Late Imperial China

Beginning in 1260, the Mongol ruler Khubilai Khan embarked on the creation of a Chinese-style bureaucracy to govern his realm more effectively. At the same time, the court began to promulgate a salary code for its officials. Though both processes were led in large part by Chinese scholar-officials, this group continually complained about the shortcomings of the salary code and its negative effects on the bureaucracy. By studying their writings on salaries and official government records, this article will demonstrate that the Chinese literati used their complaints about the salary code to level criticisms against flaws in the administration and to push for bureaucratic reform, and that the Yuan court was genuinely concerned about the salary problem and took measures to alleviate it. Yet the court never actually reformed, and this article will ultimately aim to show how the response to the issue of salaries reflected the Mongols’ desires to cling to the power and privilege that was afforded to them by a bureaucratic structure which preserved much of their traditional steppe institutions and values.

This dissertation considers the Shuihu zhuan (Water margin) interpretation complex to be a problematic site of interaction between parent work, commentaries, and sequels, where a commentator and a sequel writer both attempt to control "reader response" to the novel. Table of contents also included. Please contact me for specific chapters.

In Companions in Geography, Mario Cams revisits the early 18th century mapping of Qing China, without doubt one of the largest cartographic endeavours of the early modern world. Commonly seen as a Jesuit initiative, the project appears here as the result of a convergence of interests among the French Academy of Sciences, the Jesuit order, and the Kangxi emperor (r. 1661-1722). These connections inspired the gradual integration of European and East Asian scientific practices and led to a period of intense land surveying, executed by large teams of Qing officials and European missionaries. The resulting maps and atlases, all widely circulated across Eurasia, remained the most authoritative cartographic representations of continental East Asia for over a century.

Jin Shengtan wrote his commentaries to the novel Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan) between 1641 and 1644, during the final years before the fall of the Ming dynasty. These commentaries are exceptional at least in part because they reflect Jin's frustrations that came from trying to understand this period of chaos. But they are also a good example of how fiction commentary helped to shape the trajectory that the development of Chinese fiction would take, in the form of commentaries and sequels. This article offers a reading of Jin's commentaries to his 70-chapter edition of the Water Margin, to investigate how Jin radically reshaped the Water Margin as the masterpiece of a commentator of great literary genius. It analyses Jin's rhetoric of controlling interpretation and concludes that Jin's ultimate goal was to stabilize and prevent tampering of his "original" 70-chapter edition, in an attempt to close off future possibilities of "sequeling" the Water Margin.

Symposium Contents
1、宗族程式：16世纪的礼仪革命与帝制晚期中国的国家
“La Solution Lignagère: La Revolution Rituelle du XVIe Siècle et l’État Impérial Chinois,” Annales: Histoire, Sciences, Sociales 61:6 (2006), pp. 1291-1316.

2、人类学与中国近代社会史：影响与前景
Original Chinese article (“Anthropology and Pre-Modern Chinese Social History”), in 《东吴历史学报》，卷14（2005），页21-36。

3、十九世纪的天地会：一个解释
“The Heaven and Earth Society in the Nineteenth Century,” in Kwang-Ching Liu and Richard Shek eds., Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China (Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), pp. 365-392.

4、中国皇帝的非正式帝国：明代宗教与地方社会的整合
“The Chinese Emperor’s Informal Empire: Religion and the Incorporation of Local Society in the Ming,” in Shu-min Huang and Cheng-kuang Hsu eds., Imagining China: Regional Division and National Unity (Nankang, Taipei: Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, 1999), pp. 21-41.

5、明嘉靖初年广东提学魏校毁淫祠之前因后果及其对珠江三角洲的影响
Original Chinese article (“The Cause and Effect of Destroying the Illegal Temples by Guangdong Education-intendant We Xiao in the Early Jiajing Reign and Its Influence toward the Pearl River Delta”), in 周天游编：《地域社会与传统中国》（西安：西北大学出版社，1995），页129-134。

6、皇帝在村：国家在华南地区的体现
“The Emperor in the Village: Representing the State in South China,” in Joseph P. McDermott ed., State and Court Ritual in China (Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 267-298.

7、成文的和不成文的：成文族谱的政治议程
“The Written and the Unwritten: The Political Agenda of the Written Genealogy,” in中研院近代史研究所编，《近世家族与政治比较历史论文集》（台北：中研院近代史研究所，1992）（上册），页261-296。

8、佛山如何成镇？明清时期中国城乡身份的演化
“What Made Foshan a Town? The Evolution of Rural-Urban Identities in Ming-Qing China,” Late Imperial China 11. 2 (1990), pp. 1-31.

9、宗族是一种文化创造——以珠江三角洲为例
“The Lineage as A Cultural Invention: The Case of the Pearl River Delta,” Modern China 15. 1, (1989), pp. 4-36.

10、宗族社会主义与公家掌控：1920和1930年代的潭冈乡
“Lineage Socialism and Community Control: Tangang Xiang in the 1920s and 1930s,” in David Faure and Helen Siu eds., Down to Earth: the Territorial Bond in South China ( Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 161-187.

11、告别华南研究
Original Chinese article (“Time to Say Goodbye: A Reflection of the South China Study”), in 华南研究会编：《学步与超越﹕华南研究会论文集》（香港：文化创造出版社，2004），页9-30。

12、韦伯有所不知：明清时期中国的市镇与经济发展
“What Weber Did Not Know: Towns and Economic Development in Ming and Qing China,” in David Faure and Tao Tao Liu eds., Town and Country in China: Identity and Perception (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave in association with St Antony’s College, Oxford, 2002), pp. 58-84.

13、山西夏县司马光墓的土地与宗族笔记
“It Takes a Sage...: Notes on Land and Lineage at Sima Guang’s Grave in Xia County, Shanxi Province,” in《民俗曲艺》2001年第131期，页27-56。

14、动乱、官府与地方社会：读〈新开潞安府治记碑〉
Original Chinese article (“Disturbance, Government, and the Local Society: Reading the Inscription of the Newly Establishing Seat of the Lu’an Prefecture”), in《中山大学学报》，2000年第2期，页66-73。

15、明中叶的瑶乱及其对瑶族的影响
“The Yao Wars in the Mid-Ming and Their Impact on Yao Ethnicity,” in Pamela Kyle Crossley, Helen Siu, and Donald Sutton eds., Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2006), pp. 171-189.

16、祠堂与家庙：从宋末到明中叶宗族礼仪的演变
Original Chinese article (“The Ancestral Hall and the Family Temple: The Evolution of the Lineage Ritual Practice from Late Song to Mid-Ming”), in《历史人类学学刊》第一卷第二期（2003），页1-20。

17、现代中国的国家与礼仪：评“民间社会”论争
“State and Rituals in Modern China: Comments on the ‘Civil Society’ Debate,” in 王秋桂、庄英章、陈中民编：《社会、民族与文化展演国际研讨会论文集》（台北：汉学研究中心，2001），页509-535。

18、国家与礼仪：宋至清中叶珠江三角洲地方社会的国家认同
Original Chinese article (“State and Rituals: The Integration of Local Society into the Chinese State in the Pearl River Delta from Northern Song to Mid-Qing”), in 《中山大学学报（社会科学版）》，1995年第5期（总第39期），页65-72。

(Edited by Boyi Chen)

What prolonged the Ming dynasty? How did the empire manage to survive its many external challenges and shortcomings if neither capable emperor nor mighty force prevailed as contributing factors during the course of the dynasty? In his work Ming China 1368-1644: A Concise History of a Resilient Empire, John W. Dardess attempts to address the issues surrounding the durability of one of China’s longest lasting empires. The author divides the book into five chapters and approaches his narrative by incorporating both chronology and encompassing themes. Dardess fluently employs a macro perspective and compiles 276 years of history into a concise, yet insightful account of the Great Ming suitable for both knowledgeable students and interested readers.

韓琦：《南巡、傳教士和外交——兼論康熙對禮儀之爭和教廷特使多羅來華的反應》，《文化雜誌》，總102期，第57-65頁。

1684年至1707年間，康熙皇帝曾六次南巡。康熙不僅巡視河工、祭拜孔子與明陵，考察官員，瞭解民情，同時也藉機籠絡江南漢族士大夫。本文將根據國內和歐洲所藏文獻和檔案，揭示南巡過程中康熙與傳教士的互動，並重點討論最後一次南巡（1707），分析康熙、直郡王和內務府官員在處理禮儀之爭時對教廷特使多羅（Carlo Tommaso Maillard de Tournon, 1668-1710）來華和傳教士的態度。

What makes a group photograph intelligible? Conceptualising an alternative to the Rieglian analyses of the correlation between power and composition in group portraiture, this article proposes a ritualistic approach to understanding the group photograph and its commemorative purpose. The proposal is raised through a case study of the photograph of Tohoro Duanfang (1861–1911) and an assembly of scholarly officials with the altar bronzes in his collection. Despite the uncertainty about its date and location, the photograph has been widely published in books on Chinese ancient bronzes and the culture of collecting. This article dates, decodes and contextualises this image within the imperial tradition of reinstating ancient bronzes in Confucius worship. It also discusses photography’s primacy in the late Qing antiquarian praxis of studying, cataloguing and displaying bronzes. This study demonstrates that the process of taking a group photograph consists of a composite ritualistic event in which a ‘pro- photographic’ event is imbricated with a ‘photographic event’. This imbricated flow of event and ritual may shed light on understandings of group photographs with an intelligibility that is not only visual, but also temporal.

From the perspectives of historical memory and narrative, this paper reexamines two late Ming texts long denounced as “falsified history”—Zhishen lu (The Account of Self-Dedication) and Congwang suibi (Casual Notes Written while Accompanying the Emperor in Exile) —published in the early seventeenth century. These two works were widely known among late Ming and early Qing officials and literati, and significantly reformulated the historical memory of the Jianwen emperor. In this paper, I present the process through which the obscured memory of a tragically deposed emperor acquired full flesh and blood in two fabricated historical narratives. I argue that the formation and popularity of the two texts provide us with a valuable case to investigate the intricate interaction among history, memory, and writing.

This paper begins by inspecting the rhetoric employed in the memorials submitted to the Wanli court concerning the reinstatement of Jianwen and his martyrs, the prefaces and postscripts of Zhishen lu, and other related contemporary unofficial histories. I demonstrate that political discourse, reader’s reception and commercial promotion together contributed to the prevalence of the “imagined” history of Jianwen’s exile during late Wanli period. Next, I trace the formation of these two texts from various earlier private historical records, including the biji (miscellaneous notes). A close examination of these sources shows that Zhishen lu is the product of its writer collating and editing previous records. Based on Zhishen lu, the writer of Congwang suibi made further modification to create an elaborated and moving story of a group of loyalists following Jianwen in exile for almost forty years. Finally, I turn to the two texts themselves to analyze the elements that might appeal to the sensibility of the late Ming readers.

This paper situates Jin Shengtan’s The Sixth Genius Book: The Western Wing in the context of traditional Chinese literary criticism and discourse on reading to examine Jin’s contribution to the history of reading. In his tremendously popular commentary on the romantic play, The Story of the Western Wing, Jin defines the text as an artifact that captures the aesthetics of a single moment that is utterly unique and incapable of reproduction. Any writer does not possess his text once it materializes into marvelous writings between Heaven and earth (tiandi miaowen), as these are treasures of talented men whose brilliance of learning renders the patterns of nature as the text’s simulacrum. I will examine how Jin uses this definition of the literary text to promote his understanding of reading as a bodily experience that fuses subjective identities of the author, the reader, and the commentator in a virtual community of reader-writers sharing brocade-like minds (jinxiu caizi). Jin’s theory of reading shares concerns in Lu Ji’s “Poetic Exposition on Literature” and Zhu Xi’s teachings on the act of reading: Lu Ji’s trenchant awareness of literary precedents and preoccupation with originality on the one hand and Zhu Xi’s wariness of commercialization of knowledge and its fragmentation in the age of printing on the other. Yet The Sixth Genius Book sets itself apart from these precedents with Jin’s evocation of medical and religious discourses that, by the seventeenth century, had become part of a broadly-shared repertoire of professional knowledge. Ultimately, Jin Shengtan’s The Sixth Genius Book showcases the contested nature of the non-linear dynamics of continuation, innovation, and reception epitomized in his promotion of The Western Wing as a well-recognized cultural icon.

In Jin Ping Mei cihua, purple in different shades becomes fashionable among courtesans and women of gentry and merchant classes. Purple, which used to designate high official ranks and royalty from Tang to Song, was censored, downgraded, and diverted from the official sartorial hierarchy in the Ming. Offering a brief material and cultural history of purple dye, this article delineates how the women of Jin Ping Mei adopt purple to construct their professional and everyday personas and argues that dyeing and colors are central in the novel’s conception of the dynamics between the material world and the mind.

Tóm tắt: Bộ tùng thư Tiểu Phương Hồ trai dư địa tùng sao của Vương Tích Kỳ (1855-1913) gồm 1.537 tên sách của hơn 600 tác giả, được sưu tập và biên soạn trong 25 năm (1877-1901), là một bộ tập đại thành tư liệu địa dư thế giới lớn nhất của Trung Quốc cuối thời cận đại. Bộ sách thể hiện sự thay đổi quan niệm về thế giới của giới sử học Trung Quốc, từ bỏ cái nhìn “Hoa tâm luận” (Sinocentrism) để chuyển sang cái nhìn rộng ra toàn thế giới. Trong bộ tùng thư này đã sưu tập 21 tác phẩm chuyên đề về địa dư và lịch sử Việt Nam, chủ yếu được viết bởi các học giả Trung Quốc thời cận đại. Mặc dù còn một số hạn chế, nhưng bộ phận tư liệu Việt Nam về cơ bản vẫn là các nguồn sử liệu quý, có giá trị trong việc tìm hiểu tri thức của người nước ngoài (chủ yếu là Trung Quốc) về đất nước và con người Việt Nam thời cận đại, trong đó có những thông tin liên quan đến chủ quyền biển đảo Việt Nam.

Từ khoá: Địa dư, Vương Tích Kỳ, Việt Nam, cận đại, Tiểu Phương Hồ trai dư địa tùng sao

Abstract: The series Collection of Geographies from Xiaofanghu Studio by Wang Xiqi (1855-1913) with 1,537 titles by more than 600 authors, collected and compiled over 25 years (1877-1901), was China’s largest encyclopedia of world geography of the late imperial period. The series expresses a conceptual change about the world by Chinese historians, abandoning “Sinocentrism” for a broader outlook on the world. Collected in this series are 21 treatises on Vietnamese geography and history, mainly written by late imperial Chinese scholars. Notwithstanding their limitations, the materials on Vietnam are basically still valuable historical sources to shed light on the knowledge of foreigners (particularly Chinese scholars) about the Vietnamese land and people of the late imperial period, including information associated with Vietnamese sovereignty on its seas and islands.

Keywords: Geography, Wang Xiqi, Vietnam, late imperial period, Collection of Geographies from Xiaofanghu Studio

This paper examines the 1567 change in Ming dynasty prohibition on maritime trade against the backdrop of increasing wokou or Japanese piracy along the coast at that time. While the current interpretation argues that the 1567 policy change was a capitulation to littoral demands by the state, I argue that the adoption of a kaihai (open seas) policy was the outcome
of the Jiajing court’s incremental approach towards resolution of the wokou crisis and the permitting, albeit limited, of private trade along the coast. In this search for a modus operandi, littoral demands featured less prominently than the court’s final acceptance of reality on the coast on its own terms.

In Imperial China, the idea of filial piety not only shaped family relations but was also the ideology by which Qing China was governed. State and Family in China: Filial Piety and Its Modern Reform examines the relationship between politics and intergenerational family relations in China from the Qing period to 1949, focusing on changes in family law, parent-child relationships, and the Chinese state during this period. highlights how the Qing dynasty treated the state-sponsored parent-child hierarchy as the axis around which Chinese family and political power relations were constructed and maintained. It shows how, following the fall of the Qing in 1911, reform of filial piety law in the Republic of China became the basis of state-directed family revolution, playing a vital role in China’s transition from an empire to a nation-state.

S.V. Dmitriev and S.L. Kuzmin. 2014. The Qing Empire as China: an Anatomy of Historical Myth. – Oriens (Moscow) (1): 5-17.
It is often considered that China is a unique state in the world which has been several times won by foreigners, but never became a part of any other state, thus retaining continuity of its history and statehood based on consecutive row of ruling dynasties. This view is based on ancient sinocentric model which does not satisfy testing by comparative historical approach. Our analysis revealed that the Qing Empire cannot be equaled to China. Although the latter term has been broadly used, it had different meaning at different times. Actually, China was only a part of the Qing Empire. Manchu declarations that their state is China (i.e. Middle State, most important in the world), are similar to those by German, Ottoman, Russian and other monarchs on their states' continuity from the Roman Empire. These declarations have only historical value and cannot be used for modern international law. The Qing and other "conquest dynasties of China" were actually different empires created by non-Chinese peoples. The Han nation-state: Republic of China and People's Republic of China (PRC) had acquired almost whole territory of the Qing Empire as a result of occupation of weaker neighbors, instead of continuity of one state. Modern concept of PRC as a multinational state of "one Chinese nation", that included "minority nationalities" at least from the Middle Ages, is a historical myth.

This article examines Portuguese colonial and military activities at Macau during the Boxer Uprising of 1900, connecting developments across the border in Guangdong with initiatives undertaken by the colonial authorities in Macau. The Portuguese perceived the situation to be serious enough that substantial reinforcements were eventually sent from the metropole, in addition to various other measures taken to strengthen the colony's defenses. Portugal also used Macau as a base to coordinate the operations of its consulates in China, and exploited the Boxer debacle to press for new concessions and other advantages at China's expense. At the end, it is hoped that the limited and relatively unknown role played by Portugal, in conjunction with the larger kaleidoscope of events around Macau, may be better illuminated.

The economic and political relationship between the Spanish minority and the Chinese sometime-majority of Manila was crucial to both sides, and yet it was punctuated with frequent outbreaks of mass violence that left thousands dead. The basic features of life in 17th century Manila are unfamiliar to most readers, so my first chapter is an introduction to broad economic, social, and environmental factors that I consider important in reading the history of Sino-Spanish conflict. From there, my thesis aims to contribute to the debate on why this cycle of ethnic conflict began and persisted. To do so, I focus particularly on two key incidents. First, Chapter Two describes the “Calamba Rebellion” of 1639-1640, in which some 30,000 Chinese rose up in revolt against Spanish labor requirements and taxation, only for some 20,000 to be killed and the rest imprisoned. My second case study, in Chapter Three, looks at a diplomatic exchange from the years 1662-1663 between the Spanish Philippines and the ethnically Chinese Zheng state. This exchange occurred in the light of Zheng threats to invade the Philippines and the consequent Spanish massacre and/or expulsion of thousands of Chinese living on Luzon, but led to the codification of a new legal status for Filipino Chinese as legal subjects of the foreign Zheng regime. Throughout, I attempt to use the events of 1639-1663 as touchstones in considerations of basic conceptual questions about the birth of a “global” economy, the formation of the “Philippines” as a nation and region, and the conditions under which persistent boundaries of ethnic or political identity lapse from zones of cooperation to frontiers of conflict.

Baron R.F. von Ungern-Sternberg (1885–1921) is almost a legendary figure. He was General of the Russian White Army fought against the Reds in Civil War after the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia. He participated in the Civil War in Russian Siberia, Manchuria and Mongolia. Baron Ungern, traditionalist and one of first eurasianists, became the key figure in finding the independence of modern Mongolia. This book is a full reconstruction of life and activities of Baron Ungern, based on all available materials, including those from Russian, Mongolian, Estonian, American, Japanese and other archives. These data, based in a large part of formerly unknown materials, are discussed in general context of events in Mongolia and Siberia of that time. Some legends related to Baron Ungern are also discussed. The book includes biography of the last Great Khan of Mongolia, whose power was restored by Ungern. Unpublished documents and memoirs added. The book may be interesting for historians, political scientists, ethnographers, orientalists and all interested in the history of Russia and Mongolia. English contents included.

This article examines the understudied and little-noticed pictorial genre of Liumin tu 流民圖 (Images of disaster refugees), a tradition dating back to the Chinese scholar-official Zheng Xia 鄭俠 (1041-1119) who submitted a memorial to the throne along with a painting representing famine victims in order to request assistance and denounce the misguided politics of the time. From the Ming dynasty onward, Zheng Xia’s work served as a model for other officials who resorted to such means of persuasion with higher authorities or with an emperor to obtain quick relief or tax reductions from the central government. Although the genre of the illustrated memorials subsequently underwent interesting developments, to date, scholars have paid it little attention, since most of the original documents are no longer extant. However, a thorough search of the database of Chinese local gazetteers, Zhongguo fangzhi ku 中國方志庫, has made it possible to uncover a substantial body of texts (prefaces, memorials, poems and prose inscriptions, postscripts) associated with these now-lost visual materials. These allow us not only to confirm the existence of a pictorial genre, but also make it possible to study this tradition and enquire into the methods used to describe and paint disasters and their victims, the functions of these works, and their modes of transmission. To provide a comprehensive overview of this largely unexplored genre, this essay also takes into account the so-called Tielei tu 鐵淚圖 (Pictures to draw tears from [a man of] iron) series produced during the nineteenth century, which can be considered as later developments of the Liumin tu tradition. The aim of this paper is to show how the study of this overlooked written material, alongside the illustrations that survive, allows for new insights into the role of vernacular images in social and cultural practices during the late imperial period. I also suggest that these visual productions constitute a component of the historical events themselves, mediating the viewer’s perception and awareness of the disaster.

In this paper, I will investigate the process of the transmission of an esoteric ritual in late imperial China and show how this ritual could rise from a peripheral place and be regarded as a genuine link between esoteric Buddhism in the seventeenth century and the ancient Tantric tradition in the Tang. This ritual, called the "Rite for Feeding the Hungry Ghosts (Shishi 施食) had flourished during Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties and had been incorporated into Chan monastic codes in the seventeenth century. One particular version of this ritual draws our attention because it was entitled "Mengshan 蒙山," a mountain located in the Sino-Tibetan border (nowadays in Sichuan province of China), and was attributed to the Indian monk Budong 不動who had served as national preceptor in the Xixia 西夏 (Tangut) state (1038-1227). In addition, it was incorporated into a seventeenth-century Chan Rules of Purity (qinggui 清規))composed in Japan by a group of émigré monks from China. Nowadays, it is still one of the essential liturgies in Chinese monasteries. Following this lead, my investigation starts from the emergence of this rite in seventeenth-century Chan monasticism. After comparing the existing liturgical manuals of the Mengshan Rite, I trace the origin of this ritual to a region often referred as Mi-ñag in the historical Sino-Tibetan border and to the Tangut state in which esoteric Buddhism enjoyed tremendous popularity. In light of R. A. Stein's discovery that the Mi-ñag people were actually descendants of the Tangut people, I shall explain that the transmission of this ritual to Mount Mengshan was related to the Tangut diaspora in the Sino-Tibetan border. In addition, based on my research on the role of this Tangut diasporic community in the Sino-Tibetan Tea-Horse trade, I suggest that the Mengshan Rite might be brought to China proper through frequent commercial exchanges between China and Tibet. My hypothesis is that the Tangut diasporic community, called "Mi-ñag" by the Tibetans, was one possible channel for the transmission of the Mengshan Rite in China. This hypothesis will show that the process of the "Tantrification" of Chinese Buddhism in late imperial China was a complex movement towards reassuring the continuity and integrity of Chinese esoteric tradition. At the end of this paper, I theorize the mode of transmissions in Chinese Buddhism and suggest that in the context of late imperial China the transmission of the Mengshan rite followed the rule of marginality.

канд. полит. наук, доцент кафедры международного права и международных отношений юридического факультета, старший научный сотрудник Центра правового обеспечения взаимодействия РФ со странами АТР ФГБОУ ВПО «Бурятский государственный университет» (г. Улан-Удэ)

Access provided by Washington University @ St. Louis Female Holder of the Lineage: Linji Chan Master Zhiyuan Xinggang (1597-1654) Beata Grant The late Ming and early Qing witnessed a brief but vital revival of the Linji Chan Buddhist lineage. 1 It came at a time when the notion of lineage and sectarian distinctions seemed to have little to recommend it: not one of the four Great Buddhist Masters of Ming--Yunqi Zhuhong (1535-1615), Daguan Zhenke (1543-1603), Hanshan Deqing (1546-1623) and Ouyi Zhixu (1599-1655)--felt it necessary or perhaps even advisable to associate themselves with a formal Chan lineage and all are listed in the "lineage unknown" section of the official biographies of Chan monks.

This article examines the emaciated self-images of four women's self-inscription poems on their own portraits. They are Huang Hong (early seventeenth century), Xi Peilan (1760-after 1829), Tan Yinmei (fl. mid-eighteenth to early nineteenth century) and Zheng Lansun (1819-61). These women similarly describe their self-images as qiaocui (emaciated), alluding to the legendary girl poet Feng Xiaoqing. Inherently ambivalent , qiaocui could imply sexual and erotic appeal, the virtuous mind of a recluse, sickness , ordinariness, melancholy, as well as aging and death. The article argues for the importance of the rhetoric of qiaocui and the topoi of Feng Xiaoqing in the self-inscriptions by women in Hangzhou and the broader Jiangnan region as a medium to construct their female subjectivity. This article suggests that, initially a persona publicly circulated in the late Ming, the topoi of Feng Xiaoqing came to define the women's per-sonhood in private spaces in late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

This paper examines Wang Fuzhi’s lyrics on shadows and his poetics of “catching shadows,” both involving his thoughts on the commensurability of life and theater. These lyrics weave together the metaphor of life as a play with the Zhuangzi and Buddhism to explore the themes of self, free will, and fate at a time of political and moral collapse. Wang’s poetics of “catching shadows,” centering on the intricate play of feeling, visuality, and the concept of theatrical self-division, explores lyrical interiority and the multilayered representation of poetic consciousness, as well as challenging certain conventions of poetry. Wang’s lyrics and poetics thus indicate a theatrical turn in early Qing lyricism and poetics: a new way of observing the self and the world, born out of a synthesis of late-Ming theatrical culture, the Zhuangzi, and Buddhism.

This paper studies the monastic gazetteer titled Jinling fancha zhi (A Record of Monasteries in Nanjing) published by Ge Yingliang in the late Ming period. It discusses the geographical distribution of and the hierarchical relationships among the numerous Buddhist monasteries in Nanjing, and how the location and hierarchical factors affected the development monastic economy.

In the literature, the ‘Overview Maps of Imperial Territories’ or Huangyu quanlan tu 皇輿全覽圖,
is mostly referred to as ‘the Jesuit atlas of China’. The reason is that this early eighteenth-century atlas of all
Qing China’s territories plus Korea and Tibet is assumed to have resulted from European missionaries
importing European cartographic practices. In this essay, I argue that this view is outdated and can no longer
be sustained. By revisiting the background of the missionaries’ involvement in cartographic exchanges
between Asia and Europe, the techniques used for surveying Qing territories and the production of the
resulting atlases, I show that the mapping project behind the ‘Overview Maps of Imperial Territories’ is best
understood as a creative answer to the unique needs of Qing frontier management and imperial control,
made possible by the integration, in mensurational and in representational terms, of European and East
Asian cartographic practices.

This article focuses on the relationship between the controversial late-Ming playwright Tu Long and the contemporaneous Tiantai school of Buddhism represented by Youxi Chuandeng. It aims to contribute on the one hand to studies of Tu Long, which have paid little attention to Tu's connection with Tiantai, and on the other hand to studies of Chuandeng and the late Ming Tiantai revival, which have not yet explored the nexus between Chuandeng's philosophical teachings and his social network. I argue that it is most likely through Tiantai Buddhism, rather than "mad Chan" or Yangming philosophy, that Tu justified his antinomian deeds. This case study of Tu Long indicates that the success of the Tiantai school in the late Ming may be attributed to its fulfillment of the literati appetite for reading and writing, as well as to its tolerance of their unconventional lifestyle and syncretic spirituality. Unveiling some disagreements between Tu and Yunqi Zhuhong, whom many regard as Tu's guru, this paper highlights the agency of a lay Buddhist amid the tensions between rival schools and teachers.

初本《吕祖全书》和《文帝全书》成书于乾隆七年至十年间（1742~1745），并且出自同一编纂团体之手，而这一团体的核心便是当时在贵州地区任官的刘樵。本文旨在通过考察笔者近年在国内外图书馆中所搜罗的相关文献——包括各版本《文帝全书》、各类地方志、《清实录》以及军机处文件，尽可能考证出雍乾年间刘樵的生平以及以他为核心的编纂团体在当时的活动。其在刚刚经历了苗变的偏远小城贵州清平重建学宫庙宇、刊印善书等一系列行为是作为儒生官员在苗汉冲突的最前线进行神道设教的尝试，也反映出清代的地方官员和儒生是如何将儒教价值与流行的演经实践和善书刊刻相调和的。

This article examines the circulation of medical recipes through vernacular literature and personal networks from the late Ming through the Qing. During this period, vernacular texts played a leading role in circulating practical instructions for everyday healing techniques, especially in the form of recipes. Recipes became a versatile textual form for recording and transmitting experience in quotidian practice. They moved among different genres of texts, providing information about healing, offering advice for entertainment, and delivering moral lessons. Literati sociability as well as philanthropic and religious commitments motivated people of varied social means to distribute vernacular texts bearing healing information to a broad audience. Recipes acquired legitimacy and authority by clearly marking their provenance and thus its relationship to particular social networks and, sometimes, a religious purpose as well.

This essay analyzes ritual and legal texts, case records, and judicial writings and consequently challenges the conventional understanding that equates parental authority in late-imperial China with the authority of the father or "head of household" (jia zhang 家長). It traces the gradual development of a child's mourning obligations done equally toward father and mother from the Tang dynasty onward, and it shows how father's and mother's authority was symmetrically upheld in Qing judicial practice regardless of the biological mother's position, or lack thereof, in the child's father's patriline. The logic underlying the late-imperial elevation of the mother's status in both ritual and law was the increasing emphasis on the child's obligation and natural desire to repay the "debt" (en 恩) that he/she naturally owed both parents. While the emotional bond between mother and child was important in social life, the source of legally-buttressed maternal power was state sponsorship of the authority of fathermother (fumu 父母)-a bi-gendered concept lying at the heart of formal ritual-legal establishments of an empire that "ruled through the principle of filial piety."

Qian Qianyi (1582–1664) was a prominent late Ming scholar-official who fashioned himself as a Buddhist in the early Qing. Despite Qian's claims that he had taken refuge in Buddhism, however, fellow literati close to him still inclined to emphasize his other identities fostered by a classical Confucian education—poet, scholar, and politician. Focusing on Qian's commentary on the Shoulengyan jing, i.e., the ragama Stra, and his compilation of Hanshan Deqing's (1546–1623) anthology, this paper unravels Qian's efforts in promoting Buddhism and documenting its history. It brings to light Qian Qianyi's hitherto overshadowed Buddhist endeavors, their historiographical and historical implications, as well as the complexities of interreligious dynamics during the Ming-Qing Transition.