The Age of Irreverence tells the story of why China's entry into the modern age was not just traumatic, but uproarious. As the Qing dynasty slumped toward extinction, prominent writers compiled jokes into collections they called histories of laughter." In the first years of the Republic, novelists, essayists and illustrators alike used humorous allegories to make veiled critiques of the new government. But, again and again, political and cultural discussion erupted into invective, as critics gleefully jeered and derided rivals in public. Farceurs drew followings in the popular press, promoting a culture of practical joking and buffoonery. Eventually, these various expressions of hilarity proved so offensive to high-brow writers that they launched a concerted campaign to transform the tone of public discourse, hoping to displace the old forms of mirth with a new one they called youmo (humor). Christopher Rea argues that this period from the 1890s to the 1930s transformed how Chinese people thought and talked about what is funny. Focusing on five cultural expressions of laughter jokes, play, mockery, farce, and humor he reveals the textures of comedy that were a part of everyday life during modern China's first age of irreverence." This new history of laughter not only offers an unprecedented and up-close look at a neglected facet of Chinese cultural modernity, but also reveals its lasting legacy in the Chinese language of the comic today and its implications for our understanding of humor as a part of human culture.

About the Author
Christopher Rea is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. He is the editor of Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays by Qian Zhongshu and the coeditor of The Business of Culture: Cultural Entrepreneurs in China and Southeast Asia, 1900-60.

Reviews
"Rea provides a map to a diverse comedic terrain between the late Qing dynasty and the Year of Humor (1933) that is richly populated with 'whimsical poets, vaudevillian entrepreneurs, renowned revilers, twee essayists, winking farceurs, and self-promoting jokesters'." -- Joe Sample China Quarterly "[An] excellent study." -- Paul Bevan SOAS Bulletin "Not only does The Age of Irreverence o?ffer an engaging new take on the cultural history of a momentous period, it also raises a number of leads for future research." Journal of Oriental Studies "The Age of Irreverence devotes meticulous attention to primary sources, and crafts its findings into a narrative of humor in popular culture from the turn of the twentieth century through the 1930s, with a nod in the epilogue toward the socialist era and beyond. As a scholarly intervention, however, the book's central argument most directly targets not history, but literary studies... certain to engage an audience." Frontiers of Literary Studies in China "Beautifully written... Rea has managed to write a very scholarly but nevertheless interesting and even entertaining book about a subject of considerable importance that has been neglected by literary scholars." Israeli Journal of Humor Research Abounds with examples and provides a learned apparatus... informative. Monumenta Serica



Book Information
ISBN 9780520283848
Author Christopher Rea
Format Hardback
Page Count 356
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 25mm