異時、異史、異空間 ——中古時期文學的異質書寫

The discernment and demarcation of "alterity", along with the exploration of boundaries between the anomalous and the normative, constitute a significant focus in recent scholarship. This project selects medieval Chinese literature as its primary textual corpus, grounded in two pivotal axes:First, ethnic and cultural convergence. The Eastern Han witnessed Buddhism's introduction, the late Han saw Taoism flourish, and the Western Jin experienced the Yongjia Calamity and Wu Hu incursions. Within this era of rapid multicultural exchange, imaginations of alterity became multifaceted and complex. As exemplified in Soushen Ji (): "Remote realms abound in monsters, born of anomalous energies" and“Barbarians are those who receive aberrant qi from Heaven's mandate". These delineate boundaries between Hua-Xia, the Central Plains, and anomalous realms. In the intellectual discourse of medieval literati, imaginations of the external bifurcated: one pole represented tangible remote frontiers, the other transcendent realms—both coexisting during this period. Second, literary strategies from Chuci to Han rhapsodies . These encompassed spatial governance, the exaltation of grandeur, cosmic encompassment, and centripetal unification (. To encapsulate the "four domains," one must address the homogeneity and heterogeneity of peripheral customs and temporalities. To manifest imperial authority and centrality, medieval texts engaged in the redefinition and reinterpretation of time and space through discursive power and historiographical authority.Thus, this project examines poetry, rhapsodies, and zhiguai narratives, employing "anomalous temporality", "anomalous historicity", and "anomalous realms" as critical lenses to supplement and analyze literary productions of medieval China.