Ethnographic Drama Studies

Author: Li Qiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-11-01
Features: Humans have evolved from ancient clans, tribes, tribal alliances, and confederations to modern nations. In this great biological and cultural journey, countless magnificent literary and artistic forms have been created. The ethnic drama, which is jointly revered by ethnic minorities in China and indigenous peoples worldwide, embodies the pinnacle of human material and spiritual civilization, becoming a cultural model admired and yearned for today. Looking back at the historical process of the birth, development, formation, and evolution of ethnic drama at home and abroad, one can vividly feel the profound insights and revelations brought by burgeoning disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, religious studies, folklore, and art history. With a wealth of little-known historical, geographical, and ethnic folk cultural treasures, this work combines scientific and advanced Western cultural anthropology with traditional and pragmatic Chinese archaeological and textual research methods. It travels through the tunnel of time, dispels the fog of history, and comprehensively and systematically excavates and organizes the concepts, definitions, connotations, extensions, nature, categories, functions, and values of ancient and modern human and ethnic dramas across nations and groups. Especially, it empirically examines the influence and spread of ethnic dramas between the Han and Hu, China and the "barbarians," and neighboring countries and ethnic groups, as well as explores the transformation of religious and secular narrative styles into (narrated performance forms), which can be considered a major research topic and academic contribution of Ethnic Drama Studies.