Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song

Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song

Author: Esther S. Klein

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-03-27

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 9004376879

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In Father of Chinese History, Esther Klein explores the life and work of the great Han dynasty historian Sima Qian as seen by readers from the Han to the Song dynasties (100 BCE-1200 CE).


Book Synopsis Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song by : Esther S. Klein

Download or read book Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song written by Esther S. Klein and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-03-27 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Father of Chinese History, Esther Klein explores the life and work of the great Han dynasty historian Sima Qian as seen by readers from the Han to the Song dynasties (100 BCE-1200 CE).


The Politics of the Past in Early China

The Politics of the Past in Early China

Author: Vincent S. Leung

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-07-18

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1108425720

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History mattered to the political elite in ancient China. Leung explores why it was so important and to what end.


Book Synopsis The Politics of the Past in Early China by : Vincent S. Leung

Download or read book The Politics of the Past in Early China written by Vincent S. Leung and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History mattered to the political elite in ancient China. Leung explores why it was so important and to what end.


Narrative Devices in the Shiji

Narrative Devices in the Shiji

Author: Lei Yang

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2024-04-01

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1438497229

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Narrative Devices in the Shiji: Retelling the Past offers the first systematic analysis of narratives in early Chinese historical writings from 400 BCE to 100 CE, with a focus on the Shiji (Records of the Historian), a vast collection of historical accounts completed by Sima Qian (145–86 BCE). For centuries, the dominant approach to the Shiji has been to infer Sima's intentions from his biographical experiences and subsequently project them back into the text. This has caused the import of the work to be overshadowed by Sima's tragedy of castration, and has minimized the question of how narrative as a form affects the text's interpretation. Lei Yang fills the gap by exploring how Sima manipulated the Shiji's narrative structure to represent the past. Drawing on Gérard Genette's narratological theories, the book examines how sequences of events build causality, what is slowed down and sped up to manage information control, and how the text provides multiple perspectives on the same events. Redefining the Shiji's place as a turning point in Chinese textual history, Narrative Devices in the Shiji sheds light on the evolution of early Chinese historiography. As an interdisciplinary dialogue between Chinese texts and the Western theories, it opens the Shiji to new interpretations and provides a novel framework for Chinese historical writings.


Book Synopsis Narrative Devices in the Shiji by : Lei Yang

Download or read book Narrative Devices in the Shiji written by Lei Yang and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2024-04-01 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Narrative Devices in the Shiji: Retelling the Past offers the first systematic analysis of narratives in early Chinese historical writings from 400 BCE to 100 CE, with a focus on the Shiji (Records of the Historian), a vast collection of historical accounts completed by Sima Qian (145–86 BCE). For centuries, the dominant approach to the Shiji has been to infer Sima's intentions from his biographical experiences and subsequently project them back into the text. This has caused the import of the work to be overshadowed by Sima's tragedy of castration, and has minimized the question of how narrative as a form affects the text's interpretation. Lei Yang fills the gap by exploring how Sima manipulated the Shiji's narrative structure to represent the past. Drawing on Gérard Genette's narratological theories, the book examines how sequences of events build causality, what is slowed down and sped up to manage information control, and how the text provides multiple perspectives on the same events. Redefining the Shiji's place as a turning point in Chinese textual history, Narrative Devices in the Shiji sheds light on the evolution of early Chinese historiography. As an interdisciplinary dialogue between Chinese texts and the Western theories, it opens the Shiji to new interpretations and provides a novel framework for Chinese historical writings.


The Craft of Oblivion

The Craft of Oblivion

Author: Albert Galvany

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2023-07-01

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1438493770

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The Craft of Oblivion is an innovative and groundbreaking volume that aims to study, for the first time, the intersections between forgetting and remembering in classical Chinese civilization. Oblivion has tended to be relegated to a marginal position, often conceived as the mere destructive or undesirable opposite of memory, even though it performs an essential function in our lives. Forgetting and memory, far from being autonomous and mutually exclusive spheres, should be seen as interdependent phenomena. Drawing on perspectives from history, philosophy, literature, and religion, and examining both transmitted texts and excavated materials, the contributors to this volume analyze various ways of understanding oblivion and its complex and fertile relations with memory in ancient China.


Book Synopsis The Craft of Oblivion by : Albert Galvany

Download or read book The Craft of Oblivion written by Albert Galvany and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2023-07-01 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Craft of Oblivion is an innovative and groundbreaking volume that aims to study, for the first time, the intersections between forgetting and remembering in classical Chinese civilization. Oblivion has tended to be relegated to a marginal position, often conceived as the mere destructive or undesirable opposite of memory, even though it performs an essential function in our lives. Forgetting and memory, far from being autonomous and mutually exclusive spheres, should be seen as interdependent phenomena. Drawing on perspectives from history, philosophy, literature, and religion, and examining both transmitted texts and excavated materials, the contributors to this volume analyze various ways of understanding oblivion and its complex and fertile relations with memory in ancient China.


Daoism and Environmental Philosophy

Daoism and Environmental Philosophy

Author: Eric S. Nelson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-10-01

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 0429678223

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Daoism and Environmental Philosophy explores ethics and the philosophy of nature in the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and related texts to elucidate their potential significance in our contemporary environmental crisis. This book traces early Daoist depictions of practices of embodied emptying and forgetting and communicative strategies of undoing the fixations of words, things, and the embodied self. These are aspects of an ethics of embracing plainness and simplicity, nourishing the asymmetrically differentiated yet shared elemental body of life of the myriad things, and being responsively attuned in encountering and responding to things. These critical and transformative dimensions of early Daoism provide exemplary models and insights for cultivating a more expansive ecological ethos, environmental culture of nature, and progressive political ecology. This work will be of interest to students and scholars interested in philosophy, environmental ethics and philosophy, religious studies, and intellectual history.


Book Synopsis Daoism and Environmental Philosophy by : Eric S. Nelson

Download or read book Daoism and Environmental Philosophy written by Eric S. Nelson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daoism and Environmental Philosophy explores ethics and the philosophy of nature in the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and related texts to elucidate their potential significance in our contemporary environmental crisis. This book traces early Daoist depictions of practices of embodied emptying and forgetting and communicative strategies of undoing the fixations of words, things, and the embodied self. These are aspects of an ethics of embracing plainness and simplicity, nourishing the asymmetrically differentiated yet shared elemental body of life of the myriad things, and being responsively attuned in encountering and responding to things. These critical and transformative dimensions of early Daoism provide exemplary models and insights for cultivating a more expansive ecological ethos, environmental culture of nature, and progressive political ecology. This work will be of interest to students and scholars interested in philosophy, environmental ethics and philosophy, religious studies, and intellectual history.


Honor and Shame in Early China

Honor and Shame in Early China

Author: Mark Edward Lewis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-12-10

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1108911609

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In this major new study, Mark Edward Lewis traces how the changing language of honor and shame helped to articulate and justify transformations in Chinese society between the Warring States and the end of the Han dynasty. Through careful examination of a wide variety of texts, he demonstrates how honor-shame discourse justified the actions of diverse and potentially rival groups. Over centuries, the formally recognized political order came to be intertwined with groups articulating alternative models of honor. These groups both participated in the existing order and, through their own visions of what was truly honourable, paved the way for subsequent political structures. Filling a major lacuna in the study of early China, Lewis presents ways in which the early Chinese empires can be fruitfully considered in comparative context and develops a more systematic understanding of the fundamental role of honor/shame in shaping states and societies.


Book Synopsis Honor and Shame in Early China by : Mark Edward Lewis

Download or read book Honor and Shame in Early China written by Mark Edward Lewis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this major new study, Mark Edward Lewis traces how the changing language of honor and shame helped to articulate and justify transformations in Chinese society between the Warring States and the end of the Han dynasty. Through careful examination of a wide variety of texts, he demonstrates how honor-shame discourse justified the actions of diverse and potentially rival groups. Over centuries, the formally recognized political order came to be intertwined with groups articulating alternative models of honor. These groups both participated in the existing order and, through their own visions of what was truly honourable, paved the way for subsequent political structures. Filling a major lacuna in the study of early China, Lewis presents ways in which the early Chinese empires can be fruitfully considered in comparative context and develops a more systematic understanding of the fundamental role of honor/shame in shaping states and societies.


The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI

The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI

Author: Ssu-ma Ch'ien

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2019-07-31

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 025304846X

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Part of the extraordinary multi-volume portrait of ancient China written by a court official of the Han Dynasty. The Grand Scribe’s Records, Volume XI presents the final nine memoirs of Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s history, continuing the series of collective biographies with seven more prosopographies on the ruthless officials, the wandering gallants, the artful favorites, those who discern auspicious days, turtle and stalk diviners, and those whose goods increase, punctuated by the final account of Emperor Wu’s wars against neighboring peoples and concluded with Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s postface containing a history of his family and himself. Praise for the series: “[An] indispensable addition to modern sinology.” —China Review International “The English translation has been done meticulously.” —Choice


Book Synopsis The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI by : Ssu-ma Ch'ien

Download or read book The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI written by Ssu-ma Ch'ien and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of the extraordinary multi-volume portrait of ancient China written by a court official of the Han Dynasty. The Grand Scribe’s Records, Volume XI presents the final nine memoirs of Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s history, continuing the series of collective biographies with seven more prosopographies on the ruthless officials, the wandering gallants, the artful favorites, those who discern auspicious days, turtle and stalk diviners, and those whose goods increase, punctuated by the final account of Emperor Wu’s wars against neighboring peoples and concluded with Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s postface containing a history of his family and himself. Praise for the series: “[An] indispensable addition to modern sinology.” —China Review International “The English translation has been done meticulously.” —Choice


Hanshu Volume 95 The Southwest Peoples, Two Yues, and Chaoxian: Translation with Commentary

Hanshu Volume 95 The Southwest Peoples, Two Yues, and Chaoxian: Translation with Commentary

Author: Amies, Alex

Publisher: chinesenotes

Published: 2019-12-31

Total Pages: 58

ISBN-13: 0983334870

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A new translation of Volume 95 of the Hanshu, also known as the Book of Han, is provided along with commentary on the text and discussion. The present translation is given with aligned Chinese source text. Volume 95 is a 傳 zhuan ‘biography’ describing the 西南夷 Southwest peoples of present-day Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou; 兩粵 two Yues, Nanyue of present-day Guangdong, Guangxi, and Vietnam and Minyue of present-day Fujian, Jiangsu, and adjacent areas; and 朝鮮 Chaoxian in the Korean peninsula. A discussion of how the text relates to trade, transportation, and cultural exchange in Panyu, in the area of present-day Guangzhou, as the capital of Nanyue and administrative center of the Nanhai commandery is also given.


Book Synopsis Hanshu Volume 95 The Southwest Peoples, Two Yues, and Chaoxian: Translation with Commentary by : Amies, Alex

Download or read book Hanshu Volume 95 The Southwest Peoples, Two Yues, and Chaoxian: Translation with Commentary written by Amies, Alex and published by chinesenotes. This book was released on 2019-12-31 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new translation of Volume 95 of the Hanshu, also known as the Book of Han, is provided along with commentary on the text and discussion. The present translation is given with aligned Chinese source text. Volume 95 is a 傳 zhuan ‘biography’ describing the 西南夷 Southwest peoples of present-day Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou; 兩粵 two Yues, Nanyue of present-day Guangdong, Guangxi, and Vietnam and Minyue of present-day Fujian, Jiangsu, and adjacent areas; and 朝鮮 Chaoxian in the Korean peninsula. A discussion of how the text relates to trade, transportation, and cultural exchange in Panyu, in the area of present-day Guangzhou, as the capital of Nanyue and administrative center of the Nanhai commandery is also given.


Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China

Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China

Author: Yegor Grebnev

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2022-07-12

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 0231555032

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Scholarship on early China has traditionally focused on a core group of canonical texts. However, understudied sources have the potential to shift perspectives on fundamental aspects of Chinese intellectual, religious, and political history. Yegor Grebnev examines crucial noncanonical texts preserved in the Yi Zhou shu (Neglected Zhou Scriptures) and the Grand Duke traditions, which represent scriptural traditions influential during the Warring States period but sidelined in later history. He develops an innovative framework for the study and interpretation of these texts, focusing on their role in the mediation of royal legitimacy and their formative impact on early Daoism. Grebnev demonstrates the centrality of the Yi Zhou shu in Chinese intellectual history by highlighting its simultaneous connections to canonical traditions and esoteric Daoism. He also shows that the Daoist rituals of textual transmission embedded in the Grand Duke traditions bear an imprint of the courtly environment of the Warring States period, where early Daoists strove for prestige and power, offering legitimacy through texts ascribed to the mythical sage rulers. These rituals appear to have emerged at the same period as the core Daoist philosophical texts and not several centuries later as conventionally believed, which calls for a reassessment of the history of Daoism’s interrelated religious and philosophical strands. Offering a far-reaching reconsideration of early Chinese intellectual and religious history, Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China sheds new light on the foundations of the Chinese textual tradition.


Book Synopsis Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China by : Yegor Grebnev

Download or read book Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China written by Yegor Grebnev and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-12 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarship on early China has traditionally focused on a core group of canonical texts. However, understudied sources have the potential to shift perspectives on fundamental aspects of Chinese intellectual, religious, and political history. Yegor Grebnev examines crucial noncanonical texts preserved in the Yi Zhou shu (Neglected Zhou Scriptures) and the Grand Duke traditions, which represent scriptural traditions influential during the Warring States period but sidelined in later history. He develops an innovative framework for the study and interpretation of these texts, focusing on their role in the mediation of royal legitimacy and their formative impact on early Daoism. Grebnev demonstrates the centrality of the Yi Zhou shu in Chinese intellectual history by highlighting its simultaneous connections to canonical traditions and esoteric Daoism. He also shows that the Daoist rituals of textual transmission embedded in the Grand Duke traditions bear an imprint of the courtly environment of the Warring States period, where early Daoists strove for prestige and power, offering legitimacy through texts ascribed to the mythical sage rulers. These rituals appear to have emerged at the same period as the core Daoist philosophical texts and not several centuries later as conventionally believed, which calls for a reassessment of the history of Daoism’s interrelated religious and philosophical strands. Offering a far-reaching reconsideration of early Chinese intellectual and religious history, Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China sheds new light on the foundations of the Chinese textual tradition.


The Art of Chinese Philosophy

The Art of Chinese Philosophy

Author: Paul Goldin

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0691200793

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Goldin thus begins the book by asking the basic question "What are we reading?" while also considering why it has been so rarely asked. Yet far from denigrating Chinese philosophy, he argues that liberating these texts from the mythic idea that they are the product of a single great mind only improves our understanding and appreciation. By no means does a text require single and undisputed authorship to be meaningful; nor is historicism the only legitimate interpretive stance. The first chapter takes up a hallmark of Chinese philosophy that demands a Western reader's cognizance: its preference for non-deductive argumentation. Chinese philosophy is an art (hence the title) he demonstrates, more than it is a rigorous logical method. Then comes the core of the book, eight chapters devoted to the eight philosophical texts divided into three parts: Philosophy of Heaven, Philosophy of the Way, and Two Titans at the End of an Age. .


Book Synopsis The Art of Chinese Philosophy by : Paul Goldin

Download or read book The Art of Chinese Philosophy written by Paul Goldin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Goldin thus begins the book by asking the basic question "What are we reading?" while also considering why it has been so rarely asked. Yet far from denigrating Chinese philosophy, he argues that liberating these texts from the mythic idea that they are the product of a single great mind only improves our understanding and appreciation. By no means does a text require single and undisputed authorship to be meaningful; nor is historicism the only legitimate interpretive stance. The first chapter takes up a hallmark of Chinese philosophy that demands a Western reader's cognizance: its preference for non-deductive argumentation. Chinese philosophy is an art (hence the title) he demonstrates, more than it is a rigorous logical method. Then comes the core of the book, eight chapters devoted to the eight philosophical texts divided into three parts: Philosophy of Heaven, Philosophy of the Way, and Two Titans at the End of an Age. .