The Culture of Language in Ming China PDF Download

Author: Nathan Vedal
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231553765
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Winner, 2023 Morris D. Forkosch Prize, Journal of the History of Ideas The scholarly culture of Ming dynasty China (1368–1644) is often seen as prioritizing philosophy over concrete textual study. Nathan Vedal uncovers the preoccupation among Ming thinkers with specialized linguistic learning, a field typically associated with the intellectual revolution of the eighteenth century. He explores the collaboration of Confucian classicists and Buddhist monks, opera librettists and cosmological theorists, who joined forces in the pursuit of a universal theory of language. Drawing on a wide range of overlooked scholarly texts, literary commentaries, and pedagogical materials, Vedal examines how Ming scholars positioned the study of language within an interconnected nexus of learning. He argues that for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thinkers, the boundaries among the worlds of classicism, literature, music, cosmology, and religion were far more fluid and porous than they became later. In the eighteenth century, Qing thinkers pared away these other fields from linguistic learning, creating a discipline focused on corroborating the linguistic features of ancient texts. Documenting a major transformation in knowledge production, this book provides a framework for rethinking global early modern intellectual developments. It offers a powerful alternative to the conventional understanding of late imperial Chinese intellectual history by focusing on the methods of scholarly practice and the boundaries by which contemporary thinkers defined their field of study.

Author: Timothy Brook
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 052092407X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
The Ming dynasty was the last great Chinese dynasty before the Manchu conquest in 1644. During that time, China, not Europe, was the center of the world: the European voyages of exploration were searching not just for new lands but also for new trade routes to the Far East. In this book, Timothy Brook eloquently narrates the changing landscape of life over the three centuries of the Ming (1368-1644), when China was transformed from a closely administered agrarian realm into a place of commercial profits and intense competition for status. The Confusions of Pleasure marks a significant departure from the conventional ways in which Chinese history has been written. Rather than recounting the Ming dynasty in a series of political events and philosophical achievements, it narrates this longue durée in terms of the habits and strains of everyday life. Peppered with stories of real people and their negotiations of a rapidly changing world, this book provides a new way of seeing the Ming dynasty that not only contributes to the scholarly understanding of the period but also provides an entertaining and accessible introduction to Chinese history for anyone.

Author: Christopher Lupke
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN:
Category : Fate and fatalism
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Few ideas in Chinese discourse are as ubiquitous as ming, variously understood as "command," "allotted lifespan," "fate," or "life." This volume assembles twelve essays by some of the most eminent scholars currently working in Chinese studies to consider ming's broad web of meanings

Author: Sharron Gu
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786488271
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Chinese, one of the oldest active languages, evolved over 5,000 years. As such, it makes for a fascinating case study in the development of language. This cultural history of Chinese demonstrates that the language grew and responded to its music and visual expression in a manner very similar to contemporary English and other Western languages. Within Chinese cultural history lie the answers to numerous questions that have haunted scholars for decades: How does language relate to worldview? What would happen to law after its language loses absolute binding power? How do music, visual, and theatrical images influence literature? By presenting Chinese not as a system of signs but as the history of a community, this study shows how language has expanded the scope of Chinese imagination and offers a glimpse into the future of younger languages throughout the world.

Author: Anne McLaren
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004482709
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
In 1967 a body of Chinese texts was discovered in a tomb outside Shanghai. It contained a set of unique examples of an oral genre favoured by unlearned classes in the late imperial period (15th century), best called 'chantefables', appearing at the beginning of a profound historical shift which resulted in a broadening of the uses of writing and printing in China. These texts are now generally seen to occupy an important place in the development of Chinese literature as a whole, and of Chinese vernacular literature in particular. In the first monographic treatment of all the chantefable corpus in English the author, by examination from a more anthropological view, points out that these 'oral traditional texts' can only be appreciated in the festival, ritual and performative context of their derivation and reception. Topics dealt with in this important work include the popular interpretation of Confucian orthodoxies, the literary recycling of the oral tradition, and the influence of chantefables on the development of Chinese vernacular fiction. The author offers interesting comparative perspective on the different social consequences of print technology in China and the West. Illustrations of ten chantefable woodblocks are included.

Author: John W. Dardess
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442204907
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
This engaging, deeply informed book provides the first concise history of one of China's most important eras. Leading scholar John W. Dardess offers a thematically organized political, social, and economic exploration of China from 1368 to 1644. He examines how the Ming dynasty was able to endure for 276 years, illuminating Ming foreign relations and border control, the lives and careers of its sixteen emperors, its system of governance and the kinds of people who served it, its great class of literati, and finally the mass outlawry that, in unhappy conjunction with the Manchu invasions from outside, ended the once-mighty dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century. The Ming witnessed the beginning of China's contact with the West, and its story will fascinate all readers interested in global as well as Asian history.

Author: Craig Clunas
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822317951
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Gardens are sites that can be at one and the same time admired works of art and valuable pieces of real estate. As the first account in English to be wholly based on contemporary Chinese sources, this innovative, beautifully illustrated book grounds the practices of garden-making in Ming dynasty China (1368-1644) firmly in the social and cultural history of the day. Who owned Ming gardens? Who visited them? How were they represented in words, in paintings, and in visual culture generally, and what meanings did these representations hold at different levels of Chinese society? How did the discourse of gardens intersect with other discourses such as those of aesthetics, agronomy, geomancy, and botany? By examining the gardens of the city of Suzhou from a number of different angles, Craig Clunas provides a rich picture of a complex cultural phenomenon--one that was of crucial importance to the self-fashioning of the Ming elite. Drawing on a wide range of recent work in cultural theory, the author provides for the first time a historical and materialist account of Chinese garden culture, and replaces broad generalizations and orientalist fantasy with a convincing picture of the garden's role in social life. Fruitful Sites will appeal to all students of China's cultural history, to students of garden history from any part of the world, to art historians, and to readers engaged in Asian and cultural studies.

Author: Timothy Brook
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415345064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
This unique collection of reworked and heavily illustrated essays, by one of the leading scholars of Chinese history, re-examines the relationship between the present day state and society in China.

Author: Li Wai-yee
Publisher: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
ISBN: 9882371191
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Like every major culture, Chinese has its set of keywords: pivotal terms of political, ethical, literary and philosophical discourse. Tracing the origins, development, polysemy, and usages of keywords is one of the best ways to chart cultural and historical changes. This volume analyzes some of these keywords from different disciplinary and temporal perspectives, offering a new integrative study of their semantic richness, development trajectory, and distinct usages in Chinese culture. The authors of the volume explore different keywords and focus on different periods and genres, ranging from philosophical and historical texts of the Warring States period (453-V221 BCE) to late imperial (ca. 6th?V18th centuries CE) literature and philosophy. They are guided by a similar set of questions: What elevates a mere word to the status of keyword? What sort of resonance and reverberations do we expect a keyword to have? How much does the semantic range of a keyword explain its significance? What kinds of arguments does it generate? What are the stories told to illustrate its meanings? What are political and intellectual implications of the keyword's reevaluation? What does it mean to translate a keyword and map its meaning against other languages? Throughout Chinese history, new ideas and new approaches often mean reinterpreting important words; rupture, continuities, and inflection points are inseparable from the linguistic history of specific terms. The premise of this book is that taking the long view and encompassing different disciplines yield new insights and unexpected connections. The authors, who come from the fields of history,

Author: Craig Clunas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Screen of Kings is the first book in any language to examine the cultural role of the regional aristocracy – relatives of the emperors – in Ming dynasty China (1368–1644). Through an analysis of their patronage of architecture, calligraphy, painting and other art forms, and through a study of the contents of their splendid and recently excavated tombs, this innovative study puts the aristocracy back at the heart of accounts of China’s culture, from which they have been excluded until very recently. Screen of Kings challenges much of the received wisdom about Ming China. Craig Clunas sheds new light on many familiar artworks, as well as works that have never before been reproduced. New archaeological discoveries have furnished the author with evidence of the lavish and spectacular lifestyles of these provincial princes and demonstrate how central the imperial family was to the high culture of the Ming era. Written by the leading specialist in the art and culture of the Ming period, this book illuminates a key aspect of China’s past, and will significantly alter our understanding of the Ming. It will be enjoyed by anyone with a serious interest in the history and art of this great civilization.