Download or read book State and Court Ritual in China written by Joseph P. McDermott and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-09-16 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This broad-ranging examination of Chinese court and state ritual from 1000 BC to AD 1750 represents the first modern comprehensive account of the subject in any language. The essays demonstrate how and why ritual has played such a fundamental and often controversial role in the practice of Chinese politics. By tracing the political and social development of particular rituals, such as imperial funerals and popular religious practices or Buddhist ordination ceremonies and court audiences, the authors set out to convey their historical significance. Further discussion of the role of ritual in relation to language, and elite and popular concepts of emperorhood is included in the volume. The book will be of interest to students of Chinese history, anthropology and religion, as well as those seeking to understand the legacy of that history in modern China.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of Ancient China written by Michael Loewe and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-13 with total page 1192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge History of Ancient China provides a survey of the institutional and cultural history of pre-imperial China.

Download or read book Design by the Book written by François Louis and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, China's classical antiquity is often studied through recovered artifacts, but before this practice became widespread, scholars instead reconstructed the distant past through classical texts and transmitted illustrations. Among the most important illustrated commentaries was the Sanli tu, or Illustrations to the Ritual Classics, whose origins are said to date back to the great commentator Zheng Xuan. Design by the Book, which accompanies an exhibition at Bard Graduate Center Gallery, discusses the history and cultural significance of the Sanli tu in medieval China. The Sanli tu survives in a version produced around 960 by Nie Chongyi, a professor at the court of the Later Zhou (951-960) and Northern Song (960-1127) dynasties. It is now mostly remembered--if at all--for its controversial entries and as a quaint predecessor of the more empirical antiquarian scholarship produced since the mid-eleventh century. But such criticism hides the fact that the book remained a standard resource for more than 150 years, playing a crucial role in the Song dynasty's perception of ancient ritual and construction of a Confucian state cult. Richly illustrated, Design by the Book brings renewed focus to one of China's most fascinating medieval works.

Download or read book Forming the Early Chinese Court written by Luke Habberstad and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forming the Early Chinese Court builds on new directions in comparative studies of royal courts in the ancient world to present a pioneering study of early Chinese court culture. Rejecting divides between literary, political, and administrative texts, Luke Habberstad examines sources from the Qin, Western Han, and Xin periods (221 BCE–23 CE) for insights into court society and ritual, rank, the development of the bureaucracy, and the role of the emperor. These diverse sources show that a large, but not necessarily cohesive, body of courtiers drove the consolidation, distribution, and representation of power in court institutions. Forming the Early Chinese Court encourages us to see China’s imperial unification as a surprisingly idiosyncratic process that allowed different actors to stake claims in a world of increasing population, wealth, and power.

Download or read book China written by John Lagerwey and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last 40 years, our vision of Chinese culture and history has been transformed by the discovery of the role of religion in Chinese state-making and in local society. The Daoist religion, in particular, long despised as "superstitious," has recovered its place as "the native higher religion." But while the Chinese state tried from the fifth century on to construct an orthodoxy based on Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, local society everywhere carved out for itself its own geomantically defined space and organized itself around local festivals in honor of gods of its own choosing-gods who were often invented and then represented by illiterate mediums. Looking at China from the point of view of elite or popular culture therefore produces very different results.--John Lagerwey has done extensive fieldwork on local society and its festivals. This book represents a first attempt to use this new research to integrate top-down and bottom-up views of Chinese society, culture, and history. It should be of interest to a wide range of China specialists, students of religion and popular culture, as well as participants in the ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue between historians and anthropologists.--John Lagerwey is professor of Daoist history at the ?cole Pratique des Hautes ?tudes and of Chinese studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is author of Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History and editor of the 30-volume "Traditional Hakka Society Series" as well as the recently published four-volume set Early Chinese Religion.-----

Download or read book Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China written by Patricia Buckley Ebrey and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To explore the historical connections between Confucianism and Chinese society, this book examines the social and cultural processes through which Confucian texts on family rituals were written, circulated, interpreted, and used as guides to action. Weddings, funerals, and ancestral rites were central features of Chinese culture; they gave drama to transitions in people's lives and conveyed conceptions of the hierarchy of society and the interdependency of the living and the dead. Patricia Ebrey's social history of Confucian texts shows much about how Chinese culture was created in a social setting, through the participation of people at all social levels. Books, like Chu Hsi's Family Rituals and its dozens of revisions, were important in forming ritual behavior in China because of the general respect for literature, the early spread of printing, and the absence of an ecclesiastic establishment authorized to rule on the acceptability of variations in ritual behavior. Ebrey shows how more and more of what people commonly did was approved in the liturgies and thus brought into the realm labeled Confucian. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Download or read book State and Ritual in China written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Traditional Chinese Rites and Rituals written by Zhengming Du and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-01-14 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional Chinese Rites and Rituals provides a comprehensive overview of the social practices of Chinese people on various occasions of cultural importance. While explaining how these rites and rituals are performed, it also introduces the reasons why certain norms are followed by individuals, families and the state as a whole. As such, the book offers a kaleidoscopic perspective on the plurality evident in all facets of Chinese culture.

Download or read book A Social History of the Chinese Book written by Joseph P. McDermott and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2006-04-01 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this learned, yet readable, book, Joseph McDermott introduces the history of the book in China in the late imperial period from 1000 to 1800. He assumes little knowledge of Chinese history or culture and compares the Chinese experience with books with that of other civilizations, particularly the European. Yet he deals with a wide range of issues in the history of the book in China and presents novel analyses of the changes in Chinese woodblock bookmaking over these centuries. He presents a new view of when the printed book replaced the manuscript and what drove that substitution. He explores the distribution and marketing structure of books, and writes fascinatingly on the history of book collecting and about access to private and government book collections. In drawing on a great deal of Chinese, Japanese, and Western research this book provides a broad account of the way Chinese books were printed, distributed, and consumed by literati and scholars, mainly in the lower Yangzi delta, the cultural center of China during these centuries. It introduces interesting personalities, ranging from wily book collectors to an indigent shoe-repairman collector. And, it discusses the obstacles to the formation of a truly national printed culture for both the well-educated and the struggling reader in recent times. This broad and comprehensive account of the development of printed Chinese culture from 1000 to 1800 is written for anyone interested in the history of the book. It also offers important new insights into book culture and its place in society for the student of Chinese history and culture. 'A brilliant piece of synthetic research as well as a delightful read, it offers a history of the Chinese book to the eighteenth century that is without equal.' - Timothy Brook, University of British Columbia 'Writers, scribes, engravers, printers, binders, publishers, distributors, dealers, literati, scholars, librarians, collectors, voracious readers — the full gamut of a vibrant book culture in China over one thousand years — are examined with eloquence and perception by Joseph McDermott in The Social History of the Book. His lively exploration will be of consuming interest to bibliophiles of every persuasion.' - Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of A Gentle Madness, Patience and Fortitude, A Splendor of Letters, and Every Book Its Reader Joseph McDermott is presently Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and University Lecturer in Chinese at Cambridge University. He has published widely on Chinese social and economic history, most recently on the economy of the Song (or, Sung) dynasty for the Cambridge History of China. He has edited State and Court Ritual in China and Art and Power in East Asia.

Download or read book Death Rituals and Politics in Northern Song China written by Mihwa Choi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In traditional China, a funeral and the accompanying death rituals represented a critical moment for the immediate family of the deceased to show their filial piety, a core value of the society. At the same time, death rituals were social occasions, and channels for the outward demonstration of belief in a religiously pluralistic society. During the Northern Song period, however, death rituals increasingly became an arena for political contention as attempts were made to transform these practices from a private matter into one subject to state control. Death Rituals and Politics in Northern Song China examines how political confrontations over the proper conduct of death rituals during Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) inaugurated a period of Confucian revivalism. Mihwa Choi interprets Northern Song court politics, family ritual practices, burial practices, and the popular imagination of the afterlife as sites of contest between groups of varying social status, political vision, and religious belief. She demonstrates that the oversight of ritual affairs by scholar-officials helped them gain the political upper hand they sought, and, more broadly, fostered a revival of Confucianism as the dominant value system of Chinese society in the period that followed.

Download or read book State Sacrifices and Music in Ming China written by Joseph S.C. Lam and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1998-02-27 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a wealth of historical, ritual, and musical data preserved in authentic Ming documents, describing ritual and musical structures, thoughts, and actions of Ming emperors and scholar-officials who practiced court ritual and music for official and personal purposes. Not only the significance of Ming dynasty state sacrifices and music are illustrated, but also the roles they played in imperial China.

Download or read book Court Life in China The Capital Its Officials and People written by Isaac Taylor Headland and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2019-11-27 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a historical account of Chinese history, culture, and society. The book provides an insightful look into the complex world of the Chinese court during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through detailed descriptions of Empress Dowager and her reign, as well as other key figures such as Emperor Kuang Hsu and Prince Chun, the book provides an overview of the politics, culture, and social norms that existed within the Forbidden City. Additionally, the book explores the lives of the women within the court, from the princesses to the ladies of rank, and provides a glimpse into the challenges and struggles they faced.

Download or read book Bureaucracy and the State in Early China written by Feng Li and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-11 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ook redefines the bureaucracy of Ancient Chinese society during the Western Zhou period. The analysis is based on inscriptions of royal edicts from the period carved into bronze vessels. The inscriptions clarify the political and social construction of the Western Zhou and the ways in which it exercised its authority.

Download or read book Chinese Ritual and Politics written by Emily Martin and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritual action in China often takes its logic from political action. In this book Emily Ahern explores the implications of this.

Download or read book What Is China written by Ge Zhaoguang and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-26 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ge Zhaoguang, an eminent historian of traditional China and a public intellectual, takes on fundamental questions that shape the domestic and international politics of the world’s most populous country and its second largest economy. What Is China? offers an insider’s account that addresses sensitive problems of Chinese identity and shows how modern scholarship about China—whether conducted in China, East Asia, or the West—has attempted to make sense of the country’s shifting territorial boundaries and its diversity of ethnic groups and cultures. Ge considers, for example, the ancient concept of tianxia, or All-Under-Heaven, which assigned supremacy to the imperial court and lesser status to officials, citizens, tributary states, and tribal peoples. Does China’s government still operate with a belief in divine rule of All-Under-Heaven, or has it taken a different view of other actors, inside and outside its current borders? Responding both to Western theories of the nation-state and to Chinese intellectuals eager to promote “national learning,” Ge offers an insightful and erudite account of how China sees its place in the world. As he wrestles with complex historical and cultural forces guiding the inner workings of an often misunderstood nation, Ge also teases out many nuances of China’s encounter with the contemporary world, using China’s past to explain aspects of its present and to provide insight into various paths the nation might follow as the twenty-first century unfolds.

Download or read book Critical Readings on Tang China written by Paul W. Kroll and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-01-14 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tang dynasty, lasting from 618 to 907, was the high point of medieval Chinese history, featuring unprecedented achievements in governmental organization, economic and territorial expansion, literature, the arts, and religion. Many Tang practices continued, with various developments, to influence Chinese society for the next thousand years. For these and other reasons the Tang has been a key focus of Western sinologists. This volume presents English-language reprints of fifty-seven critical studies of the Tang, in the three general categories of political history, literature and cultural history, and religion. The articles and book chapters included here are important scholarly benchmarks that will serve as the starting-point for anyone interested in the study of medieval China.

Download or read book Creating Confucian Authority written by Robert L. Chard and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-07-19 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents extensive primary sources to reveal how Confucians in Early China parlay their knowledge of ritual into political power, from the ancient aristocratic culture of the Spring and Autumn era to the state religion of the Han empire.