Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet by Dorothy Ko (English) Paperback Book

Description: FREE SHIPPING UK WIDE Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet by Dorothy Ko In "Every Step a Lotus," Dorothy Ko embarks on a fascinating exploration of the practice of footbinding in China, explaining its origins, purpose, and spread before the nineteenth century. She uses women's own voices to reconstruct the inner chambers of a Chinese house where women with bound feet lived and worked. Focusing on the material aspects of footbinding and shoemaking—the tools needed, the procedures, the wealth of symbolism in the shoes, and the amazing regional variations in style—she contends that footbinding was a reasonable course of action for a woman who lived in a Confucian culture that placed the highest moral value on domesticity, motherhood, and handwork. Her absorbing, superbly detailed, and beautifully written book demonstrates that in the women's eyes, footbinding had less to do with the exotic or the sublime than with the mundane business of having to live in a woman's body in a man's world.Footbinding was likely to have started in the tenth century among palace dancers. Ironically, it was meant not to cripple but to enhance their grace. Its meaning shifted dramatically as it became domesticated in the subsequent centuries, though the original hint of sensuality did not entirely disappear. This contradictory image of footbinding as at once degenerate and virtuous, grotesque and refined, is embodied in the key symbol for the practice—the lotus blossom, being both a Buddhist sign of piety and a poetic allusion to sensory pleasures."Every Step a Lotus "includes almost one hundred illustrations of shoes from different regions of China, material paraphernalia associated with the customs and rituals of footbinding, and historical images that contextualizethe narrative. Most of the shoes, from the collection of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, have not been exhibited before. Readers will come away from the book with a richer understanding of why footbinding carries such force as a symbol and why, long after its demise, it continues to exercise a powerful grip on our imaginations.A Copublication with the Bata Shoe Museum FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description In "Every Step a Lotus", Dorothy Ko embarks on a fascinating exploration of the practice of footbinding in China, explaining its origins, purpose, and spread before the nineteenth century. She uses womens own voices to reconstruct the inner chambers of a Chinese house where women with bound feet lived and worked. Focusing on the material aspects of footbinding and shoemaking - the tools needed, the procedures, the wealth of symbolism in the shoes, and the amazing regional variations in style - she contends that footbinding was a reasonable course of action for a woman who lived in a Confucian culture that placed the highest moral value on domesticity, motherhood, and handwork. Her absorbing, superbly detailed, and beautifully written book demonstrates that in the womens eyes, footbinding had less to do with the exotic or the sublime than with the mundane business of having to live in a womans body in a mans world. Footbinding was likely to have started in the tenth century among palace dancers. Ironically, it was meant not to cripple but to enhance their grace.Its meaning shifted dramatically as it became domesticated in the subsequent centuries, though the original hint of se Author Biography Dorothy Ko is Professor of History at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women & Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (1994). Table of Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Origins 2 The Ties That Bind 3 Bodies of Work 4 The Speaking Shoe 5 A New World Notes Bibliography Photography Credits Index Review "To read or not to read?--thats the question. In the end, it comes down to whether or not such a practice is of historic, cultural and artistic iterest. In this reagrd, Kos book is persuasive that footbinding meets all these tests."-PACIFIC READER Long Description InEvery Step a Lotus,Dorothy Ko embarks on a fascinating exploration of the practice of footbinding in China, explaining its origins, purpose, and spread before the nineteenth century. She uses womens own voices to reconstruct the inner chambers of a Chinese house where women with bound feet lived and worked. Focusing on the material aspects of footbinding and shoemaking--the tools needed, the procedures, the wealth of symbolism in the shoes, and the amazing regional variations in style--she contends that footbinding was a reasonable course of action for a woman who lived in a Confucian culture that placed the highest moral value on domesticity, motherhood, and handwork. Her absorbing, superbly detailed, and beautifully written book demonstrates that in the womens eyes, footbinding had less to do with the exotic or the sublime than with the mundane business of having to live in a womans body in a mans world. Footbinding was likely to have started in the tenth century among palace dancers. Ironically, it was meant not to cripple but to enhance their grace. Its meaning shifted dramatically as it became domesticated in the subsequent centuries, though the original hint of sensuality did not entirely disappear. This contradictory image of footbinding as at once degenerate and virtuous, grotesque and refined, is embodied in the key symbol for the practice--the lotus blossom, being both a Buddhist sign of piety and a poetic allusion to sensory pleasures. Every Step a Lotusincludes almost one hundred illustrations of shoes from different regions of China, material paraphernalia associated with the customs and rituals of footbinding, and historical images that contextualize the narrative. Most of the shoes, from the collection of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, have not been exhibited before. Readers will come away from the book with a richer understanding of why footbinding carries such force as a symbol and why, long after its demise, it continues to exercise a powerful grip on our imaginations. A Copublication with the Bata Shoe Museum Details ISBN0520232844 Author Dorothy Ko Short Title EVERY STEP A LOTUS Pages 162 Publisher University of California Press Language English ISBN-10 0520232844 ISBN-13 9780520232846 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 391.41 Illustrations Yes Year 2001 Publication Date 2001-12-31 Imprint University of California Press Subtitle Shoes for Bound Feet Country of Publication United States Place of Publication Berkerley Birth 1957 DOI 10.1604/9780520232846 UK Release Date 2001-12-11 AU Release Date 2001-12-11 NZ Release Date 2001-12-11 US Release Date 2001-12-11 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! 30 DAY RETURN POLICY No questions asked, 30 day returns! FREE DELIVERY No matter where you are in the UK, delivery is free. SECURE PAYMENT Peace of mind by paying through PayPal and eBay Buyer Protection TheNile_Item_ID:161745625;

Price: 45.45 GBP

Location: London

End Time: 2025-01-03T23:45:31.000Z

Shipping Cost: 4.61 GBP