Negotiating the Pleasure Quarters
Negotiating the Pleasure Quarters
“Negotiating the Pleasure Quarters” examines the demimonde of Chang’an in the Pingkang Ward as the intersection between sexual commerce and examination culture. Through contextualized close reading of key vignettes from the late-Tang collection Anecdotes from the Northern Ward (Beili zhi), this chapter argues that they illustrate the scintillating points of contact between the demimonde and a world of urban alleys and non-literati networks. The anecdotes make visible the channels and flows of information, desire, and resources in an urban space. Here in its undulating lanes, the literati visitor must acquire the urban savvy to recognize the workings of such a world operating behind the discourse of romance.
Keywords: sexual commerce, examination culture, courtesan, gossip, network, vernacular culture, alleyway
Hawaii Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
