The Gender of Knowledge in Forensic Drama of Late Imperial China

In late imperial China practitioners of forensic investigation in legal cases were predominantly male. While crime literature frequently features female characters, the question of how this literature represents the gender dimension of forensic knowledge remains unanswered. This paper aims to answer this question with an examination of a number of late imperial era theatrical works that depict how forensic knowledge differed across the male and female divide. It argues court-case literature increasingly valorized male forensic knowledge and its relevance to the state legal system. At the same time, these theatrical pieces signify female forensic knowledge following two literary traditions, namely, the commendation of exemplary women and the condemnation of “wanton women.” Investigating these theatrical works at the interstices between court-case literature, women’s history, and forensic history, this paper suggests that the representations of forensic knowledge in Chinese drama accord with major developments in the history of women and gender in premodern China.

Textual Memorial Temples: Writing Hagiographies for Mothers in Late Imperial China

In Chinese culture, the honor of textual immortality was traditionally reserved for a select, extraordinary few. As Martin Huang points out, however, the Ming-Qing era witnessed a general “secularization” process in which eulogistic writings were increasingly dedicated to women who lived relatively “trivial” lives. Building on Huang’s insights, this paper examines another important evolution within this genre of secularized elegies dedicated to women: the simultaneous sacralizing of deceased mothers by filial sons writing their mothers’ lives as hagiography. As these authors energetically extolled their mothers’ religious piety and identified them with Bodhisattvas/deities, the hitherto lackluster biographies became saturated with supernatural occurrences and miraculous events. Transformed into cultural and emotional sites where ordinary women could be commemorated, immortalized, and apotheosized, these otherwise insignificant life stories evoked a kind of textual memorial temple. Such infusions of spirituality into the writing of Confucian mourning both signal and fuel the broader penetration of heterodox worship (Buddhism) into Confucian society. This practice also allows a glimpse into important gender dimensions in the religious syncretism and secularism of late imperial China.

ON THE WAY TO STATE AUTONOMY: THE FIRST CONSTITUTION

В статье анализируется Конституция СОАССР 1937 г. как один из важнейших документов по Новейшей истории Северной Осетии, впервые определивший ее самостоятельный государственно-политический статус в качестве советской автономной республики в составе РСФСР. В поиске форм национального самоопределения Северная Осетия несколько раз меняла свой статус: будучи рядовой территориально-административной единицей в административной системе позднеимперской России, Осетия и после утверждения советской власти оказалась включена в окружную модель территориального устройства Горской АССР. Лишь после упразднения Горской республики Северной Осетии был придан статус автономной области в составе России с несколько расширенной административной самостоятельностью, хотя и довольно ограниченным объемом полномочий, распространявшихся преимущественно на хозяйственно-культурную сферу. Однако именно тогда Северная Осетия впервые сформировала собственные устойчивые и жизнеспособные органы власти и управления, деятельность которых регулировалась союзным и республиканским (РСФСР) законодательством. Новый этап развития североосетинской государственности пришелся на вторую половину 1930-х гг., когда новая Конституция СССР объявила ряд бывших национальных автономных областей, в том числе и Северо-Осетинскую АО, автономными республиками и предоставила им правовые основания для принятия собственных конституций, наделив их таким образом государственно-политическим статусом. Сравнительный анализ конституций СССР, РСФСР и СОАССР показывает, что организационно-правовые основы национальной государственности, закрепленные в конституции СОАССР, формулировались исходя из приоритета общесоюзной и российской конституций, хотя и с учетом местных особенностей. В то же время первая советская конституция Северной Осетии, принятая ее собственным законодательным органом и определяющая правовые основы политической автономии, ознаменовала завершение процесса становления национальной государственности Северной Осетии и открыла новую страницу ее социально-политической истории. The article analyzes the Constitution of the North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of 1937 as one of the most important documents on the recent history of North Ossetia, which firstly defined its independent state-political status as a Soviet autonomous republic within the RSFSR. In the search for forms of national self-determination, North Ossetia changed its status several times: being an ordinary territorial-administrative unit in the administrative system of late imperial Russia, Ossetia, even after the approval of Soviet power, was included in the district model of the territorial structure of the Mountain ASSR. Only after the abolition of the Mountain Republic, North Ossetia has got the status of an autonomous region within Russia with somewhat expanded administrative self-dependence, albeit with a rather limited scope of powers that extended mainly to the economic and cultural sphere. However, just then North Ossetia for the first time formed its stable and viable power and administrative institutions, the activities of which were regulated by union and republican (RSFSR) legislation. A new stage in the development of North Ossetian statehood fell on the second half of the 1930s, when the new Constitution of the USSR declared the granting of the status of autonomous republics to the former national autonomous regions, including the North Ossetian Autonomous Region, and provided them with legal grounds for adopting their own constitutions, and so endowed them of state and political status. A comparative analysis of the constitutions of the USSR, RSFSR and NOASSR shows that the organizational and legal foundations of national statehood, enshrined in the Constitution of the NOASSR, were formulated based on the priority of the all-Union and Russian constitutions, albeit taking into account local specifics. At the same time, the first Soviet constitution of North Ossetia, adopted by its legislative institution and defining the legal foundations of political autonomy, marked the end of the process of formation of the national statehood of North Ossetia and opened a new page in its socio-political history.

Dreams as Life and Life as Dreams in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century xiaoshuo Narratives

In the depiction and analysis of various transtextual sources and rewritings, this article discusses narratives of Chinese late imperial xiaoshuo that dealt with dreams perceived as equally important if not more valuable than waking life itself. The discourse of these dream stories aimed at underlining the significance of the value granted to dreams, and consequently how this perspective on dreams could affect one’s stance towards life itself. With an emphasis on the eighteenth century, examples comprise narratives from lesser-known collections, such as Xieduo 諧鐸 by Shen Qifeng (1740?–?), but the author also highlights earlier texts—Daoist classics, chuanqi 傳奇 of the Tang, and chuanqi of the Ming—which served as sources for these late imperial tales. Although the theme of life-long dreams is found across the centuries and literary genres, this article points to its various treatments, that differed according to time periods and authors’ personal concerns. It highlights a shift in “life-long dream” stories of the late imperial period towards a concern for private matters, depicted in a detached and/or light-hearted tone.