Matching Items (8)
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- All Subjects: Asian Literature
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- All Subjects: ancestral ritual
- Genre: Academic theses
- Genre: Masters Thesis
- Creators: Bokenkamp, Stephen
Description
This dissertation explores the history of ancestral rituals and the related political controversy in the Song China (960-1279). Considering the pivotal role played by ancestral rites in shaping Chinese identity and consciousness, this study contributes to a better understanding of how ancestral ritual has been politicized in Chinese history as a specific cultural apparatus to manipulate politics through theatrical performance and liturgical discussion. Through a contextual analysis of a variety of Song scholar-officials and their ritual writings, including memorials, private letters, and commentaries on the ritual Classics, this study demonstrates that Song ritual debates over the zhaomu 昭穆 sequence--that is, the positioning of ancestral temples and spirit tablets in ancestral temples with preparation for alternation or removal--differentiated scholar-officials into separate factions of revivalists, conventionalists and centrists. From a new perspective of ritual politics, this study reveals the discursiveness of the New Learning (xinxue新學) community and its profound influence on the Learning of the Way (Daoxue 道學) fellowship of the Southern Song (1127-1279). It examines the evolution of the New Learning fellowship as a dynamic process that involved internal tension and differentiation. Daoxue ritualism was a continuation of this process in partaking in the revivalist approach of ritual that was initiated by the New Learning circle. Nowadays, the proliferation of ritual and Classical studies crystallizes the revitalization of Confucianism and Confucian rituals in China. Taking zhaomu as a point of departure, this project provides a lens through which modern scholars can explore the persistent tension between knowledge and power by rethinking the modernization of ritual and ritual politics in contemporary China.
ContributorsCheung, Hiu Yu (Author) / Tillman, Hoyt C (Thesis advisor) / Tillman, Hoyt (Committee member) / Mackinnon, Stephen (Committee member) / Rush, James (Committee member) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Committee member) / West, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This thesis examines the play Qian Dayin zhichong Xie Tianxiang, written by the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) playwright Guan Hanqing (c.1225-1302). The first chapter of this paper provides brief background information about northern style Yuan drama (zaju) as well as a plot summary and notes about the analysis and translation. Through a close reading of the play, I hope to illustrate how the play's complicated ending and lack of complete resolution reveals why it has received relatively little attention from scholars who have previously discussed other strong, intelligent female characters in Guan Hanqing's plays. The second chapter of this thesis includes translation of the play that is comprised of a wedge preceding the four acts. Before each act of the play is a critical introduction and analysis of the act to follow. Although many of Guan Hanqing's plays have been translated into English, this play has never been translated.
ContributorsByrnes, Kelli (Author) / West, Stephen H. (Thesis advisor) / Zou, Yu (Committee member) / Ling, Xiaoqiao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
As many modern scholars have warned, the complexity of Tang narratives is far
beyond the reach of Lu Xun’s twentieth-century generic labels. Therefore, we should have
an acute awareness of the earlier limiting view of these categorizations, and our research
should transcend the limitations of these views in regard to this extensive corpus or to being
confined to rigid and meager reading of the richness of the stories. This dissertation will
use a transdisciplinary methodology that incorporates both history and literature in close
reading of seven Tang tales composed in the mid-to-late Tang eras (780s–early 900s), to
break the boundaries between the two generic labels, chuanqi and zhiguai, and unearth
significant configurations within these literary texts that become apparent only through
stepping across genre.
beyond the reach of Lu Xun’s twentieth-century generic labels. Therefore, we should have
an acute awareness of the earlier limiting view of these categorizations, and our research
should transcend the limitations of these views in regard to this extensive corpus or to being
confined to rigid and meager reading of the richness of the stories. This dissertation will
use a transdisciplinary methodology that incorporates both history and literature in close
reading of seven Tang tales composed in the mid-to-late Tang eras (780s–early 900s), to
break the boundaries between the two generic labels, chuanqi and zhiguai, and unearth
significant configurations within these literary texts that become apparent only through
stepping across genre.
ContributorsLiu, Qian (Author) / West, Stephen H. (Thesis advisor) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Committee member) / Cutter, Joe R (Committee member) / Tillman, Hoyt C (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This study focuses on the Black Tiger Cult in Anze, Shanxi from the 17th to the 21stcentury and explores changing human-tiger relationships as well as the localization of canonical traditions. Drawing upon local gazetteers, scholar-officials' petitions, canonical texts, stele inscriptions, and temple murals in the area, this study sheds new light on relations among animals, humans, and gods through the deification of the black tiger. While the harsh natural environment intensified conflicts between humans and tigers, the rise of the Black Tiger Cult in local communities helped ease these ecological and social conflicts during the late-imperial era. As the cult gradually established its presence to serve spiritual and practical needs of local people, its practice complemented the mainstream religious communities and state-sponsored sacrificial rituals. The Black Tiger Cult brought together communities and the state power by providing them a space to express and negotiate their spiritual, political, agricultural, and cultural interests. This study also offers a comparative perspective on the Black Tiger Cult in North China and the Tiger Lord Cult in Taiwan during modern times. Different levels of connections between these cults and the historical memory of human-tiger conflicts may contribute to the reinvention of the deified tiger and its relationship with contemporary people. This study argues that the deification of tigers did not elevate the position of animals higher than that of human beings. The establishment of Black Tiger Temples likely changed the local distribution of tigers. Moreover, although traditions of tiger gods vary in different regions and times, they share similar cultural elements that have been interwoven with local human-tiger/animal relationships.
ContributorsZhang, Shuran (Author) / Chen, Huaiyu (Thesis advisor) / Tillman, Hoyt C (Committee member) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This thesis hopes to propose a new hypothesis about the origin of Chinese heptasyllabic poetry. Although there are numerous academic discussions in the existing poetic narrative, few of them have noticed the possible effect of the Celestial Master Daoism. Based on the literary analysis and formal comparison, this thesis first finds that, during the time Cao Pi曹丕 created his “Yange xing,” the first literati heptasyllabic poem, “cypress beam genre” (boliang ti柏梁體) poetry – the earliest form of heptasyllabic poetry – was already a normal, fixed, and mature poetic form within the community of Celestial Master Daoism. Therefore, Celestial Master Daoism’s mastery of boliang ti poetry and their intensive and frequent composition highly likely motivated Cao Pi, the new Wei ruler who took over the populace of Celestial Master Daoism and had a close relationship with Zhang Lu’s張魯 family, to learn and introduce this poetic form into his own poetic creation. Then, this thesis also traces this poetic form back to suburban sacrifice songs in the Han dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Wu, the prototype of boliang ti poetry appeared in suburban sacrifice songs created to express worship to heavenly and earthly deities. Hence, when the Celestial Master Daoism became the inheritor of regional power (mainly in Sichuan, Chongqing, and Shaanxi of today’s China) of the Han empire and hoped to establish their own regime, they created their own ritual texts by modeling after Han suburban sacrifice songs. In so doing, they demonstrated their legitimacy and exclusivity by connecting the regime itself with Dao.
ContributorsBai, Haihan (Author) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Thesis advisor) / Klein, Lucas (Committee member) / Williams, Nicholas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Based on literary works produced by the multiethnic literati of the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), this dissertation examines Chinese conceptions of the Steppe world in the early years of the Mongol era (1206–1260). As I show, late Jin literati, who took arduous journeys in the Eurasian Steppes, initiated transcultural communications between the Chinese and Steppe worlds. Their writings encouraged more Chinese literati to reach out to the Mongols and hence facilitated the spread of the ideal Confucian-style governance to the Mongol empire. In general, I follow the approach of New Historicism in analyzing poetic works. Even though the Mongol conquest of China damaged many northern literary texts, materials surviving from the thirteenth century still feature a great diversity. I brought historical records and inscriptions on stela to study the social conditions under which these literary works were produced. This dissertation aims to contribute a new voice to the ongoing effort to modify the traditional linear understanding of the development of Chinese literary tradition.
ContributorsWen, Zuoting (Author) / West, Stephen H. (Thesis advisor) / Tillman, Hoyt C (Committee member) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Committee member) / Brown, Claudia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
The production of “separate collections” (bieji 別集) or collected works in China is a social practice that emerged between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. This research focuses on how the practice developed over the course of the Song dynasty (960-1279) in terms of literary materials involved, competences required, associated meanings, and its links to other social practices. I examine extant collected works, descriptions of them, and contemporary feedback on their production to create a series of snapshots that reveal its trajectory over time. Surveying the emergence of the practice in the early imperial period through its development in medieval times shows that pre-Song dynasty production of collected works was the result of several pre-existing conditions: competences related to bookmaking, the emergence of the idea of the inscription of authorial personality in literary works, the elevated status of belles-lettres, and several pre-existing tropes that lent it increasing importance. As the practice began recruiting scholars in 1020, it underwent a series of changes: attention to loss and variation between editions gave way to the search for missing works and the production of increasingly complete and authentic editions. This was followed in 1080 by several innovations, including the organization of works literary according to chronological order, rhyme, or topical category and insertion of annotations and a chronological biography. After 1180, compilers began synthesizing the accomplishments of previous editions to make editions that featured multiple annotators arranged in increasingly sophisticated ways for a new readership that were strongly associated with commercial printing. I identify six varieties of the production of the collected works of Song authors, each with distinct aims and associations that differed with respect to elements of practice, the practitioners they recruited, and how they linked with other social practices toward larger social goals. Findings contribute to Chinese book history by contextualizing change in formalistic trends over time. Identified as a social practice, the account of change and variation in the compilation of collected works during the Song presented in this research adds unique perspective to the subject of social change in this pivotal period of Chinese history.
ContributorsBilling, John Samuel (Author) / Oh, Young (Thesis advisor) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Committee member) / Ling, Xiaoqiao (Committee member) / West, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This dissertation challenges the conventional understanding that Song dynasty China (960–1279) was a period when Confucianism was placed at the center of governance. Bringing heretofore inadequately studied Buddhist and Daoist texts into discussion, it offers three case studies on interrelationships between Song emperors and the Three Teachings of Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. As shown in all three cases, although a religious campaign directed by the emperor and his institutional apparatus could set out under the influence of a certain teaching/religion, the campaign’s outcome at the state level would often be a fusion of various religious and cultural components. My research suggests that Song emperors employed an eclectic strategy in selecting and utilizing elements from the Three Teachings and attempted to build an imperial religion centered around themselves. As such, Song imperial power emerged as a centripetal force that compelled the Three Teachings to tailor themselves to the imperial religion. Therefore, I term the Song imperial court as a “regulated syncretic field” where segments from different religious traditions became amalgamated into religious/ritualistic entities that served imperial visions of the time. Although proponents of the Three Teachings by and large continued their efforts to gain imperial acceptance of their teachings, they often turned to local society to ensure their authority when their efforts at the court failed. Further, I argue that such phenomena were rooted in the mechanism of patriarchal governance in which the emperor considered themselves and was considered by leaders of the Three Teachings to be the patriarch of his household/empire, who was responsible for balancing the power structure among the Three Teachings.
ContributorsLi, Jiangnan (Author) / Tillman, Hoyt (Thesis advisor) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Thesis advisor) / Ling, Xiaoqiao (Committee member) / Hartman, Charles (Committee member) / Chen, Huaiyu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023