Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2023.2240126
Antje Richter
AbstractThe large corpus of early medieval Chinese narratives now classified as records of the strange includes an abundance of stories of mistaken identity. This essay focuses on stories in which an animal successfully impersonates a human but is eventually found out. The questions I ask of these materials touch on issues of identity, privilege, and narrative: What does it take to pass as and replace a human, and possibly even a particular human? How are personal identity and privilege conceptualized, also across species and gender? How do narratives of initially mistaken and finally revealed “true” identity operate and what literary means do they employ? I propose that the political and social changes that shook early medieval China moved questions about ethnic, social, and personal identity to the center of thought, and that the literary conventions of records of the strange made the genre particularly suited to deliberating and negotiating these matters, especially in terms of access to privileged social spheres. Considering the literary sophistication with which records of the strange were usually composed, I also propose to include them more seriously in discussions of literary practice in early medieval China.Keywords: zhiguaianimalsidentitypassingimpersonation AcknowledgmentsI first presented on this topic in the panel “On the Human / Nonhuman / Posthuman in Medieval China” at the 97th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America in March 2022. I would like to thank my co-panelists for their comments, especially Jack Chen, Karl Steel, and Xiaofei Tian. I am also grateful for the invaluable constructive feedback I received from an anonymous reader and from Xiaofei Tian in her role as editor of EMC. Last but not the least I would like to express thanks to the students in my graduate seminar on medieval prose in Spring 2022: I have learnt so much from all twelve of you. Li Sijia, Xinchang Li, Xiaoyue Luo, and Huiyao Yang deserve special mention.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This was famously spelled out for foxes in a fragment of Xuanzhong ji 玄中記, generally ascribed to Guo Pu 郭璞 (276–324), as preserved in Taiping guangji 太平廣記 (comp. 978) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 447.3652. As we will see below, there are alternative accounts of this particular ageing process. Animals other than foxes that acquire unusual abilities when they reach a high age are mentioned in the “Dui su” 對俗 chapter of the Baopuzi. See Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi 抱樸子內篇校釋, comp. Wang Ming 王明 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), 3.41–42. For a typology of transformations, see Robert F. Campany, Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 251–55. See also Xiaofei Tian, “The Cultural Politics of Old Things in Mid-Tang China,” JAOS 140 (2020): 317–43.2 For research on animals in traditional China, see Chiara Bocci’s “Bibliographie zur Tierwelt im Alten
{"title":"Mistaken Identities: Negotiating Passing and Replacement in Chinese Records of the Strange","authors":"Antje Richter","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2023.2240126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2023.2240126","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractThe large corpus of early medieval Chinese narratives now classified as records of the strange includes an abundance of stories of mistaken identity. This essay focuses on stories in which an animal successfully impersonates a human but is eventually found out. The questions I ask of these materials touch on issues of identity, privilege, and narrative: What does it take to pass as and replace a human, and possibly even a particular human? How are personal identity and privilege conceptualized, also across species and gender? How do narratives of initially mistaken and finally revealed “true” identity operate and what literary means do they employ? I propose that the political and social changes that shook early medieval China moved questions about ethnic, social, and personal identity to the center of thought, and that the literary conventions of records of the strange made the genre particularly suited to deliberating and negotiating these matters, especially in terms of access to privileged social spheres. Considering the literary sophistication with which records of the strange were usually composed, I also propose to include them more seriously in discussions of literary practice in early medieval China.Keywords: zhiguaianimalsidentitypassingimpersonation AcknowledgmentsI first presented on this topic in the panel “On the Human / Nonhuman / Posthuman in Medieval China” at the 97th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America in March 2022. I would like to thank my co-panelists for their comments, especially Jack Chen, Karl Steel, and Xiaofei Tian. I am also grateful for the invaluable constructive feedback I received from an anonymous reader and from Xiaofei Tian in her role as editor of EMC. Last but not the least I would like to express thanks to the students in my graduate seminar on medieval prose in Spring 2022: I have learnt so much from all twelve of you. Li Sijia, Xinchang Li, Xiaoyue Luo, and Huiyao Yang deserve special mention.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This was famously spelled out for foxes in a fragment of Xuanzhong ji 玄中記, generally ascribed to Guo Pu 郭璞 (276–324), as preserved in Taiping guangji 太平廣記 (comp. 978) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 447.3652. As we will see below, there are alternative accounts of this particular ageing process. Animals other than foxes that acquire unusual abilities when they reach a high age are mentioned in the “Dui su” 對俗 chapter of the Baopuzi. See Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi 抱樸子內篇校釋, comp. Wang Ming 王明 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), 3.41–42. For a typology of transformations, see Robert F. Campany, Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 251–55. See also Xiaofei Tian, “The Cultural Politics of Old Things in Mid-Tang China,” JAOS 140 (2020): 317–43.2 For research on animals in traditional China, see Chiara Bocci’s “Bibliographie zur Tierwelt im Alten ","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134911947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2023.2240142
Graham Sanders
Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1 Qian, Spirit and Self in Medieval China: The Shih-shuo hsin-yü and Its Legacy (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001).2 Albert E. Dien, “On the Name Shishuo xinyu,” Early Medieval China 20 (2014): 7–8; Graham Sanders, “A New Note on Shishuo xinyu,” Early Medieval China 20 (2014): 9–22.3 Graham Sanders, Words Well Put: Visions of Poetic Competence in the Chinese Tradition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006).4 See Curie Virág, The Emotions in Early Chinese Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. viii.5 Xiaofei Tian, “From the Eastern Jin through the Early Tang (317–649),” in The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Vol. 1, To 1375, ed. Stephen Owen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 242.
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Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2023.2240141
Patricia Buckley Ebrey
Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Eventually, the set included fifteen “volumes,” but sixteen physical books, as volume 5 came out as two books.2 See Arthur Wright, Buddhism in Chinese History (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press) and Erik Zürcher, The Chinese Conquest of Buddhism (Leiden: Brill), both published in 1959.3 Albert E. Dien, “Yen Chih-t’ui (531-591+): A Buddho-Confucian,” in Confucian Personalities, ed. Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962), 44–64; Hisayuki Miyakawa, “The Confucianization of South China,” in The Confucian Persuasion, ed. Arthur F. Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1960), 21–46.4 Two notable conference volumes are State and Society in Early Medieval China, ed. Albert E. Dien (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), and Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200–600, ed. Scott Pearce, Audrey Spiro, and Patricia Ebrey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001).5 One could even go back earlier, to the Nan-Pei Ch’ao Studies group, which issued a newsletter beginning in 1977. Its first issue was a directory of scholars who responded to its query in the Association of Asian Studies newsletter asking for their addresses, research interests, and publications, and thus offers a time capsule on the field at that time.6 This is true even of recent volumes, such as CHC 5.2 (2015), which has chapters by Robert Hymes, Charles Hartman, and Joseph McDermott and Shiba Yoshinobu that ranged from 116 to 139 pages in length.7 Readers who would prefer to read a survey of the period in which a single scholar attempts to bring all the strands together can turn to Mark Lewis, China Between Empires: The Northern and Southern Dynasties (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).8 Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 78.2 (2018): 477–90.9 Journal of Asian Studies 47.2 (1988): 344.10 Journal of Asian Studies 55 (1996): 146–49.11 Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 46 (2016): 225–37.12 Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 77.1 (2017): 175–83.13 To give an example, I was confused by the differences in the discussion of Chen Yinke’s analysis of the relative contribution of the Western Wei/Northern Zhou versus the Eastern Wei/Northern Qi to the Tang on pages 11–12 and 235, so checked the index for Chen Yinke. It lists pages 11–12, 13, and 76, but there is no reference to Chen Yinke on page 76, and the passage on page 235 is not listed in the index. So I did a search of the Cambridge Histories online via my university library. Searching “Yinke,” if the box “search within full text” was checked, I got only two hits, to the introduction and chapter 10. To see the passages required opening the chapter and doing a search of it. By contrast, one could easily search through the e-book and get forty references, almost all in footnotes, but also
点击放大图片点击缩小图片披露声明作者未报告潜在的利益冲突。注1最终,这套丛书包括15卷,但16卷是实体书,因为第五卷是分成两卷出版的见阿瑟·赖特,中国历史上的佛教(斯坦福,加州:斯坦福大学出版社)和埃里克·泽尔切尔,中国征服佛教(莱顿:布瑞尔),两者都在1959年出版。阿尔伯特·e·迪恩,“颜志德(531-591+):一个佛教儒家”,在儒家人格,编辑阿瑟·f·赖特和丹尼斯·特威切特(斯坦福,加州:斯坦福大学出版社,1962),44-64;5 .宫川久之,《华南儒学化》,载于《儒家劝化》,阿瑟·f·赖特主编(加州斯坦福:斯坦福大学出版社,1960年),第21-46.4页。两本著名的会议文集是《中世纪早期中国的国家与社会》,阿尔伯特·e·迪恩主编(加州斯坦福:斯坦福大学出版社,1990年),以及《中国王国重构中的文化与权力》,200-600页,斯科特·皮尔斯、奥德丽·斯皮罗和帕特里夏·埃布雷主编(马萨诸塞州剑桥:哈佛大学亚洲中心,2001年)我们甚至可以追溯到更早的南裴潮研究小组,他们从1977年开始出版一份通讯。它的第一期是一份学者名录,这些学者在亚洲研究协会通讯中询问他们的地址、研究兴趣和出版物,从而提供了当时该领域的一个时间囊即使在最近的几卷书中也是如此,例如CHC 5.2(2015),其中有罗伯特·海姆斯、查尔斯·哈特曼、约瑟夫·麦克德莫特和柴吉信撰写的章节,篇幅从116页到139页不等7 .如果读者更愿意阅读一个学者试图将所有线索结合在一起的时期概览,可以转向马克·刘易斯的《帝国之间的中国:南北朝》(剑桥,马萨诸塞州:哈佛大学出版社,2009)哈佛亚洲研究学报78.2(2018):477-90.9亚洲研究学报47.2(1988):344.10亚洲研究学报55(1996):146-49.11宋元研究学报46(2016):225-37.12哈佛亚洲研究学报77.1 (2017):举个例子,我对陈寅恪对西魏/北周与东魏/北齐对唐朝的相对贡献的分析在11-12页和235页上的差异感到困惑,所以检查了陈寅恪的索引。它列出了11-12页、13页和76页,但76页没有提到陈寅恪,235页的文章也没有列在索引中。所以我通过大学图书馆在网上搜索了一下剑桥历史。搜索“银客”,如果勾选“全文搜索”,我只找到两个结果,即引言和第十章。要想看到这些段落,就需要打开这一章并进行搜索。相比之下,人们可以很容易地在电子书中搜索到40个参考文献,几乎都是脚注,但也可以在217.14页的正文中找到一段,它们也以这样的注释结束:第23-24.15页。关于最近的中国学术,人们也可以转向罗欣,“中国历史编纂中的北朝历史(386-589)的中国和亚洲内部视角”,在欧亚古代晚期的帝国和交流中:《罗马、中国、伊朗和大草原》,约250-750年,Nicola Di Cosmo和Michael Maas主编,(剑桥:剑桥大学出版社,2018年),166-75.16。皮尔斯在讨论孝文帝迁至洛阳以及在宫廷中使用中国服饰和语言的新要求时,小心翼翼地避免使用“汉化”或“汉化”等术语。其他作者偶尔也会用它来指代个人、艺术风格等。参见第128、146、154、278、301、409、445、456、654、679、689.17页。我想到的是巴菲尔德、迪·科斯莫、奥尔森、贝克威斯、埃利奥特和克罗斯利的作品。参见托马斯J.巴菲尔德,《危险的边疆:游牧帝国和中国,公元前221年至公元1757年》(剑桥,马萨诸塞州:Wiley-Blackwell, 1989);Nicola Di Cosmo,“亚洲内部历史的国家形成与分期”,《世界史》1999年第10期,第1-40页;Nicola Di Cosmo,“中国与草原的关系:从匈奴到<s:2>帝国”,载于《欧亚古代晚期的帝国与交流:罗马、中国、伊朗和草原》,约250-750年,Nicola Di Cosmo和Michael Maas主编(剑桥:剑桥大学出版社,2018),35-53;托马斯T.奥尔森,欧亚历史上的皇家狩猎(费城,宾夕法尼亚州:宾夕法尼亚大学出版社,2006年);克里斯托弗·贝克威斯:《丝绸之路的帝国:从青铜时代到现在的欧亚大陆中部历史》(普林斯顿,新泽西州:普林斯顿大学出版社,2009);马克·艾略特:《虎活:北方他者与汉人的命名》,载于《批判汉人研究:中国多数人的历史、表现与身份》,托马斯·马兰尼等主编。 (加州伯克利和洛杉矶:加州大学出版社,2012),173-90;帕梅拉·凯尔·克罗斯利,《锤子和铁砧:现代世界锻造中的游牧统治者》(马里兰州兰厄姆:罗曼和利特菲尔德出版社,2019年)那些希望更新课堂作业的人也应该看看由温迪·斯沃茨、罗伯特·福特·坎帕尼、杨路和杰西·j·c·周编辑的《中世纪早期中国:资料手册》(纽约:哥伦比亚大学出版社,2014年),这本书充满了生动的历史和文学背景下的原始资料。例如,请参阅杰西·周(jessie Choo)翻译的关于是否在洛阳被桓温收复后搬回洛阳的辩论(第17-31页)和大卫·克内切斯(David Knechtges)翻译的一首关于饺子和面条等小麦面制成的食物的快乐的诗(第447-57页)关于这一时期文学的更长的分析,按时间顺序而不是按体裁划分,见大卫·克内奇斯(David Knechtges)的第二章“从东汉到西晋(公元25-317年)”和田晓飞的第三章“从东晋到初唐(317-649年)”,《剑桥中国文学史》卷一至1375年,Stephen Owen编辑。剑桥大学出版社,2010年),116-285.20那些发现这些考古证据的分析有趣的人可以转向Dien的六朝文明(纽黑文,CT:耶鲁大学出版社,2007年)了解更多那些想在阅读宗教章节后了解更多的人可以转向由约翰·拉格威和Lü彭智编辑的两卷本《早期中国宗教,第二部分:分裂时期(公元220-589年)》(莱顿:Brill, 2010),其中有这组作者以及其他几位作者的章节关于木志明,见Timothy Davis,《中国中世纪早期墓葬铭文与纪念文化:早期木志明简史》(莱顿:Brill, 2015)。Dien确实为《牛津历史写作史》(Oxford History of Historical Writing,牛津:牛津大学出版社,2011年)写了一章关于王朝历史的文章,并在Paul W. Kroll和David R. Knechtges编辑的《魏书史学》中发表了大量关于魏书史学的文章。,《中世纪早期中国文学与文化史研究:纪念理查德·b·马瑟和唐纳德·霍尔兹曼》(唐学学会,2003),399-466.23,其中包括对这一时期进行重要报道的书籍,如瓦莱丽·汉森的《丝绸之路:一段新的历史》(牛津:牛津大学出版社,2012),多萝西·王和古斯塔夫·海尔特的《中世纪时期的中国及其以外:文化交叉和区域间联系》(纽约阿默斯特:尼古拉·迪·科斯莫和迈克尔·马斯的《欧亚古代晚期的帝国与交流:罗马、中国、伊朗和大草原》,约250-750页(剑桥:剑桥大学出版社,2018年)《中世纪早期中国移民问题研究》,黄文义、田晓飞主编,载《亚洲研究》80.1(2021):95-165.25,参见第49、179、447、603、6
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Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2023.2240127
Robert Ford Campany
AbstractHistorians of literature are well acquainted with early medieval stories of shapeshifting animals and other beings seducing unsuspecting men and women. This paper re-reads such narratives from the shapeshifters’ point of view. This requires escaping the customary disciplinary boundaries and viewing these creatures’ depictions against the backdrop of concurrently circulating “arts of the bedchamber” (fangzhong zhi shu 房中之術), one of several classes of techniques for “nurturing life” (yangsheng 養生). I argue that the shapeshifters’ actions make sense when understood within the framework of this mode of self-cultivation. This in turn implies a view of nonhumans as selves striving to realize aims—among them health, longevity, the acquisition of enhanced capabilities, and, ultimately, metamorphosis into higher species on the ladder of beings. The tales emerged, then, in a culture to some extent shaped by a worldview of the sort often termed “animistic,” one that saw nonhuman beings as co-participants with humans in self-transformational projects grounded in a common cosmology.Keywords: animismshapeshiftersself-cultivationbedchamber artsanecdotal literature AcknowledgmentsMy thanks to participants in the Harvard-Yale symposium “The Margins of the Human in Medieval China” (spring 2022), organized by Lucas Bender and Xiaofei Tian, and the 14th Annual Chinese Medieval Studies Workshop hosted by Wendy Swartz at Rutgers University and sponsored by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation; Xiaofei Tian; and an anonymous reviewer for their comments. This paper represents an early piece of a larger research project.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Small Gods (London: Gollancz, 1992), 6.2 How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 73–74.3 Zhuangzi jijie 莊子集解, ed. Wang Xianqian 王先謙 and Liu Wu 劉武 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1987), 41–42, adapting the translations in A. C. Graham, Chuang-tzu: The Inner Chapters (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981), 72–73, and Burton Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 63–65.4 Xinji Soushen ji xinji Soushen houji 新輯搜神記新輯搜神後記, comp. Li Jianguo 李劍國, 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007), 2:6.535–36. Space limitations preclude listing all the loci where this and similar tales are attested (often with interesting variant readings) in Tang and Song anthologies. Stories featuring foxes are relatively well known, but other animal species as well as insects, spiders, and even household objects also figure in stories of this type, as we will see. As Roel Sterckx states, “Fox demons and fox possession were known at least as early as the third century B.C.E.” Sterckx, The Animal and the Daemon in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002], 256n111; see also 35. On early recipes for countering fox possession, see Donald Harper, Early Chinese Medical Litera
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Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2023.2240143
Qiulei Hu
Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1 For Milburn’s article, see Early Medieval China 22 (2016): 26–44.
注1米尔本的文章见《中世纪早期中国》22(2016):26-44。
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Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2023.2240136
Manling Luo
AbstractThis paper examines representations of implicit cannibalism, in terms of a man in tiger form preying on human(s), in three stories from medieval China. The descriptions of the circumstances of the protagonist’s transformations into a tiger and back, and what he faces after his return to human society, show overlaps and divergences in the visions of the relationships among weretigers, human victims, and divine forces. Each story in its own way explores the fluid boundaries between animality and humanity and the limits of human agency and power vis-à-vis divine forces. Such thematizations reveal the development of a communal discourse on the place of humans in a cosmos imagined as hierarchical. The social identities of the featured characters and other details further reveal ways in which the stories convey the interests and concerns of low-level scholar-officials in medieval China.Keywords: human-tiger transformationimplicit cannibalismanimalityhumanitydivine power AcknowledgmentsThis essay has benefited from insightful comments and suggestions from Heather Blair, Robert F. Campany, Robert E. Hegel, Michelle Moyd, Anya Peterson Royce, Lynn Struve, Xiaofei Tian, and Sarah Van der Laan, as well as an anonymous reviewer. I presented different versions at the symposium on “Margins of the Human in Medieval China” organized by Lucas Bender and Xiaofei Tian, the Global Medieval Studies colloquium at Rutgers University hosted by Jessey Choo and Sarah Novacich, and at an Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference panel organized by Xiaofei Tian. I thank the organizers and participants for their valuable feedback.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 For overviews, see Cary Wolfe, “Human, All Too Human: ‘Animal Studies’ and the Humanities,” PMLA 124.2 (2009): 564–75; Anna Peterson, “Review: Religious Studies and the Animal Turn,” History of Religions 56.2 (2016): 232–45.2 For a few examples, see Roel Sterckx, Martina Siebert, and Dagmar Schäfer eds., Animals through Chinese History: Earliest Times to 1911 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Huaiyu Chen, In the Land of Tigers and Snakes: Living with Animals in Medieval Chinese Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023); Madeline K. Spring, Animal Allegories in T’ang China (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1993).3 Fox is a good example. See Rania Huntington, Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003); Xiaofei Kang, The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).4 K. C. Chang, “The Animal in Shang and Chou Bronze Art,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 41.2 (1981): 527–54; Hou-mei Sung, Decoded Messages: The Symbolic Language of Chinese Animal Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 137–70; Charles E. Hammond, “An Excursion in Tiger Lore,” Asia Major 4.
摘要本文考察了中国中世纪三个故事中隐晦的同类相食的表现形式,即一个虎形人捕食人。主人公变虎变回老虎的过程,以及回归人类社会后所面临的处境,在老虎、人类受害者、神的力量之间的关系上,呈现出重叠和分歧的视角。每个故事都以自己的方式探索了动物和人类之间的流动界限,以及人类代理和权力对-à-vis神的力量的限制。这种主题化揭示了一种关于人类在一个被想象为等级森严的宇宙中的地位的公共话语的发展。书中人物的社会身份和其他细节进一步揭示了这些故事如何传达中世纪中国底层士大夫的兴趣和关注点。本文得益于Heather Blair、Robert F. Campany、Robert E. Hegel、Michelle Moyd、Anya Peterson Royce、Lynn Struve、Tian Xiaofei和Sarah Van der Laan以及一位匿名评论家的深刻评论和建议。在卢卡斯·本德和田晓飞组织的“中世纪中国人类的边缘”研讨会上,在杰西·周和萨拉·诺瓦奇奇主持的罗格斯大学全球中世纪研究研讨会上,以及在田晓飞组织的亚洲研究协会年会小组会议上,我提出了不同的版本。我感谢组织者和与会者提供的宝贵反馈。披露声明作者未报告潜在的利益冲突。注1概述见Cary Wolfe,“人类,太人类:‘动物研究’与人文科学”,PMLA 124.2 (2009): 564-75;Anna Peterson,“回顾:宗教研究和动物转向”,宗教史56.2(2016):232-45.2。举几个例子,参见Roel Sterckx, Martina Siebert和Dagmar Schäfer eds。《中国动物史:最早到1911年》(剑桥:剑桥大学出版社,2019);陈怀玉:《虎蛇之地:与中世纪中国宗教中的动物共存》(纽约:哥伦比亚大学出版社,2023);2 .马德琳·k·斯普林:《中国唐代动物寓言》(美国东方学会,1993)狐狸就是一个很好的例子。参见拉尼娅·亨廷顿,《异类:狐狸与晚期中国帝国叙事》(剑桥,马萨诸塞州:哈佛大学亚洲中心,2003);3 .康晓飞:《狐狸崇拜:帝国晚期和近代中国的权力、性别与民间宗教》(纽约:哥伦比亚大学出版社,2006)K。张志明,“商周青铜艺术中的动物”,《哈佛亚洲研究杂志》1981年第41.2期,第527-54页;宋厚梅:《解码的讯息:中国动物绘画的象征语言》(纽黑文:耶鲁大学出版社,2009),137-70;查尔斯·e·哈蒙德,《老虎之旅》,《亚洲月刊》4.1(1991):87-100页;魏伯克·波达尔,“猎人虎:从中国传统中的‘武松斗虎’看”,亚洲民俗研究66(2007):141-63.6陈,《在土地上》,35-124.7 . J. J. M.德·格罗特,《中国宗教制度:古代形式、演变、历史与现状:与之相关的礼仪、习俗和社会制度》,6卷。(莱顿:布里尔出版社,1901),4:163-81;9 .陈怀玉,《亚洲人传说之文华氏比教论》,《成学学报》58(2020):21-55.8。理论见A. C. Graham,阴阳与关联思维的本质(新加坡:东亚哲学研究所,1986)例如,洪瑞英,《中国人民日报》,《中国人民日报》,《中国日报》(台北:花木兰社,2011);Charles E. Hammond,“神圣的变形:狼虎和萨满”,《匈牙利科学东方学院学报》46 (1992-93):235-55;“他者的妖魔化:妇女和少数民族是弱者”,《中国宗教杂志》1995年第23期,第59-80页;王敖:“情感怪物:《李征》作为流放文学的解读”,《中国文学研究前沿》9.1(2015):1-16.10任昉比其他两位编者更出名。关于他的传记,见姚查(533-606)和姚思廉(557-637),梁书(北京:中华书局,1973),14.251-58。有关文集的讨论,见艾林·l·布莱特威尔:《话语飞行:书义记中的故事结构》,《中世纪早期中国》18 (2012):48-68;李建国李劍國,唐唐末zhiguai chuanqi xulu唐五代志怪傳奇敍錄(北京:中华shuju, 2017), 911 - 40.11罗开张,文人叙事在中世纪晚期中国(西雅图:华盛顿大学出版社,2015),12 - 15.12马克·p·唐纳利和丹尼尔·迪吃你的邻舍:同类相食的历史(粗呢衣服:萨顿出版,2006年)。有关案例研究,请参见Francis B。
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Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2023.2240144
Fusheng Wu
without a critical discussion of primary sources. There is, unfortunately, a remarkable lack of editorial work throughout the book. When a text is quoted more than once, the translation is often inconsistent, sometimes at crucial points. The decision to italicize terms in pinyin romanization seems rather random and causes confusion in many places. For instance, on p. 105, the book title Han shu is not italicized, whereas in the next sentence Hou Han shu is. Careless errors abound, damaging the scholarly credibility of the book. Just to cite a few examples: Ehuang娥皇 and Nüying女英 are described as “the daughters of Shun舜 and also the wives of Yao堯” (p. 63); the journal Early Medieval China, in which the author’s own article is published, is given as “Journal of EarlyMedieval Chinese” in the Bibliography (p. 150); the writer Xiahou Zhan’s夏侯湛 surname is spelled as Xiaohou twice (p. 59). This book is a reminder that much remains to be done about literary representations of objects, ideas, and cultures that were deemed “foreign” in early medieval China. One question is why such writings reached great popularity in the third century, when the Han and Roman empires on both ends of the Silk Roads were in fragmentation or decline. Contrary to the common assumption that diplomatic activities along the Silk Road were in hiatus after the fall of Tang, Xin Wen’s The King’s Road: Diplomacy and the Remaking of the Silk Road (Princeton University Press, 2023) argues that the fragmentation of empire incentivized, rather than prevented, diplomatic activities. Does this theory apply to the third century? Was there an increased need for competing courts and regimes to glorify and amplify the symbolic meaning of foreign tributes as claim for legitimacy? Kong observes in thirdcentury writings on exotica a general tendency to downplay the foreign roots of the objects to integrate them into Chinese culture. If it is true, how did these efforts of “Sinicization” reflect the writers’ attitudes toward foreign kingdoms and foreign peoples? Are there more nuanced views of objects from different regions and with different cultural and religious associations than those vaguely citing the importance of “truth, beauty, and goodness”? Kong’s book offers a starting point for more thorough and in-depth investigations.
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Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2023.2240128
J. E. E. Pettit
AbstractThis article examines evidence from hagiographies that emerged from the Upper Purity (Shangqing) Daoist lineage in the late fourth century CE to investigate the attitudes of early medieval writers towards human beings gaining status as gods and goddesses. Whereas previous scholars tend to treat these texts as part of a single movement, this article demonstrates that there are complex and conflicting accounts of how humans attain divine status. Most notably, these authors hold different views concerning whether Daoist adepts acquire celestial titles when they are initiated or if they must first finish their cultivation. By comparing and contrasting the hagiographies of three Daoist saints (Pei Xuanren 裴玄仁, Wang Zideng 王子登, Wei Huacun 魏華存), this article asks how such stories might have informed and influenced the mental worlds of the readers who encountered and perhaps even lived out these narratives.Keywords: Daoismhagiographygodhoodapotheosis Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Henri Maspero, Taoism and Chinese Religion, trans. Frank A. Kierman Jr. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981), 364–65; Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 吉岡義豐, Dōkyō kyōten shiron 道教経典史論 (Tokyo: Dōkyō kankōkai, 1955), 61–63.2 Jurong was a town halfway between Mt. Mao and the Eastern Jin 東晉 (318–420) capital Jiankang 建康 (present-day Nanjing).3 The texts of this tradition are also called the Upper Clarity or Shangqing texts. See Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 275–302.4 Matthew Wells, “The Revelation of Hagiographies in Early Daoism: A Case Study of the Traditions of Lord Pei,” Asia Major 33.2 (2020): 1–24.5 Michel Strickmann, “Saintly Fools and Chinese Masters,” Asia Major 7.1 (1994): 42.6 Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Ancestors and Anxiety (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 144.7 Chao-jan Chang 張超然, “Chuanshou yu jiaocai: Qingling zhenren Peijun zhuan” 傳授與教材: 清靈真人裴君傳中的五靈法, Huaren zongjiao yanjiu 華人宗教研究 1 (2013): 113–15.8 Robert F. Campany, Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009), 223.9 John Kieschnick, Buddhist Historiography in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022), 10.10 White Water (Baishui 白水) is a mythical river flowing from the Kunlun Mountains. According to Wang Yi’s 王逸 (fl. 2nd c.) commentary to the Li sao 離騷, the Huainanzi 淮南子 states that drinking from Whitewater will impart immortality. See Qu Yuan ji jiao zhu 屈原集校注, ed. Jin Kaicheng 金開誠 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999), 201. Zhengtong daozang 正統道藏 1016, 1.3b. Hereafter texts from Zhengtong daozang will be cited as DZ according to their number in Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 1393–440. Thomas E. Smith, Declarations of the Perfected, Part One: Setting Scripts and Images into Mot
{"title":"Diverging Conceptions of Apotheosis in Fourth-Century CE Upper Purity Daoism","authors":"J. E. E. Pettit","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2023.2240128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2023.2240128","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractThis article examines evidence from hagiographies that emerged from the Upper Purity (Shangqing) Daoist lineage in the late fourth century CE to investigate the attitudes of early medieval writers towards human beings gaining status as gods and goddesses. Whereas previous scholars tend to treat these texts as part of a single movement, this article demonstrates that there are complex and conflicting accounts of how humans attain divine status. Most notably, these authors hold different views concerning whether Daoist adepts acquire celestial titles when they are initiated or if they must first finish their cultivation. By comparing and contrasting the hagiographies of three Daoist saints (Pei Xuanren 裴玄仁, Wang Zideng 王子登, Wei Huacun 魏華存), this article asks how such stories might have informed and influenced the mental worlds of the readers who encountered and perhaps even lived out these narratives.Keywords: Daoismhagiographygodhoodapotheosis Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Henri Maspero, Taoism and Chinese Religion, trans. Frank A. Kierman Jr. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981), 364–65; Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 吉岡義豐, Dōkyō kyōten shiron 道教経典史論 (Tokyo: Dōkyō kankōkai, 1955), 61–63.2 Jurong was a town halfway between Mt. Mao and the Eastern Jin 東晉 (318–420) capital Jiankang 建康 (present-day Nanjing).3 The texts of this tradition are also called the Upper Clarity or Shangqing texts. See Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 275–302.4 Matthew Wells, “The Revelation of Hagiographies in Early Daoism: A Case Study of the Traditions of Lord Pei,” Asia Major 33.2 (2020): 1–24.5 Michel Strickmann, “Saintly Fools and Chinese Masters,” Asia Major 7.1 (1994): 42.6 Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Ancestors and Anxiety (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 144.7 Chao-jan Chang 張超然, “Chuanshou yu jiaocai: Qingling zhenren Peijun zhuan” 傳授與教材: 清靈真人裴君傳中的五靈法, Huaren zongjiao yanjiu 華人宗教研究 1 (2013): 113–15.8 Robert F. Campany, Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009), 223.9 John Kieschnick, Buddhist Historiography in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022), 10.10 White Water (Baishui 白水) is a mythical river flowing from the Kunlun Mountains. According to Wang Yi’s 王逸 (fl. 2nd c.) commentary to the Li sao 離騷, the Huainanzi 淮南子 states that drinking from Whitewater will impart immortality. See Qu Yuan ji jiao zhu 屈原集校注, ed. Jin Kaicheng 金開誠 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999), 201. Zhengtong daozang 正統道藏 1016, 1.3b. Hereafter texts from Zhengtong daozang will be cited as DZ according to their number in Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 1393–440. Thomas E. Smith, Declarations of the Perfected, Part One: Setting Scripts and Images into Mot","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134911949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2022.2101764
Xiaofei Tian
This issue marks the formal transition in the editorship of Early Medieval China. In keeping with the tradition, I as the new editor wish to pay tribute to the former editors of the journal: Victor Cunrui Xiong (Vols. 1–5, 1994–1999), Cynthia Chennault (Vols. 6–16, 2000–2010), and J. Michael Farmer (Vols. 17– 26, 2011–2019), as well as Matthew Wells who served as Assistant Editor in the last few years of Michael Farmer’s tenure. They made great efforts and did excellent work to nurture and guide this journal, which today still remains the only journal in the English language dedicated to the study of the historical period known as early medieval China. It is a privilege and honor for me to take up the torch. In 1994 Dennis Grafflin, then President of the Early Medieval China Group, wrote the “Foreword” for the inaugural issue of Early Medieval China. It was spelled as “Forward” in the issue, and the pun turned out to be prophetic, as the field has indeed moved forward enormously since three decades ago. In archeology, art, history, literature, and religious studies, we have seen manymonographs, edited volumes, articles, doctoral dissertations, master’s theses, translations, conferences, workshops, and exhibitions. We also witness a much-improved gender balance, as there are more woman scholars who are active and visible in the field. All these developments have contributed to the vibrancy, diversity, and richness of the larger field of medieval China studies. This issue, featuring articles and book reviews by veterans of the field, mid-career scholars, and scholars of the younger generation, showcases the continuing growth of the field. Meow Hui Goh addresses the concerns about deception, sincerity, voice, and affect in literary writings by examining three cases of fabricating letters as a war strategy; Qiaomei Tang explores the high political stakes of a thorny legal and ritual problem of “two principal wives” under shifting geopolitical conditions; Charles Holcombe analyzes group identity formation and perception in the interactions of Chinese and non-Chinese peoples in the borderland; and Lu Kou discusses the politics of court music and the creation of an “audible empire” in the early years of the Sui dynasty. Together, the articles consider questions of ethnicity, identity, legitimacy, and the meaning and significance of wen in dynastic transition and empire building. They attest to the importance of paying close attention to primary sources that cut across modern disciplinary divisions and envisioning history in its totality of contemporary beliefs and social conditions beyond its textual traces. I came from an editor’s family; my father had edited a literature journal for many years. Yet, only after working as an editor myself did I realize the amount of work and care going into a journal issue. It is also teamwork: I thank our new social media editor, the Editorial Board, and the EMCG President, Treasurer, and Board of Directors for their
{"title":"Editor's Note","authors":"Xiaofei Tian","doi":"10.1080/15299104.2022.2101764","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15299104.2022.2101764","url":null,"abstract":"This issue marks the formal transition in the editorship of Early Medieval China. In keeping with the tradition, I as the new editor wish to pay tribute to the former editors of the journal: Victor Cunrui Xiong (Vols. 1–5, 1994–1999), Cynthia Chennault (Vols. 6–16, 2000–2010), and J. Michael Farmer (Vols. 17– 26, 2011–2019), as well as Matthew Wells who served as Assistant Editor in the last few years of Michael Farmer’s tenure. They made great efforts and did excellent work to nurture and guide this journal, which today still remains the only journal in the English language dedicated to the study of the historical period known as early medieval China. It is a privilege and honor for me to take up the torch. In 1994 Dennis Grafflin, then President of the Early Medieval China Group, wrote the “Foreword” for the inaugural issue of Early Medieval China. It was spelled as “Forward” in the issue, and the pun turned out to be prophetic, as the field has indeed moved forward enormously since three decades ago. In archeology, art, history, literature, and religious studies, we have seen manymonographs, edited volumes, articles, doctoral dissertations, master’s theses, translations, conferences, workshops, and exhibitions. We also witness a much-improved gender balance, as there are more woman scholars who are active and visible in the field. All these developments have contributed to the vibrancy, diversity, and richness of the larger field of medieval China studies. This issue, featuring articles and book reviews by veterans of the field, mid-career scholars, and scholars of the younger generation, showcases the continuing growth of the field. Meow Hui Goh addresses the concerns about deception, sincerity, voice, and affect in literary writings by examining three cases of fabricating letters as a war strategy; Qiaomei Tang explores the high political stakes of a thorny legal and ritual problem of “two principal wives” under shifting geopolitical conditions; Charles Holcombe analyzes group identity formation and perception in the interactions of Chinese and non-Chinese peoples in the borderland; and Lu Kou discusses the politics of court music and the creation of an “audible empire” in the early years of the Sui dynasty. Together, the articles consider questions of ethnicity, identity, legitimacy, and the meaning and significance of wen in dynastic transition and empire building. They attest to the importance of paying close attention to primary sources that cut across modern disciplinary divisions and envisioning history in its totality of contemporary beliefs and social conditions beyond its textual traces. I came from an editor’s family; my father had edited a literature journal for many years. Yet, only after working as an editor myself did I realize the amount of work and care going into a journal issue. It is also teamwork: I thank our new social media editor, the Editorial Board, and the EMCG President, Treasurer, and Board of Directors for their ","PeriodicalId":41624,"journal":{"name":"Early Medieval China","volume":"2022 1","pages":"1 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42508056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}