Zeitlin's study centers on the seventeenth century, one of the most interesting and creative periods of Chinese literature and politically one of the most traumatic, witnessing the overthrow of
the Ming, the Manchu conquest, and the subsequent founding of the Qing. Drawing on fiction, drama, poetry, medical cases, and visual culture, the author departs from more traditional literary
studies, which tend to focus on a single genre or author. Ranging widely across disciplines, she integrates detailed analyses of great literary works with insights drawn from the history of
medicine, art history, comparative literature, anthropology, religion, and performance studies.
The Phantom Heroine probes the complex literary and cultural roots of the Chinese ghost tradition. Zeitlin is the first to address its most remarkable feature: the phenomenon of verse
attributed to phantom writers - that is, authors actually reputed to be spirits of the deceased.
This book should appeal to readers interested in Chinese studies, gender studies, comparative literature, performance studies, the history of religion, and of course, ghost stories and the
occult
