Abstract This study is made up of five chapters. The purpose of this study is to analyze sorcery figures and actions in the famous novel title of Ming Dynasty. Chapter one presents the studying motivations, the methodology and the scope of the study and the literature review. In chapter two are the typological explorations of the sorcery figures in title of Ming Dynasty as far as their status, personalities, specialties, and religious attributes are concerned. Chapter three focuses on sorcerers¡¦ cultural types, and discusses their relations to Chinese cultures and society. Moreover, the relationship of the sorcerers¡¦ social status and the sorcerers themselves to the politics and society of the Ming Dynasty has also been discussed. Chapter four presents a whole discussion of the sorcery in the Ming Dynasty. Discussions begin from the definitions of sorcery, then to the analyses of the types and contents of sorcery in the Ming Dynasty, and finally, by means of representative figures, to the explorations of the interactive relationship between sorcery, religion and sorcery figures. Chapter five concludes the main points of the previous four chapters. Moreover, also presented in this chapter are the combination of sorcery and sorcerers with the lives of the people in the Ming Dynasty and the co-existent relationship between sorcery and Confucianists Buddhism and Taoism

Xingshi Yinyuan Zhuan 醒世姻緣傳 is a vernacular Chinese novel which was composed in late Ming or early Qing dynasty by an anonymous author in what is now modern Shandong province. Like most of the counterparts to this novel during the same era, Xingshi was composed not as an “art for art’s sake”, but as a vehicle for moral edification and education; it discusses many pressing social issues existing at a time of social turmoil, such as government corruption, moral depravity, migration of peasants due to natural disaster and agricultural involution, roving bandits, the subversion of the gender roles, etc. The novel discussed the social issues through the lives and activities of the residents of an ordinary Shandong town named Mingshui, a microminiature of Qing dynasty China, and presents the golden era of Mingshui which is a microminiature of an idealized Chinese society. This dissertation is a study on the Utopian chapters of this novel with the texts translated into English language with annotations; these chapters are both a continuation of Chinese Utopian literature tradition, as well as the embodiment of the author’s unique understanding of various philosophical and religious schools.<div>Up until now, due to limited resources and texts, little is known about the life and thoughts of the author of Xinshi and the study on the Utopian chapters will shed light on further explorations of the identity and political philosophy of this author.</div>

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

This dissertation analyzes the dilemmas of governance that confronted the Chinese state under the Ming dynasty. These dilemmas, I argue, arose from the Ming's dual existence as an empire (a state that ruled over a large territory) and a bureaucracy (a state that ruled through written documents and hierarchically-structured offices). As a bureaucratic empire, the Ming pursued several distinct objectives simultaneously, the resulting complications of which form the focus of my investigations. Chapter 1 describes the Ming state's methods for authenticating and synchronizing information, and shows how the needs of bureaucratic communication necessitated a seemingly redundant style of administrative writing. Chapter 2 explains why the postal system, despite its creators' best intentions, turned out to be much slower than non-postal methods of communication. Chapter 3 discusses how territorial officials made regular trips to the capital to participate in state rituals and to undergo personnel evaluations, even though the trips generated great costs and undermined local security. Chapter 4 examines the long time it took for officials to transfer from one province to another and the bureaucratic needs that slowed down their movement. Ultimately, the Ming state maintained a delicate equilibrium between four conflicting objectives: speed, cost-saving, administrative certainty, and propriety. Given the constrains of premodern communication, it was logistically impossible to meet all four objectives simultaneously. Any attempt to advance one objective necessarily undermined one or more of the other objectives, and no amount of investment in transportation or communication infrastructure could have resolved this basic tension.

Ru-Shih Liu was a famous and respectable poet in the 17th Century (from 1618 to 1664) in China. Because of her special background, extremely excellent writing techniques and creative thinking, she was very active in the history of literature and left many theses. Her first poetry publication was published at the age of 21. Zu-Loong Chen helped her to write the introduction and promoted her a lot. The next year, her friend invited her to travel to Hangchow, where her second poetry publication was published. Most of her poems¡¦ ideas were from her travel experiences, so this poetry publication was named ¡§Grass of lake¡¨. At that time she was only twenty-two years old. Because of her special life experience, her study presented a kind of excellent art style and worthy literature. The purpose of this research is to analyze the poetry of her second publication as the main subject and research her creative thinking characteristics and artistic performance. The background of her writing and thoughts can be understood by her biography. Six topics were set to analyze the purpose and essence of her creations. Writing styles were concluded by the skills of writing: such as purports of time, purports of space, purports of humanity and purports of nature. The value and style of her poetry was investigated by the evaluation of later literature and analyses of her poetry. Moreover, Ru-Sheih Liu and her poetry influenced female literature development, the exaltation of national integrity and the promotion of life spirit during the late Ming Dynasty.

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

Recent proponents of non-Eurocentric approaches to the study of development in non-Western areas in the early modern period have seized on late imperial China (1368-1911) as an example of an indigenous trajectory of development that disputes the primacy of early modern Europe in some theories. The commercialization of Ming China (1368-1644) is sometimes appropriated in their arguments. But at times the term “commercialization” is not particularly well-defined in the case of sixteenth and seventeenth century China. In order to strengthen the arguments against Eurocentric assessments of non-Western development, this thesis covers some aspects of Ming commerce and society that are sometimes not captured by the term commercialization. In particular, it focuses on more ‘personal’ dimensions often neglected by references to the commercialization of China’s economy and society in the latter half of the Ming period. Aspects that will be discussed include: social change and social mobility, higher-ranking officials’ views of commerce and merchants, and the identity of merchants as seen in merchant manuals. The application of some recent research by other scholars of Ming China and my readings of some sources dating from the period, I hope, will add nuances to our understanding of Ming commerce and society and furthermore contribute to a detailed approach to the non-Eurocentric writing of a comparative history of development in the early modern world. / Thesis (Master, History) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-29 11:46:59.242

This thesis examines issues of female power and influence in sixteenth-century China focusing on how women and their roles were perceived in the changing social environment of the mid-late Ming dynasty. Using aspects of a New Historicist approach, information from contemporary literary and historical sources are analysed alongside each other. With its emphasis on the lives of women and preoccupation with the description of material objects, the late Ming novel Jin Ping Mei forms an important element in the thesis. China in the sixteenth century saw expanding urbanisation, the emergence of a new wealthy merchant class, increasing visibility of women and a questioning of traditional morality. Fashion consciousness, as one of the most conspicuous aspects of the new material culture, is a possible indicator of these trends. Traditional Western theories contend that fashion began in the particular context of Renaissance Europe. However, this study argues that a similar fashion awareness existed in China too, and was manifested in a competitive striving for social status, in this case specifically among women. In contrast to previous studies which downplayed the impact women had on defining traditional Chinese culture, this thesis demonstrates how women and their sartorial choices began to redefine the boundaries of material culture, influencing literati discourse which, in turn, re- influenced female behaviour.

This thesis focuses on two early and middle Ming (1368-1580) artists and deals with the role of Chinese historiography in the perpetuation of the dichotomy between the so-called "professional" and the so-called "scholar-amateur" artist. While traditional Chinese historical and biographical sources are an invaluable tool for the sinologist, including the Chinese art historian, the convention adopted by Chinese historians of casting subjects into standard characterized roles has contributed to this dichotomy and resulted in the ongoing debate over the value of the professional artist in China. Historically, Chinese critics and collectors have made a distinction between professional and amateur artists. The traditional Chinese critical bias has been in favour of the scholar-amateur artist. In fact, in much critical literature there is a stigma attached to professionalism in painting. The major initial Western studies of Chinese painting represented a continuation of the traditional Chinese dichotomies. More recently, various kinds of positions have been taken up by Western scholars. James Cahill suggests that a correlation can be made between an artist's painting style and social and economic factors (such as lifestyle, formal training, means of livelihood, demands of patrons, and so on). Richard Barnhart instead defends the professional artist: He believes that Cahill perpetuates the bias in favour of the amateur artist, and that a correlation between an artist's style and social and economic factors is not useful, being too restrictive and general. Their debate was taken up in a series of letters, and this debate has continued down to the present. Some of the most recent Western interpretations attempt to try to break down the earlier dichotomies, and my research supports this interpretive trend. In this context the thesis examines the life and works of two relatively minor artists of the Ming dynasty, the "professional" artist Wu Wei (1459-1508) and the "scholar-amateur" artist Lu Zhi (1496-1576). I discuss the Chinese biographical tradition and have translated the appropriate texts and biographies. Then by examining the paintings themselves in the context of the two artists' environments — Wu Wei in Beijing and Nanjing and Lu Zhi in Suzhou — I show that both of these artists enjoyed the freedom of working in a wide variety of different painting traditions. Early and middle Ming painting criticism is also examined, in addition to the influence of Late Ming (1580-1644) painting criticism and its effect on our perception of Chinese artists. In terms of style, aesthetics, and intellectual outlook, Wu Wei and Lu Zhi may, at first, appear to stand at opposite poles. However, my study of the life circumstances of Wu Wei and Lu Zhi reveals that they share surprisingly similar backgrounds, concerns, and views on their artwork. In addition, an examination of the works of these two artists suggests that a greater fluidity of style and of subject matter existed in the early and middle Ming period than one would expect from the theories based on Late Ming criticism. In other words, the distinction between professional and scholar-amateur artists is overdrawn: Wu Wei and Lu Zhi do not fit neatly into the later understandings of accepted categories or roles, nor do their paintings entirely accord with the theories originating in the Late Ming Period. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

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