In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
Message from the Editor
Steven B. Miles, Editor-in-chief
After the June 2022 issue of Late Imperial China, Yi-Li Wu will step down from her role as an associate editor. Among the first group of associate editors appointed in 2014, Yi-Li has been a trusted colleague to her fellow editors and a devoted mentor to our authors. I will miss her wise counsel.
We welcome Rachel Schneewind as our new copyeditor. Rachel began working with us for the December 2021 issue, and we are delighted to have her join us as a permanent member of the team. [End Page v]
ABSTRACT:Drawing on evidence from the uniquely rich archives of Ba County, this article proposes a revision of the widely shared assumption that the disastrous effects of the Taiping Rebellion led first to the flourishing and then to the fall of merchant involvement in local municipal initiatives throughout the Qing Empire. The article illustrates how the history of merchant and craftsmen participation in administrative projects can be dated to a century before the Taiping Rebellion of the mid-nineteenth century. Tracing this history back to the middle of the eighteenth century, the article represents the flourishing of merchant initiatives in the nineteenth century as the culmination of a longer trajectory of state-merchant collaboration and negotiation.
{"title":"Growing up before the Rebellion: Merchant Organization and Local Administration in Chongqing","authors":"M. Dykstra","doi":"10.1353/late.2022.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2022.0003","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Drawing on evidence from the uniquely rich archives of Ba County, this article proposes a revision of the widely shared assumption that the disastrous effects of the Taiping Rebellion led first to the flourishing and then to the fall of merchant involvement in local municipal initiatives throughout the Qing Empire. The article illustrates how the history of merchant and craftsmen participation in administrative projects can be dated to a century before the Taiping Rebellion of the mid-nineteenth century. Tracing this history back to the middle of the eighteenth century, the article represents the flourishing of merchant initiatives in the nineteenth century as the culmination of a longer trajectory of state-merchant collaboration and negotiation.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":" ","pages":"1 - 42"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41561168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:During the 1850s and 1860s, Jinan, the provincial capital of Shandong, faced repeated threats from Taiping and Nian forces, but Qing control was never seriously contested. The limited capacities of both the provincial administration and local elites necessitated governmental-elite collaboration, such as in forming militias and building defensive structures. These efforts were successful in preserving Qing control of Jinan across this period. However, the limited capacities of both the local government and elites became increasingly evident during attacks by Nian forces on Shandong in the 1860s, which left the city of Jinan itself defended as securely as ever but the surrounding countryside devastated. This history of a place that was a relative success story for the Qing both adds nuance to existing narratives of straightforward state decline in north China while still allowing us to see how the limits of elite power proved a constraint on state capacity as well. The involvement of both officials and elites in post-war reconstruction projects that echo themes in existing scholarship on the south demonstrates how the mid-nineteenth century conflicts generated long-term cultural effects that were shared across regions of the empire. In Jinan, these projects demonstrate how the construction of local history bound the city and its elite class to the Qing state, calling into question arguments that the increasingly powerful roles elites played in public spaces in the late Qing necessarily posed a challenge to the Qing state. Rather, in both war and peace, elite participation continued to be an integral element of maintaining the Qing state.
{"title":"Fragile Bulwark: The Qing State in Jinan during the Taiping and Nian Wars","authors":"D. Knorr","doi":"10.1353/late.2022.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2022.0004","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:During the 1850s and 1860s, Jinan, the provincial capital of Shandong, faced repeated threats from Taiping and Nian forces, but Qing control was never seriously contested. The limited capacities of both the provincial administration and local elites necessitated governmental-elite collaboration, such as in forming militias and building defensive structures. These efforts were successful in preserving Qing control of Jinan across this period. However, the limited capacities of both the local government and elites became increasingly evident during attacks by Nian forces on Shandong in the 1860s, which left the city of Jinan itself defended as securely as ever but the surrounding countryside devastated. This history of a place that was a relative success story for the Qing both adds nuance to existing narratives of straightforward state decline in north China while still allowing us to see how the limits of elite power proved a constraint on state capacity as well. The involvement of both officials and elites in post-war reconstruction projects that echo themes in existing scholarship on the south demonstrates how the mid-nineteenth century conflicts generated long-term cultural effects that were shared across regions of the empire. In Jinan, these projects demonstrate how the construction of local history bound the city and its elite class to the Qing state, calling into question arguments that the increasingly powerful roles elites played in public spaces in the late Qing necessarily posed a challenge to the Qing state. Rather, in both war and peace, elite participation continued to be an integral element of maintaining the Qing state.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"43 1","pages":"43 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47935295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:In the late imperial era, lower-level Buddhist monks were frequently accused of transgressing monastic precepts and engaging in sexual relations. This article, based on evidence culled from the Qing-era county archives, investigates locally situated knowledge regarding clerical sexuality. Three factors contributed to the occurrence of clerical sexual involvements at the local level: a high degree of monks' physical mobility in everyday life, deep social embeddedness of monks in the fabric of the local community, and monks' close ties with their families.These factors not only facilitated sexual liaisons between monks and local women, but also resulted in community tolerance for such affairs. Thus in contrast to observing people from an outsider's perspective, this paper shows how people, both monks and their secular neighbors, locally understood their situations and how they were able to maneuver through given social and legal constraints in ways that gave them increased capability to rewrite in their own language the normative systems imposed on them in the dominant discourse.
{"title":"Monastic Mobility, Social Embeddedness, and Kinship Networks: Buddhist Clerical Sexuality in Late-Qing Sichuan","authors":"Gilbert Z. Chen","doi":"10.1353/late.2022.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2022.0005","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:In the late imperial era, lower-level Buddhist monks were frequently accused of transgressing monastic precepts and engaging in sexual relations. This article, based on evidence culled from the Qing-era county archives, investigates locally situated knowledge regarding clerical sexuality. Three factors contributed to the occurrence of clerical sexual involvements at the local level: a high degree of monks' physical mobility in everyday life, deep social embeddedness of monks in the fabric of the local community, and monks' close ties with their families.These factors not only facilitated sexual liaisons between monks and local women, but also resulted in community tolerance for such affairs. Thus in contrast to observing people from an outsider's perspective, this paper shows how people, both monks and their secular neighbors, locally understood their situations and how they were able to maneuver through given social and legal constraints in ways that gave them increased capability to rewrite in their own language the normative systems imposed on them in the dominant discourse.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"43 1","pages":"126 - 85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44922361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ABSTRACT:This article locates one of the earliest charitable performances organized by prostitutes in 1907 in two cities, Shanghai and Beijing. It examines the ways in which each social group prostitutes in the name of jijie (prostitute circles)/huajie (circles of flowers), the male elites who helped them manage the performances, and the newspaper commentators who responded to these events in mass media reconceptualized the formation of their identities, the transformation of their businesses, and the negotiation of their relationship with the emerging society and the nation in the last decade of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). It argues that the charitable performances not only cultivated the civic virtue of every group involved within a newly restructured society that prioritized public morals and nationalistic devotion, they also promoted person gain in terms of social status and reputation. To a large extent, these performances help us understand such bigger issues as female sexuality, the prostitution business, elite dominance, and the reform of China within the larger urban, social, and ideological contexts.
{"title":"\"A Priceless, Civilized Applause\": Prostitutes and Charitable Performances in Early Twentieth-Century China","authors":"F. Qin","doi":"10.1353/late.2022.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2022.0006","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article locates one of the earliest charitable performances organized by prostitutes in 1907 in two cities, Shanghai and Beijing. It examines the ways in which each social group prostitutes in the name of jijie (prostitute circles)/huajie (circles of flowers), the male elites who helped them manage the performances, and the newspaper commentators who responded to these events in mass media reconceptualized the formation of their identities, the transformation of their businesses, and the negotiation of their relationship with the emerging society and the nation in the last decade of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). It argues that the charitable performances not only cultivated the civic virtue of every group involved within a newly restructured society that prioritized public morals and nationalistic devotion, they also promoted person gain in terms of social status and reputation. To a large extent, these performances help us understand such bigger issues as female sexuality, the prostitution business, elite dominance, and the reform of China within the larger urban, social, and ideological contexts.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"43 1","pages":"127 - 163"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43984300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This article examines the trope of journeys through the netherworld in late Ming hagiographic narratives, or "origin narratives," that celebrate the life stories of gods, immortals, and historic figures. Origin narratives share a common narrative structure that standardizes the life stories of revered figures as a cyclical journey, marked by the protagonist's descent to the human world and final re-ascent to heaven. The protagonist's journey through the netherworld not only mirrors the overarching structure of origin narratives, but also represents a turning point, both structurally and thematically. While traveling through the realm of the dead is not in itself a precondition for deification, it provides the protagonists with a canvas to demonstrate the specific attributes for which they are revered, and therefore acts as a rite of passage that paves the way for the protagonist's deification. This article explores the significance of the netherworld-journey trope in the hagiographic vision propagated by origin narratives by focusing on three case studies: the demon-queller Zhong Kui, the bodhisattva Guanyin, and the Daoist saint Sa Shoujian. Through these case studies, I argue that netherworld journeys in origin narratives represent the culmination of two concomitant trends in late-Ming print culture: the rise of a standardized hagiographical vision in "vernacular" narrative writing (xiaoshuo), and an intensified preoccupation with the realm of the dead.
{"title":"Journeys Through the Netherworld in Late-Ming Hagiographic Narratives","authors":"Noga Ganany","doi":"10.1353/late.2021.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2021.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article examines the trope of journeys through the netherworld in late Ming hagiographic narratives, or \"origin narratives,\" that celebrate the life stories of gods, immortals, and historic figures. Origin narratives share a common narrative structure that standardizes the life stories of revered figures as a cyclical journey, marked by the protagonist's descent to the human world and final re-ascent to heaven. The protagonist's journey through the netherworld not only mirrors the overarching structure of origin narratives, but also represents a turning point, both structurally and thematically. While traveling through the realm of the dead is not in itself a precondition for deification, it provides the protagonists with a canvas to demonstrate the specific attributes for which they are revered, and therefore acts as a rite of passage that paves the way for the protagonist's deification. This article explores the significance of the netherworld-journey trope in the hagiographic vision propagated by origin narratives by focusing on three case studies: the demon-queller Zhong Kui, the bodhisattva Guanyin, and the Daoist saint Sa Shoujian. Through these case studies, I argue that netherworld journeys in origin narratives represent the culmination of two concomitant trends in late-Ming print culture: the rise of a standardized hagiographical vision in \"vernacular\" narrative writing (xiaoshuo), and an intensified preoccupation with the realm of the dead.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"42 1","pages":"137 - 178"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46816209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This article examines the notorious, but little-studied Manchu translation of Jinpingmei. I argue that the translation embraces multiple levels of translingual literacy, embodied in the philological reading aids provided throughout the text. The forms of commentary contained within require a reconsideration of Manchu reading practices and allow for a comparison with approaches to Sinitic writing and vernacular reading across early modern East Asia.
{"title":"The Manchu Reading of Jinpingmei: Commentary, Encyclopedism, and Translingual Practices in Early Eighteenth-Century China","authors":"Nathan Vedal","doi":"10.1353/late.2021.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2021.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article examines the notorious, but little-studied Manchu translation of Jinpingmei. I argue that the translation embraces multiple levels of translingual literacy, embodied in the philological reading aids provided throughout the text. The forms of commentary contained within require a reconsideration of Manchu reading practices and allow for a comparison with approaches to Sinitic writing and vernacular reading across early modern East Asia.","PeriodicalId":43948,"journal":{"name":"LATE IMPERIAL CHINA","volume":"42 1","pages":"1 - 48"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45775718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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