{"product_id":"the-scholar-and-the-state","title":"The Scholar and the State","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn imperial China, intellectuals devoted years of their lives to passing rigorous examinations in order to obtain a civil service position in the state bureaucracy. This traditional employment of the literati class conferred social power and moral legitimacy, but changing social and political circumstances in the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) periods forced many to seek alternative careers. Politically engaged but excluded from their traditional bureaucratic roles, creative writers authored critiques of state power in the form of fiction written in the vernacular language.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this study, Liangyan Ge examines the novels \u003ci\u003eRomance of the Three Kingdoms\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Scholars\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eDream of the Red Chamber\u003c\/i\u003e (also known as \u003ci\u003eStory of the Stone\u003c\/i\u003e), and a number of erotic pieces, showing that as the literati class grappled with its own increasing marginalization, its fiction reassessed the assumption that intellectuals’ proper role was to serve state interests and began to imagine possibilities for a new political order.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Liangyan Ge","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53614236041596,"sku":"9780295994178","price":50.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0251\/4980\/0541\/files\/9780295994178_a82ea767-1e34-4b36-be29-3570ec3bbd00.jpg?v=1725527070","url":"https:\/\/combined-academic.myshopify.com\/products\/the-scholar-and-the-state","provider":"Combined Academic Publishers - Mare Nostrum Group","version":"1.0","type":"link"}