Tag: Ming

Podcasts

The Art of Being Governed: An Interview

At the heart of Michael Szonyi’s new book are two questions: 1) How did ordinary people in the Ming deal with their obligations to provide manpower to the army?, and 2) What were the broader consequences of their behavior?” The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China (Princeton University Press, 2017) considers how military institutions shaped the lives of ordinary people on China’s southeast coast … Continue reading The Art of Being Governed: An Interview

Carla Nappi
Podcasts

The Resurrected Skeleton: An Interview

Wilt Idema’s new book traces a story and its transformations through hundreds of years of Chinese literature. The Resurrected Skeleton: From Zhuangzi to Lu Xun (Columbia University Press, 2014) collects and translates variations of the tale of Master Zhuang in his encounter with a skeleton who comes back to life and wreaks all sorts of havoc in the lives of those around him. (In some versions, Zhuang … Continue reading The Resurrected Skeleton: An Interview

Carla Nappi
Podcasts

Yellow River: An Interview

David A. Pietz’s new book argues that China’s water challenges are historically grounded, and that these historical realities are not going to disappear anytime soon. Using a careful history of water and environmental management to inform our understanding of water-related challenges in contemporary China, Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2015) asks, how did China reach its current state of water … Continue reading Yellow River: An Interview

Carla Nappi
Podcasts

Screen of Kings: An Interview

Craig Clunas’s new book is a wonderfully and productively revisionist account of Ming history and its artifacts. Screen of Kings emphasizes the importance of members of the Ming imperial clan (i.e., those who were NOT emperors) and their courts as sites of cultural innovation, production, and reproduction, and of Ming kings as producers, collectors, and patrons of the arts. You can listen to our conversation about it here. Continue reading Screen of Kings: An Interview

Carla Nappi
Podcasts

Civil Examinations and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China: An Interview

Ben Elman’s new book explores the civil examination process and the history of state exam curricula in late imperial China. Elman’s work is a careful, deeply researched, and elegantly written account of the Ming and Qing exam systems, it’s a great book to teach with, and you can listen to our conversation about it here. Continue reading Civil Examinations and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China: An Interview

Carla Nappi
Podcasts

The Plum in the Golden Vase: An Interview

By any measure, David Tod Roy’s five-volume translation The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P’ing Mei is a landmark achievement for East Asian Studies, translation studies, and world literature. It was an honor and a great pleasure to talk with David about his work on the occasion of the publication of the fifth and final volume of his translation, and you can listen to our conversation about it here. Continue reading The Plum in the Golden Vase: An Interview

Carla Nappi
News

The Monkey And the Inkpot

The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and its Transformations in Early Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2009) The Monkey and the Inkpot introduces natural history in sixteenth century China through the iconic Bencao gangmu (Systematic materia medica) of Li Shizhen (1518–1593). The encyclopedic Bencao gangmu is widely lauded as a classic embodiment of pre-modern Chinese medical thought. This first book-length study in English of Li’s text reveals a “cabinet of curiosities” of … Continue reading The Monkey And the Inkpot

Carla Nappi