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As evolutionary theories were introduced into China, and the principle of evolution was established in the last years of the Qing dynasty, it became a pressing problem to fix the position of China in an evolutionary sequence. Many kinds of evolutionary orders emerged around the year 1900, among which the order from savage society to patriarchal society to militant society proposed by Yan Fu’s Shehui tongquan, translated from Edward Jenks's A Short History of Politics, was the most influential. To explain Yan Fu’s purpose in translating this work, the political and intellectual situation of China and the works he had read but had not translated should also be taken into consideration, besides his expositions through the preface, comments and translation of this work. In Shehui tongquan, Yan Fu labelled China as “patriarchal as well as militant,” and on many occasions expressed the wish for China to rise above patriarchal society and enter militant society. His label of Confucius as “Sage of patriarchal society” shook the position of Confucianism in China. Meanwhile, Yan Fu criticized the tendencies of conservatism, xenophobia and anti- Manchuism in contemporary China. His criticism of conservatism and xenophobia was widely accepted and occasioned no debate, while his criticism of anti- Manchuism became involved in the debate between the revolutionary party and the constitutional party. Zhang Taiyan refuted Yan from the aspect of understanding “nationalism” correctly. There were also some faults in Zhang's refutation. However, his opinions that there are differences between social science and natural science, and that the particularity of China should be taken into consideration in studying Chinese society, were very insightful. Yan Fu’s introduction of a social evolutionary sequence, and his location of Chinese society therein, were influential among intellectuals until the 1920s and 1930s, around which time it was replaced by a five stage theory. But the pattern of analysing Chinese society from general truth or general rules did not change. Actually, Herbert Spencer had once refuted Auguste Comte’s practice of taking different forms of society as different stages in the evolutionary series, but he himself also accepted the existence of a principle of evolution, and used “universal,” “general,” and “special” to differentiate them, in a way that is not completely clear. Yan Fu’s works were often aimed at specific occasions rather than something unchanging. It should be noted that, in his late years, especially after the breakout of the First World War, Yan experienced a re-valuation of eastern and western cultures, as well as of “militant society,” and reaffirmed the value of traditional Chinese culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chen Weisong (1625-1682), a ci ... writer of the seventeenth century, was a major figure responsible for the promotion of ci poetry in the Qing dynasty (1639-1911). He was highly regarded by his contemporaries and, with the rise of the Changzhou school of ci poetics during Jiaqing (1796-1820) and Daoguang (1821-1850) reign periods, his status became even more prominent in the movement. There has been, however, a serious lack of in-depth study of his influence especially during Yongzheng (1722-1735) and Qianlong (1736-1796) periods. This paper seeks to fill this gap by carefully looking at how Chen was received during this time. With particular reference to the charismatic image he projected, the specific writing style and skills for which he was praised, the notion of ci and its history that he advocated, and the great efforts he devoted to compiling ci-anthologies, the study examines the various literary roles associated with Chen. It highlights the increasing importance he assumed in the promotion of poetics, and concludes that it was during the eighteenth century that Chen eventually acquired the status of a canonical master in Qing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Official documents and local gazetteers of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) recorded primarily the facilities and administrative organizations of prisons at the local level, without much mention of the actual daily operations in jails. On the other hand, in many of the late Ming vernacular tales, local prisons were described as a netherworld controlled by corrupt clerks and their ruthless underlings, where bribery and murders are recurring narrative motifs. These fictional references, nonetheless, often serve as source materials for scholars who conduct critical discussions of the prison as well as the legal systems of the time. In addition, they often mix up the two different provincial judicial systems of the Ming and Qing dynasties, treating them as one intact institution. In the light of the Mengshui zhai cundu, a characteristic casebook published at the end of the Ming dynasty, this paper attempts to explore the interactions between the sophisticated, if not tedious, provincial judicial review procedures and the administration of local prisons in late Ming China. It discusses the differences in the provincial judiciaries between the Ming and the Qing. Through authentic judicial cases, this paper examines the first hand experiences of prefectural judges and other legal officials assigned to the jails, and analyses the problems in the local prisons in Guangdong and, possibly the whole country, in late Ming China. It concludes with a discussion of the critical impact that the prison administration inflicted upon the quality of justice in the legal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the examples of Song-Ming loyalists, a group of Qing loyalists in Tianjin during the Republican era formed a ci poetry society called Xushe. They expressed their collective memories of the fallen Qing through writing corresponding ci poems (changhe) in the same prosodic patterns and shared themes. This article first examines the social objectives, functions and features of traditional literary societies, pointing out that forming a she is a way to construct and strengthen group identity and, with collaborative effort, to promote and transmit the group's literary and political ideologies. On the one hand, as we have noted, regulations of a she and its rituality may govern the members' authorial practice and activity, and responding compositions may weaken or eclipse the writers' individuality; yet on the other hand, writing in shared forms, themes and even rhymes is perhaps the most effective way of projecting the members' collective identity. It is probable that without the publication of the group collection Yangu yuchang, some members' individual writings may have been lost. The second part of the article illustrates how Xushe was formed and disbanded, what constitutes the members' aesthetics of ci, followed by intertextual analysis of corresponding poems composed in several gatherings of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic achievement of imperial China reached its peak in the Ming-Qing period (1368-1912). While the Ming-Qing period has captured much scholarly attention, previous works on Ming-Qing socio-economic history mainly focused on the population growth, the development of the taxation system, and a variety of commercial issues. However, women were often neglected or regarded as objects of subordination. Is it true that Ming-Qing women had little importance and contribution to the economy? If we re-examine this significant period by shedding gender perspectives, how will the history of Ming-Qing economy look different? This article attempts to place women into the historical picture as active agents and trace their substantial participation in various economic activities by focusing on four main aspects: agricultural history, textile history, commercial history, and consumption history. Making use of different sources to rediscover women's active engagement in many economic activities, the author examines the extent to which women's participation has been overlooked in previous narrations, and calls for a revision of Ming-Qing socio-economic history by the integration of gender perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xia Jingguan published six volumes of selected annotations of Tang, Song and Jin poems in 1940, one of which being The Poetry of Mei Yaochen. Mei Yaocheng's poems were highly acclaimed in the Song dynasty, but not in the Yuan and Ming dynasties. In late Qing they became popular again thanks to the Tong Guang School, in which Xia was the one who most strongly recommended Mei. We can examine the significance of Xia's annotations of The Poetry of Mei Yaochen in three aspects: first, the emphasis on the spirit of scholars hailed from a humble social origin and the gentleman's ideals in his poetics; second, the expression of aesthetic notions that synthesize Tang and Song poetics and develop infinite poetic realm; and third, Xia's recognition of Mei's fengya ... heritage and the impact of Xia's promotion of Mei's poems on the history of poems in modern studies of Mei's poems. The paper concludes by underscoring the values of Xia's annotations in regard to modern studies of Mei's poems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most recent researches on Xu Can's ci are focusing on her nostalgia of the fallen Ming dynasty, which was rarely found in women's writings during the Ming-Qing transition. Apart from this, the love affairs between Xu Can and her husband Chen Zhilin was one of the important themes among her writings, but unfortunately it has not received enough attention from scholars even though it is worth researching. In fact, Xu Can not only used poetry as a means of communication with her husband, but also expressed her feelings inspired by him through writings. Therefore, these works could show how she thought and felt about the marriage and reflected their love affairs. This paper attempts to investigate the subject comprehensively by analysing Xu Can's works and examining Chen Zhilin's writings and other relevant historical documents. In addition, a reinterpretation of Xu Can's ci to the tune Yi Qin E ... (Chun gan ci Su'an yun ...) is offered and concrete evidence of Chen Zhilin taking concubines is presented. As the records of Xu Can's life are very rare, it is hoped that this article can provide a deeper understanding of her marriage and works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the bygone artistic traditions that occupies a central place in the history of Chinese art. It is stated that cultured rulers including Northern Song's Emperor Huizing and Qing dynasty's Emperor Qianlong were preoccupied with antiquities and personally responsible for encyclopedic collections and catalogues that formed some of the earliest art-historical publications in China. It is indicated that the three types of activities associated with archaism include antiquarianism, re-production and archaism itself.

Today, in the arena of Classical Chinese literature study, the term Jian'an fenggu is generally conceptualized as the representative feature of the literary works, especially poetry, of the Jian'an period (196-220). Some use the terms Han-Wei fenggu or Jian'an fengli instead, and "Han-Wei" refers also to the Jian'an period. However, despite the popularity of the term, the explicit content of Jian'an fenggu has been an issue under constant controversy. Re-examining the literary histories since the late Qing dynasty, one can notice the obvious growth of popularity of the term as well as rapid changes of its content. As a matter of fact, to conceptualize Jian'an fenggu as a representative feature of a literary epoch is a way of understanding literary history that comes along with the rise of new approaches to literary history writing. This paper traces how Jian'an fenggu becomes an unavoidable term in the literary history of the past few decades, in order to explain why the term is on the one hand widely adopted, yet on the other hand its meaning has never reached a consensus. This paper also tries to show how researches might be led astray by using the term casually without a full consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]