Cult of laughter: Emotional refuge, commercial publishing, and humor culture in late Ming China (1573-1644)

Li, Hanping

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Description

Title

Cult of laughter: Emotional refuge, commercial publishing, and humor culture in late Ming China (1573-1644)

Author(s)

Li, Hanping

Issue Date

2024-09-20

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Chow, Kai-wing

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Chow, Kai-wing

Committee Member(s)

• Mak, Bonnie
• Wilson, Roderick Ike
• Tierney , Robert Thomas

Department of Study

History

Discipline

History

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Laughter
• Joke
• Emotional Refuge
• Commercial Publishing
• Humor Culture
• Late Imperial China

Abstract

This dissertation examines the “joke boom” in the late Ming period (1573-1644) from the perspectives of history of emotions and socio-cultural history, analyzing the emotional, social, and cultural transformations in late imperial China. I term the cluster of practices involving jokes the “cult of laughter” and regard it as a turning point in the history of Chinese humor. Traditionally, the Confucian emotional regime discouraged laughter, relegating jokes to a marginal position in literature. However, the late Ming period saw an unprecedented proliferation of commercial publications aimed at eliciting laughter, which I call “laugh-talk texts.” The compilers and readers of these texts were primarily the mercantile literati, a group that expanded during this period. Their extensive involvement in commercial activities led them to develop a new ethics justifying sensorial gratification and commercial pursuits. These compilers challenged the Confucian tradition of suppressing laughter by appropriating Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist discourses. They collected and created jokes (xiaohua) from oral traditions, forming a new genre of laugh-talk texts that gained significant market popularity. Jokes were widely performed in social settings for entertainment, and reference books guiding readers on joke-telling and categorization emerged, elevating jokes to a respectable and desirable form of social knowledge. The rise of jokes subverted the previous dominance of the elitist tradition of humor that circulated as anecdotes in laugh-talk texts, achieving a popular turn in the history of Chinese humor. Jokes provided an emotional refuge for the mercantile literati, allowing them to vent their discontent and criticism in an innocuous way. It is in this sense that I propose the particular nature of this emotional refuge as a safety valve. This study argues that the late Ming period was a turning point in the history of Chinese humor as a new literary genre of laugh-talk text, xiaohua, emerged which exemplified the new ethics of the mercantile literati involving emotional expression. The popular turn of laughter, initiated by the mercantile literati through commercial publishing, established the basic form of subsequent Chinese laugh-talk texts. Moreover, it demonstrates how with jokes as an emotional refuge of the mercantile literati challenged and negotiated the Confucian emotional regime during the intensified and expanding commercialization of late imperial China. Lastly, this research posits jokes as a useful approach to historical analysis. Their exaggerated nature can render visible those subtle social changes and tensions that might otherwise remain invisible.

Graduation Semester

2024-12

Type of Resource

Thesis

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/127322

Copyright and License Information

Hanping Li

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