Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China

by Craig Clunas

Overview

Now in paperback

This outstanding and original book, presented here with a new preface, examines the history of material culture in early modern China. Craig Clunas analyzes “superfluous things”—the paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, carved jade, and other objects owned by the elites of Ming China—and describes contemporary attitudes to them. He informs his discussions with reference to both socio-cultural theory and current debates on eighteenth-century England concerning luxury, conspicuous consumption, and the growth of the consumer society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824828202
Publisher:	University of Hawaii Press, The
Publication date:	05/31/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.52(d)

About the Author

Craig Clunas is Percival David Chair of Chinese Art at SOAS, London, and the author of Superfluous Things, Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China, Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China, and Art in China.

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	vi
	Acknowledgements	ix
	Preface to the Paperback Edition	xi
	Introduction	1
1	Books about things: The literature of Ming connoisseurship	8
2	Ideas about things: Themes in Ming connoisseurship literature	40
3	Words about things: The language of Ming connoisseurship	75
4	Things of the past: Uses of the antique in Ming material culture	91
5	Things in motion: Ming luxury objects as commodities	116
6	Anxieties about things: Consumption and class in Ming China	141
	Conclusion	166
Appendix I	Editors of Treatise on Superfluous Things	174
Appendix II	Selected prices for works of art and antique artefacts c. 1560-1620	177
	Notes	182
	Bibliography of primary sources	197
	Bibliography of secondary literature	199
	Index	210

Editorial Reviews

Bold and insightful.... Clunas establishes the importance of material consumption as an index of much larger historical processes. Students of early modern Europe as well as China will find [his] arguments both pertinent and compelling.

American Historical Review

The sense of completeness that characterizes Clunas’ writing has something to do with the self-assured patter of his prose, with its intense and unwavering focus on the subject before him. But it has more to do with his reach, his willingness to cross the disciplinary boundaries of his field.... An eye-opening pleasure to read.

Ming Studies

One of those rare books whose every chapter makes you think, often about features of Chinese society that we have too long taken for granted.... Inspiring, even entertaining.

Journal of Asian Studies

One of those rare books whose every chapter makes you think, often about features of Chinese society that we have too long taken for granted.... Inspiring, even entertaining.-- "Journal of Asian Studies"

The sense of completeness that characterizes Clunas' writing has something to do with the self-assured patter of his prose, with its intense and unwavering focus on the subject before him. But it has more to do with his reach, his willingness to cross the disciplinary boundaries of his field.... An eye-opening pleasure to read.-- "Ming Studies"

Bold and insightful.... Clunas establishes the importance of material consumption as an index of much larger historical processes. Students of early modern Europe as well as China will find [his] arguments both pertinent and compelling.-- "American Historical Review"

From the Publisher