City of the Senses: Understanding Hangzhou and the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279)
by (dutch) Editor-in-chief Lin Cuiqing And Others
About This Novel
This book contains nine original essays written by cultural historians, classical writers, art historians, and music historians. They used literature as a path to discover the sights, sounds and smells of the Southern Song Dynasty from 1127 to 1279 and its capital in Hangzhou (then called Lin'an). They tell readers the importance of music and dance in the lives of scholars in the Southern Song Dynasty, where the sense of uneasiness came from in the "metropolis" of the 12th century, and how when people walk through the streets in the countryside, they will hear the symphony of chirping birds, the ringing of temple bells and labor trumpets. The author of this book does not intend to explore general trends of the times such as urban architecture and commercial development, but only focuses on a text, a writer or a literary style, so as to restore the specific and historical relationship between the text and the city, and between the act of writing and urban experience. "City of the Senses" proposes a new approach to the study of Chinese cities; it also contributes to the study of the general history of urban senses.
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