Françoise Lauwaert
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199580910
- eISBN:
- 9780191723025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199580910.003.0020
- Subject:
- Law, Comparative Law
This chapter takes up the methodological challenge to consider a series of 18th- and 19th-century juridical texts as a particular kind of anthropological corpus. The reading of a part of that ...
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This chapter takes up the methodological challenge to consider a series of 18th- and 19th-century juridical texts as a particular kind of anthropological corpus. The reading of a part of that literature unveils a rich and complex reflection on causality, responsibility, and guilt. But what is most remarkable for an anthropologist is the way in which these categories were altered, to the extent of being inverted, when applied to the field of kinship defined by three instances: mourning, genealogy, and gender. The main sources are various editions of the code of the Qing dynasty, imperial edicts, and a huge collection of cases entitled Conspectus of Penal Cases (Xing'an huilan). Compiled by two officials of the Board of Punishments, this book belongs to a genre called ‘government books’ (zhengshu) including manuals for the magistrates, technical treatises on administration, and compilations of cases judged in all the provinces of the empire.Less
This chapter takes up the methodological challenge to consider a series of 18th- and 19th-century juridical texts as a particular kind of anthropological corpus. The reading of a part of that literature unveils a rich and complex reflection on causality, responsibility, and guilt. But what is most remarkable for an anthropologist is the way in which these categories were altered, to the extent of being inverted, when applied to the field of kinship defined by three instances: mourning, genealogy, and gender. The main sources are various editions of the code of the Qing dynasty, imperial edicts, and a huge collection of cases entitled Conspectus of Penal Cases (Xing'an huilan). Compiled by two officials of the Board of Punishments, this book belongs to a genre called ‘government books’ (zhengshu) including manuals for the magistrates, technical treatises on administration, and compilations of cases judged in all the provinces of the empire.
Christopher A. Ford
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813192635
- eISBN:
- 9780813135519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813192635.003.0012
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the political legitimacy of China's imperial system would be challenged simultaneously by popular uprisings, collectively called the Boxer movement, against ...
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Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the political legitimacy of China's imperial system would be challenged simultaneously by popular uprisings, collectively called the Boxer movement, against encroachment by Western powers and the Qing dynasty's perceived loss of the Mandate of Heaven. Although the Boxer movement caught many legations in Peking off-guard, a multinational invasion force quickly drove the imperial court off into the hinterlands, leaving China with no other option but to surrender. The post-Boxer settlement heavily emphasized ostentatious symbols of China's guilt and contrition for wrongs done to the allies during the uprising. It wasn't a coincidence that the settlement's symbolic laden terms were imposed on an empire whose domestic political legitimacy depended on its unassailable adherence to Confucian notions of virtue and unquestioned superiority over all foreign peoples. From all the defeats and humiliation they suffered during this period, China did learn that familiarity with Western international law could protect them in their dealings with the Europeans on foreign affairs, national standing, and proper diplomatic methods. After the assaults on its traditional bases of politico-moral legitimacy and subjected to forced immersion in an international world dominated by Western-derived notions of coordinate, coequal identities, China began to develop a sense of nationalism. Realizing how weak and vulnerable China had become during this period, Western powers became open to the idea of revising some of the most notorious provisions of their unequal treaties with China. Nevertheless, foreign diplomatic relations did not always go China's way despite the Westerners' more conciliatory approach.Less
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the political legitimacy of China's imperial system would be challenged simultaneously by popular uprisings, collectively called the Boxer movement, against encroachment by Western powers and the Qing dynasty's perceived loss of the Mandate of Heaven. Although the Boxer movement caught many legations in Peking off-guard, a multinational invasion force quickly drove the imperial court off into the hinterlands, leaving China with no other option but to surrender. The post-Boxer settlement heavily emphasized ostentatious symbols of China's guilt and contrition for wrongs done to the allies during the uprising. It wasn't a coincidence that the settlement's symbolic laden terms were imposed on an empire whose domestic political legitimacy depended on its unassailable adherence to Confucian notions of virtue and unquestioned superiority over all foreign peoples. From all the defeats and humiliation they suffered during this period, China did learn that familiarity with Western international law could protect them in their dealings with the Europeans on foreign affairs, national standing, and proper diplomatic methods. After the assaults on its traditional bases of politico-moral legitimacy and subjected to forced immersion in an international world dominated by Western-derived notions of coordinate, coequal identities, China began to develop a sense of nationalism. Realizing how weak and vulnerable China had become during this period, Western powers became open to the idea of revising some of the most notorious provisions of their unequal treaties with China. Nevertheless, foreign diplomatic relations did not always go China's way despite the Westerners' more conciliatory approach.
Joseph P. McDermott
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622097810
- eISBN:
- 9789882206557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622097810.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter shows the general validity and significance of Inoue Susumu's and Katsuyama Minoru's statistical claims, but only after stressing the considerable coincidence of the overlap of these ...
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This chapter shows the general validity and significance of Inoue Susumu's and Katsuyama Minoru's statistical claims, but only after stressing the considerable coincidence of the overlap of these figures with the actual general trends. The use of the number of woodblock imprint titles to indicate book output tends to underestimate the scale of production levels and the extent of readership for Chinese books. The evidence presented indicates that large private libraries were few up to the early sixteenth century; that they usually held between 10,000 and 20,000 juan and seldom more than 30,000 juan until the latter half of the sixteenth century; that normal scholar-official collections were considerably smaller; that even high officials in the capital of Hangzhou had trouble acquiring copies; that the situation improved then in Hangzhou but not noticeably in large, nearby cities like Ningbo; and, that a shortage of books was reported in all these places from the fourteenth up to the early sixteenth centuries. The chapter also emphasizes that the ascendance of the imprint in the sixteenth century did not end the influence or the use of manuscripts in late imperial China.Less
This chapter shows the general validity and significance of Inoue Susumu's and Katsuyama Minoru's statistical claims, but only after stressing the considerable coincidence of the overlap of these figures with the actual general trends. The use of the number of woodblock imprint titles to indicate book output tends to underestimate the scale of production levels and the extent of readership for Chinese books. The evidence presented indicates that large private libraries were few up to the early sixteenth century; that they usually held between 10,000 and 20,000 juan and seldom more than 30,000 juan until the latter half of the sixteenth century; that normal scholar-official collections were considerably smaller; that even high officials in the capital of Hangzhou had trouble acquiring copies; that the situation improved then in Hangzhou but not noticeably in large, nearby cities like Ningbo; and, that a shortage of books was reported in all these places from the fourteenth up to the early sixteenth centuries. The chapter also emphasizes that the ascendance of the imprint in the sixteenth century did not end the influence or the use of manuscripts in late imperial China.
Jonathan Karam Skaff
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199734139
- eISBN:
- 9780199950195
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734139.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, World History: BCE to 500CE, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
This book challenges readers to reconsider China’s relations with the rest of Eurasia. Investigating interstate competition and cooperation between the successive Sui and Tang dynasties and Turkic ...
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This book challenges readers to reconsider China’s relations with the rest of Eurasia. Investigating interstate competition and cooperation between the successive Sui and Tang dynasties and Turkic states of Mongolia from 580 to 800, this book upends the notion that inhabitants of China and Mongolia were irreconcilably different and hostile to each other. Rulers on both sides deployed strikingly similar diplomacy, warfare, ideologies of rulership, and patrimonial political networking to seek hegemony over each other and the peoples living in the pastoral borderlands between them. The book particularly disputes the supposed uniqueness of imperial China’s tributary diplomacy by demonstrating that similar customary norms of interstate relations existed in a wide sphere in Eurasia as far west as Byzantium, India, and Iran. These previously unrecognized cultural connections, therefore, were arguably as much the work of Turko-Mongol pastoral nomads traversing the Eurasian steppe as the more commonly recognized Silk Road monks and merchants.Less
This book challenges readers to reconsider China’s relations with the rest of Eurasia. Investigating interstate competition and cooperation between the successive Sui and Tang dynasties and Turkic states of Mongolia from 580 to 800, this book upends the notion that inhabitants of China and Mongolia were irreconcilably different and hostile to each other. Rulers on both sides deployed strikingly similar diplomacy, warfare, ideologies of rulership, and patrimonial political networking to seek hegemony over each other and the peoples living in the pastoral borderlands between them. The book particularly disputes the supposed uniqueness of imperial China’s tributary diplomacy by demonstrating that similar customary norms of interstate relations existed in a wide sphere in Eurasia as far west as Byzantium, India, and Iran. These previously unrecognized cultural connections, therefore, were arguably as much the work of Turko-Mongol pastoral nomads traversing the Eurasian steppe as the more commonly recognized Silk Road monks and merchants.
Tiantian Zheng
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816691999
- eISBN:
- 9781452952499
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816691999.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
By elucidating the historic continuities of diverse, malleable, ambiguous, and fluid sexual imaginations in China, chapter 1 critiques the postsocialist construction of heteronormativity and the ...
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By elucidating the historic continuities of diverse, malleable, ambiguous, and fluid sexual imaginations in China, chapter 1 critiques the postsocialist construction of heteronormativity and the portrayal of homosexuality as a representation of a decadent lifestyle imported from the West. It argues that recasting the past and linking the past to the present can enrich our understanding of the present and challenge the current discourse. During the ancient and imperial periods in China, same-sex desires were deemed normal and were enjoyed by many emperors and upper-class scholars and bureaucrats. There was never a fixed or reified sexual identity linked to a certain sexual preference. Sexual fantasies during these many centuries in China were fluid, diverse, and in constant flux. At the turn of the twentieth century, the onslaught of Western medical knowledge changed this cultural tradition and indoctrinated in society heteronormativity and a pathologized and vilified vision of homosexuality. This inaugurated the repression of same-sex-attracted people during the Communist era. The normalizing of heterosexuality and disavowing of China’s past continued in the postsocialist era.Less
By elucidating the historic continuities of diverse, malleable, ambiguous, and fluid sexual imaginations in China, chapter 1 critiques the postsocialist construction of heteronormativity and the portrayal of homosexuality as a representation of a decadent lifestyle imported from the West. It argues that recasting the past and linking the past to the present can enrich our understanding of the present and challenge the current discourse. During the ancient and imperial periods in China, same-sex desires were deemed normal and were enjoyed by many emperors and upper-class scholars and bureaucrats. There was never a fixed or reified sexual identity linked to a certain sexual preference. Sexual fantasies during these many centuries in China were fluid, diverse, and in constant flux. At the turn of the twentieth century, the onslaught of Western medical knowledge changed this cultural tradition and indoctrinated in society heteronormativity and a pathologized and vilified vision of homosexuality. This inaugurated the repression of same-sex-attracted people during the Communist era. The normalizing of heterosexuality and disavowing of China’s past continued in the postsocialist era.
Wen-hsin Yeh
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520249714
- eISBN:
- 9780520933422
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520249714.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
In hindsight, it seems obvious that a salient feature of China's twentieth-century concerns was the rise of economism and the challenge it presented to morality. Under Chinese Communism, economic ...
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In hindsight, it seems obvious that a salient feature of China's twentieth-century concerns was the rise of economism and the challenge it presented to morality. Under Chinese Communism, economic issues not only defined the Party line and dominated the state agenda, but also functioned as the most important set of constitutive factors in the determination of individual social identity. This chapter examines the maritime merchants who appeared along the China coast in the decades after the Opium War (1839–42). These merchants, many of them comprador agents for foreign firms in Shanghai, evolved from the culturally compromised to the officially honored by the late nineteenth century. Late imperial China had developed one of the world's most sophisticated mercantile economies, in which commercial wealth and official honor coexisted.Less
In hindsight, it seems obvious that a salient feature of China's twentieth-century concerns was the rise of economism and the challenge it presented to morality. Under Chinese Communism, economic issues not only defined the Party line and dominated the state agenda, but also functioned as the most important set of constitutive factors in the determination of individual social identity. This chapter examines the maritime merchants who appeared along the China coast in the decades after the Opium War (1839–42). These merchants, many of them comprador agents for foreign firms in Shanghai, evolved from the culturally compromised to the officially honored by the late nineteenth century. Late imperial China had developed one of the world's most sophisticated mercantile economies, in which commercial wealth and official honor coexisted.
Catherine Jami
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199601400
- eISBN:
- 9780191729218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199601400.003.0002
- Subject:
- Mathematics, History of Mathematics
This chapter outlines the beginnings of Western learning in China during the years 1582 to 1644, the last six decades of the Ming dynasty; it discusses the Jesuits' teaching of mathematics in China ...
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This chapter outlines the beginnings of Western learning in China during the years 1582 to 1644, the last six decades of the Ming dynasty; it discusses the Jesuits' teaching of mathematics in China during that period, and the translations that resulted from their work. The most famous of these is the Jihe yuanben (1607), a rendering into Chinese of the first six books of Euclid's Elements of geometry. One of the reasons for the success of the Jesuits' teaching was the perceived relevance of their mathematical knowledge to statecraft. In 1629, some of them were employed to work on calendar reform, the need for which had been felt for almost half a century.Less
This chapter outlines the beginnings of Western learning in China during the years 1582 to 1644, the last six decades of the Ming dynasty; it discusses the Jesuits' teaching of mathematics in China during that period, and the translations that resulted from their work. The most famous of these is the Jihe yuanben (1607), a rendering into Chinese of the first six books of Euclid's Elements of geometry. One of the reasons for the success of the Jesuits' teaching was the perceived relevance of their mathematical knowledge to statecraft. In 1629, some of them were employed to work on calendar reform, the need for which had been felt for almost half a century.
Isaac Yue and Siufu Tang (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9789888139972
- eISBN:
- 9789888180967
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888139972.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
The culture of food and drink occupies a central role in the development of Chinese civilization, and the language of gastronomy has been a vital theme in a range of literary productions. From ...
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The culture of food and drink occupies a central role in the development of Chinese civilization, and the language of gastronomy has been a vital theme in a range of literary productions. From stanzas on food and wine in the Classics of Poetry to the articulation of refined dining in The Dream of the Red Chamber and Su Shi's literary recipe for attaining culinary perfection, lavish textual representations help explain the unique appeal of food and its overwhelming cultural significance within Chinese society. These eight essays offer a colorful tour of Chinese gourmands whose work exemplifies the interrelationships of social and literary history surrounding food, with careful explication of such topics as the importance of tea in poetry, “the morality of drunkenness,” and food's role in objectifying women.Less
The culture of food and drink occupies a central role in the development of Chinese civilization, and the language of gastronomy has been a vital theme in a range of literary productions. From stanzas on food and wine in the Classics of Poetry to the articulation of refined dining in The Dream of the Red Chamber and Su Shi's literary recipe for attaining culinary perfection, lavish textual representations help explain the unique appeal of food and its overwhelming cultural significance within Chinese society. These eight essays offer a colorful tour of Chinese gourmands whose work exemplifies the interrelationships of social and literary history surrounding food, with careful explication of such topics as the importance of tea in poetry, “the morality of drunkenness,” and food's role in objectifying women.
Grant Hayter-Menzies
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789888083008
- eISBN:
- 9789882207554
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083008.003.0061
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
While she had not protested Guangxu's reforms until discovering that they came at the price of sweeping her out, Cixi's response was that of a woman fighting for her life on the one hand and fighting ...
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While she had not protested Guangxu's reforms until discovering that they came at the price of sweeping her out, Cixi's response was that of a woman fighting for her life on the one hand and fighting for imperial China's life on the other. Though she had quashed the Guangxu emperor's reforms when she executed his associates who desired her removal, she had not been able to stop the juggernaut of change. The aftermath of the Hundred Days of Reform flew not in the face of the emperor, hidden away in disillusionment and depression, but in her own. This chapter describes her response to this storm and her actions over the next eighteen months.Less
While she had not protested Guangxu's reforms until discovering that they came at the price of sweeping her out, Cixi's response was that of a woman fighting for her life on the one hand and fighting for imperial China's life on the other. Though she had quashed the Guangxu emperor's reforms when she executed his associates who desired her removal, she had not been able to stop the juggernaut of change. The aftermath of the Hundred Days of Reform flew not in the face of the emperor, hidden away in disillusionment and depression, but in her own. This chapter describes her response to this storm and her actions over the next eighteen months.
BONNIE S. McDOUGALL
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199256792
- eISBN:
- 9780191698378
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199256792.003.0008
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, South and East Asia
This chapter provides a brief sketch of letter writing in China and Western countries, with particular attention to published letters, love-letters, and letters in literature. It was this background ...
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This chapter provides a brief sketch of letter writing in China and Western countries, with particular attention to published letters, love-letters, and letters in literature. It was this background from which Lu Xun and Xu Guangping drew for their own practice. The discussion summarizes the major characteristics of letters in pre-modern China, as well as the features associated with Western letter writing which differ from older Chinese letters. When Chinese writers and readers looked westwards in the early twentieth century, they quickly assimilated almost all of these features. Of particular relevance to the letters written and then published by Xu Guangping and Lu Xun are the porous borders between personal and open letters, between love-letters and other kinds of intimate confessions, and between authentic and imagined letters.Less
This chapter provides a brief sketch of letter writing in China and Western countries, with particular attention to published letters, love-letters, and letters in literature. It was this background from which Lu Xun and Xu Guangping drew for their own practice. The discussion summarizes the major characteristics of letters in pre-modern China, as well as the features associated with Western letter writing which differ from older Chinese letters. When Chinese writers and readers looked westwards in the early twentieth century, they quickly assimilated almost all of these features. Of particular relevance to the letters written and then published by Xu Guangping and Lu Xun are the porous borders between personal and open letters, between love-letters and other kinds of intimate confessions, and between authentic and imagined letters.
Karla W. Simon
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199765898
- eISBN:
- 9780199332540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199765898.003.0003
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
This chapter begins by exploring the roots and origins of charity in the various philosophies and religions in China. The discussion examines such practices up through the mid-dynastic era, before ...
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This chapter begins by exploring the roots and origins of charity in the various philosophies and religions in China. The discussion examines such practices up through the mid-dynastic era, before Western Christianity entered China. It then discusses the manifestations of well-motivated acts of charity in individual cases, as well as the charitable practices of associations. Within the scope of organized charity, the internal self-regulatory rules created to govern charitable associations and to ensure that beneficiaries received funds set aside for their benefit are also examined. The chapter shows that both charitable and general associational activities were extremely important for the development of China in the early imperial era.Less
This chapter begins by exploring the roots and origins of charity in the various philosophies and religions in China. The discussion examines such practices up through the mid-dynastic era, before Western Christianity entered China. It then discusses the manifestations of well-motivated acts of charity in individual cases, as well as the charitable practices of associations. Within the scope of organized charity, the internal self-regulatory rules created to govern charitable associations and to ensure that beneficiaries received funds set aside for their benefit are also examined. The chapter shows that both charitable and general associational activities were extremely important for the development of China in the early imperial era.
Peter van der Veer
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231170802
- eISBN:
- 9780231541015
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231170802.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This essay discusses Confucianism in China in the Axial Age, Jesuit visitors, the late Qing, and its revival in the post-Mao PRC in the light of the question of the distinctiveness of Chinese ...
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This essay discusses Confucianism in China in the Axial Age, Jesuit visitors, the late Qing, and its revival in the post-Mao PRC in the light of the question of the distinctiveness of Chinese civilization.Less
This essay discusses Confucianism in China in the Axial Age, Jesuit visitors, the late Qing, and its revival in the post-Mao PRC in the light of the question of the distinctiveness of Chinese civilization.
Emily Baum
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226580616
- eISBN:
- 9780226580753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226580753.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter discusses how madness was understood and treated in late imperial China. Arguing that madness was considered a simultaneously biological, social, supernatural, and moral issue, it shows ...
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This chapter discusses how madness was understood and treated in late imperial China. Arguing that madness was considered a simultaneously biological, social, supernatural, and moral issue, it shows how the insane were cared for by a range of healers, including literati physicians, herbalists, shamans, and faith healers. The chapter begins with a discussion of Qing dynasty legal codes, which mandated that the insane be confined within the home. The remainder of the chapter explores different modes of understanding, explaining, and treating the mad condition during the late imperial period. Practitioners of Chinese medicine traced madness to biological, environmental, gendered, and emotional causes. Supernatural healers posited a relationship between madness, demonic possession, and the displeasure of deceased ancestors or gods. Finally, many families attributed the onset of madness to social causes, such as financial insecurity, heartbreak, or the pressure of preparing for the civil service examinations.Less
This chapter discusses how madness was understood and treated in late imperial China. Arguing that madness was considered a simultaneously biological, social, supernatural, and moral issue, it shows how the insane were cared for by a range of healers, including literati physicians, herbalists, shamans, and faith healers. The chapter begins with a discussion of Qing dynasty legal codes, which mandated that the insane be confined within the home. The remainder of the chapter explores different modes of understanding, explaining, and treating the mad condition during the late imperial period. Practitioners of Chinese medicine traced madness to biological, environmental, gendered, and emotional causes. Supernatural healers posited a relationship between madness, demonic possession, and the displeasure of deceased ancestors or gods. Finally, many families attributed the onset of madness to social causes, such as financial insecurity, heartbreak, or the pressure of preparing for the civil service examinations.
Grant Hayter-Menzies
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789888083008
- eISBN:
- 9789882207554
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083008.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This is the story of two women from worlds that could not seem farther apart — imperial China and the American Midwest — who found common ground before and after one of the greatest clashes between ...
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This is the story of two women from worlds that could not seem farther apart — imperial China and the American Midwest — who found common ground before and after one of the greatest clashes between East and West, the fifty-five day siege of the Beijing foreign legations known as the Boxer Uprising. Using diaries, letters, and other sources, this book traces the parallel lives of Empress Dowager Cixi and American ambassador's wife Sarah Pike Conger, which converged to alter their perspectives of each other and each other's worlds.Less
This is the story of two women from worlds that could not seem farther apart — imperial China and the American Midwest — who found common ground before and after one of the greatest clashes between East and West, the fifty-five day siege of the Beijing foreign legations known as the Boxer Uprising. Using diaries, letters, and other sources, this book traces the parallel lives of Empress Dowager Cixi and American ambassador's wife Sarah Pike Conger, which converged to alter their perspectives of each other and each other's worlds.
James A. Flath
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824853709
- eISBN:
- 9780824868741
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824853709.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Chapter 2 looks at how the temple was repeatedly ruined and reconstructed over the course of its 2,000 year history, finding that the physical destruction/construction of the place was inseparable ...
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Chapter 2 looks at how the temple was repeatedly ruined and reconstructed over the course of its 2,000 year history, finding that the physical destruction/construction of the place was inseparable from the devastation or recovery of its social and cultural milieu.Less
Chapter 2 looks at how the temple was repeatedly ruined and reconstructed over the course of its 2,000 year history, finding that the physical destruction/construction of the place was inseparable from the devastation or recovery of its social and cultural milieu.
Karla W. Simon
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199765898
- eISBN:
- 9780199332540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199765898.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
This chapter presents a dynasty-by-dynasty account of the way in which law developed in imperial China as a setting for looking into its impact on civil society. It covers the Qin dynasty (221–206 ...
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This chapter presents a dynasty-by-dynasty account of the way in which law developed in imperial China as a setting for looking into its impact on civil society. It covers the Qin dynasty (221–206 bce); Han (206 bce–220 ce); Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589 ce); Sui (581–618 ce); Tang (618–907 ce); Song (960–1279 ce); Yüan (1271–1368 ce); Ming (1368–1644 ce); and Qing (1644–1912 ce). The chapter shows the gradual build up of both the recognition of the need for civil law and citizen rights. It was precisely because of developments the civil (private) law that China began to emerge from its fairly rigid tradition of written criminal and administrative law.Less
This chapter presents a dynasty-by-dynasty account of the way in which law developed in imperial China as a setting for looking into its impact on civil society. It covers the Qin dynasty (221–206 bce); Han (206 bce–220 ce); Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589 ce); Sui (581–618 ce); Tang (618–907 ce); Song (960–1279 ce); Yüan (1271–1368 ce); Ming (1368–1644 ce); and Qing (1644–1912 ce). The chapter shows the gradual build up of both the recognition of the need for civil law and citizen rights. It was precisely because of developments the civil (private) law that China began to emerge from its fairly rigid tradition of written criminal and administrative law.
Grace S. Fong
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824831868
- eISBN:
- 9780824869175
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824831868.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This book addresses the critical question of how to approach the study of women's writing. It explores various methods of engaging in a meaningful way with a rich corpus of poetry and prose written ...
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This book addresses the critical question of how to approach the study of women's writing. It explores various methods of engaging in a meaningful way with a rich corpus of poetry and prose written by women of the late Ming and Qing periods. The book treats different genres of writing and includes translations of texts that are made available for the first time in English. Among the works considered are the life-long poetic record of Gan Lirou, the lyrical travel journal kept by Wang Fengxian, and the erotic poetry of the concubine Shen Cai. Taking the view that gentry women's varied textual production was a form of cultural practice, the book examines women's autobiographical poetry collections, travel writings, and critical discourse on the subject of women's poetry, offering fresh insights on women's intervention into the dominant male literary tradition. The texts translated and discussed here include documents written by concubines—women who occupied a subordinate position in the family and social system. The book adopts the notion of agency as a theoretical focus to investigate forms of subjectivity and enactments of subject positions in the intersection between textual practice and social inscription. Reading the life and work of women writers reveals surprising instances and modes of self-empowerment within the gender constraints of Confucian orthodoxy. It argues that literate women in late imperial China used writing and reading to create literary and social communities, transcend temporal-spatial and social limitations, and represent themselves as the authors of their own life histories.Less
This book addresses the critical question of how to approach the study of women's writing. It explores various methods of engaging in a meaningful way with a rich corpus of poetry and prose written by women of the late Ming and Qing periods. The book treats different genres of writing and includes translations of texts that are made available for the first time in English. Among the works considered are the life-long poetic record of Gan Lirou, the lyrical travel journal kept by Wang Fengxian, and the erotic poetry of the concubine Shen Cai. Taking the view that gentry women's varied textual production was a form of cultural practice, the book examines women's autobiographical poetry collections, travel writings, and critical discourse on the subject of women's poetry, offering fresh insights on women's intervention into the dominant male literary tradition. The texts translated and discussed here include documents written by concubines—women who occupied a subordinate position in the family and social system. The book adopts the notion of agency as a theoretical focus to investigate forms of subjectivity and enactments of subject positions in the intersection between textual practice and social inscription. Reading the life and work of women writers reveals surprising instances and modes of self-empowerment within the gender constraints of Confucian orthodoxy. It argues that literate women in late imperial China used writing and reading to create literary and social communities, transcend temporal-spatial and social limitations, and represent themselves as the authors of their own life histories.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226857923
- eISBN:
- 9780226857954
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226857954.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this book, which is the relation between masculinity and homosexuality in late Imperial China. The book considers gender and sexuality as intertwined ...
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This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this book, which is the relation between masculinity and homosexuality in late Imperial China. The book considers gender and sexuality as intertwined phenomena, and explores ideas on, and representations of, both homosexual and homosocial relations, and the areas in which the two intersect or overlap. It highlights the prominence of male homosexuality in late Imperial erotic fiction and suggests that this was consistently fed by the visible presence of male prostitution.Less
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this book, which is the relation between masculinity and homosexuality in late Imperial China. The book considers gender and sexuality as intertwined phenomena, and explores ideas on, and representations of, both homosexual and homosocial relations, and the areas in which the two intersect or overlap. It highlights the prominence of male homosexuality in late Imperial erotic fiction and suggests that this was consistently fed by the visible presence of male prostitution.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226857923
- eISBN:
- 9780226857954
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226857954.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter, which examines the conception of male beauty in late Imperial China, discusses key terms to clarify the conceptualization of homoerotic desire and the connoisseurial criteria of male ...
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This chapter, which examines the conception of male beauty in late Imperial China, discusses key terms to clarify the conceptualization of homoerotic desire and the connoisseurial criteria of male beauty current during this period. It explains that normative homosexual relations in the late imperial period were a cross-age and cross-class phenomenon where the younger partner was usually a servant or a prostitute while his patron was a member of the decent folk. In this relationship, the relative sexual roles of the partners were fixed. The boy played the receptive role, while the older partner played the insertive role in anal intercourse.Less
This chapter, which examines the conception of male beauty in late Imperial China, discusses key terms to clarify the conceptualization of homoerotic desire and the connoisseurial criteria of male beauty current during this period. It explains that normative homosexual relations in the late imperial period were a cross-age and cross-class phenomenon where the younger partner was usually a servant or a prostitute while his patron was a member of the decent folk. In this relationship, the relative sexual roles of the partners were fixed. The boy played the receptive role, while the older partner played the insertive role in anal intercourse.
Beata Grant
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824832025
- eISBN:
- 9780824871758
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824832025.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
The seventeenth century is generally acknowledged as one of the most politically tumultuous but culturally creative periods of late imperial Chinese history. Only recently beginning to be explored ...
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The seventeenth century is generally acknowledged as one of the most politically tumultuous but culturally creative periods of late imperial Chinese history. Only recently beginning to be explored are such seventeenth-century religious phenomena as “the reinvention” of Chan Buddhism—a concerted effort to revive what were believed to be the traditional teachings, texts, and practices of “classical” Chan. And, until now, the role played by women in these religious developments has hardly been noted at all. This book brings together several of these important seventeenth-century trends. Although Buddhist nuns have been a continuous presence in Chinese culture since early medieval times and the subject of numerous scholarly studies, this book is one of the first to provide a detailed view of their activities, and to be based largely on the writings and self-representations of Buddhist nuns themselves. This perspective is made possible by the preservation of collections of “discourse records” (yulu) of seven officially designated female Chan masters in a seventeenth-century printing of the Chinese Buddhist Canon rarely used in English-language scholarship. The book is able to place the seven women, all of whom were active in Jiangnan, in their historical, religious, and cultural contexts, while allowing them, through her skillful translations, to speak in their own voices. Together these women offer an important, but until now virtually unexplored, perspective on seventeenth-century China, the history of female monasticism in China, and the contribution of Buddhist nuns to the history of Chinese women’s writing.Less
The seventeenth century is generally acknowledged as one of the most politically tumultuous but culturally creative periods of late imperial Chinese history. Only recently beginning to be explored are such seventeenth-century religious phenomena as “the reinvention” of Chan Buddhism—a concerted effort to revive what were believed to be the traditional teachings, texts, and practices of “classical” Chan. And, until now, the role played by women in these religious developments has hardly been noted at all. This book brings together several of these important seventeenth-century trends. Although Buddhist nuns have been a continuous presence in Chinese culture since early medieval times and the subject of numerous scholarly studies, this book is one of the first to provide a detailed view of their activities, and to be based largely on the writings and self-representations of Buddhist nuns themselves. This perspective is made possible by the preservation of collections of “discourse records” (yulu) of seven officially designated female Chan masters in a seventeenth-century printing of the Chinese Buddhist Canon rarely used in English-language scholarship. The book is able to place the seven women, all of whom were active in Jiangnan, in their historical, religious, and cultural contexts, while allowing them, through her skillful translations, to speak in their own voices. Together these women offer an important, but until now virtually unexplored, perspective on seventeenth-century China, the history of female monasticism in China, and the contribution of Buddhist nuns to the history of Chinese women’s writing.
