Download or read book Clawed Skin: The Literary Inscription of Things in Sixteenth Century China written by Thomas Patrick Kelly and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Attending to a diverse set of material substrates -- from lacquered ink tablets to imported rhinoceros horns -- I move beyond the pages of the book to show how small and often trivial decorative objects participated in the making and remaking of literature. In examining the interplay between a poet's inscriptions and other sets of artisanal markings, I explore how physical practices of engraving objects redefined the parameters of the "literary" as a field of activity in late imperial China. Following the trajectories of marked artifacts as they usurp and artfully manipulate human personae, I read the inscription as a medium through which things gain a voice.