"Legitimation Discourse and the Theory of the Five Elements in Imperial China." Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 44 (2014): 325-364.
- ️https://duke.academia.edu/YuanJulianChen
Related papers
The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties
The Troubled Empire is Timothy Brook's contribution to the "History of Imperial China" series, of which he is the general editor. The series successfully fills the space between one-volume textbooks of Chinese history and the multi-volume and multi-authored Cambridge History of China series, offering readers a single-authored interpretive history of a dynasty-based period (in the case of Mark Edward Lewis's second volume in the series, it is the period between empires, the Northern and Southern Dynasties). I am interested in how Brook accomplishes this in his volume, for it invites us to reflect on how we think about, and teach, China's history.
Biran 2017 Non Han Dynasties in M. Szonyi A Companion to Chinese Hisroey Blackwell 129-142.pdf
For about half of its recorded history, parts or all of imperial China were ruled by non-Han peoples, mainly from Manchuria or Mongolia. The dynasties they founded (mainly the Liao, Jin, Xia, Yuan, and Qing) contributed greatly to the shaping of late imperial and modern China's boundaries and ethnic composition. Yet until recently these non-Han dynasties were treated as the stepchildren of Chinese history, and were studied mainly through the prism of Sinicization, namely when and how they embraced the allegedly superior Chinese culture. The chapter reviews the reasons for the marginalization of these dynasties and the historiographical turns—in terms of both sources and historical frameworks—that, especially since the 1990s, led to their study in their own Inner Asian terms. Highlighting the 'New Qing History' that led this change, the chapter discusses the common political culture of the Inner Asian dynasties and reviews directions of current and future research.
The problem of statehood with regard to relations between China, Yuan and Qing states and dynasties is analyzed in comparative historical context. It is hard to accept the concept of one China (single or divided), during many centuries ruled by different dynasties and never incorporated in other states. Self-names of states and declarations of their succession, as such, do not create historical succession. The concept of China under different circumstances has been used for different purposes: national liberation of the Chinese people from enslaving by foreigners, justifying of internecine fights and/or centralization of the state, the right of a foreign state to conquered China, the right of creation of a world empire or subjection of other states and peoples. Liao, Jin, Yuan and Qing should be considered not as "dynasties of China established by minority nationalities", but as multinational empires established by non-Chinese peoples: Khitans, Jurchens, Mongols and Manchus, to whom the conquered China or its part was joined. The Song and Ming empires, ROC and PRC represent the state of China in different historical times. However, the formation, structure, sociocultural concepts, ways of legitimization, governing, and national policy differ the Yuan and Qing empires from China, which was only a part of them. Declarations of the Manchus and the Chinese, that their empire is the main state in the world, Zhongguo, are analogous to declarations of German, Ottoman, Russian and some other monarchs about their succession to the Roman Empire. The Chinese worldview underwent serious changes in the course of history. These changes can be better explained as occurring in different (Chinese and non-Chinese) states with different understanding of the Zhongguo principle, than in one state led by Chinese and conquest dynasties.
As the founder of the Qing dynasty, Hong Taiji was famous for introducing Chinese elements into the Manchu regime. However, he was cautious of balancing the old Manchu tradition and new Chinese institution. How should we understand his worry about sinicization of his Manchu subjects while adopting considerable Chinese practice? What was his legacy of this sinicization project for the Qing empire? This paper argues that under Hong Taiji’s rule, the Manchu-Chinese dual social and cultural structure began to take shape in the Qing empire. Seeing culture as a series of a binary structure of meaning, Marshall Sahlins argues that cultural logic influences social category and norm. In the formation of Manchu-Chinese dual cultural structure, imperial ideology and Hong Taiji’s intention played a decisive role. In this paper, I try to contextualize Hong Taiji’s sinicization project in the milieu of internal power struggle with other Manchu princes and external geopolitics among Korea, Mongols, and Ming China. By re-defining the meaning of the Manchu and Chinese way, Hong Taiji successfully created a dual symbolic structure of meaning which elevated Manchu military practice and frugality as the core of the dynasty and despised Chinese civil practice as superficiality. This Manchu-Chinese dual symbolic structure of meaning became an essential component of Qing imperial ideology until the end of the Qing dynasty.
2012
This book combines two rather discrete studies. Christian Soffel's three chapters concern the Zhongyong in the Song; Hoyt Tillman's three discuss the intellectual career of Hao Jing郝經 (1223-1275). Christian Soffel introduces some Song views of the authorship of the Zhongyong 中庸to makes the point that not all shared Zhu Xi's certainty about Zisi's authorship and implication that the work thus conveyed Confucius's ideas. Second, he takes up views of the concept of Daotong 道統in Southern Song. The two, the Zhongyong and Daotong, go together because Zhu Xi establishes the idea that there was a true transmission of the Way in the first lines of his preface to the Zhongyong. Depending on one's perspective, that preface is important because it is the most influential statement of Daotong as the name for the idea that there is one true line of Confucian thought or because it sets out the all-important Zhu Xi claim that human consciousness is fundamentally dualistic, drawing on bodily consciousness and an innate moral consciousness. I raise this because it gets at a methodological question for intellectual historians. The introduction states that "one goal of the present study is to understand the role of the Zhongyong during the Song dynasty…and then to use these results to gain additional perspective on the issue of cultural authority and the formation of "Confucian traditions" (p. 21). This more sociological way of looking at intellectual traditions is concerned with the dynamics of claiming authority. It reminds us that righteousness and wisdom alone do not guarantee that others will pay attention and asks that we look at how it came about that one person, Zhu Xi in this instance, was successful in establishing as leading figure in what once was a broader and more amorphous movement. This is an issue that has been of particular concern to Hoyt Tillman over the years in writing about what he has called the "Daoxue fellowship;" Soffel generally adopts that view. The other approach, most evident in Tu Weiming's Centrality and commonality : an essay on Chung-yung (Hawaii, 1976) focuses on the ideas in the text and interprets the text in the search of meaning. Zhu's famous preface is interesting because, on one hand, it constructs a Confucian tradition, an intellectual lineage, and makes a claim to exclusive authority and, on the other hand, makes the core Neo-Confucian claim that the mind, independently of culture and tradition, is endowed with the ability to access innate moral knowledge. Zhu's "Preface to the "Zhongyong jijie 中庸集解," translated here (p. 53) is all about lineage, but the
Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, 2013
Christian Soffel and Hoyt Cleveland Tillman. Cultural authority and political culture in China : exploring issues with the Zhongyong and the Daotong during the Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties. Stuttgart : Franz Steiner Verlag, 2012.223 pp. This book combines two rather discrete studies. Christian Soffel's three chapters concern the Zhongyong in the Song; Hoyt Tillman's three discuss the intellectual career of Hao Jing郝經 (1223-1275). Christian Soffel introduces some Song views of the authorship of the Zhongyong 中庸to makes the point that not all shared Zhu Xi's certainty about Zisi's authorship and implication that the work thus conveyed Confucius's ideas. Second, he takes up views of the concept of Daotong 道統in Southern Song. The two, the Zhongyong and Daotong, go together because Zhu Xi establishes the idea that there was a true transmission of the Way in the first lines of his preface to the Zhongyong. Depending on one's perspective, that preface is important because it is the most influential statement of Daotong as the name for the idea that there is one true line of Confucian thought or because it sets out the all-important Zhu Xi claim that human consciousness is fundamentally dualistic, drawing on bodily consciousness and an innate moral consciousness. I raise this because it gets at a methodological question for intellectual historians. The introduction states that "one goal of the present study is to understand the role of the Zhongyong during the Song dynasty…and then to use these results to gain additional perspective on the issue of cultural authority and the formation of "Confucian traditions" (p. 21). This more sociological way of looking at intellectual traditions is concerned with the dynamics of claiming authority. It reminds us that righteousness and wisdom alone do not guarantee that others will pay attention and asks that we look at how it came about that one person, Zhu Xi in this instance, was successful in establishing as leading figure in what once was a broader and more amorphous movement. This is an issue that has been of particular concern to Hoyt Tillman over the years in writing about what he has called the "Daoxue fellowship;" Soffel generally adopts that view. The other approach, most evident in Tu Weiming's Centrality and commonality : an essay on Chung-yung (Hawaii, 1976) focuses on the ideas in the text and interprets the text in the search of meaning. Zhu's famous preface is interesting because, on one hand, it constructs a Confucian tradition, an intellectual lineage, and makes a claim to exclusive authority and, on the other hand, makes the core Neo-Confucian claim that the mind, independently of culture and tradition, is endowed with the ability to access innate moral knowledge. Zhu's "Preface to the "Zhongyong jijie 中庸集解," translated here (p. 53) is all about lineage, but the
Huizong and the Imperial Dragon: Exploring the Material Culture of Imperial Sovereignty
Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, 2011
This article examines the case of the Song emperor Huizong (r. 1100-1125) in order to explore the dragon as an imperial image in China. Huizong put images of dragons on the bells and cauldrons he had cast, paper he had printed, and stones he had inscribed. His paintings catalogue singled out those paintings of dragons and fish as a distinct category , something no earlier classification of paintings had done. His antiquities catalogue included numerous discussions of dragon imagery on ancient objects. Huizong's two "double dragon" seals are given close attention, as seals are a material object with close ties to emperorship from early times. Huizong's double-dragon seals were in no sense conventional for his time and place. First, they do not depict words or characters, but are pictures. Yet the pictures seem to resemble characters at first glance-they are made out of connected, curved lines. In addition, there is the question of why there are two dragons rather than one, despite the fact that the emperor was a singular individual, the "one man" of classical tradition. Two possible sources for Huizong's innovation in the design of his double dragon seals are considered in this article: his collection of antiquity rubbings and his interest in Daoist talismans. These seals encourage us to think about the material culture of imperial sovereignty in a new way. What made the emperor an emperor was a set of practices and conventions that did not change each time a new ruler acceded to the throne. To work, they had to be timeless. Most of the dragon imagery connected to the throne represents the office of the emperor. Yet emperors were at the same time individual men, with personal habits, preferences , talents, and quirks. By Song times, personal seals were a common means of expressing individual identity among literati. Huizong found a way to take the dragon-the symbol of his office-and have it also function as a symbol of himself. This suggests that even with an institution as dominating as the imperial one, there was still room for