[Dissertation] Cultural Encounters: Ethnic Complexity and Material Expression in Fifth-Century Pingcheng, China

Author:
ZHANG, Fan 張帆

School:
New York University

Defended:
2018

Abstract:

My dissertation focuses on art and material culture produced in the city of Pingcheng, the capital of the Northern Wei dynasty (386–535 CE) during the fifth century. A city of immigrants from diverse social, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, Pingcheng was an unusually fertile land for vigorous cultural exchanges. Through investigation into material remains, from both funerary and religious contexts, and textual sources, both transmitted and excavated, my research delineate multiple ethnicity, artistic innovation, and cross-cultural interactions of Pingcheng. I adopt an interdisciplinary approach that combines art history, archaeology, and history to examine how individuals articulate their identities in a multiethnic society via various visual and material forms. Built on top of a set comprehensive archaeological data, this project highlights three tombs for in-depth case studies, including funerary portraits that display identities of the deceased, innovative burial furniture that crosses ethnic boundaries and showcases Pingcheng’s syncretism, and exotic silverwares that exemplify the intensive cultural exchange between East and Central Asia.

My dissertation challenges the Sino-centric perspective and Han/non-Han binary division. By investigating artistic productions associated with individuals, I explore the mediating role art plays in the social network and the process of identity articulation. My research situates Northern Wei art in a trans-cultural context of Eurasia by tracking movements of objects and migration of people. My emphasis on material culture also expands the scope of art historical study by including less-studied genres and experimenting with a trans-medium approach to conceptualize funerary art.

Paradigm Shifts in Early and Modern Chinese Religion: A History

Author:
John Lagerwey

Publisher:
Brill

Publication date:
October 2018

Abstract:

From the fifth century BC to the present and dealing with the Three Teachings (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism) as well as popular religion, this introduction to the eight-volume Early and Modern Chinese Religion explores key ideas and events in four periods of paradigm shift in the intertwined histories of Chinese religion, politics, and culture. It shows how, in the Chinese church-state, elite processes of rationalization, interiorization, and secularization are at work in every period of major change and how popular religion gradually emerges to a position of dominance by means of a long history of at once resisting, adapting to, and collaborating with elite-driven change. Topics covered include ritual, scripture, philosophy, state policy, medicine, sacred geography, gender, and the economy. 

Table of Contents:

Preface

Preliminaries

Intellectual Change in the Warring States and Han (481 BC–220 AD)

Religious Transformation in the Period of Division (220–589 AD)

Religion and Thought in the Song, Jin, and Yuan (960–1368)

Structuring Values 1850–2015

By Way of Conclusion

[Dissertation] In Tune With The Cosmos: Tuning Theory, Cosmology, And Concepts Of Sound In Early China

Author:
Noa Hegesh

School:
University of Pennsylvania

Date of Award:
2018

Abstract:

This dissertation explores tuning theories, concepts of sound, and their relation to cosmology in China between the mid-third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E. My overall argument is twofold: First, I argue that to truly understand musical thought in early China, we must realize that it was perceived as a technology. Sound and tuning, especially in a cosmological context, were often discussed in mathematical terms. Second, I argue that for the same reason, we must understand how this technology functioned not only in relation to musical performance per se, but also in what we consider today as non-musical settings, such as mathematical astronomy, the standardization of weights and measures, and divination techniques. Early Chinese authors thought about sound as resonating qi emanating from the cosmos. Its calculation, manipulation, categorization, and measuring were central to the synchronization between the human and cosmic realms.

Part one of the dissertation discusses the gradual introduction of cosmological ideas into existing musical systems around the mid-third century B.C.E. As a result, some texts began discussing sound in numerical terms, as part of theories that aimed to measure the regularities of cosmic processes. Part two explores developments in acoustics and the concept of cosmological sound, through an analysis of a case study from the Western Han: Jing Fang 京房 and his tuning theory, which divided the octave into sixty tuning standards. I also provide an annotated translation of the first section of the “Treatises on Tuning Standards and Mathematical Astronomy” (“Lüli zhi” 律歷志) in the History of the Later Han. Part Three explores the concept of imperial control in Wang Mang’s brief Xin dynasty, examining the connections between sound, metrological practices, and the ideologies and philosophies that provided cosmological meaning to metrological choices. I argue that despite the court’s rhetoric of universal standardization, anchored in the dimensions of the Huangzhong pitch pipe, in reality these acts of standardization may not have succeeded far beyond the court’s immediate sphere of influence.

The Chinese Pleasure Book

Author:
Michael Nylan

Publisher: 
Zone Books

Publication date:
October 2018

Abstract:
In The Chinese Pleasure Book, Michael Nylan takes up one of the most important themes in Chinese thought: the relation of pleasurable activities to bodily health and the health of the body politic. In a notable contrast to Western writings on the subject, early Chinese writings oppose pleasure not with pain but with insecurity. All assume that it is right and proper to seek and take pleasure, as well as short-term delight, and all are equally certain that long-term relational pleasures are more easily sustained―as well as potentially more satisfying and less damaging. The pleasures that become deeper and more ingrained over the long term, as one invests time and effort into their cultivation, include friendship and music, sharing with others, developing integrity and greater clarity, reading and classical learning, and going home. Nylan explores each of these fields of activity through the early sources (mainly fourth century BC to the eleventh century AD), providing new translations for both well-known and seldom-cited texts.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter one: coming attractions
Chapter two: good vibrations
Chapter three: Mencius
Chapter four: Xunxi
Chapter five: vital matters 
Chapter six: on Yang Xiong
Chapter seven: semidetached lodgings
Afterword

The Emergence of Civilizational Consciousness in Early China: History Word by Word

Author:
Uffe Bergeton

Publisher:
Routledge

Publication date:
October 2018

Abstract:

This book provides a conceptual history of the emergence of civilizational consciousness in early China. Focusing on how words are used in pre-Qín (before 221 BCE) texts to construct identities and negotiate relationships between a 'civilised self' and 'uncivilised others', it provides a re-examination of the origins and development of these ideas.

By adopting a novel approach to determining when civilizational consciousness emerged in pre-Qín China, this book analyzes this question in ways that establish a fresh hermeneutical dialogue between Chinese and modern European understandings of 'civilization.' Whereas previous studies have used archaeological data to place its origin somewhere between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE, this book explores changes in word meanings in texts from the pre-Qín period to reject this view. Instead, this book dates the emergence of civilizational consciousness in China to around 2,500 years ago. In the process, new chronologies of the coining of Old Chinese terms such as ‘customs,’ ‘barbarians,’ and ‘the Great ones,’ are proposed, which challenge anachronistic assumptions about these terms in earlier studies.

Examining important Chinese classics, such as the Analects, the Mencius and the Mozi, as well as key historical periods and figures in the context of the concept of ‘civilization,’ this book will useful to students and scholars of Chinese and Asian history.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. The Coining of Civilizational Consciousness in Modern Western Europe

2. From ‘Awe-Inspiringly Beautiful’ to ‘Morally Refined’— The Coining of ‘Civility’ in Pre-Qín China

3. Coiners and Critics of ‘Civility/Civilization’ (Wén)

4. Inventing the ‘Barbarian’: From ‘Belligerent Others’ to ‘Civilizationally Inferior Others’

5. Ethnographic Vocabulary of Civilizational Otherness: The ‘Elegant’ ‘Rites’ of the ‘Great Ones’ Versus the ‘Vulgar’ ‘Customs’ of the ‘Barbarians’

Conclusion

中国古代車馬研究

Author:
林 巳奈夫 (HAYASHI Minao)

Editor:
岡村 秀典

Publication date:
October 2018

Publisher:
臨川書店

Abstract:

本書は、林巳奈夫（1925-2006）が晩年に取り組んだ未刊の論集計画を忠実に引き継ぎ、新たに解題を附して刊行するものである。文字資料の解読と遺物・図像類の考証から、中国古代の国家、社会制度、文化事象の詳悉な析出を試みる。

Table of Ceontents:

序論

第1章 先秦時代の旗
一 『周礼』司常に記される旗 / 二 徽識 / 三 殷、西周時代の文字、記号等に表わされた旗

第2章 殷周時代の図象記号
一 従来の研究 / 二 資料の取扱い / 三 図象記号は何を表わすか / 四 甲骨文と対照してみた図象記号 / 五 十干名の図象記号 / 六 複合の図象記号 / 七 図象記号の盛衰 / 八 結び

第3章 先秦時代の馬車
一 先秦時代の馬車の構造 / 二 繫駕法、御法 / 三 性能 / 四 起原、系統

第4章 『周礼』考工記の車制
一 総序 / 二 輪人 / 三 輿人 / 四 輈人

第5章 先秦時代の馬
一 各時代の馬の体格 / 二 中国先秦時代の馬の系統の問題 / 三 結語

第6章 後漢時代の馬車
一 馬車 / 二 その他の車

第7章 後漢時代の車馬行列
一 車馬行列の主題、意図 / 二 画像石車馬行列の構成単位 / 三 車馬行列の編成

解題(岡村秀典)

索引(人名(神・民族名)、地名・遺跡名、事項、車馬関係、文献)