In Obscene Things Naifei Ding intervenes in conventional readings of Jin Ping Mei, an early scandalous Chinese novel of sexuality and sexual culture. After first appearing around 1590, Jin Ping Mei was circulated among some of China’s best known writers of the time and subsequently was published in three major recensions. A 1695 version by Zhang Zhupo became the most widely read and it is this text in particular on which Ding focuses. Challenging the preconceptions of earlier scholarship, she highlights the fundamental misogyny inherent in Jin Ping Mei and demonstrates how traditional biases—particularly masculine biases—continue to inform the concerns of modern criticism and sexual politics. The story of a seductive bondmaid-concubine, sexual opportunism, domestic intrigue, adultery and death, Jin Ping Mei has often been critiqued based on the coherence of the text itself. Concentrating instead on the processes of reading and on the social meaning of this novel, Ding looks at the various ways the tale has been received since its first dissemination, particularly by critiquing the interpretations offered by seventeenth-century Ming literati and by twentieth-century scholars. Confronting the gender politics of this “pornographic” text, she troubles the boundaries between premodern and modern readings by engaging residual and emergent Chinese gender and hierarchic ideologies.

This book aims to contextualize early Christian rhetoric about foul language by asking such questions as: Where was foul language encountered? What were the conventional arguments for avoiding (or for using) obscene words? How would the avoidance of such speech have been interpreted by others? A careful examination of the ancient uses of and discourse about foul language illuminates the moral logic implicit in various Jewish and Christian texts (e.g. Sirach, Colossians, Ephesians, the Didache, and the writings of Clement of Alexandria). Although the Christians of the first two centuries were consistently opposed to foul language, they had a variety of reasons for their moral stance, and they held different views about what role speech should play in forming their identity as a "holy people."

This book puts you in the driver's seat as a reader of God's word, no longer dependent on the Bible translation you may be using, as we explore more than sixty biblical words where knowing a little Greek or Hebrew can make a remarkable difference in how we read passages which use those words. Having enough options and enough data to make such translation choices for yourself can be fun!

Love is a tragedy designed for two.What would you endure to see it through?I was nothing.He was both madness and paradise.I was innocent.He was twisted, harboring sadistic secrets.I was a malignant obsession.Now I am his most prized possession. A Dahlia Saga NovelThis Saga contains extreme dark themes.Each book can be read as a complete standalone, however, this is the recommended reading order.Macabre (previously titled Mercy)Obscene (previously the Obscene duet)DepravityMalevolence (Coming soon!)Iniquity (Coming Soon!)