Qi as Lived Experience
Breath, Wind, Potency, and Mind in Chinese Thought
Published on 28. May 2026
200 pages
978-1-350-57581-3 (ISBN)
Description
In this exploration of the central Chinese concept of qi, a team of authors trace its role in early texts and contemporary neuroscience to show how it continues to be relevant beyond China.
As life-long scholars of qi related practices, Adam Frank, Nancy Chen, and Stephen Field offer new insights into the significance of qi in the current Anthropocene. They connect Daoist studies, Chinese medicine, martial arts, popular culture, and historical phenomenology to examine the experience of qi as part of the natural world, as breathwork, as mind-body connections, and as an increasingly frequent referent in film, comic books, and medicinal products.
This interdisciplinary conversation includes explorations of qi in the context of ancient texts, performing arts, medical anthropology, and consciousness studies. Their approach allows them to reveal the fundamental role qi plays in our shared experience of being human-in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the fractured identities with which many of us contend.
Covering its earliest inception in the minds of Chinese proto-scientists to its function in our transglobal world, this co-authored work opens up novel ways of studying brains, minds and the spaces we now inhabit.
As life-long scholars of qi related practices, Adam Frank, Nancy Chen, and Stephen Field offer new insights into the significance of qi in the current Anthropocene. They connect Daoist studies, Chinese medicine, martial arts, popular culture, and historical phenomenology to examine the experience of qi as part of the natural world, as breathwork, as mind-body connections, and as an increasingly frequent referent in film, comic books, and medicinal products.
This interdisciplinary conversation includes explorations of qi in the context of ancient texts, performing arts, medical anthropology, and consciousness studies. Their approach allows them to reveal the fundamental role qi plays in our shared experience of being human-in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the fractured identities with which many of us contend.
Covering its earliest inception in the minds of Chinese proto-scientists to its function in our transglobal world, this co-authored work opens up novel ways of studying brains, minds and the spaces we now inhabit.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
File size
5,15 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-350-57581-3 (9781350575813)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Adam D. Frank | Stephen L. Field | Nancy N. Chen
Qi as Lived Experience
Breath, Wind, Potency, and Mind in Chinese Thought
Book
approx. 06/2026
Bloomsbury Academic
€106.50
Not yet published
Persons
Adam D. Frank is Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Norbert O. Schedler Honors College at University of Central Arkansas, USA.
Stephen L. Field is J.K. and Ingrid Lee Endowed Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Trinity University, San Antonio, USA.
Nancy N. Chen is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, USA.
Stephen L. Field is J.K. and Ingrid Lee Endowed Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Trinity University, San Antonio, USA.
Nancy N. Chen is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, USA.
Content
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction Adam D. Frank, Nancy N. Chen, and Stephen L. Field
1. The Invention of Qi Stephen L. Field
2. Is Wind the Ancestor of Qi? Stephen L. Field
3. Seeking Potency of Mountains in Tracks of Qi Stephen L. Field
4. Breath in the Anthropocene Nancy N. Chen
5. Qi as a Problem of Consciousness Adam D. Frank
6. What Is Qi? Adam D. Frank, Nancy N. Chen, and Stephen L. Field
Bibliography
Index
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction Adam D. Frank, Nancy N. Chen, and Stephen L. Field
1. The Invention of Qi Stephen L. Field
2. Is Wind the Ancestor of Qi? Stephen L. Field
3. Seeking Potency of Mountains in Tracks of Qi Stephen L. Field
4. Breath in the Anthropocene Nancy N. Chen
5. Qi as a Problem of Consciousness Adam D. Frank
6. What Is Qi? Adam D. Frank, Nancy N. Chen, and Stephen L. Field
Bibliography
Index
Contents
