ABSTRACT
This chapter explains what an archive of points of encounter between different forms of movement that engage and activate that skin might look like. Perhaps the skin attached to a man who worked at the court of the Kangxi emperor during the Qing dynasty, and who read and wrote Manchu texts. In the early eighteenth century, two French Jesuits at the court of the Kangxi emperor – likely aided by their language tutors, and by the emperor himself – translated ideas about skin from their Latin and French anatomical texts into the Manchu language and a Qing context. The text explains the genesis of human skin in terms of animal bodies: human skin is compared with the skin, feathers, and hair of birds and wild animals, while blistering from heat is compared to the molting of snakes. Comprehending Manchu skin involves perceiving the body as a microcosm of the processes and material cultures of kitchen, household, garden, and field.
