Kathryn Lowry

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Curator | Researcher | Writing on the transmission of ideas and iteration of things and their images across time. Interested in factors that bring about turning points in social practice. I taught university courses in Chinese literature and Classical Chinese for many years, and founded Art-Life Gallery Workshop in 2015, offering workshops in conjunction with exhibitions to highlight the critical thinking. I specialize in works on paper that give insight into artists' thinking. I have taught paper making widely.
Supervisors: Patrick D. Hanan, Stephen Owen, Rulan Chao Pian, Andrew Plaks, and Yu-kung Kao

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Dirk Meyer

University of Oxford

François Soyer

University of New England - Australia

Julia Hell

University of Michigan

Egil Asprem

Stockholm University

Carole Cusack

The University of Sydney

Thomás A S Haddad

Universidade de São Paulo

Fabien Montcher

Saint Louis University

André Bueno

UERJ - Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / Rio de Janeiro State University

Imre Galambos

Zhejiang University

Klaus Oschema

Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris

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Papers by Kathryn Lowry

Song Forms and Printing Conventions in Late Imperial China

BRILL eBooks, 2005

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Circulation of Popular Songs in the Late Ming

BRILL eBooks, 2005

Formats of Early Songbooks and Drama-Miscellanies

BRILL eBooks, 2005

Seeking “the Genuine” in The Hanging Branch (Guazhi’er)

BRILL eBooks, 2005

Letter from the Editors

Computers and Composition, 2002

The Space of Reading: Describing Melancholy and the Innermost Thoughts in 17th-Century Qingshu

This chapter examines qingshu (love letters) and commentary that decodes reading and writing abou... more This chapter examines qingshu (love letters) and commentary that decodes reading and writing about sentimental ties as the measure of changing social roles in early-seventeenth century China. Rare seventeenth-century miscellanies compiled by Deng Zhimo (fl. ca. 1596), The Gracious Love Letter and A Casual Reader, and The Plum Sprig Letters attributed to Feng Menglong (1574-1646) furnished glosses on vocabulary, marginal notes on style, and didactic lessons to be drawn from qingshu. These publications humorously circumscribe a space for reading where what is coded as hidden and selfish bears on public action, social roles, and moral values. Qingshu are characterized by a mixture of bookish and sentimental prose, 'high' and 'low' diction, quotation from the classical and vernacular works, and awkward descriptive prose that reveals

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Letter from the Editors

CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, 2002

Now in mid-winter, we are pleased to present the 2002 annual issue of CHINOPERL Papers. Two artic... more Now in mid-winter, we are pleased to present the 2002 annual issue of CHINOPERL Papers. Two articles in this issue concern traditional Chinese drama criticism and drama history. Shen Jing explores changing understandings of the term hense .. Sun Mei examines the slippery terminology for nanxi in order to shed light on the history of the genre and performance practice. Their reevaluation of drama history are timely contributions to the field of drama studies. For they. come at an epochal moment when debates about "improving" kunqu and other dramatic forms·converge with performances that celebrate and commemorate the careers of the singers YuZhenfei and Ni Chuanyue, among the oldest surviving graduates oftheSuzhou Kunqu Training School. Bret Sutcliffe contributed· a report for this issue on the November 2001 staged reenactment of the singing contest at Tiger Hill in Suzhou and concert marking the UNESCO world heritage recognition ofkunqu as an oral masterpiece in May 2001. His brief, incisive comments on the state's recognition of kunqu as China's preeminent performing art form and efforts to revive both the art form and its audience provide additional context for their studies .. He also provides the program of the concert to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the Suzhou Kunqu Training School, including performances by Ni Chuanyue. The CHINOPERL Papers editors look forward to further reports and studies. of festival performances like those of August 2002 in Shanghai, which Lindy Li Mark attended, celebrating the hundredth birthday anniversary ofYu Zhenfei.

“Elegant” and “Common” in Early Seventeenth-Century China

The Tapestry of Popular Songs in 16th- and 17th-Century China, 2005

This chapter examines how common knowledge and expression was defined across the centuries leadin... more This chapter examines how common knowledge and expression was defined across the centuries leading up to the 1580s, when perceptions of &quot;elegance&quot; and classical expression were cast into doubt. Chapter 3 of The Tapestry of Popular Song: Reading, Imitation and Desire (Leiden: Brill, 2005)

81. Feng Menglong, Preface to the Mountain Songs

The Tapestry of Popular Songs in 16th- And 17th-Century China: Reading, Imitation, and Desire

Popular songs in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China form a rich and intriguing body of mate... more Popular songs in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China form a rich and intriguing body of materials hardly studied so far in the English-speaking world. This book is about these songs and their impact on Chinese culture and literary practice. It examines the tapestry books in which popular songs circulated, how books shaped readers, how books were shaped by a range of literacies, and how arrangements of performance-texts aided imitation and selection of words or phrases. Publishing histories of the popular song collections bring to light how songs were duplicated for readers among the elite and sub-elite. The analysis of how popular songs bring together the "high" and the "low" is of special value for literary scholars and intellectual historians, and challenges the traditional dichotomy between elite and popular culture.

Duplicating the Strength of Feeling

Writing and Materiality in China

The Tapestry of Popular Songs in 16th- and 17th-Century China

... Tomasko, CK Wang, Bell Yung, and Judith Zeitlin. Bai Qianshen, Francesca Bray,Kate Saltzman-L... more

Home and the World: Editing the “Glorious Ming” in Woodblock-Printed Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. By Yuming He. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013. xiv, 343 pp. ISBN: 9780674066809 (cloth)

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2017

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The Journal of Asian Studies

The three book reviews listed above (Conlan and Lowry 2017, 518-519, 509), were mistakenly identi... more The three book reviews listed above (Conlan and Lowry 2017, 518-519, 509), were mistakenly identified as published by Harvard University Press in their original publication, when they were in fact all published by the Harvard University Asia Center. This change has also since been updated in the original book reviews. We sincerely regret this error and any problems that have resulted for the authors and readers.

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Three Ways to Read a Love Letter

The Journal of Asian Studies

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The Journal of Asian Studies

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" ELEGANT " AND " COMMON " IN EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CHINA

This chapter examines how common knowledge and expression was defined across the centuries leadin... more

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Chapter Six, "Imitative Reading in Ming Popular Songs and in Fiction

Several issues emerge from the study of Ming popular songs that pave the way for understanding th... more Several issues emerge from the study of Ming popular songs that pave the way for understanding the impact of performance-texts on habits of reading and on intellectual culture during and after the first decades of the seventeenth century. The imitation and repetition that are intrinsic to the popular songs and dramas that came into vogue in the late Ming had a profound-and suspect-influence on the reading and writing of vernacular fiction, as well as of songs, in the Qing and modern periods. Popular songs stage desire (qing) in such a way that the lyrics (such as those for "Erotic Pictures," translated in Chapter 5) re-create a glance or a gesture to generate actual desire, in turn. A singer could mimic gestures of pleasure, and for the dialogues that are frequently incorporated in song-texts (such as "Sister says, 'Oh, my love!' "), she would modulate her voice to act out the parts of the two different parties in a love affair. 1 As Judith Zeitlin comments, reading a well-executed lyric for sanqu (non-operatic song) was supposed to call up in the reader "the compensatory sensation of witnessing a performance (hence the emphasis on looking as well as listening)." 2 This habit of reading non-operatic songs, lowry_f8_329-375 8/16/05 6:34 PM Page 329   dramas, and popular songs and recollecting the interaction between the singer and her audience (or, as often as not, supplying that context outright through an act of the imagination)-what I term "imitative reading"-is a prerequisite for a peculiar kind of imaginative journey into literature. Watching someone act out her feelings in the mind's eye requires knowledge of the conventions for acting out passion. Bringing that knowledge of song and dramatization to a text reveals the possibilities for constructing other fictions from texts. Knowing the conventions of performance enables the connoisseur of drama to savor the blurring between fiction and reality. In other words, familiarity with the forms of performance allows the viewer to accept an imitation or a copy that rivals the real thing. Thus this kind of imitative reading also unlocks the possibilities for manufacturing representations of the self from songs, fiction, letter-writing guides, and other texts that invite readers to appropriate writings for their own ends, as I discuss in the pages that follow.

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Chapter Five: "Reproducing Wu -Dialect Mountain Songs for a National-Level Readership

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Song Forms and Printing Conventions in Late Imperial China

BRILL eBooks, 2005

Download

Circulation of Popular Songs in the Late Ming

BRILL eBooks, 2005

Formats of Early Songbooks and Drama-Miscellanies

BRILL eBooks, 2005

Seeking “the Genuine” in The Hanging Branch (Guazhi’er)

BRILL eBooks, 2005

Letter from the Editors

Computers and Composition, 2002

The Space of Reading: Describing Melancholy and the Innermost Thoughts in 17th-Century Qingshu

Download

Letter from the Editors

CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, 2002

“Elegant” and “Common” in Early Seventeenth-Century China

The Tapestry of Popular Songs in 16th- and 17th-Century China, 2005

81. Feng Menglong, Preface to the Mountain Songs

The Tapestry of Popular Songs in 16th- And 17th-Century China: Reading, Imitation, and Desire

Duplicating the Strength of Feeling

Writing and Materiality in China

The Tapestry of Popular Songs in 16th- and 17th-Century China

... Tomasko, CK Wang, Bell Yung, and Judith Zeitlin. Bai Qianshen, Francesca Bray,Kate Saltzman-L... more

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2017

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The Journal of Asian Studies

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Three Ways to Read a Love Letter

The Journal of Asian Studies

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The Journal of Asian Studies

Download

" ELEGANT " AND " COMMON " IN EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CHINA

This chapter examines how common knowledge and expression was defined across the centuries leadin... more

Download

Chapter Six, "Imitative Reading in Ming Popular Songs and in Fiction

Download

Chapter Five: "Reproducing Wu -Dialect Mountain Songs for a National-Level Readership

Download

The Tapestry of Popular Songs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century China: Reading, Imitation, and Desire

This book focuses on popular songs that were performed in brothels and banquet halls and seeks to... more This book focuses on popular songs that were performed in brothels and banquet halls and seeks to elucidate the impact of oral transmission and printed songs on Chinese culture and literary practice.
It examines the anthologies (jinben, or tapestry books) in which popular songs circulated, how books shaped readers, how books were shaped by a range of literacies, and how arrangements of performance-texts aided imitation and selection of words or phrases. Case studies of song collections bring to light the ways in which song texts were duplicated by elite and non-elite. The analysis challenges the view that there is a dichotomy between popular and elite culture.

Kathryn Lowry

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