Urban Life and Intellectual Crisis in Middle-Period China, 800-1100

In the eleventh century, the cities of the Song Empire (960-1279) emerged into writing. Literati in prior centuries had looked away from crowded streets, but literati in the eleventh century found beauty in towering buildings and busy harbors. Their purpose in writing the city was ideological. On the written page, they tried to establish a distinction that eluded them in the avenues and to discern an immanent pattern in the movement of people, goods, and money. By the end of the eleventh century, however, they recognized that they had failed in their efforts. They had lost the Way in the city. Urban Life and Intellectual Crisis in Middle-Period China, 800-1100 reveals the central place of urban life in the history of the eleventh century. Important developments in literary innovation and monetary policy, in canonical exegesis and civil engineering, in financial reform and public health, converge in this book as they converged in the city

Directorate of education (Guo Zi Jian) and the Imperial University (Tai Xue) in the Northern Song (960-1127)-interaction between politics and education in middle period China

The Imperial University played a significant political role in China’s imperial past. When established in the ancient Zhou, its mission was predominantly to nurture prospective officials for eventual service in government. This marks the inseparability of education and politics from the very onset of the University’s founding. Nevertheless, its diminished success in producing officials under subsequent dynasties caused a comparable diminution in the political significance of the metropolitan school. Not until the Northern Song, founded by the Zhao clan, did signs emerge of a resurrection of sorts. Three major educational reforms were attempted in the reigns of Renzong, Shenzong, and Huizong (ca. 1040-1126). In each reform, the emperor and the reform proponents envisioned an expanding role of political significance for the Imperial University. This dissertation focuses on the evolution of the metropolitan educational institutions, namely the Directorate of Education and the Imperial University, in the Northern Song. By investigating the record of conduct and extant writings as pertains to the institutional settings of the Imperial University as well as wide range of biographical sources for Northern Song men, mainly staff, students, and graduates of the Imperial University, the author seeks to gain insights into how Song emperors and policy advocates perceived the Imperial University as a political institution, how the staff and teachers at the University performed their assigned roles, and how students and graduates of the Northern Song Imperial University contributed to the political life. After highlighting the role of the Imperial University in the previous dynasties, reviewing the secondary literatures in connection with education in Song China, as well as illustrating the sources and methodology to be used in the introductory chapter, a comprehensive survey of the development of the metropolitan schools covering the entire Northern Song then follows. This narrative history not only highlights the innovations in the educational institutions per se, but also sheds light on a range of political phenomena during various stages in the Northern Song: how aristocracy evolved into meritocracy; how the reformers and conservatives created myths for political sake; how emperor Shenzong strengthened its autocratic rule by way of a comprehensive regulatory framework; how scholar-officials rebuffed in defending the “genealogy of the way”; and how the scholarly vision in recruiting officials through a countrywide school network was realized. The conclusion contains an analytical discussion of the political role of the Imperial University in late Northern Song: a tool of control and indoctrination, as well as a channel to select morally upright officials. The central issue is how successful could the Directorate of Education and the Imperial University perform these political functions. Through this study, hopefully a fuller picture of this elitist educational institution during one of its most flourishing periods in Imperial China can be restored. It is also envisioned that the political impact could be re-emphasized in future studies of political institutions, a perspective which has often been ignored in recent Chinese and Western scholarships where social history is dominant

The Local in the Imperial Vision: Landscape, Topography, and Geography in Southern Song Map Guides and Gazetteers

This article examines the generation of topographic maps and geographical writings about local regions of the Southern Song (1127­–1279). It identifies two distinct yet interrelated models in the making of local regions in maps and writings: first, map guides (tujing 圖經), which were produced and updated regularly at different tiers of local government for administrative purposes; second, a growing number of monographs, some of them also named “map guides” (tujing) and others “gazetteers” (zhi 志 or difang zhi 地方志), which were compiled by local literati scholars. Upon close examination of these two models, one finds that the local consciousness and identity voiced by the provincial elite were congruous with centralist sentiment and discourse at this time. Specifically, the literati described features of local topographies within an imperial context and in the language of the authorities. Moreover, the wide circulation of these writings also contributed to the collective imagining of a Song Empire in the daily life of the society. In sum, this article argues that there was a close relationship between cartographic discourse and the production of empire at the local level. On the one hand, the state of the Southern Song, traditionally thought to have lost momentum in local control, still proactively maintained regular checks on local geography through mapmaking. On the other hand, local literati strived to establish ties with the central state in various ways while documenting their communities in gazetteers. Keywords: Song dynasty, map guide, tujing, gazetteer, difang zhi, geography, topograph

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Una mirada de las élites Song a las vestimentas de los "bárbaros": la descripción de los ropajes de los Liao en la anotación 9 del Mengxi Bitan

Fil: Santillán, Gustavo E. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Escuela de Historia; Argentina.Fil: Santillán, Gustavo E. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales; Argentina.Fil: Santillán, Gustavo E. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina.Fil: Di Doménico, Luciano Agustín. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Escuela de Historia; Argentina.Este trabajo analiza la anotación 9 de la obra Conversaciones con el Pincel en el Arroyo de los Sueños (Mèngxī Bǐtán 夢溪筆談), escrita en torno a 1087 por el letrado Shen Kuo (1031-1095), de la dinastía Song del Norte. En la nota mencionada se describen las vestimentas del pueblo kitán de los Liao, ante cuya corte el autor de nuestra obra se dirigió como embajador del Estado Song, en 1075. Como producto de este viaje, Shen recogió sus memorias e impresiones sobre el ropaje de sus anfitriones. Ellas revelan, como consta en la fuente que analizamos, tanto una descripción que hoy podríamos considerar como etnográfica sobre los trajes que Shen pudo observar, situándolos en el contexto de los modos de vida de los pueblos de la estepa y el Noreste de China, como una ponderación del grado de civilización que evidenciaba el uso de estas vestimentas. En este sentido, la nota trasluce una forma expositiva que revierte el primero de los rasgos identificados (la situación de las formas de vestir en el contexto de los modos de vida de la región de los Liao) en una conclusión que reafirma la superioridad de la cultura del núcleo civilizatorio chino.La ponencia que presentamos desarrolla las afirmaciones precedentes a través de 1- una presentación del contexto en el que Shen Kuo realiza su viaje a la Corte Liao, 2- una exposición comentada de la fuente en cuestión, que pone de manifiesto tanto la consideración del pueblo Liao por parte de los letrados Song, como una revisión de ciertas formas expositivas características de los escritos chinos.Fil: Santillán, Gustavo E. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Escuela de Historia; Argentina.Fil: Santillán, Gustavo E. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales; Argentina.Fil: Santillán, Gustavo E. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina.Fil: Di Doménico, Luciano Agustín. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Escuela de Historia; Argentina