Decentering the One-Hundred-Chapter Version: New Directions in the Studies of the Journey to the West in the 21th Century

Abstract

Although the studies of the Journey to the West 西游记 have yielded fruitful results in the 21st century, researchers have long confined their academic endeavors to the one hundred-chapter version. This has left traditional inquiries into authorship, textual recension, and themes locked in a repetitive impasse. To break this stalemate, this study advocates the “decentering of the one-hundred-chapter version,” that is, shifting the foundational focus of research from the novel back to the Journey to the West story itself. This breakthrough is achieved via three pathways: first, returning to the ontological artistic traditions of textual systems such as dramas, shuochang, and images through a transtextual perspective; second, breaking down disciplinary barriers to facilitate a transtextual study by drawing upon religious studies, folklore studies, and iconography; and third, reconstructing the historical space across which the Journey to the West story evolved and disseminated. In doing so, this study aims to unveil the multifaceted landscape that characterized the textual generation of this enduring classic.

Keywords

Journey to the West / one-hundred-chapter version / transtextual study / ontological study / Journey to the West story / narrative tradition

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Higher Education Press