scholarly journals Rethinking Gender and Female Laity in Late Imperial Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Biographies

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 705
Author(s):  
Xing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Pure Land ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Late Ming ◽  
Lay Women ◽  
Confucian Scholar ◽  
Confucian Teachings

This paper explores how lay female believers are depicted in the Chinese monastic Pure Land Buddhist texts and how a particular late-imperial Chinese Buddhist biography collection betrayed the previously existing narrative of female laity. Moreover, I wish to show that there had existed a long-lasting and persistent non-binary narrative of lay women in Chinese Pure Land biographies admiring female agency, in which female Pure Land practitioners are depicted as equally accomplished to male ones. Such a narrative betrays the medieval monastic elitist discourse of seeing women as naturally corrupted. This narrative is best manifested in the late Ming monk master Yunqi Zhuhong’s collection, who celebrated lay female practitioners’ religious achievement as comparable to men. This tradition is discontinued in the Confucian scholar Peng Shaosheng’s collection of lay female Buddhist biographies in the Qing dynasty, however, in which Peng depicts women as submissive and inferior to males. This transition—from using the stories of eminent lay female Buddhists to challenge Confucian teachings to positioning lay females under Confucian disciplines—exhibits Peng Shaosheng’s own invention, rather than a transmission of the inherited formulaic narration of lay female believers, as he claimed.

Talent, Identity, and Sociality in Early Qing Scholar-Beauty Novels

T oung Pao ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 102 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 161-208
Author(s):  
Ying Zou
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Sexual Relations ◽  
Cultural Autonomy ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Late Ming

This article rereads early Qing scholar-beauty novels from the perspective of a new interest in self-fashioning and resocialization right after the dynastic transition. It analyzes the particular ways in which these works reflected on the late Ming notion of qing (feelings) and moved to a new sense of self through an emphasis on innate cai (talent), and suggests that they employed romance to express a sense of community and male sociality based on talent, thereby striking a complex balance between the autonomy of elite communities and their accommodation with the new regime. The talented woman figure is both agent and product of the early Qing Han elite’s self-fashioning project in reaction to the Manchu conquest. Sexual relations are channelled into newly responsible ends. Historically, scholar-beauty novels developed a romantic discourse that helped construct personal identities, promote cultural autonomy, and eventually reintegrate literature into the new political order of the Qing dynasty.
Cet article propose une relecture des romans du début des Qing associant un lettré talentueux et une jeune beauté (caizi jiaren) à la lumière de l’intérêt nouveau pour la construction du soi et la resocialisation apparu immédiatement après la transition entre les Ming et les Qing. Est analysée la façon particulière dont ces ouvrages s’interrogent sur la notion de qing (sentiment) caractéristique de la fin des Ming et élaborent un nouveau sentiment du soi en mettant l’accent sur le talent inné (cai). Le recours à l’idylle, est-il suggéré, aide à faire passer la notion d’une communauté et d’une sociabilité masculine basées sur le talent, créant du même coup un équilibre complexe entre l’autonomie des communautés de l’élite et les compromis qui les lient au nouveau régime. Le personnage de la femme de talent est à la fois l’agent et le produit du projet de construction du soi des élites chinoises réagissant à la conquête mandchoue. Les relations amoureuses sont canalisées au service de buts nouveaux et responsables. Historiquement, le roman caizi jiaren a développé un discours sentimental facilitant la construction d’identités individuelles, la promotion de l’autonomie culturelle, et en fin de compte la réintégration de la littérature dans l’ordre politique nouveau de la dynastie des Qing.


scholarly journals Writing for Justice: An Activist Beginning of the Cult of Female Chastity in Late Imperial China

2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 991-1012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siyen Fei
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Late Imperial China ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
Late Ming ◽  
Imperial China

This article examines the rise of the chastity cult—the quintessential symbol of patriarchal suppression of female agency for modern reformers—during the sixteenth century. Despite the resultant stricter control over female sexuality, the growing dominance of the chastity cult cannot be simply construed as a product of top-down imposition. What made possible the penetrative power of chastity practice, this article argues, was a state indoctrination working in reverse. That is, the fast ascendance of the chastity cult in the late Ming was powered by various strains of activism that sought to protest and repair the failing system of chastity awards. The activist impetus greatly enhanced the centrality and influence of chastity practice in social life and, in doing so, opened the notion of chastity to contentious and sometimes subversive negotiations.

An object-oriented study on Yongwu shi: poetry on eyeglasses in the Qing dynasty

2016 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-397
Author(s):  
Zinan Yan
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Object Identity ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
General Development ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Imperial Period

AbstractThis paper suggests a different approach in the study of Qing dynasty yongwu poetry, which is to analyse the cultural significance of the object in this literary subgenre instead of its lyrical essence. Taking eyeglasses as an example, this paper surveys the general development of imported and domestic eyeglasses in China from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and presents various literary interpretations assigned to this object through time. It further discusses Western and Chinese materiality, the economy and scholars' lives, political and social justification, as well as literary complexity and object identity, which are vital to the development of poetry on eyeglasses in the late imperial period.

scholarly journals The Mandate of Heaven, the Rule of the Emperor: Self-Sufficiency of the Middle Kingdom

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-121
Author(s):  
Manuel Perez-Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
The State ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Tax Collection ◽  
Administrative Capacity ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Late Ming ◽  
Self Sufficiency

Abstract This chapter pays special attention to the analysis of the state administrative capacity of late Ming and Qing China by exploring the reforms introduced from the late sixteenth century up to 1796 regarding tax collection. Institutional constraints will be further explored through the rooted mandarinate system and despotic rule of the emperor and officials who fostered the multiplication of institutions, mainly during the expansion to western provinces throughout the Qing dynasty

The Prefatory Self: Images of the Author in Traditional Chinese Drama

T oung Pao ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 107 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 95-132
Author(s):  
Guojun Wang
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Chinese Opera ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Book Culture

Abstract This article considers representations of Chinese opera authors in the prefatory space of their theatrical works. Despite the longstanding tradition of portraiture and drama production in premodern China, existing materials suggest that pictorial depictions of the authors started to appear in play scripts primarily during the Qing dynasty. How are those images related to theatrical works and their authors? Instead of treating authorship as a type of ownership, this article studies the multifaceted nature of authorial images by examining the depiction of the authors’ hairstyles and clothing alongside other content in the front matter of those plays. Situating the phenomenon within the histories of Chinese drama, clothing, and book culture, this article argues that authors increasingly appeared in late imperial Chinese drama in their social roles, moving from the prefatory space to the drama script proper.

Grammatical Descriptions in Manchu Grammar Books from the Qing Dynasty

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-55
Author(s):  
Takashi Takekoshi
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Chinese Scholars ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The 19Th Century

In this paper, we analyse features of the grammatical descriptions in Manchu grammar books from the Qing Dynasty. Manchu grammar books exemplify how Chinese scholars gave Chinese names to grammatical concepts in Manchu such as case, conjugation, and derivation which exist in agglutinating languages but not in isolating languages. A thorough examination reveals that Chinese scholarly understanding of Manchu grammar at the time had attained a high degree of sophistication. We conclude that the reason they did not apply modern grammatical concepts until the end of the 19th century was not a lack of ability but because the object of their grammatical descriptions was Chinese, a typical isolating language.

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