The Cambridge History of China Volume 2: The Six Dynasties, 220–589

Editors:
Albert E. Dien & Keith N. Knapp

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press

Publication date:

2019

Abstract:

The Six Dynasties Period (220–589 CE) is one of the most complex in Chinese history. Written by leading scholars from across the globe, the essays in this volume cover nearly every aspect of the period, including politics, foreign relations, warfare, agriculture, gender, art, philosophy, material culture, local society, and music. While acknowledging the era's political chaos, these essays indicate that this was a transformative period when Chinese culture was significantly changed and enriched by foreign peoples and ideas. It was also a time when history and literature became recognized as independent subjects and religion was transformed by the domestication of Buddhism and the formation of organized Daoism. Many of the trends that shaped the rest of imperial China's history have their origins in this era, such as the commercial vibrancy of southern China, the separation of history and literature from classical studies, and the growing importance of women in politics and religion.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Part I. History:
1. Wei   Rafe de Crespigny
2. Wu   Rafe de Crespigny
3. Shu-Han   J. Michael Farmer
4. Western Jin   Damien Chaussende
5. Eastern Jin   Charles Holcombe
6. The Sixteen Kingdoms   Charles Holcombe
7. Cheng-Han State   Terry F. Kleeman
8. Northern Wei   Scott Pearce
9. Eastern Wei-Northern Qi   Albert E. Dien
10. Western Wei-Northern Zhou   Albert E. Dien
11. The Southern dynasties   Andrew Chittick

Part II. Society and Realia:
12. The art of war  David A. Graff
13. Foreign relations  Charles Holcombe
14. The Northern economy  Victor Cunrui Xiong
15. The Southern economy  Liu Shufen 劉淑芬
16. Agriculture  Francesca Bray
17. The history of Sogdians in China  Rong Xinjiang 榮新江
18. Northern material culture  Shing Müller
19. Southern material culture   Annette Kieser
20. Women, families, and gendered society  Jen-der Lee 李貞德
21. Local society Hou Xudong 侯旭東

Part III. Culture, Religion and Art:
22. Confucian learning and influence   Keith N. Knapp
23. Qingtan and Xuanxue   Y. K. Lo
24. Buddhism   John Kieschnick
25. Daoism   Stephen R. Bokenkamp
26. Popular religion   Robert Ford Campany
27. The world of prose literature   Antje Richter
28. The world of poetry   Cynthia Chennault
29. Art and visual culture   Wu Hung 巫鴻
30. Music   Bo Lawergren

[Dissertation] The Literary Formation of Cultural Communities in Mid-Third- Through Early Fifth-Century China

Author:
Graham Chamness

Defended:
2018

School:
Harvard University

Abstract:

“The Literary Formation of Cultural Communities in Mid-Third- through Early Fifth-Century China,” explores elite social gatherings and the literature produced at those gatherings at the beginning of the period of division between north and south. This largely coincides with the Eastern Jin dynasty (317-420), the first southern dynasty, whose court was founded south of the Yangzi River with the help of a small group of aristocratic families after the territorial loss of the north to invading tribes. Previous scholarship tends to characterize this period as a moment in history when the cultural elite turned inwardly toward an esoteric metaphysical discourse concerned with self-discovery. While not entirely false, this view is misleading at least in the sense that it overlooks the degree to which emigre elites of the Eastern Jin turned toward each other, through their shared interest in the discourse of the "arcane" (xuan), here referring to the mystical Way that was at once spoken of by the Taoist philosophical texts preserved from antiquity and by the Buddhist sutras being translated in China from India and Central Asia, and sought to rebuild a sense of community together in the absence of their ancestral heartland. I argue that the elite social gatherings we read about in works like the Shishuo xinyu (New Account of Tales of the World) and literary writings produced at those gatherings, such as the poems composed by various participants at the famous gathering at Lanting in 353, and other social writings preserved in Buddhist anthologies and personal literary collections reveal a common trope during this period of being joined together as a community through individual absorption in a shared mystical understanding of the ineffable Way, of the great men of the past, and of the teachings of the Buddha. Being defined in some sense by not belonging to the court, the elites from this brief slice of time configure themselves into cultural communities that are markedly different from the cultural worlds of the periods that come immediately before and after, when literary output was primarily centered around the court.

[Dissertation] To Rule by Ritual: The Theorization of Ritual Psychology in the Bamboo Texts of Guodian

Author:
Clayton Howard Ashton

Defended:
2017

School:
University of British Columbia

Abstract:

This study examines the development of a theory of ritual psychology in Chinese political thought during the Warring States period (c. 450 - 221 BCE), as found in four Confucian bamboo manuscripts from the Guodian corpus which were discovered in 1993 in a tomb that had been sealed in c. 300 BCE. These four texts, called here the Ritual Authority manuscripts, provide new evidence of a political theory that applied ritual practices to the management of the state, with implications for our understanding of both the development of the Confucian tradition and of the formation of the early Chinese empire. The introduction surveys how the concept of ritual has been framed in studies of Chinese history, and argues that this new evidence of a conscious theorization about ritual psychology should compel us reexamine this topic. Chapter One makes use of the insights offered by the cross-disciplinary field of Ritual Studies to create a working definition of “ritual” as an academic term of analysis, and then examines a range of primary sources from the Warring States period in order to reconstruct the discursive field of meaning encompassed by the Chinese term li, or “ritual propriety,” which was the focus of this theorization. Chapter Two considers the implications of the previous chapter’s insights by examining how ritual practices rely on a sense of historical authority, which embroils these practices in a larger tension between tradition and innovation. Chapter Three examines the development of theories of political authority in the Warring States period, and shows how these presented a fundamental challenge to the Confucian emphasis on ritual practices. Chapter Four turns to the Ritual Authority manuscripts from Guodian and closely examines how they reveal an attempt to incorporate a theory of ritual psychology into a defence of traditional ritual practices. This study finally concludes by considering the larger implications of this intellectual innovation, and suggests several possible directions of future research based on this research.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Chapter 1: Theories of Ritual and Propriety
Chapter 2: Reforming the Rites and Changing Conventions
Chapter 3: Authority and the Law
Chapter 4: The Ritual Authority Manuscripts
Conclusion

The Art and Archaeology of Bodily Adornment: Studies from Central and East Asian Mortuary Contexts

Editor:
Sheri A. Lullo and Leslie V. Wallace

Publisher:
Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge

Publication date:
2019

Abstract:

This book examines the significance of adornment to the shaping of identity in mortuary contexts within Asia, and brings these perspectives into dialogue with current scholarship in other worldwide regions. The mortuary contexts of focus in this volume represent unique sites and events where identity was visualized, and often manipulated and negotiated, through material objects and their placement on and about the deceased body. In both breadth and depth, it will be of interest to students and scholars interested in the archaeology, art, and history of Central and East Asia, as well as anyone interested in the general study of dress and adornment.

Table of Contents:

Dimensions of personal adornment / Sheri A. Lullo and Leslie V. Wallace

Adornments at Odake Shell Midden Site: perceptions of early Jomon hunter-gatherer gender and identities / Ilona R. Bausch

Some features of "Xiongnu" composite belts / S.S. Miniaev

Adornments of golden Silla / Sarah Milledge Nelson

The Yayoi-Kofun transition as seen from the exchange network of beads in the Japanese archipelago / Ari Tanizawa

Why wear dolphins? Greek imagery among the pastoralists along the ancient Oxus / Karen S. Rubinson

The power and authority of exotic accessories: ornamentation of human and equine haniwa at Tsukamawari tomb 4, Gunma, Japan / Karen M. Gerhart and Katheryn M. Linduff

Jade age adornment of the Liangzhu elite / Elizabeth Childs-Johnson

Does a feather in your hat a barbarian make? Headgear and hairstyles in Han Dynasty tomb murals in the Ordos / Leslie V. Wallace

Dressing the dead in Jin China / Sarah Laursen

銅鏡から読み解く2～4世紀の東アジア： 三角縁神獣鏡と関連鏡群の諸問題

Editor:
實盛良彦 (Jitsumori Yoshihiko)

Publication date:
September 2019

Publisher:
勉誠出版

Table of Contents:

序文　銅鏡研究と日本考古学 實盛良彦
総論　東アジア世界と銅鏡 森下章司

Ⅰ　中国の鏡
後漢・三国鏡の生産動向 上野祥史
後漢鏡の図像解釈―中国美術史上における儒教図像の意義 楢山満照
鋳造技術からみた後漢・三国時代の銅鏡 南健太郎
類書に映る鏡の記述―『藝文類聚』を例に 佐藤裕亮

Ⅱ　倭でつくられた鏡
倭における鏡の製作 加藤一郎
倭独自の文様を持つ小型鏡の創出と展開 脇山佳奈
倭鏡に見る「王権のコントロール」 林正憲

Ⅲ　三角縁神獣鏡と関連の鏡
三角縁神獣鏡生産の展開と製作背景 岩本崇
黒塚古墳三角縁神獣鏡の鋳上がりと切削研磨の程度からみる製造状況―二面同形二十号・三十二号鏡の調査から 三船温尚
画文帯神獣鏡の生産 村瀨陸
華北東部の銅鏡をめぐる諸問題 馬渕一輝
斜縁鏡群と三角縁神獣鏡 實盛良彦

Ⅳ　銅鏡から歴史を読む
新見東呉尚方鏡試考 朱棒／藤井康隆（訳・解題）
二・三・四世紀の土器と鏡―土器の併行関係と出土鏡からみた暦年代を中心として
久住猛雄
日本列島における銅鏡の流通と政治権力―二～四世紀を中心に 辻田淳一郎
跋文　銅鏡から読み解く二・三・四世紀の東アジア 實盛良彦

[Dissertation] The Author's Two Bodies: Paratext in Early Chinese Textual Culture

Author:
Du Heng

Defended Year: 
2018

School:
Harvard University

Abstract:
This dissertation addresses the contentious issue of early authorship by proposing a new set of methodologies developed out of an engagement with both unearthed and transmitted sources. It brings into a dialogue methodological discussions from fields such as Early China, Book History, Classics, and Biblical Studies. To tackle the questions of what constitutes a text and what constitutes an author in pre-imperial China (before 211 BCE), I adapt and expand the concept of “paratext,” namely the materials enveloping the main text such as titles, book covers, author names, and prefaces. In addition to demonstrating the role of paratext in demarcating textual boundaries, this dissertation develops a system of criteria for identifying hitherto unrecognized forms of paratexts in early sources, such as the reiterations of zi yue 子曰 (the Master said), branching catalogues, and author anecdotes. Reading these features as paratextual language helps uncover new evidence concerning how early textual producers sought to circumscribe words as textual units. While many scholars dismiss early author attributions as apocryphal, I argue that the representations of author figures, real or putative, perform an instrumental role in defining and delimiting both a text and a corpus. The body chapters of this dissertation closely examine case studies straddling the transition into the imperial period, from aphorism and anecdotes preserved in bamboo manuscripts (c. 300 BCE) to excavated and received compilations such as the Yinqueshan Sunzi bingfa 銀雀山孫子兵法, Zhuangzi 莊子, Hanfeizi 韓非子, and the Chuci zhangju 楚辭章句. Its final chapter, in summing up the interactive dynamics between text-making and author-making, retraces an intriguing motif revolving around a zero-sum game between the author’s physical body and literary corpus.