The Letter To Ren An And Sima Qian S Legacy

Sima Qian (first century BCE), the author of Record of the Historian (Shiji), is China’s earliest and best-known historian, and his “Letter to Ren An” is the most famous letter in Chinese history. In the letter, Sima Qian explains his decision to finish his life’s work, the first comprehensive history of China, instead of honorably committing suicide following his castration for “deceiving the emperor.” In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, some scholars have queried the authenticity of the letter. Is it a genuine piece of writing by Sima Qian or an early work of literary impersonation? The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s Legacy provides a full translation of the letter and uses different methods to explore issues in textual history. It also shows how ideas about friendship, loyalty, factionalism, and authorship encoded in the letter have far-reaching implications for the study of China.

As digital media, tools, and techniques continue to impact and advance the humanities, Doing More Digital Humanities provides practical information on how to do digital humanities work. This book offers: A comprehensive, practical guide to the digital humanities. Accessible introductions, which in turn provide the grounding for the more advanced chapters within the book. An overview of core competencies, to help research teams, administrators, and allied groups, make informed decisions about suitable collaborators, skills development, and workflow. Guidance for individuals, collaborative teams, and academic managers who support digital humanities researchers. Contextualized case studies, including examples of projects, tools, centres, labs, and research clusters. Resources for starting digital humanities projects, including links to further readings, training materials and exercises, and resources beyond. Additional augmented content that complements the guidance and case studies in Doing Digital Humanities (Routledge, 2016).

Time is the backdrop of historical inquiry, yet it is much more than a featureless setting for events. Different temporalities interact dynamically; sometimes they coexist tensely, sometimes they clash violently. In this innovative volume, editors Dan Edelstein, Stefanos Geroulanos, and Natasha Wheatley challenge how we interpret history by focusing on the nexus of two concepts—“power” and “time”—as they manifest in a wide variety of case studies. Analyzing history, culture, politics, technology, law, art, and science, this engaging book shows how power is constituted through the shaping of temporal regimes in historically specific ways. Power and Time includes seventeen essays on human rights; sovereignty; Islamic, European, Chinese, and Indian history; slavery; capitalism; revolution; the Supreme Court; the Anthropocene; and even the Manson Family. Power and Time will be an agenda-setting volume, highlighting the work of some of the world’s most respected and original contemporary historians and posing fundamental questions for the craft of history.

Offers a new perspective on the relationship between religion and the creation of the first Chinese empires. Heaven Is Empty offers a new comparative perspective on the role of the sacred in the formation of China’s early empires (221 BCE–9 CE) and shows how the unification of the Central States was possible without a unitary and universalistic conception of religion. The cohesive function of the ancient Mediterranean cult of the divinized ruler was crucial for the legitimization of Rome’s empire across geographical and social boundaries. Eventually reelaborated in Christian terms, it came to embody the timelessness and universality of Western conceptions of legitimate authority, while representing an analytical template for studying other ancient empires. Filippo Marsili challenges such approaches in his examination of the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han (141–87 BCE). Wu purposely drew from regional traditions and tried to gain the support of local communities through his patronage of local cults. He was interested in rituals that envisioned the monarch as a military leader, who directly controlled the land and its resources, as a means for legitimizing radical administrative and economic centralization. In reconstructing this imperial model, Marsilire interprets fragmentary official accounts in light of material evidence and noncanonical and recently excavated texts. In bringing to life the courts, battlefields, markets, shrines, and pleasure quarters of early imperial China, Heaven Is Empty provides a postmodern and postcolonial reassessment of “religion” before the arrival of Buddhism and challenges the application of Greco-Roman and Abrahamic systemic, identitary, and exclusionary notions of the “sacred” to the analysis of pre-Christian and non-Western realities. “Heaven Is Empty is a tour de force. It reveals Marsili’s bold vision of early Chinese religion and his deft use of critical theory. The book will inspire scholars of early China for generations to come.” — Miranda Brown, author of The Politics of Mourning in Early China and The Art of Medicine in Early China: The Ancient and Medieval Origins of a Modern Archive

Contemporary China: A New Superpower? is a unique textbook introducing the complexity and diversity of China’s society, politics, economics, and international affairs, and the multiple ways in which their dynamics corroborate to simultaneously construct and challenge perceptions of China. Structured thematically in three sections – History, Society and Culture; Politics and Economy; and International Relations – this textbook provides answers to one of the most frequently asked general questions in relation to China. Will it become a new superpower and equal the international power and influence of the United States? Chapters written by some of the most recognized commentators and researchers of China cover a broad range of topics and offer an in-depth analysis of issues in contemporary China, such as the impact of the Tiananmen 1989 events, the economic development of the country, the environmental and demographic crises, social control and propaganda, and the role of China in the region and the world. Introducing students comprehensively to the domestic context and international affairs of China, the book will be particularly useful for undergraduate-level courses in Asian Studies and courses on the history, politics, and international affairs of China and Chinese Studies.

Imperial Cults is a comparative study of the transformation of imperial religion and imperial authority in the early Han and Roman empires. During the reigns of the Emperor Wu of Han and Octavian Augustus of Rome, the rulers undertook substantial reforms to their respective systems of cult, at a time when they were re-shaping the idea of imperial authority and consolidating their own power. The changes made to religious institutions during their reigns show how these reforms were a fundamental part of the imperial consolidation. Employing a comparative methodology the author discusses some of the common strategies employed by the two rulers in order to centre religious and political authority around themselves. Both rulers incorporated new men from outside of the established court elite to serve in their religious institutions and as advisors, thus weakening the authority of those who had traditionally held it. They both expanded the reach of their imperially-sponsored cult, and refashioned important ceremonies to demonstrate and communicate the unprecedented achievements of each ruler. Emperor Wu recruited experts in mantic knowledge from far reaches of the empire, while Augustus co-opted loyal followers into the newly revived priestly colleges. Robinson shows how the rulers used their respective religious institutions to consolidate their authority, secure support, and communicate their authority to the elite and commoners alike. By using the comparative approach, the author not only reveals similar trends in the formation of ancient empires, but also shows how new perspectives on familiar material can be found when engaging with other societies.

In Father of Chinese History, Esther Klein explores the life and work of the great Han dynasty historian Sima Qian as seen by readers from the Han to the Song dynasties (100 BCE-1200 CE).

First-hand accounts of travel provide windows into places unknown to the reader, or new ways of seeing familiar places. In Jade Mountains and Cinnabar Pools, the first book-length treatment in English of Chinese travel literature (youji), James M. Hargett identifies and examines core works in the genre, from the Six Dynasties period (220�581), when its essential characteristics emerged, to its florescence in the late Ming dynasty (1368�1644). He traces the dynamic process through which the genre, most of which was written by scholars and officials, developed, and shows that key features include a journey toward an identifiable place; essay or diary format; description of places, phenomena, and conditions, accompanied by authorial observations, comments, and even personal feelings; inclusion of sensory details; and narration of movement through space and time. Travel literature�s inclusion of a variety of writing styles and purposes has made it hard to delineate. Hargett finds, however, that classic pieces of Chinese travel literature reveal much about the author, his values, and his view of the world, which in turn tells us about the author�s society, making travel literature a rich source of historical information.