Letters and Epistolary Culture in Early Medieval China 早期中古中國的書信與書信文化

Author:
Antje Richter

Publisher:
University of Washington Press

Publication Year:
2013

Abstract:
This first book-length study in Chinese or any Western language of personal letters and letter-writing in premodern China focuses on the earliest period (ca. 3rd-6th cent. CE) with a sizeable body of surviving correspondence. Along with the translation and analysis of many representative letters, Antje Richter explores the material culture of letter writing (writing supports and utensils, envelopes and seals, the transportation of finished letters) and letter-writing conventions (vocabulary, textual patterns, topicality, creativity). She considers the status of letters as a literary genre, ideal qualities of letters, and guides to letter-writing, providing a wealth of examples to illustrate each component of the standard personal letter. References to letter-writing in other cultures enliven the narrative throughout.

Letters and Epistolary Culture in Early Medieval China makes the social practice and the existing textual specimens of personal Chinese letter-writing fully visible for the first time, both for the various branches of Chinese studies and for epistolary research in other ancient and modern cultures, and encourages a more confident and consistent use of letters as historical and literary sources.

Table of Contents:
Materiality and terminology --
Letters and literary thought --
Structures and phrases --
Topoi --
Normativity and authenticity

Et sinifisert rike?: Nordre Wei-dynastiets stilling i kinesisk historie slik det er fremstilt i engelskspråklig historievitenskap

Author:
Torheim-Sandvik, Ove Pils

Publication Year:
2011

School:
University of Oslo

Abstract:

This is a historiographical study of English language texts concerning history of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Based on available and relevant texts about Chinese history from the end of the nineteenth century until 2010, I will show in this paper how the view of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534), in North China, has developed. I will show that there are two main currents: One, starting around 1914, describes Northern Wei as a dynasty that was culturally transformed into a Chinese empire. This means that the accounts of the history of the Northern Wei Dynasty suggests the sinicization of the Empire. This school of thought lasts until 2010, and is especially prominent in the general history books on China. This position is not static, but evolves in the course of the twentieth century. I will also show that this current is inspired by Chinese nationalist movements in the early 1900s, but later evolved to become a generally accepted explanation of the empire. The other school of thought started in the second half of the 1970s, and is both an active and passive resistance to sinicization as an explanation of the Northern Wei Dynasty’s historical development. This resistance came as a result of historical developments in Western science, where historians and the social sciences at this time confronted and questioned the established truths and the great narratives. I will show that this second direction is not uniform, but that one is trying to find new ways to explain the narrative of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Generally, I will show that prior to 1913 there is no unified narrative, but that with the introduction of the narration of sinicization there is a unity until the end of the 1970s. From this point develop several different trends with narratives that explain the Northern Wei Dynasty’s historical development.

Table of Contents:

Innledning

1 386–534 – En kort historie om Nordre Wei

2 1883–1940 – Nordre Wei som kinesisk historie?

3 1940–1978 – Ideen om sinifisering utvikles

4 1976–1996 – Holmgren og hennes samtidige

5 1991–2010 – De siste to tiår

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