published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Wang Tao (1828-1897) had significant contributions in various fields, including the press, education and translation. He spared no effort to introduce advanced western ideas to China. These contributions and his dramatic life aroused the interest of scholars. In recent years, scholars noted the achievements of his fiction-writing and and published a large number of papers on this topic. However, his achievements in poetry-writing did not receive much attention. In order to fill this gap, the present thesis focuses on Wang Tao’s poetry-writing, aiming to give a comprehensive survey of his poems written before his exile to Hong Kong in 1862. The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one illustrates the research background, the scope of the study and the research methodology employed. Chapter two is an analytical account of Wang Tao’s life with particular emphasis on how important events in his life influenced the styles of his poems. Chapter three illustrates Wang Tao’s concept of poetry-writing. Chapter four discusses the contents, artistry and styles of Wang’s poems in the specified period. Chapter five is the conclusion. It sums up the characteristics of Wang Tao’s early poetry and gives a critical account of the comments made by various reviewers. Wang Tao claimed that the style of his early poems was soft and plaintive（側媚）. It became “wild and unrestrained” （豪放粗獷）after he had experienced serious mishaps in his life. This drastic change has been fully addressed in the thesis. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

This thesis studies the Qing women’s writings on the Dream of the Red Chamber. Qing women’s comments on the novel formed an important aspect of the second high tide of women’s literature in late imperial China. By examining these writings, I intend to reveal how the women authors mediated with the Confucian morality and how they exerted influence on the literary tradition from its inside. I also intend to examine the women authors’ self-representations and their reflections on the actual world they lived in. The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one introduces the historical background of the rise of women’s writings on the Dream of the Red Chamber, and proceeds to discuss women’s self-representations under the influence of the Chinese literary tradition, as well as the conflict between morality and literary talent they often felt. I will also briefly summarize previous scholarly works concerning this subject. Chapter two analyzes Qing women’s poetic works and literary activities concerning the novel. I will make a few observations on the general tendency of women’s responses to the novel by examining their writing conditions, communities, the points they wanted to articulate, and their literary skills. Chapter three and four investigate two women writers, namely, Wu Lanzheng and Gu Taiqing, respectively. Among the dramatic works adapted from the novel, Jiang Heng Qiu by Wu is known to be the only existing work written by a female author. In this part of my discussion, I will include Wu’s poetic works on the novel and her personal experiences to shed light on the dramatic work. On the other hand, Honglou Meng Ying (The shadow of the Dream of the Red chamber) by Gu is the most profound and extensive response to the original novel by a female author. Considering that Gu’s life was quite similar to the literary characters in the book and a variety of her writings have survived, I will conduct a detailed study of her poetic and dramatic works before I look into her novel. The closing chapter draws conclusions from the previous chapters in the following three aspects: first, the influence of the textual world on the reality; second, women writers’ tendency of adopting the values of morality and literary talent concurrently, as well as their contributions to the literary tradition; and, third, the significance of Gu Taiqing’s case and Honglou meng ying. To sum up, inspired by the Dream of the Red Chamber, the Qing women authors undertook a rich variety of literary activities which demonstrated the complex relations between self and writing, and these women’s life experiences and creative activities also constituted an earthly picture of the “red chambers”. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

toc / Chinese Historical Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

This dissertation investigates China’s relationship with Inner Asia—encompassing Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang—by focusing on information exchange, economic integration, and worldview formation from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries in an international context. Supplementing modern and classical Chinese sources with multilingual materials in Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu, Japanese, and a range of European languages, my research diversifies scholarly understanding of China’s development as a nation by emphasizing the significant roles of Inner Asian peoples in building the Qing empire. I argue that, instead of a marginal hinterland, Inner Asia was the contact zone that brought Eurasian cultures and knowledge systems together. Moreover, this work challenges the binary discourse of metropole/periphery in the history of imperialism, colonialism, and globalization by demonstrating that the integration of knowledge systems in modern Eurasia started from Inner Asia. Engaging with the scholarship of comparative world history, I argue for the Great Convergence, a novel term that signifies the information exchange, economic integration, and knowledge formation that mobile communities and intelligence networks in Inner Asia facilitated between China, South Asia, and Europe. My research features interdisciplinary methods that bridge the gap between international history and world philology, among other disciplines. This dissertation analyzes information and economic networks between China and Inner Asia. More broadly, the present study contributes to the literature on imperialism, transnationalism, mobility, ethnicity, and science/knowledge in global and comparative contexts. To be specific, this dissertation investigates how Inner Asian mobile communities, such as Tibetan monks, Mongolian pilgrims, and Ladakhi caravans facilitated Qing understandings of other Eurasian empires, including Tsarist Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Mughal India, Afsharid Iran, and Durrani Afghanistan. Moreover, I argue that Qing information gathering significantly promoted the international integration of information networks and knowledge systems in early modern Eurasia. Finally, this dissertation generalizes historical trends of knowledge exchange to explore the phenomenon of the Qing empire’s knowledge involution caused by political censorship and information non-transparency. Accordingly, this research sheds light on knowledge divergence between China and Europe to answer why the Qing empire did not achieve a modern scientific revolution compared with its European counterparts.

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy