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The Discourse of Fengsu in the Song Literati’s Writing: The Example of Boat Racing
Lifeng Han
Front. Hist. China. 2018, 13 (3): 311-329.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s020-007-018-0019-8
The category of “customs,” or fengsu, was important for the literati of the Song dynasty in writing local histories. It covers local practices of festival rituals, weddings and funerals, rites for passage into adulthood, sacrificial rites, and the like. The main purpose behind the literati’s efforts to record fengsu was not to acknowledge local variations but to censor local customs and transform society. This paper looks at these type of texts as a discourse that is meant to promote the correct, standard performance of rites and suppress those deemed improper. It uses boat racing in Song records of fengsu as a case study to illustrate how the imperial spectacle of boat racing in spring was propagated and how the linkage between the death anniversary of Qu Yuan and Duanwu were reinforced. Meanwhile, the popular ritual of boat racing during the summer, which bore distinct violent and shamanic attributes, was strongly criticised. Through these efforts by the literati, a normative discourse of the boat-racing ritual was repeated and reinforced in the fengsu recording.
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Forty Years of Ming and Qing Research Following China’s Opening Up and Economic Reform
Zhao Shiyu
Front. Hist. China. 2018, 13 (3): 355-401.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s020-007-018-0021-9
Increasingly, Chinese history is becoming a more significant component of academic international history. This is particularly true in light of the Chinese economic reform, whereby historical narrative has been able to go beyond more traditional standards of periodization, allowing, for example, Ming and Qing-era historical research to grow and develop qualitatively as well as quantitatively. In this sense, the field has greatly benefitted from the “ideological liberation” which followed in wake of the reform. However in a broader sense, this development is also closely related with academic exchange. Communications among domestic and international scholars of Ming and Qing history, as well as of international history, has normalized in the years following the reforms. This has not only led to a considerable influx of “overseas” historical research to China’s mainland, but has also allowed for a larger-scale access to and citation of Chinese historical research by these overseas scholars. Domestic and international scholars have, from this, established much closer academic relations with one another. This tremendous progress made within the field Ming and Qing-era historical research during the past forty years was established upon the foundation of Chinese scholars’ assiduous efforts as well as their increasingly frequent exchanges with international scholars and academics.
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Chinese Social History: Forty Years of Research under the Chinese Economic Reform
Chang Jianhua
Front. Hist. China. 2018, 13 (3): 402-428.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s020-007-018-0022-6
In the wake of the Chinese economic reform, Chinese scholars have welcomed in the resurgence of historical social research. Looking back over the past 30-odd years of research development, it could be said there existed four general periods: A brainstorm period, an initial “beginning” period, a period of maturation and lastly an expansion period. From looking at the context of [its] theoretical development, it is clear that scholars researching Chinese social history were, from the beginning, focused on how exactly to define “society.” This, however, resulted in much debate about the different concepts of social history itself. Though the matter has yet to be settled, the ultimate research objective for the field of historical social research is in its pursuit of truth. In recent years following the dissolution of disciplinary boundaries, the interdisciplinary viewpoint(s) established by social and cultural history have also provided forth a new horizon for the development of Chinese historical social research.
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7 articles
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