Abandoned Women and Boudoir Resentment: The Construction of the Feminine Voice in Early Medieval Chinese Literature

Author: Qiulei Hu

Publisher: Brill

Publication year: 2023

Abstract:

This book studies the formation of the male-constructed conventional voice of women in Chinese literature from the 3rd to 6th century. It highlights specific moments during which the feminine voice became recognized, accepted, and stabilized, including the shift of focus from the performative to the textual in female representations; the formation of a male literary community; the popularity of romanticized historical narratives; and the emerging sense of literary history. This study emphasizes the historicity of the feminine voice and strives to question and challenge established notions about textual stability, authorship, the literary canon, and literary history.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1 A New Type of Gaze and the Rise of the Feminine Voice

Chapter 2 Longing for a Worthy Match: Jian’an Writing about Women and the Beginning of a Poetic Tradition

Chapter 3 Gender, Genre, and Historical Narrative

Chapter 4 Is It a Man or a Woman Speaking? Mapping Gender in Early Texts

Chapter 5 Neglected Voices of Early Medieval Women Writers

Epilogue: Creating the Voice of an Other

Peoples of Pingcheng (398-494): Cultural Diversity and Interaction

Editors:

Thomas O. Höllmann & Shing Müller

Publisher:
Harrassowitz

Publication year:
2024

Abstract:

Compared to the later capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Luoyang (494–534), Pingcheng on the northern border of the Chinese world has received less scholarly attention despite its far longer capital status (398–494). The main reason is the lack of written sources. In addition, there is the derogatory idea that Pingcheng was a latifundium inhabited by “barbarians,” since the rulers of the Northern Wei were the Tuoba Xianbei from the eastern steppe, who established the first long-term foreign control over northern China. 

Traditionally, Luoyang is the epitome of the sinicized Tuoba Xianbei, while Pingcheng represents the state of the Tuoba Xianbei who were on the way to “becoming Chinese.” Excavations show that Pingcheng, which was built on the ruins of a garrison from the Han-Dynasty, arose from nothing and the inhabitants came from outside. Burial finds indicate a steadily growing population, which is said to have reached one million in its prime. At first, tombs were erected to indicate their steppe origins. New rites and artifacts emerged in spurts. This corresponds to written records, according to which the city was mainly populated by steppe warriors, followed by forcibly relocated peoples from all conquered northern Chinese regions.

The authors focus on the people(s) in Pingcheng. Zhang’s epigraphic study is devoted to a Xianbei family that arose during the Pingcheng period and remained closely intertwined with the imperial court in the following centuries. Using burial finds, Müller explores the diversity and foreignness of funerary customs and artifacts, the ways in which different ethnic groups communicated and interacted, and the emergence of a new collective identity that was anything but Chinese.

Table of Contents:

Preface

Zhang Qingjie 張慶捷

The Brick Inscriptions of Yifu Mogui 乙弗莫瓌 and Yifu Qiangui 乙弗乾歸 of the Northern Wei Dynasty

Shing Müller

The Inhabitants of Pingcheng (398–494): An Archaeological Survey

Sekundäre Zentren der Sechs Dynastien: Untersuchungen zu Gräbern am Yangzi-Mittellauf ((Secondary Centres of the Six Dynasties: A Study of Burials in the Yangzi Middle Reaches))

Author: Annette Kieser

Publication year: 2025

Publisher:

Abstract:
Secondary Centres of the Six Dynasties: A Study of Burials in the Yangzi Middle Reaches The Yangzi middle reaches were of central importance for the history of the Six Dynasties (220–589 CE). They formed a densely populated zone of migration and interaction in which social groups other than those in the capital were active. These were contested areas close to the frontiers and, owing to their strategic location along trade and transport routes, of enormous economic, political, and military relevance. Secondary centers emerged here that often competed with the capital Jiankang (today Nanjing). A systematic examination of the material culture of five secondary centres in the Yangzi middle reaches (the present-day cities of Echeng, Wuhan, Xiangyang, Jingzhou, and Changsha) expands and re-evaluates the predominantly text-based picture of this region, long overshadowed by research focused on Jiankang. Based on excavation reports of Six Dynasties burial complexes in these centers, the corpus of finds is analysed and, taking the written sources into account, set in its historical context.

Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century

Author: Stephanie Balkwill

Publication year: 2024

Publisher: University of California Press

Abstract: 

In the late fifth century, a girl whose name has been forgotten by history was born at the edge of the Chinese empire. By the time of her death, she had transformed herself into Empress Dowager Ling, one of the most powerful politicians of her age and one of the first of many Buddhist women to wield incredible influence in dynastic East Asia. In this book, Stephanie Balkwill documents the Empress Dowager’s rise to power and life on the throne against the broader world of imperial China under the rule of the Northern Wei dynasty, a foreign people from Inner Asia who built their capital deep in the Chinese heartland.

Building on largely untapped Buddhist materials, Balkwill shows that the life and rule of the Empress Dowager is a larger story of the reinvention of religious, ethnic, and gender norms in a rapidly changing multicultural society. The Women Who Ruled China recovers the voices of those left out of the mainstream historical record, painting a compelling portrait of medieval Chinese society reinventing itself under the Empress Dowager’s leadership.

北魏史：遷都洛陽之前與後 (Chineses edition of 北魏史：洛陽遷都の前と後)

作者: 窪添慶文 (KUBOZOE YOSHIFUMI)

译者: 付晨晨 译 / 徐冲 审订

出版社: 北京科学技术出版社

出版年: 2025-9

Table of Contents:

序 章 001
一、迁都洛阳 003
二、五胡十六国时期—理解北魏史的前提 006

第一章　孝文帝亲政时期的改革 015
一、孝文帝即位与文明太后 017
二、从土德到水德 023
三、礼仪改革 026

第二章　迁都后的改革 031
一、从“代人”到“河南人” 033
二、墓志 036
三、禁胡服胡语 038
四、变胡姓为汉姓 042
五、官制改革（一）—消失的内朝官 043
六、官制改革（二）—九品官制的完善 048
七、定姓族 051
八、官制改革（三）—引入门阀制 054
九、考课改革 058
十、国家意志决策体系 059
十一、进攻南齐 062

第三章　从建国到统一华北—鲜卑色彩浓厚时期 065
一、代国时期 067
二、代国复兴 075
三、统一华北—从道武帝至太武帝时期 080
四、北魏政权下的各族 100
五、北魏政权下的汉族 116
六、皇帝亦可汗 119

第四章　变化之兆 125
一、军镇的变化 127
二、向镇军和州军分派代人 132
三、文成帝和献文帝 135
四、文明太后称制时期 139
五、均田制和三长制 144
六、佛教出现的变化 151
七、迁都洛阳的意义 157

第五章　盛极生变 161
一、改革的传承 163
二、锦绣洛阳 167
三、北魏的文化 175
四、代人与镇民的不满 184
五、从六镇之乱到东西分裂 187
六、东魏—北齐 192
七、西魏—北周 198

终 章 209
一、制度 212
二、统治阶层 221
三、女性的活跃、世界帝国 224
四、北魏的历史地位 227
后 记 233
北魏大事年表 237

壁画墓からみた魏晋十六国時代：中国北部の社会と民族

Author: 三﨑 良章  (Yoshiaki Misaki)

Publisher: 早稻田大学出版部

Publication date: 2026-2-13

Abstract:
墳墓内の壁面等に画像を描いた壁画墓は、中国において前漢前期に築造が始まったものの、後漢末期以降は衰退していった。一方、魏晋十六国時代の間も周縁地域では築造が続いていた。本書ではとくに中国北部の壁画墓群に注目し、その図像の分析から映し出された政治・社会の動向を解き明かす。魏晋十六国時代、中国北部地方では漢族だけではなく、匈奴・羌族・盧水胡・鮮卑等さまざまな非漢族が居住していた。遼寧と河西、遼陽と朝陽など、地域ごとの特徴も検討し、漢族と非漢族をめぐる複雑な居住状況を明らかにする。揺れ動く社会は壁画墓にいかに刻まれたのか。図版多数掲載。

Table of Contents:

序　章
第１部　魏晋十六国時代の壁画墓の実態

第１章　遼陽と朝陽の壁画墓
はじめに
１　遼陽壁画墓
２　朝陽の壁画墓
おわりに

第２章　河西の壁画墓
はじめに
１　河西の壁画墓と壁画の全体像
２　河西の壁画墓の形態の特性
３　河西の壁画の墓主像の特徴
おわりに

第２部　壁画墓画像にみられる魏晋十六国時代の諸民族の動向

第３章　遼東公孫氏政権と非漢族
はじめに
１　公孫氏政権と非漢族との関係
２　遼陽壁画墓における非漢族
おわりに

第４章　朝陽の壁画墓と三燕の民族
はじめに
１　人物像
２　黒犬像
３　三燕における民族
おわりに

第５章　壁画墓画像にみえる魏晋時代酒泉地域の漢族と非漢族
はじめに
１　酒泉地域の壁画墓に描かれた非漢族
２　非漢族が描かれた壁画墓の墓主
３　壁画墓における非漢族の描かれ方
４　酒泉西溝墓群の壁画墓画像における非漢族
おわりに

第６章　魏晋十六国時代における甘粛高台地域の民族状況
はじめに
１　高台出土壁画墓の全体像
２　駱駝城遺址区の壁画墓にみえる人物像
３　地埂坡４号墓にみえる人物像と民族
４　高台の民族状況
おわりに

第３部　壁画墓に現れた魏晋十六国時代の中国北部社会

第７章　遼陽壁画墓にみられる遼東社会の一面
はじめに
１　遼陽における壁画墓の築造
２　遼東公孫氏政権と遼陽壁画墓
３　令支令墓
おわりに

第８章　河西壁画墓に描かれた魏晋十六国時代の「塢」
はじめに
１　河西の壁画墓画像にみられる「塢」の全体像
２　塢の形態と墳墓の関係
３　塢の規模と周囲の画像
４　塢の機能
おわりに

第９章　苦水口１号墓・苦水口２号墓と魏晋時代の高台社会
はじめに
１　苦水口１号墓とその画像
２　苦水口２号墓とその画像
３　苦水口１号墓と苦水口２号墓の関係
４　苦水口１号墓・苦水口２号墓の後室描画塼
おわりに

第10章　甘粛高台出土描画塼にみる五胡十六国時代河西社会の変動
はじめに
１　許三湾西南1999年４月墓とその描画塼
２　前秦の河西進出と河西社会
おわりに

第11章　酒泉小土山墓と魏晋十六国時代の河西
はじめに
１　小土山墓とその画像
２　小土山墓の墓主と築造時期
３　河西魏晋十六国時代壁画墓と小土山墓の関係
おわりに

終　章
補　編　遼陽壁画墓の構造・画像一覧

新編北朝隋代墓誌所在總合目錄

Editor: 梶山　智史 

Publication year: 2025

Publisher: 汲古書院

Abstract: 

唐に先立つ北朝・隋代の墓誌は一體いくつあるのか。この問題の解明を試みたのが拙編『北朝隋代墓誌所在總合目錄』（明治大學東アジア石刻文物研究所・汲古書院、2013年5月）であった。これは本書の前身であり、以下「舊版」と略稱する。舊版では2013年前半までに公開されていた北朝墓誌1211點、隋代墓誌716點、合計1927 點を收錄した。しかしそれから11 年ほどが經過した現在では、舊版を見ただけではもはや北朝隋代墓誌の全容を把握することは到底できない。この閒には新たな墓誌が大量に出現し、また關連する史料集や研究論著の增加も實にすさまじいものがあるからである。そこで編者は舊版の出版以降も關連情報の調査を續け、目錄を增補改訂する作業を進めてきた。本書はこの作業の現時點における成果である。

本書では2023年以前に公開された北朝墓誌1731點、隋代墓誌955點、合計2686 點を收錄した。單純計算すると舊版から759點增えたことになる。ただし舊版では專ら墓誌のみを收錄對象としたのに對し、本書では墓誌以外の墓葬關連文字史料にまで對象を擴大し、墓碑（神道碑）や墓券（買地券）なども併せて收錄することとした。とはいえそれらの數量は墓誌と比べるとごく少なく、具體的には墓碑83點（北朝67、隋16）、墓券13點（北朝12、隋1）、鎭墓石1點（北朝1）、隨葬衣物疏1點（北朝1）、合計98點にすぎない。この98點を差し引くと、純粹な墓誌のみの增加數は661點となる。この10年でこれほど多くの新出墓誌が追加されたのは驚きである。

Table of Contents:

前言／凡例／引用文獻一覽

新編北朝隋代墓誌所在總合目錄

北朝／北魏／東魏・北齊／西魏・北周／隋代

北朝隋代僞刻墓誌目錄

墓誌名稱索引／引用文獻略號索引

Before and Beyond Pingcheng: The Xianbei in Inner Mongolia (4th-6th Centuries)

Editors: Annette L. Juliano / Judith A. Lerner

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Publication year: April, 2026

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Annette L JULIANO and Judith A. LERNER, “The Puzzle of the Yihe-Nur Cemetery”

I. Nomads and the Northern Wei

Sören STARK, “Xianbei, Tegreg, and Rouran-Abar: Yihe-Nur and the Nomadic World

of Inner Asia between the Second and the Fifth/Early Sixth Century CE”

Scott PEARCE, “The Xianbei in Their Historical Setting”

Judith A. LERNER, “Cauldrons”

Chin-Yin TSENG, “The Mobile Court of Pingcheng”

II. Reaching the Red Mountains: The Xianbei and the Afterlife

Annette L JULIANO, “Tombs and Their Furnishings”

Annette L. JULIANO, “Pushou”

III. Luxury Objects

Sarah LAURSEN, “Adorned: Nomadic Gold and Bronze”

Sören STARK, “Belts and Pectorals as Elite Markers Across Second to Fifth Century

Eurasia”

Judith A. LERNER, “Luxury Objects: Local and from the West”

Annette L. JULIANO and Judith A. LERNER, “The Gold Chin Strap”

Annette L. JULIANO and Judith A. LERNER, “The Gilt Silver Earred Cup”

IV. Where the Xianbei Buddhists?

Annette L. JULIANO, “Early Buddhist Images from Inner Mongolia”

Annette L. JULIANO, “The Pointed Pectoral”

Conclusion

Annette L JULIANO and Judith A. LERNER, “The Power of Place: Yihe-Nur and the

Xianbei”

A Prince of Martial Splendour in the Sixteen Kingdoms: Li Hao (351-417), Ruler of Western Liang

Author: Dominik Declercq

Abstract: The Sixteen Kingdoms (304-439) saw Northern China become a multiethnic mosaic of states and statelets, one of which was Western Liang (400-422) in modern Gansu province at the edge of the Silk Roads. Its founder Li Hao 李暠 was a Han settler on soil only recently annexed to the Empire. Here, immigrants ruled semi-nomadic locals, while elsewhere, non-Chinese ruling houses dealt with local Chinese elites. Their interaction, here seen close up in the life and times of Li Hao, had a lasting formative influence on Chinese culture and society for centuries to come.See Less

Publication Year: 2025

Table of Contents:
1 Introduction

2 The Hexi Corridor

3 The Colonisation of Liangzhou, 100 BCE to 300 CE

4 Former Liang (320–376): Li Hao’s Forebears under the Former Liang

5 Former Qin (351–384) and Later Liang (385–403)

6 Linked Destinies: Li Hao and Juqu Mengxun

7 Building a State, Part 1: Li Hao’s Western Liang

8 Building a State, Part 2: Juqu Mengxun’s Northern Liang

9 Relations with Eastern Jin

10 Li Hao Moves to Jiuquan

11 Li Hao’s Last Years

12 The Sequel: Li Hao’s Son Loses Western Liang

13 The Aftermath, and Conclusions

Appendix 1: Commandant Protectors of the Qiang
Appendix 2: Prefects of Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan and Dunhuang

Traditions of Exemplary Transcendents by Liu Xiang (79–8 BCE)

Author: Robert Ford Campany

Publication year: 2026

Publisher: De Gruyter

Abstract: 

By the middle of the third century BCE, some people in China had begun to imagine it possible to employ esoteric methods to refashion themselves into posthuman beings with spirit-like capabilities, enhanced bodies, and greatly extended lifespans. Such beings were termed transcendents (xian 仙).

Traditions of Exemplary Transcendents (Liexian zhuan 列仙傳), attributed to the imperial bibliographer Liu Xiang 劉向 (79-8 BCE), is the earliest extant collection of colorful stories about such figures. This volume makes available a critical edition and the first complete, annotated English translation of a text preserving some of the earliest mentions of alchemical, dietary, and medicinal methods of self-cultivation that later became standard in transcendence-seekers’ repertoire of practices.

Through this work we can already glimpse the sorts of engagements with local communities that made the quest for transcendence a matter of keen interest not just to practitioners themselves but to many in Chinese society for centuries thereafter.

Early Medieval China 29 (2023) Special Issue: The Margins of the Human in Medieval China

Table of Contents:

Editor’s Note
XIAOFEI TIAN

ARTICLES
Mistaken Identities: Negotiating Passing and Replacement in Chinese Records of the Strange
ANTJE RICHTER

Nonhuman Self-Cultivators in Early Medieval China: Re-reading a Story Type
ROBERT FORD CAMPANY

Diverging Conceptions of Apotheosis in Mid-Fourth Century CE Upper Purity Daoism
JONATHAN E. E. PETTIT

Animality, Humanity, and Divine Power: Exploring Implicit Cannibalism in Medieval Weretiger Stories
MANLING LUO

REVIEW ARTICLEBringing Scholarship on the Early Medieval Period to a Broader Audience: A Review of The Cambridge History of China, vol. 2, The Six Dynasties, 220–589, edited by Albert E. Dien and Keith N. Knapp

PATRICIA BUCKLEY EBREY

BOOK REVIEWS
Jack W. Chen, Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance: Essays on the Shishuo xinyu
GRAHAM SANDERS

Xurong Kong, Fu Poetry along the Silk Roads: Third-Century Chinese Writings on Exotica
QIULEI HU

Yue Zhang, Lore and Verse: Poems on History in Early Medieval China
FUSHENG WU

Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/yemc20/current

Animals and Plants in Chinese Religions and Science

Author:
Huaiyu Chen

Year:
2023

Publisher:
Anthem Press

Abstract:
In ancient China, the tradition of observing nature is combined with Yin-Yang and the Five-Phase theories, which were later incorporated into the ancient arts of divination, including the technique of predicting weather changes by observing the behavior and health of animals. The observation of the close connection between animals and weather developed into the worship of animals, that is, what can be called the cult of animals. Plant science and technology in medieval China cannot be separated from the developments in agriculture, economics, and medicine, as well as cultural practice. The Chinese empire ruled most of East Asia in the medieval period. Numerous species of plants were observed, cultivated, harvested, and used in the vast land of China that spanned a wide range of biomes from boreal through to temperate and tropical, with most regions classed as subtropical. Besides indigenous plants, many plants from West, Central, South, and Southeast Asia were introduced into China and East Asia in general. Numerous zoomantic practices appeared in two sets of textual documents in the premodern Chinese bibliographical system, namely official documents and popular documents. Official documents were often compiled by government officials and served political governance objectives. These documents included official histories, annals, and institutional documents, as well as Confucian classics. The authorship or editorship of these documents was often explicit. Popular documents included strange writings, tales, legends, and religious documents from Buddhism and Daoism, which were often not compiled under the sponsorship and support of the court or government. They might be compiled by literati but lost original authorship. They did not serve political motivations and objectives, reflecting how people understood and interpreted correlative cosmology by observing animal behaviors at the local or non-bureaucratic level.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; 
Plant Science and Technology in Medieval China; 
Ordering Plants in the Buddhist World: A Medieval Botanical Taxonomy; 
Animal Divination and Climate: An Environmental Perspective on the Cult of the Pig; 
Zoomancy in Medieval China; 
The Changing Images of Zodiac Animals in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Literature; 
The Were-Tigers in Medieval China and Its Asian Context; 
The Animal Turn in Asian Studies and the Asian Turn in the Animal Studies

In the Land of Tigers and Snakes: Living with Animals in Medieval Chinese Religions

Author:
Huaiyu Chen

Publisher:
Columbia University Press

Year:
2023

Abstract: 
Animals play crucial roles in Buddhist thought and practice. However, many symbolically or culturally significant animals found in India, where Buddhism originated, do not inhabit China, to which Buddhism spread in the medieval period. In order to adapt Buddhist ideas and imagery to the Chinese context, writers reinterpreted and modified the meanings different creatures possessed. Medieval sources tell stories of monks taming wild tigers, detail rituals for killing snakes, and even address the question of whether a parrot could achieve enlightenment.

Huaiyu Chen examines how Buddhist ideas about animals changed and were changed by medieval Chinese culture. He explores the entangled relations among animals, religions, the state, and local communities, considering both the multivalent meanings associated with animals and the daily experience of living with the natural world. Chen illustrates how Buddhism influenced Chinese knowledge and experience of animals as well as how Chinese state ideology, Daoism, and local cultic practices reshaped Buddhism. He shows how Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism developed doctrines, rituals, discourses, and practices to manage power relations between animals and humans.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, including traditional texts, stone inscriptions, manuscripts, and visual culture, this interdisciplinary book bridges history, religious studies, animal studies, and environmental studies. In examining how Buddhist depictions of the natural world and Chinese taxonomies of animals mutually enriched each other, In the Land of Tigers and Snakes offers a new perspective on how Buddhism took root in Chinese society.

TOC:
Introduction
1. Buddhists Categorizing Animals: Medieval Chinese Classification
2. Confucians Civilizing Unruly Beasts: Tigers and Pheasants
3. Buddhists Taming Felines: The Companionship of the Tiger
4. Daoists Transforming Ferocious Tigers: Practical Techniques and Rhetorical Strategies
5. Buddhists Killing Reptiles: Snakes in Religious Competition
6. Buddhists Enlightening Virtuous Birds: The Parrot as a Religious Agent
Epilogue

Les Man du Fleuve Bleu : La fabrique d’un peuple dans la Chine impériale

Author: 

Alexis Lycas

Publication year: 

12 mai 2023

Publisher: 

Anacharsis

Abstract:
De la dynastie des Han (206 av. J.-C.) à la fin des Tang (907 apr. J.-C.), il a existé en Chine, sur le cours moyen du fleuve Bleu, une population insoumise qui n’a laissé nulle trace et dont on ignore à peu près tout. Ces mystérieux Man ont pourtant défié l’empire, l’ont parfois soutenu, se sont trouvés tantôt hors et dans les limites de la puissance chinoise.

Alexis Lycas se livre ici à une enquête fascinante sur les écrits des chroniqueurs, poètes, administrateurs ou militaires qui ont tenté un millénaire durant d’appréhender et définir ces populations rétives. À travers les circonvolutions de ces documents de diverses natures se déploie une « rhétorique de l’altérité » rapportant l’histoire d’une colonisation étirée sur plusieurs siècles, en même temps que se laisse deviner comment le pouvoir central a fabriqué un peuple pour mieux le dominer.

Northern Wei (386-534): A New Form of Empire in East Asia

Author: 

Scott Pearce

Publisher: 

Oxford University Press

Publication year: 

August, 2023

Abstract:
Emerging from collapse of the Han empire, the founders of Northern Wei had come south from the grasslands of Inner Asia to conquer the rich farmlands of the Yellow River plains. Northern Wei was, in fact, the first of the so-called "conquest dynasties" complex states seen repeatedly in East Asian history in which Inner Asian peoples ruled parts of the Chinese world.

An innovative contribution to East Asian and Chinese history of the medieval period, Northern Wei (386-534) combines received historical text and archaeological findings to examine the complex interactions between these originally distinct populations, and the way those interactions changed over time. Scott Pearce analyses traditions borrowed and adapted from the long-gone Han dynasty including government and taxation as well as the new cultural elements such as the use of armor for man and horse in the cavalry and the newly-invented stirrup. Further, this book discusses the fundamental change in the dynastic family, as empresses began to play an increasingly important role in the business of government. Though Northern Wei fell in the early sixth century, the nature of the state was thus fundamentally changed, in the Chinese world and East Asia as a whole; it had laid down a foundation from which a century later would emerge the world empire of Tang.

Table of Contents:

Prologue: Defining Our Arenas

Section I: On Sources
Chapter 1: The Emperor Taiwu and the Creation of History
Chapter 2: History Writing and Its Discontents

Section II: Origins
Chapter 3: Growth from out Decay
Chapter 4: Myths of Origin

Section III: A Dynasty Takes Shape
Chapter 5: The Interloper
Chapter 6: Establishing a State

Section IV: Creating an Empire
Chapter 7: The Way of War
Chapter 8: The World Shegui Entered
Chapter 9: The World Shegui Created
Chapter 10: Troubling Innovation

Section V: Pingcheng as Center of a World
Chapter 11: The Wei Army
Chapter 12: The Wolf Lord
Chapter 13: Hunting and Gathering in the Land of Dai

Section VI: End Games
Chapter 14: A Transitional Age
Chapter 15: The Two Buddhas
Chapter 16: To Luoyang
Chapter 17: Downfall of the Theater State

Summing Up; Looking Ahead

Dreaming and Self-Cultivation in China, 300 BCE–800 CE

Author:
Robert Ford Campany

Publication Date: 
04/18/2023

Publisher:
Harvard University Asia Center

Abstract:
Practitioners of any of the paths of self-cultivation available in ancient and medieval China engaged daily in practices meant to bring their bodies and minds under firm control. They took on regimens to discipline their comportment, speech, breathing, diet, senses, desires, sexuality, even their dreams. Yet, compared with waking life, dreams are incongruous, unpredictable—in a word, strange. How, then, did these regimes of self-fashioning grapple with dreaming, a lawless yet ubiquitous domain of individual experience?
In Dreaming and Self-Cultivation in China, 300 BCE–800 CE, Robert Ford Campany examines how dreaming was addressed in texts produced and circulated by practitioners of Daoist, Buddhist, Confucian, and other self-cultivational disciplines. Working through a wide range of scriptures, essays, treatises, biographies, commentaries, fictive dialogues, diary records, interpretive keys, and ritual instructions, Campany uncovers a set of discrete paradigms by which dreams were viewed and responded to by practitioners. He shows how these paradigms underlay texts of diverse religious and ideological persuasions that are usually treated in mutual isolation. The result is a provocative meditation on the relationship between individuals’ nocturnal experiences and one culture’s persistent attempts to discipline, interpret, and incorporate them into waking practice.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Approaching Dreaming and Self-Cultivation
1. Purifying
2. Diagnosing
3. Spilling Over
4. Not Dreaming, Waking Up, and Not Minding the Difference
Epilogue: Fish Traps and Rabbit Snares
Appendix A: Dream Signs in Explication of Dreams for Bodhisattvas
Appendix B: Comparing Versions of the Chapter on Diagnostic Dreams in Perfection of Wisdom Texts
Appendix C: Incubatory Spells in Three Dongshen Registers of Red Writs of the Most High

The Sōushén hòujì 搜神後記：Latter Notes On Collected Spirit Phenomena Attributed to Táo Yuānmíng (365-427)

Author:
Tao Qian

Translator:
Richard VanNess Simmons

Publisher:

American Oriental Society, New Haven

Publication Year:

2022

Abstract:
The Sōushén hòujì 搜神後記 (Latter Notes on Collected Spirit Phenomena), attributed to the celebrated poet Táo Qián 陶潛 (365-427), is a compilation of anecdotes and stories known as zhìguài 志怪 ('records of the anomalous') that document strange and unusual phenomena the author observed in his lifetime. Intended to serve as a sequel to Gān Bǎo's 干寳 (d. 336) Sōushénjì 搜神記 (Collected Spirit Phenomena), the original text was lost but was reconstructed in the late Míng dynasty. This volume presents an annotated translation of the entire Míng version of the Sōushén hòujì as well as of an additional set of surviving stories that were identified and restored to the text by the modern scholar Lǐ Jiànguó 李劍國. The book also includes a history of the Sōushén hòujì text, an examination of its linguistic style and characteristics, a discussion of the historical nature of its contents and how it fits into the zhìguài genre, providing a window onto medieval Chinese society and culture, and a brief overview of recent zhìguài scholarship to guide readers who hope to continue their exploration of the genre. 

Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance: Essays on the Shishuo xinyu

Author:
Jack W. Chen

Publication date:
March 2021

Publisher:

Harvard Asia Center

Abstract:

Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance is a study of the Shishuo xinyu, the most important anecdotal collection of medieval China—and arguably of the entire traditional era. In a set of interconnected essays, Jack W. Chen offers new readings of the Shishuo xinyu that draw upon social network analysis, performance studies, theories of ritual and mourning, and concepts of gossip and reputation to illuminate how the anecdotes of the collection imagine and represent a political and cultural elite. Whereas most accounts of the Shishuo have taken a historical approach, Chen argues that the work should be understood in literary terms.

At its center, Anecdote, Network, Gossip, Performance is an extended meditation on the very nature of the anecdote form, both what the anecdote affords in terms of representing a social community and how it provides a space for the rehearsal of certain longstanding philosophical and cultural arguments. Although each of the chapters may be read separately as an essay in its own right, when taken together, they present a comprehensive account of the Shishuo in all of its literary complexity.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

The Title of the Text

The Structure and Composition of the Text

Anecdote and History

Individualism and Typology

The Shishuo and “Pure Conversation”

Overview of Chapters

1. A Textual History of the Shishuo xinyu

The Shi Jingyin and Liu Xiaobiao Commentaries

Liu Yiqing’s Biography

The Shishuo in the Bibliographic Treatises of the Official Histories

The Shishuo in the Tang Dynasty

The Shishuo in Song Dynasty Encyclopedias and Bibliographic Writings

Wang Zao 汪藻 (1079–1154) on the Shishuo

The Dong Fen, Lu You, and Yuan Jiong Editions

Modern Editions of the Shishuo

Conclusion: On Medieval Textuality

2. On Social Networks

The Shishuo as Network

Six Degrees of Separation, or a Walk through the Network

First Degree: Xu Zhi and Chen Fan

Second Degree: Chen Fan and Li Ying

Third Degree: Cai Yong, Sun Chuo, and Wang Xizhi

Fourth Degree: Wang Xizhi and Xie An

Fifth Degree: Xie An, Wang Xianzhi, Liu Jin, and Huan Xuan

Sixth Degree: Huan Xuan, Huan Xiu, and Madame Yu

Conclusion: Network and Anecdote

3. On Gossip and Reputation

Defining Gossip and Reputation

Gossip and Anecdote: Four Stories about Hua Xin

Knowing Others and Being Known: Chu Pou’s Silence

The Mingshi or “Gentlemen of Repute”

Conclusion: The Anxiety of the Second-Rate

4. On Praise and Insult

On Praise and Appraisal

The Politics of Praise

Virtuosity, Aptness, and Inadequacy

Theories of Insult

Taking Liberties with Pronouns

Three Stories about Sun Chuo

Unintended Offense

Conclusion: The Economy of Reputation

5. On Competition and Composure

Three Stories about Zhong Hui

Conversation as Social Competition

The Aesthetics of Composure

Xie An: Calling Back the Recluse

Xie An Keeps His Cool

Conclusion: Wang Dun Goes to the Bathroom

6. On Ritual and Mourning

Mourning and Sincerity in the Li ji

The Sincerity of Mourning

Friendship and Mourning

A Coda

Conclusion: The View from across the River

The Buddha’s Footprint: An environmental history of Asia

Author:
Johan Elverskog

Publication year:
2020

Publisher:
University of Pennsylvania Press

Abstract:
In the current popular imagination, Buddhism is often understood to be a religion intrinsically concerned with the environment. The Dharma, the name given to Buddhist teachings by Buddhists, states that all things are interconnected. Therefore, Buddhists are perceived as extending compassion beyond people and animals to include plants and the earth itself out of a concern for the total living environment. In The Buddha's Footprint, Johan Elverskog contends that only by jettisoning this contemporary image of Buddhism as a purely ascetic and apolitical tradition of contemplation can we see the true nature of the Dharma. According to Elverskog, Buddhism is, in fact, an expansive religious and political system premised on generating wealth through the exploitation of natural resources.

Elverskog surveys the expansion of Buddhism across Asia in the period between 500 BCE and 1500 CE, when Buddhist institutions were built from Iran and Azerbaijan in the west, to Kazakhstan and Siberia in the north, Japan in the east, and Sri Lanka and Indonesia in the south. He examines the prosperity theology at the heart of the Dharma that declared riches to be a sign of good karma and the means by which spritiual status could be elevated through donations bequeathed to Buddhist institutions. He demonstrates how this scriptural tradition propelled Buddhists to seek wealth and power across Asia and to exploit both the people and the environment.

Elverskog shows the ways in which Buddhist expansion not only entailed the displacement of local gods and myths with those of the Dharma—as was the case with Christianity and Islam—but also involved fundamentally transforming earlier social and political structures and networks of economic exchange. The Buddha's Footprint argues that the institutionalization of the Dharma was intimately connected to agricultural expansion, resource extraction, deforestation, urbanization, and the monumentalization of Buddhism itself.

Table of Contents:
Preface
Introduction
Part I. What the Buddha Taught
1. The Buddha
2. Buddhism(s)
3. Buddhists
4. Wealth
5. Consumption
Part II. What Buddhists Did
6. The Spread of Buddhism
7. The Commodity Frontier
8. Agricultural Expansion
9. Urbanization
10. The Buddhist Landscape
Conclusion

[Dissertation] Tang Taizong's Playbook: Jin Shu and How to Use Standard Histories

Author:
Kobzeva, Maria. 

School:
The University of Wisconsin - Madison 

Year:

2019

Abstract:

The dissertation explores what the content and structure of the Jin shu 晉書 (History of Western and Eastern Jin Dynasties, 265–420) compilation revealed about political choices and self-representation of Tang Taizong (r. 626–649), the second emperor of the Tang dynasty (618–907). Emperor Taizong, himself of non-Chinese origins, was concerned with the question of legitimacy and future of his rule. By scrutinizing and closely interacting with the textual tradition, Taizong had sought to justify his right to rule and project an idealized image of himself as a righteous ruler. He standardized the methodical history writing and initiated a massive compilation project of the earlier dynastic histories. For one of them, the Jin shu, he personally wrote critical evaluations in the end of several chapters. Imperial participation in a scholarly compilation implied the importance and specific purpose attached to the work and the role of historiography in the political establishment.

The newly-established regimes, Jin and Tang, shared a number of similarities: a violent power takeover, unification of the empire, difficulties with the neighboring non-Han population, and problematic choice of an heir. The Jin shu provided the emperor with an advantageous, comparative framework between the two regimes in dealing with identical sensitive issues; where the mistakes of the Jin government led to its fall, Taizong’s decisions, albeit problematic, resulted in a peaceful reign. The Jin shu narrative of imperial failure corroborated the Tang emperor’s self-attribution as a perfect ruler who chose the right course of action for the sake of the country’s stability. The dissertation discusses how the similarities reflected main issues of concern of a newly founded Tang dynasty and revealed inconsistencies in Tang’s rhetoric of rationalization that challenged the uniformity of a purported portrait of Taizong and his reign. I argue that Tang Taizong’s continuous efforts to represent the idealized picture of his own rule and defend his choices essentially reflected his insecurities about his political legitimacy and self-identity.