The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China

The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China
Author: Kai-wing Chow
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 1996-12-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0804765782

This pathbreaking work argues that the major intellectual trend in China from the seventeenth through the early nineteenth century was Confucian ritualism, as expressed in ethics, classical learning, and discourse on lineage. Reviews "Chow has produced a work of superb scholarship, fluently written and beautifully researched. . . . One of the landmarks of the current reconstruction of the social philosophy of the Qing dynasty. . . . Chow's book is indispensable. It has illuminating analyses of many mainstream writers, institutions, and social categories in eighteenth-century China which have never previously been examined." —Canadian Journal of History "Chow's monograph moves ritual to center stage in late imperial social and intellectual history, and the author makes a powerful case for doing so. . . . Because the author understands the intellectual history of late Ming and Qing as the history of a movement, or successive movements, of fundamental social reform, he has also made an important contribution to social and political history as these were related to intellectual history." —Journal of Chinese Religion "Chow's book is an excellent contribution to recent scholarship on the intellectual history of the Confucian tradition and provides a balance for other studies that have emphasized ideas to the exclusion of symbols." —The Historian

Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China

Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China
Author: Cynthia J. Brokaw
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 559
Release: 2005-03-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520927796

Despite the importance of books and the written word in Chinese society, the history of the book in China is a topic that has been little explored. This pioneering volume of essays, written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introduces the major issues in the social and cultural history of the book in late imperial China. Informed by many insights from the rich literature on the history of the Western book, these essays investigate the relationship between the manuscript and print culture; the emergence of urban and rural publishing centers; the expanding audience for books; the development of niche markets and specialized publishing of fiction, drama, non-Han texts, and genealogies; and more.

Practicing Kinship

Practicing Kinship
Author: Michael Szonyi
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2002
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780804742610

Presenting a new approach to the history of Chinese kinship, this book attempts to bridge the gap between anthropological and historical scholarship on the Chinese lineage. It explores the historical development of kinship in the villages of the Fuzhou region of southeastern Fujian province.

Ritual Opera and Mercantile Lineage

Ritual Opera and Mercantile Lineage
Author: Qitao Guo
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2005
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780804750325

Focusing on the Confucian transformation of Mulian opera, and especially on the interplay between the "civilizing" effect of ritual performance and the rise of gentrified mercantile lineages in sixteenth-century Huizhou prefecture, this book develops a radically novel interpretation of both Chinese popular culture and the Confucian tradition in late imperial China.

Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China

Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China
Author: Kai-wing Chow
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 0804733686

This path-breaking book argues that printing—both with woodblocks and with movable type—exerted a profound influence on Chinese society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China

Orthodoxy in Late Imperial China
Author: Kwang-Ching Liu
Publisher: Studies on China
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-02-12
Genre:
ISBN: 9780520301870

For many people, orthodoxy in late imperial China means Confucianism, or more precisely, Neo-Confucianism. Unlike most studies of Chinese values, which approach the subject as a philosophical and religious system, this book focuses on the interaction between Neo-Confucian beliefs and Chinese political and social institutions. It reveals a Confucianism that stood for far more than mere benevolent government, individual morality, and scholarly cultivation. In the essays presented here, Confucian idealism and transcendence become part of a system of sacred obligations and loyalties operating in the context of the imperial state and the family. These careful case studies examine many facets of late imperial society to create a complex picture of Chinese life. Among other things, they provide a look at the official worship system, mid-Ch'ing scholarly academies, the special status of tenants/servants, and the lineage feuds that were rampant on the southeast coast. The authors bring out the cultural significance of state and family rituals. They depict worried patriarchs composing instructions for the guidance of their children and country magistrates prescribing punishments according to the ritual status of the culprit. A debate between two viewpoints develops: Was orthodoxy a "mode of statecraft," or was it one of the ultimate concerns not only of the Confucian schools but of mainstream Taoism and Buddhism as well? The authors argue that Chinese civilization was characterized by religious and philosophical pluralism and moral orthodoxy. The implications they see for a socioethical doctrine supported by and in support of political authority will be of interest to students of comparative history and civilization. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1990.

True to Her Word

True to Her Word
Author: Weijing Lu
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2008-02-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 080478678X

This path-breaking book examines the broad cultural, social, and gender meanings of the "faithful maiden" cult in late imperial China (1368–1911). Across the empire, an increasing number of young women or "faithful maidens," defied their parents' wishes and chose either to live out their lives as widows upon the death of a fiancé or killed themselves to join their fiancé in death. The book analyzes the familial conflicts, government policies, ideological controversies, and personal emotions surrounding the cult. Concentrating on the dramatic acts of spirit wedding and suicide, the faithful maidens' unique code of conduct, and the extraordinary life journey of "virgin mothers," Lu documents the ideological, psychological, cultural, and economic aspects of these young women's mentality and behavior, and the implications of this behavior for their families and the broader society. The book's narrative of the faithful maiden cult interweaves late imperial political, cultural, social and intellectual history, thus, providing a new window onto the history of the late imperial period.

Mourning in Late Imperial China

Mourning in Late Imperial China
Author: Norman Kutcher
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2006-11-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521030182

To win the approval of China's native elites, Qing China's new Manchu leaders developed an ambitious plan to return Confucianism to civil society by observing laborious and time-consuming mourning rituals, the touchstones of a well-ordered Confucian society. The first to do so in any language, Norman Kutcher's study of mourning looks beneath the rhetoric to demonstrate how the state--unwilling to make the sacrifices that a genuine commitment to proper mourning demanded--quietly but forcefully undermined, not reinvigorated, the Confucian mourning system.

Confucianism and Sacred Space

Confucianism and Sacred Space
Author: Chin-shing Huang
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231552890

Temples dedicated to Confucius are found throughout China and across East Asia, dating back over two thousand years. These sacred and magnificent sanctuaries hold deep cultural and political significance. This book brings together studies from Chin-shing Huang’s decades-long research into Confucius temples that individually and collectively consider Confucianism as religion. Huang uses the Confucius temple to explore Confucianism both as one of China’s “three religions” (with Buddhism and Daoism) and as a cultural phenomenon, from the early imperial era through the present day. He argues for viewing Confucius temples as the holy ground of Confucianism, symbolic sites of sacred space that represent a point of convergence between political and cultural power. Their complex histories shed light on the religious nature and character of Confucianism and its status as official religion in imperial China. Huang examines topics such as the political and intellectual elements of Confucian enshrinement, how Confucius temples were brought into the imperial ritual system from the Tang dynasty onward, and why modern Chinese largely do not think of Confucianism as a religion. A nuanced analysis of the question of Confucianism as religion, Confucianism and Sacred Space offers keen insights into Confucius temples and their significance in the intertwined intellectual, political, social, and religious histories of imperial China.

Confucianism

Confucianism
Author: Daniel K. Gardner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2014
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0195398912

This volume shows the influence of the Sage's teachings over the course of Chinese history--on state ideology, the civil service examination system, imperial government, the family, and social relations--and the fate of Confucianism in China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as China developed alongside a modernizing West and Japan. Some Chinese intellectuals attempted to reform the Confucian tradition to address new needs; others argued for jettisoning it altogether in favor of Western ideas and technology; still others condemned it angrily, arguing that Confucius and his legacy were responsible for China's feudal, ''backward'' conditions in the twentieth century and launching campaigns to eradicate its influences. Yet Chinese continue to turn to the teachings of Confucianism for guidance in their daily lives.