern Chinese readers believe about dragons, thunder, or fate, and where did they learn it? Observing the Unseen explores how literate and marginally literate people in China between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries investigated the invisible, the ubiquitous, and the inexplicable. Whether through medical encyclopedias, daily-use almanacs, or novels and anecdotes, readers pursued knowledge of the natural world with curiosity shaped as much by wonder as by empiricism.Andrew Schonebaum reveals that for many readers, stories were an important source of reliable information about the world. Knowledge of the natural world evolved in the margins of "fiction." Entertainment literature and practical texts alike conveyed information that was collected, debated, and even used to treat illness or predict the future. Drawing from overlooked genres such as brush notes, court records, and sequels to popular stories, Schonebaum demonstrates that common knowledge was constructed through a patchwork of sources - elite and vernacular, empirical and fantastical.Rather than privileging science as courtly or Western, Observing the Unseen shows how ordinary readers made sense of the cosmos in an age of expanding literacy and print culture. It challenges assumptions about what Chinese literature was and how it was read, offering a nuanced picture of everyday life in early modern China. This is a work for scholars of Chinese history and literature, historians of science, and anyone interested in the complicated ways humans seek to understand the unseen.

About the Author: Andrew Schonebaum is associate professor of Chinese literary and cultural studies at the University of Maryland. He is author of Novel Medicine: Healing, Literature, and Popular Knowledge in Early Modern China and editor of Approaches to Teaching "The Plum in the Golden Vase" (The Golden Lotus).

Bibliographic Details

Title: Observing the Unseen: Curiosity and Common ...
Publisher: University of Washington Press 4/28/2026
Publication Date: 2026
Binding: Paperback or Softback
Condition: New
Book Type: Book