scholarly journals The Many Scripts of the Chinese Scriptworld, the Epic of King Gesar, and World Literature

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen L. Thornber
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
World Literature ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Chinese Script ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
The Many

The idea of an East Asian cultural “bloc” united in no small part by the Chinese script has long been widely held; through the end of the Qing dynasty Chinese characters served as the scripta franca for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese intellectuals. Yet writing in East Asia has almost always involved more than Chinese characters and their offshoots. The purpose of this article is twofold. First is to introduce readers of world literature unfamiliar with East Asia to the wide variety of the region’s languages and scripts. The second objective is to demonstrate that when we associate writing in China only with Chinese characters, as often has been the case, we overlook some of the region’s, and the world’s, most significant works of world literature. These include the twelfth-century Epic of King Gesar, a living epic which at twenty-five times the size of the Iliad is the world’s longest.

Printing for Prestige? Publishing and Publications by Ming Princes Part 2

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérôme Kerlouégan
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Military Power ◽  
The Qing Dynasty

AbstractScattered throughout the realm in a great number of provincial courts, Ming imperial clansmen did not wield political or military power. Some among them therefore used their energies to publish books; indeed, the publishing activities of the Ming princes constitute one of many elements of what can be termed “princely culture.” Even though princely imprints formed an insignificant proportion of Ming publications, a large number of them have survived to our day. Based on the examination of approximately 240 such editions, this essay explores the relationships between the princes and the literati who assisted them. It raises questions central to princely publishing: How learned were the princes? What books did they publish? For which audiences and with what objectives? What are the main characteristics of princely publications? Did princes have well-defined publishing strategies? The last section of the essay addresses the heritage of Ming princely publications in the Qing dynasty. This essay will be published in several installments in East Asian Publishing and Society.

scholarly journals Contesting the Confucian peace: Civilization, barbarism and international hierarchy in East Asia

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 740-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Phillips
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
East Asian ◽  
European History ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Diverse Communities ◽  
Tributary System ◽  
International Systems

International Relations scholars have turned to China’s tributary system to broaden our understanding of international systems beyond the ‘states-under-anarchy’ model derived from European history. This scholarship forms the inspiration and foil for this article, which refines International Relations scholars’ conceptualizations of how international hierarchy arose and endured in East Asia during the Manchu Qing Dynasty — China’s last and most territorially expansive imperial dynasty. I argue that existing conceptions of East Asian hierarchy overstate the importance of mutual identification between the region’s Confucian monarchies in sustaining Chinese hegemony. Instead, we can understand Qing China’s dominance only once we recognize the Manchus as a ‘barbarian’ dynasty, which faced unique challenges legitimating its rule domestically and internationally. As ‘barbarian’ conquerors, Manchus did not secure their rule by simply conforming to pre-existing Sinic cultural norms. Instead, like other contemporary Eurasian empires, they maintained dominance through strategies of heterogeneous contracting. Domestically, they developed customized legitimacy scripts tailored to win the allegiance of the empire’s diverse communities. Internationally, meanwhile, the Manchus strategically appropriated existing Confucian norms and practices of tributary diplomacy in ways that mitigated — but did not eliminate — Confucian vassals’ resentment of ‘barbarian’ domination. East Asian hierarchy may have been more peaceful than Westphalian anarchy, but the absence of war masks a more coercive reality where the appearance of Confucian conformity obscured more fractious relations between Qing China and even its ostensibly most loyal vassals.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Francis Kornicki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Common ◽  
Made In

This chapter draws together the arguments made in the earlier chapters and addresses the question of nationalism, in particular after the Manchu conquest of China and the start of the Qing dynasty in 1644, which altered perceptions of China significantly in East Asia. The cultural pride that developed in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam led to greater interest in the vernaculars but it did not until later lead to a rejection of Sinitic, for until the early twentieth century Sinitic continued to be perceived as the common learned language of the whole of East Asia, rather that the property of China.

Languages, scripts, and Chinese texts in East Asia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Francis Kornicki
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
East Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Chinese Script ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
The Common ◽  
Chinese Texts ◽  
Common Era

This book is a wide-ranging study of vernacularization in East Asia, and for this purpose East Asia includes not only China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam but also other societies that no longer exist, such as the Tangut and Khitan empires. It takes the reader from the early centuries of the Common Era, when the Chinese script was the only form of writing and Chinese Buddhist, Confucian, and medical texts spread throughout East Asia, through the centuries when vernacular scripts evolved, right up to the end of the nineteenth century when nationalism created new roles for vernacular languages and vernacular scripts. Through an examination of oral approaches to Chinese texts, it shows how highly valued Chinese texts came to be read through the prism of the vernaculars and ultimately to be translated. This long process has some parallels with vernacularization in Europe, but a crucial difference is that literary Chinese was, unlike Latin, not a spoken language. As a consequence, people who spoke different East Asian vernaculars had no means of communicating in speech, but they could communicate silently by means of written conversation in literary Chinese; a further consequence is that within each society Chinese texts assumed vernacular garb: in classes and lectures, Chinese texts were read and declaimed in the vernaculars. What happened in the nineteenth century and why are there still so many different scripts in East Asia? How and why were Chinese texts dethroned and what replaced them? These are some of the questions addressed in this book.

Printing for Prestige? Publishing and Publications by Ming Princes Part 4: Appendices

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-198
Author(s):  
Jérôme Kerlouégan
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Military Power ◽  
The Qing Dynasty

Abstract Scattered throughout the realm in a great number of provincial courts, Ming imperial clansmen did not wield political or military power. Some among them therefore used their energies to publish books; indeed, the publishing activities of the Ming princes constitute one of many elements of what can be termed “princely culture.” Even though princely imprints formed an insignificant proportion of Ming publications, a large number of them have survived to our day. Based on the examination of approximately 240 such editions, this essay explores the relationships between the princes and the literati who assisted them. It raises questions central to princely publishing: How learned were the princes? What books did they publish? For which audiences and with what objectives? What are the main characteristics of princely publications? Did princes have well-defined publishing strategies? The last section of the essay addresses the heritage of Ming princely publications in the Qing dynasty. The first three parts of this essay have been published in East Asian Publishing and Society 1.1, 1.2, and 2.1.

An Interpretive Approach to “Chinese” Identity

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-101
Author(s):  
Youngmin Kim
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Chinese Identity ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Interpretive Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
Asian History

This chapter raises new questions concerning existing ways to conceive of Chineseness, particularly considering the cases of other East Asian countries hitherto largely neglected when exploring Chineseness. The chapter first reviews the multiple ways Chineseness has been approached in various disciplines and then undertakes some historical investigations of the development of a specific type of Chineseness in East Asian history. It focuses in particular on the history of the Qing dynasty (1616–1911). This chapter shows that the notion of China constantly undergoes transformation that reflects changing historical conditions over more than two thousand years.

scholarly journals The Importance of Augustin Hallerstein for Cultural and Political Relations with China and Korea

Asian Studies ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-32
Author(s):  
Mitja SAJE
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Eu Project

 Since symbols of early cultural relations between Europe and East Asia are important, we are striving to restore the image of Augustin Hallerstein (1703–1774) in China and earn his legacy its appropriate position in the history of the Qing dynasty next to other great Jesuits like Adam Shall von Bell (1591–1666), Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688), or Ignatius Kogler (1680–1746). A two-year EU project made possible the publication of a monograph in English, which was translated into Chinese and published in China in February 2015. Wider popularization of his achievements should be beneficial to Slovenia as well as to China, where he did his work. Such common heroes of the past could often be used to promote better understanding and cooperation between China and Slovenia. Through strong connections with Korean scholars he gained a high reputation in Korea as well. 

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