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Material Culture Power And Identity In Ancient China
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Book Synopsis Material Culture, Power, and Identity in Ancient China by : Xiaolong Wu
Download or read book Material Culture, Power, and Identity in Ancient China written by Xiaolong Wu and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Xiaolong Wu offers a comprehensive and in-depth study of the Zhongshan state during China's Warring States Period (476?221 BCE). Analyzing artefacts, inscriptions, and grandiose funerary structures within a broad archaeological context, he illuminates the connections between power and identity, and the role of material culture in asserting and communicating both. The author brings an interdisciplinary approach to this study. He combines and cross-examines all available categories of evidence, including archaeological, textual, art historical, and epigraphical, enabling innovative interpretations and conclusions that challenge conventional views regarding Zhongshan and ethnicity in ancient China. Wu reveals the complex relationship between material culture, cultural identity, and statecraft intended by the royal patrons. He demonstrates that the Zhongshan king Cuo constructed a hybrid cultural identity, consolidated his power, and aimed to maintain political order at court after his death through the buildings, sculpture, and inscriptions that he commissioned.
Book Synopsis Material Culture, Power, and Identity in Ancient China by : Xiaolong Wu (Art historian)
Download or read book Material Culture, Power, and Identity in Ancient China written by Xiaolong Wu (Art historian) and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Material Culture, Power, and Identity in Ancient China by : Xiaolong Wu
Download or read book Material Culture, Power, and Identity in Ancient China written by Xiaolong Wu and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a comprehensive and in-depth study of a mysterious state of China's Warring States Period (476-221 BCE): the Zhongshan.
Book Synopsis Material Culture, Power, and Identity in Ancient China by : Xiaolong Wu
Download or read book Material Culture, Power, and Identity in Ancient China written by Xiaolong Wu and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Xiaolong Wu offers a comprehensive and in-depth study of the Zhongshan state during China's Warring States Period (476–221 BCE). Analyzing artefacts, inscriptions, and grandiose funerary structures within a broad archaeological context, he illuminates the connections between power and identity, and the role of material culture in asserting and communicating both. The author brings an interdisciplinary approach to this study. He combines and cross-examines all available categories of evidence, including archaeological, textual, art historical, and epigraphical, enabling innovative interpretations and conclusions that challenge conventional views regarding Zhongshan and ethnicity in ancient China. Wu reveals the complex relationship between material culture, cultural identity, and statecraft intended by the royal patrons. He demonstrates that the Zhongshan king Cuo constructed a hybrid cultural identity, consolidated his power, and aimed to maintain political order at court after his death through the buildings, sculpture, and inscriptions that he commissioned.
Book Synopsis Many Worlds Under One Heaven by : Professor of Art History Yan Sun
Download or read book Many Worlds Under One Heaven written by Professor of Art History Yan Sun and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Worlds Under One Heaven analyzes a wide range of newly excavated materials to offer a new perspective on political and cultural change under the Western Zhou. Examining tombs, bronze inscriptions, and other artifacts, Yan Sun challenges the Zhou-centered view with a frontier-focused perspective that highlights the roles of multiple actors.
Book Synopsis Many Worlds Under One Heaven by : Yan Sun
Download or read book Many Worlds Under One Heaven written by Yan Sun and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-29 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the mid-eleventh century BCE, the Zhou overthrew the Shang, a dynastic power that had dominated much of northern and central China. Over the next three centuries, they would extend the borders of their political control significantly beyond those of the Shang. The Zhou introduced a political ideology centered on the Mandate of Heaven to justify their victory over the Shang and their territorial expansion, portraying the Zhou king as ruling the frontier from the center of civilization. Present-day scholarship often still adheres to this core-periphery perspective, emphasizing cultural assimilation and political integration during Zhou rule. However, recent archaeological findings present a more complex picture. Many Worlds Under One Heaven analyzes a wide range of newly excavated materials to offer a new perspective on political and cultural change under the Western Zhou. Examining tombs, bronze inscriptions, and other artifacts, Yan Sun challenges the Zhou-centered view with a frontier-focused perspective that highlights the roles of multiple actors. She reveals the complexity of identity construction and power relations in the northern frontiers of the Western Zhou, arguing that the border regions should be seen as a land of negotiation that witnessed cultural hybridization and experimentation. Rethinking a critical period for the formation of Chinese civilization, Many Worlds Under One Heaven unsettles the core-periphery model to reveal the diversity and flexibility of identity in early China.
Book Synopsis Ancient China and the Yue by : Erica Brindley
Download or read book Ancient China and the Yue written by Erica Brindley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-03 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A richly empirical discussion of ethnic identity formation in the ancient world, presenting the peoples of China's southern frontier.
Book Synopsis Birth in Ancient China by : Constance A. Cook
Download or read book Birth in Ancient China written by Constance A. Cook and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2017-10-26 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals cultural paradigms and historical prejudices regarding the role of birthing and women in the reproduction of society. Using newly discovered and excavated texts, Constance A. Cook and Xinhui Luo systematically explore material culture, inscriptions, transmitted texts, and genealogies from BCE China to reconstruct the role of women in social reproduction in the ancient Chinese world. Applying paleographical, linguistic, and historical analyses, Cook and Luo discuss fertility rituals, birthing experiences, divine conceptions, divine births, and the overall influence of gendered supernatural agencies on the experience and outcome of birth. They unpack a cultural paradigm in which birth is not only a philosophical symbol of eternal return and renewal but also an abiding religious and social focus for lineage continuity. They also suggest that some of the mythical founder heroes traditionally assumed to be male may in fact have had female identities. Students of ancient history, particularly Chinese history, will find this book an essential complement to traditional historical narratives, while the exploration of ancient religious texts, many unknown in the West, provides a unique perspective into the study of the formation of mythology and the role of birthing in early religion. Constance A. Cook is Professor of Chinese at Lehigh University and the author of Death in Ancient China: The Tale of One Man’s Journey. Xinhui Luo is Professor of Chinese Ancient History at Beijing Normal University, China.
Book Synopsis Superfluous Things by : Craig Clunas
Download or read book Superfluous Things written by Craig Clunas and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2004-05-31 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback This outstanding and original book, presented here with a new preface, examines the history of material culture in early modern China. Craig Clunas analyzes “superfluous things”—the paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, carved jade, and other objects owned by the elites of Ming China—and describes contemporary attitudes to them. He informs his discussions with reference to both socio-cultural theory and current debates on eighteenth-century England concerning luxury, conspicuous consumption, and the growth of the consumer society.
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.
Book Synopsis History and Magical Power in a Chinese Community by : P. Sangren
Download or read book History and Magical Power in a Chinese Community written by P. Sangren and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1987-09-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a case study of history and culture in the Taiwanese town of Ta-ch'i and the group of rural villages that constitute its standard marketing community. However, its scope exceeds that of most community studies. The author attempts to construct a holistic view of Chinese culture from an analysis of the relationship between history and ritual in a particular locality. The author argues that social institutions and collective representations are dialectically connected in the process of social and cultural reproduction. He describes this dialectical process through an analysis of the key cultural concept of ling, the magical power attributed to ghosts, gods, and ancestors. In analyzing the symbolic logic of ling, he asserts that it can be fully understood only as a product of the reproduction of social institutions and as a manifestation of a native historical consciousness. Structuralist and Marxist insights are combined to explain how ling is best understood as both a cultural logic of symbolic relations and a material logic of social relations. The book is in three parts. Part I is a social and economic history that outlines what one might call an objectivist or positivist view of Ta-ch'i's history, describing events as they were, regardless of the perceptions of local participants. This material is a background to the synchronic sociological analysis of local territorial cults that constitutes Part II. In Part III, the author unsettles the objectivist assumptions of Part I by showing how the idiom of ling underlies Taiwanese constructions of history and identity and how the cultural construction of history dialectically reproduces society and creates history. The book is illustrated with 8 pages of photographs, 17 line drawings, and 9 maps.
Book Synopsis Ancient China and its Eurasian Neighbors by : Katheryn M. Linduff
Download or read book Ancient China and its Eurasian Neighbors written by Katheryn M. Linduff and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume looks at the effects of interaction and the nature of identity construction in a frontier or contact zone through the analysis of material culture, especially in mortuary settings.
Book Synopsis The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China by : Michelle H. Wang
Download or read book The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China written by Michelle H. Wang and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the first English-language monograph on the early history of cartography in China. Its chief players are three maps found in tombs that date from the fourth to the second century BCE and together constitute the entire known corpus of ancient Chinese maps (ditu). A millennium separates them from the next available map from 1136 CE. Most scholars study them through the lens of modern, empirical definitions of maps and their use. This book offers an alternative view by drawing on methods not just from cartography but from art history, archaeology, and religion. It argues that, as tomb objects, the maps were designed to be simultaneously functional for the living and the dead-that each map was drawn to serve navigational purposes of guiding the living from one town to another as well as to diagram ritual order, thereby taming the unknown territory of the dead. In contrast with traditional scholarship, The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China proposes that ditu can "speak" through their forms. Departing from dominant theories of representation that forge a narrow path from form to meaning, the book braids together two main strands of argumentation to explore the multifaceted and multifunctional diagrammatic tradition of rendering space in early China"--
Book Synopsis Memory and Agency in Ancient China by : Francis Allard
Download or read book Memory and Agency in Ancient China written by Francis Allard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-20 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memory and Agency in Ancient China offers a novel perspective on China's material culture. The volume explores the complex 'life histories' of selected objects, whose trajectories as ginle objects ('biographies') and object types ('lineages') cut across both temporal and physical space. The essays, written by a team of international scholars, analyse the objects in an effort to understand how they were shaped by the constraints of their social, political and aesthetic contexts, just as they were also guided by individual preference and capricious memory. They also demonstrate how objects were capable of effecting change. Ranging chronologically from the Neolithic to the present, and spatially from northern to southern mainland China and Taiwan, this book highlights the varied approaches that archaeologists and art historians use when attempting to reconstruct object trajectories. It also showcases the challenges they face, particularly with the unearthing of objects from archaeological contexts that, paradoxically, come to represent the earliest known point of their 'post-recovery lives'.
Book Synopsis The Collapse of China's Later Han Dynasty, 25-220 CE by : Wicky W. K. Tse
Download or read book The Collapse of China's Later Han Dynasty, 25-220 CE written by Wicky W. K. Tse and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-27 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Later Han period the region covering the modern provinces of Gansu, southern Ningxia, eastern Qinghai, northern Sichuan, and western Shaanxi, was a porous frontier zone between the Chinese regimes and their Central Asian neighbours, not fully incorporated into the Chinese realm until the first century BCE. Not surprisingly the region had a large concentration of men of martial background, from which a regional culture characterized by warrior spirit and skills prevailed. This military elite was generally honoured by the imperial centre, but during the Later Han period the ascendancy of eastern-based scholar-officials and the consequent increased emphasis on civil values and de-militarization fundamentally transformed the attitude of the imperial state towards the northwestern frontiersmen, leaving them struggling to achieve high political and social status. From the ensuing tensions and resentment followed the capture of the imperial capital by a northwestern military force, the deposing of the emperor and the installation of a new one, which triggered the disintegration of the empire. Based on extensive original research, and combining cultural, military and political history, this book examines fully the forging of military regional identity in the northwest borderlands and the consequences of this for the early Chinese empires.
Book Synopsis Metamorphic Imagery in Ancient Chinese Art and Religion by : Elizabeth Childs-Johnson
Download or read book Metamorphic Imagery in Ancient Chinese Art and Religion written by Elizabeth Childs-Johnson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-30 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Metamorphic Imagery in Ancient Chinese Art and Religion demonstrates that the concept of metamorphism was central to ancient Chinese religious belief and practices from at least the late Neolithic period through the Warring States Period of the Zhou dynasty. Central to the authors' argument is the ubiquitous motif in early Chinese figurative art, the metamorphic power mask. While the motif underwent stylistic variation over time, its formal properties remained stable, underscoring the image’s ongoing religious centrality. It symbolized the metamorphosis, through the phenomenon of death, of royal personages from living humans to deceased ancestors who required worship and sacrificial offerings. Treated with deference and respect, the royal ancestors lent support to their living descendants, ratifying and upholding their rule; neglected, they became dangerous, even malevolent. Employing a multidisciplinary approach that integrates archaeologically recovered objects with literary evidence from oracle bone and bronze inscriptions to canonical texts, all situated in the appropriate historical context, the study presents detailed analyses of form and style, and of change over time, observing the importance of relationality and the dynamic between imagery, materials, and affects. This book is a significant publication in the field of early China studies, presenting an integrated conception of ancient art and religion that surpasses any other work now available.
Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Early China by : Elizabeth Childs-Johnson
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Early China written by Elizabeth Childs-Johnson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-23 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook on Early China brings 30 scholars together to cover early China from the Neolithic through Warring States periods (ca 5000-500BCE). The study is chronological and incorporates a multidisciplinary approach, covering topics from archaeology, anthropology, art history, architecture, music, and metallurgy, to literature, religion, paleography, cosmology, religion, prehistory, and history.
