Culture & state in Chinese history : conventions, accommodations, and critiques
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Bibliographic Information
Culture & state in Chinese history : conventions, accommodations, and critiques
（Irvine studies in the humanities）
Stanford University Press, 1997
- : cloth
- : pbk
- Other Title
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Culture and state in Chinese history
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [441]-473) and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: cloth ISBN 9780804728676
Description
Many observers of late imperial China have noted the relatively small size of the state in comparison to the geographic size and large population of China and have advanced various theories to account for the ability of the state to maintain itself in power. One of the more enduring explanations has been that the Chinese state, despite its limited material capacities, possessed strong ideological powers and was able to influence cultural norms in ways that elicited allegiance and responded to the desire for order.
The fourteen papers in this volume re-examine the assumptions of how state power functioned, particularly the assumption of a sharp divide between state and society. The general conclusion is that the state was only one actor-albeit a powerful one-in a culture that elites and commoners could shape, either in cooperation with the state or in competition with it. The temporal range of the papers extends from the twelfth to the twentieth century, though most of the papers deal with the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The book is in four parts. Part I deals with philosophical, historiographical, and literary debates and their relation to the late imperial state; Part II with the multiple roles of officials, elites, specialists, and commoners in constructing norms of religious beliefs and practices. Part III presents criticisms by late imperial intellectuals of both state policies and social conventions, and examines official efforts to incorporate and utilize elite commitments to Confucian views of political and cultural order. Part IV discusses ways in which the twentieth-century Chinese political order emerged from a trajectory defined in part by the intersection of late imperial practices with Western categories of knowledge.
Table of Contents
Introduction: shifting paradigms of political and social order R. Bin Wong, Theodore Huters and Pauline Yu Part I. Elite Education and Cultural Conventions: 1. Examinations and orthodoxies: 1070 and 1313 compared Peter K. Bol 2. The formation of 'Dao learning' as imperial ideology during the early Ming dynasty Benjamin A. Elman 3. Canon formation in late imperial China Pauline Yu 4. Salvaging poetry: The 'poetic' in the Quing Stephen Owen Part II. The Power of Faith: 5. Ajiao is aJiao is a? Thoughts on the meaning of a ritual Robert Hymes: 6. At the margin of public authority: the Ming state and Buddhism Timothy Brook 7. Power, gender and pluralism in the cult of the goddess of Taishan Kenneth Pomeranz Part III. Accommodations and Critiques: 8. Style and suffering in two stories by 'Lanzxian' Katherine Carlitz 9. Ming-Qing women poets and the notions of 'talent' and 'morality' Kang-i Sun Chang 10. The scorpion in the scholar's cap: ritual, memory and desire in Rulin waishi Marston Anderson 11. The shattered mirror: Wu Jianren and the reflection of strange events Theodore Huters Part IV. Visions of Community and Social Order: 12. Confucian agendas for material and ideological control in modern China R. Bin Wong 13. Community, society and history in Sun Yat-sen's Sanmin zhuyi David Strand 4. Constructing the civilized community Ann Anagnost Notes Index.
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780804728683
Description
Many observers of late imperial China have noted the relatively small size of the state in comparison to the geographic size and large population of China and have advanced various theories to account for the ability of the state to maintain itself in power. One of the more enduring explanations has been that the Chinese state, despite its limited material capacities, possessed strong ideological powers and was able to influence cultural norms in ways that elicited allegiance and responded to the desire for order. The fourteen papers in this volume re-examine the assumptions of how state power functioned, particularly the assumption of a sharp divide between state and society. The general conclusion is that the state was only one actor albeit a powerful one in a culture that elites and commoners could shape, either in cooperation with the state or in competition with it. The temporal range of the papers extends from the twelfth to the twentieth century, though most of the papers deal with the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: shifting paradigms of political and social order R. Bin Wong, Theodore Huters and Pauline Yu
- Part I. Elite Education and Cultural Conventions: 1. Examinations and orthodoxies: 1070 and 1313 compared Peter K. Bol
- 2. The formation of 'Dao learning' as imperial ideology during the early Ming dynasty Benjamin A. Elman
- 3. Canon formation in late imperial China Pauline Yu
- 4. Salvaging poetry: The 'poetic' in the Quing Stephen Owen
- Part II. The Power of Faith: 5. Ajiao is aJiao is a? Thoughts on the meaning of a ritual Robert Hymes: 6. At the margin of public authority: the Ming state and Buddhism Timothy Brook
- 7. Power, gender and pluralism in the cult of the goddess of Taishan Kenneth Pomeranz
- Part III. Accommodations and Critiques: 8. Style and suffering in two stories by 'Lanzxian' Katherine Carlitz
- 9. Ming-Qing women poets and the notions of 'talent' and 'morality' Kang-i Sun Chang 10. The scorpion in the scholar's cap: ritual, memory and desire in Rulin waishi Marston Anderson
- 11. The shattered mirror: Wu Jianren and the reflection of strange events Theodore Huters
- Part IV. Visions of Community and Social Order: 12. Confucian agendas for material and ideological control in modern China R. Bin Wong
- 13. Community, society and history in Sun Yat-sen's Sanmin zhuyi David Strand
- 4. Constructing the civilized community Ann Anagnost
- Notes
- Index.
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