Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100-1600
As the first intellectual history of Song, Yuan, and Ming China written from a local perspective, Localizing Learning shows how literati learning in Wuzhou came to encompass examination studies, Neo-Confucian moral philosophy, historical and Classical scholarship, encyclopedic learnedness, and literary writing, and traces how debates over the relative value of moral cultivation, cultural accomplishment, and political service unfolded locally.

The book is set in one locality, Wuzhou (later Jinhua), a prefecture in China’s Zhejiang province, from the twelfth through the sixteenth century. Its main actors are literati of the Song, Yuan, and Ming, who created a local tradition of learning as a means of cementing their common identity and their claim to moral, political, and cultural leadership. Close readings of philosophical and literary texts with quantitative analysis of social and kinship networks consider why and how the local literati enterprise was built.

By treating learning as the subject, it broadens our perspective, going beyond a history of ideas to investigate the social practices and networks of kinship and collegiality with which literati defined themselves in local, regional, and national contexts.

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Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100-1600
As the first intellectual history of Song, Yuan, and Ming China written from a local perspective, Localizing Learning shows how literati learning in Wuzhou came to encompass examination studies, Neo-Confucian moral philosophy, historical and Classical scholarship, encyclopedic learnedness, and literary writing, and traces how debates over the relative value of moral cultivation, cultural accomplishment, and political service unfolded locally.

The book is set in one locality, Wuzhou (later Jinhua), a prefecture in China’s Zhejiang province, from the twelfth through the sixteenth century. Its main actors are literati of the Song, Yuan, and Ming, who created a local tradition of learning as a means of cementing their common identity and their claim to moral, political, and cultural leadership. Close readings of philosophical and literary texts with quantitative analysis of social and kinship networks consider why and how the local literati enterprise was built.

By treating learning as the subject, it broadens our perspective, going beyond a history of ideas to investigate the social practices and networks of kinship and collegiality with which literati defined themselves in local, regional, and national contexts.

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Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100-1600

Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100-1600

by Peter K. Bol
Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100-1600

Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100-1600

by Peter K. Bol

Hardcover

$70.00 
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Overview

As the first intellectual history of Song, Yuan, and Ming China written from a local perspective, Localizing Learning shows how literati learning in Wuzhou came to encompass examination studies, Neo-Confucian moral philosophy, historical and Classical scholarship, encyclopedic learnedness, and literary writing, and traces how debates over the relative value of moral cultivation, cultural accomplishment, and political service unfolded locally.

The book is set in one locality, Wuzhou (later Jinhua), a prefecture in China’s Zhejiang province, from the twelfth through the sixteenth century. Its main actors are literati of the Song, Yuan, and Ming, who created a local tradition of learning as a means of cementing their common identity and their claim to moral, political, and cultural leadership. Close readings of philosophical and literary texts with quantitative analysis of social and kinship networks consider why and how the local literati enterprise was built.

By treating learning as the subject, it broadens our perspective, going beyond a history of ideas to investigate the social practices and networks of kinship and collegiality with which literati defined themselves in local, regional, and national contexts.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674267930
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 05/31/2022
Series: Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series , #130
Pages: 418
Product dimensions: 7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Peter K. Bol is Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

List of Tables, Maps, and Figures xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Note to Readers xv

Introduction: Localizing Literati Learning 1

Learning 1

The Period: The Twelfth to Sixteenth Century 3

Marking a Beginning: Looking Back to Northern Song 5

The Shi as Literati 10

Localizing the Literati 15

Wuzhou 19

The Arc of the Book 25

1 Lü Zuqian in Song 29

Examinations, Academies, and Teachers in Wuzhou 33

Lü Zuqian as Teacher 36

Creating a Community of the Like-Minded 37

Lü Zuqian as Biographer 40

Lü Zuqian as Scholar 46

How Others Saw Lü Zuqian 55

Social Impact 59

2 Literary Politics 63

Learning Politicized 64

Reading, Writing, and Publishing for the Examinations 68

Publishing in Wuzhou 69

The Argumentative Style as Learning 72

Su Shi: Style and Ideas 76

Writing Books 81

3 Three Category Books 86

The Complete Source for Composition 91

The Book 91

Ideas and Opinions 95

Record of the Scenic Sites of the Realm 99

Precedents 100

Record of the Scenic Sites as Cultural Geography 103

Inquiries into the Multitude of Books 109

The Local Tradition 112

Zhang Ruyu on Land Tenure 114

4 Daoxue 122

The Four Masters 123

He Ji, 1188-1268 125

Wang Bo, 1197-1274 129

What Wang Bo Found in Daoxue 130

The Fox Who Wanted to Be a Hedgehog 133

Jin Lüxiang, 1232-1303 135

Classics 137

History 141

Literature 145

Xu Qian, 1270-1337 147

The End of the Line 154

5 Coping with Conquest in Yuan 157

Ethical Conduct/Moral Action 160

Governing 164

Wen xue: Learning and Writing 170

Wenzhang in Wuzhou after the Conquest 173

Holding Together the Confucian and the Literary 178

The Unity of Heaven-and-Earth, the Dao, the Mind, and Wen 179

Song Lian 181

Wang Wei 184

6 Collegiality and Kinship 187

A Quantitative View of the Social Context 188

"Our Wu"-Local Identity and Literati Learning 190

Wu Shidao 192

Giving Learning a Wuzhou History 195

Genealogy and Lineage 204

From Private to Public 206

The Moral Argument 215

The Cultural Argument 218

The Political Argument 220

A Landscape of Literati Lineages 225

7 Revival and Division in Ming 229

Hopes and Disappointments 229

The Revival 239

Zhang Mao's Generation 241

Zhang Mao 244

Zhang Mao and the Wuzhou Literati Tradition 249

The Four Masters in Ming Jinhua 251

Turning to Wang Yangming 255

The Widening Fissure 260

8 An Ending and a Beginning 269

Redefining "Our Wu" 269

Literati Problems 272

Intellectual History 276

Hu Yinglin Seeks a New Direction 279

"However Many Times It Sheds Its Skin" 280

The Mission for Our Wu 280

Wang Shizhen 285

Hu Yinglin's Books 287

A New Model and a Rupture with Tradition 293

For Myself 294

Coherence 295

Appendix 2.1 Books by Daoxue Authors 301

Appendix 2.2 Books by Non-Daoxue Authors 305

Appendix 4.1 Wang Bo's Books 319

Appendix 6.1 Data from the China Biographical Database 325

Appendix 6.2 Wuzhou Biographical and Literary Anthologies 343

Appendix 8.1 Hu Yinglin's Known Writings 347

Bibliography 351

Index 375

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