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My dissertation takes the social and symbolic location of women---the inner chambers [guige or gui]---as a point of departure to examine Ming-Qing women's unique approach to the writing of poetry. In Ming-Qing China, women continued to be assigned to the inner, domestic sphere by Confucian social and gender norms. The inner chambers were not only a physically and socially bounded space within which women were supposed to live, but also a discursive site for the construction of femininity in both ideological and literary discourses. The term gui embraces a nexus of meanings: the material frame of the women's chambers; a defining social boundary of women's roles and place; and a conventional topos evoking feminine beauty and pathos in literary imagination. Working with the literary context of boudoir poetics, yet also considering other indispensable levels of meanings epitomized in the cultural signifier guige, my dissertation demonstrates how Ming-Qing women poets re-conceive the boudoir as a distinctive textual territory encoded with their subjective perspectives and experiences. Compared with the poetic convention, the boudoir as inscribed in Ming-Qing women's texts is far more complex as its depiction is informed by nuances in their historical, social and individual experiences.

This study demonstrates the flexible nature of relations between “peripheral” polities imperial “core” polities. The decentralized nature of the Mongol and Iroquois confederacies enabled them to dictate terms during negotiations with the Ming dynasty or British, respectively, giving them a higher degree of agency in their relations. Comparing the experiences of the Mongols and Iroquois provides a better understanding of how indigenous confederacies acted and reacted under similar circumstances. Likewise, this study aims to demonstrate the capacity for “peripheral” confederacies to resist, selectively adapt, and negotiate with “core” empires. / Confederacy in action -- Iroquois historiography -- Mongol historiography -- Social structures and foundation myths -- "Relative" relations. / Department of History

This thesis examines three aspects of the commentary edition of the Chinese vernacular novel Shuihu Zhuan written by Ming Dynasty literatus Jin Shengtan (ca. 1610-1661), analyzing three of the most innovative features that the commentary brings to our understanding of the novel, and what Jin Shengtan desired for the reader of his commentary to understand. The first chapter looks at a series of techniques that Jin outlines in the preliminary "How to Read" section of the commentary (dufa), where the techniques are shown to be very similar in focus and style to the literary theory of narratology as written about by Gerard Genette through a sample comparison of five of the techniques with varying characteristics of narratology. The second chapter looks at how Jin Shengtan constructs the image of the author, Shi Nai'an, through both his interlineal commentary (jiapi) and his preliminary chapter commentary (zongpi). We see through this analysis that Jin Shengtan has gone against the tradition of shu er bu zuo -- a Confucian tradition that relegates the position of the author to the background of his work -- and has brought the author into a position of prominence through his construction of the image of an unparalleled genius. The third and final chapter looks at the idea of "heroism" (xia) and how Jin's commentary reworks the way many of the primary characters of the novel and their heroic actions are seen and interpreted, focusing especially on the characters of Wu Song, Lu Zhishen, Song Jiang and Li Kui, where we see that Jin's commentary focuses on parallels between the heroes such as Wu Song and Lu Zhishen in the first portion of the novel, while switching to a more juxtapositional perspective in the latter half of the novel through Song Jiang and Li Kui. / Graduate / 0305 / 0332 / mblsm00@gmail.com

The present project sets out to discover what the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan ('A Tale of Marriage Destinies that will Bring Society to its Senses'), an anonymous novel of manners from seventeenth-century China, can tell us about life in the world out of which it emerged. Seventeenth-century records depict China on the verge of modernity as a world torn between the traditional agricultural society and the new challenges of urban life, commerce and a money economy. The shifts from conventional norms and values gave rise to concepts of Utopia and anti-utopia: to nostalgia for the lost paradise of the past and to apocalyptic satire on present conditions. Scholars have noted the prominence of utopianism in seventeenthcentury fiction but no detailed study has been undertaken so far. Utopianism is here explored in terms of the indigenous Chinese traditions. The text of the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan is analysed to see how it perceives and reflects the seventeenth century Chinese world. Utopia serves as an analytical construct to recreate a glimpse of society and the moral evaluation of the world through the eyes of a contemporary observer. The body of the thesis analyses three major motifs in the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan: the healers, the elite and the mother. Critical comparison with other contemporary literary and historical sources attempts to place the novel into its context. The visions of Utopia and anti-utopia provide insight into the dreams and nightmares as seventeenth-century Chinese minds may have perceived them, shedding light on the vernacular culture as opposed to the officially recognised and imperially ordained culture of China.

This thesis explores the 1670 to 1683 trading relationship between the English East India Company and the Zheng family, a Ming loyalist organisation that controlled Taiwan in the late seventeenth century. It draws on the available sources of data for the Zheng family’s trading network to create an analysis of how the network functioned and developed, and then applies the available information from the East India Company’s records to understand how the company’s trade to Taiwan developed. The Zheng family’s trade was altered by their participation in the Sanfan Rebellion during the 1670s. The rebellion commercially isolated the Zheng family from mainland China, which in turn gave the East India Company an opportunity to supply substitute goods for the Zheng family’s trade elsewhere. However, the rebellion also weakened the Zheng family and brought about their surrender of Taiwan to Qing China, which ended the company’s trade there as well. / History

吾國御史行部之制，其淵源雖其早，然以「巡按監察御史」之名行部，則始於明代。 嬗遞維新，明人於檢討其得失利弊之餘，有謂其體貌尊崇，為唐宋以來，皆所不及者 (1) ；顧炎武「日知錄」亦盛譽其「察吏安民之效，已見於（明代）二三百年」(2) 。 一代之成法，往往即當時政治社會要求之反映；且往往亦已深植於當時之政治社會之 中，因之，該等成法任一環節之變動，皆不免牽動全局，而迫使其他環節作必要之調 整或適應。於調整適應之過程中，甚或不免有難以調整適應之苦，而＊謂「宜復舊制 」。 清代政制雖多沿襲明代者，然清聖祖時即停差御史巡按。光緒二十四年，監察御史蔡 鎮藩奏請審官定職，以成新政，所建議多為光緒嘉納，而復設巡按一事則不予考慮(3 ) 。 蔡氏之議雖不果行，然洪憲帝制時，各省所設之「巡按使」，則顯然脫胎於明代之「 巡按監察御史」。國民政府成立以後，亦沿襲往制，而於監察院之體制下，設置各該 省區「監察委員行署」。因之，針對該源遠流長之巡按御史行部之制，作一通盤之研 究，並而試圖作若干解說，似不無意義。 今先考論明代巡按御史制度，清代巡按御史制度之考論，則俟諸異日。 /

The late Ming artist and poet Xu Wei (1521-1593) is most well known for his self-representation as a cultured "mountain hermit" and "eccentric", pursuing the literary ideals of originality, simple language and direct emotional expression. His wild ink-brush paintings, mental instability, numerous suicide attempts and the murder of his third wife all helped to consolidate Xu's image as China's Van Gogh. However, later hagiographies of Xu as the "patron saint of eccentrics" have led to a one dimensional view of Xu. This thesis presents Xu as someone who explored and wrestled with different and sometimes contradictory self-representations against a thorny political and social backdrop. It moves away from Xu's "eccentric" persona, instead examining his writings within the political context of the 16th century. Against the backdrop of Mongol and pirate invasions, Xu's close friend Shen Lian was executed by the Chief Grand Secretary Yan Song and his clique. Yet only a month after his friend's execution, Xu switched sides and worked as a ghost-writer for Hu Zongxian, a protégé of Yan Song. Yet with the fall of Yan Song in 1562 and the arrest of Hu Zongxian, this became an embarrassment for Xu. Fearing that he would be implicated with the Yan Song clique, Xu distanced himself from his flattering ghost-written poems. Overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, he explored the complexities of loyalty and identity in his poetry. Xu's career is representative of many Ming scholars who were frustrated by examination failure and the inability to find an official post. His literary ideals contradicted with lived reality. Xu is unique among Ming literati in voicing these contradictions.

This study examines representations of Wu Zetian in the biographical tradition of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, as well as within the subsequent vernacular literature of the Ming and Qing periods. I analyze the traditional use and construction of female stereotypes (and female-oriented flaws and vices) in the rhetoric of official histories and fictional narratives and their application to representations of Wu Zetian. I argue that authors, anxious of discord engendered and caused by women occupying positions of political authority, sought to delegitimize Wu Zetian’s reign and subsequently cultivated a “rhetoric of female transgression.” I further argue that the image of Wu Zetian has become a cultural signifier of the dangers of female rule. Thus, my research broadly has two foci: (1) it traces the history of delegitimizing female rulership by examining the creation and codification of topoi, and (2) by focusing on images of Wu Zetian, this study examines how these topoi influence contemporary cultural and cross-cultural values, memory, and political rhetoric. This study is divided into three chapters. Chapter one lays out the history of Wu Zetian in the Tang dynasty and an assessment of women in Tang society, which will inform the analysis of literary portrayals of Wu Zetian in chapters two and three. The second chapter examines the earliest representations of Wu Zetian. Thematically, the second chapter explores the biographical interpretation of female authority and the discursive tradition of negotiating historic fact with formulaic and reoccurring tropes. The third chapter looks at representations of Wu Zetian in the literature of the Ming and Qing periods, in which narratives are encoded with the topoi previously established in earlier historical accounts. Ultimately, although this study examines the persistence of rhetorical topoi regarding Wu Zetian, it also addresses the contested and fluid nature of her representations in non-traditional media.

臣下敢在君主深惡痛絕之下結黨爭權，君主的領導方法或能力，一定有所欠缺，縱使英明強幹的君主，如其在重大問題上遲疑不決，或已決定而又起動搖，臣下即可能結黨相爭，如果君主採用「分而治之」的手段，利用臣下的對立，以維護君權，也可能引起黨爭；如果君主不能明斷，則君主已失其定分止爭的作用。臣下為求取勝利，自不免結黨以爭，如果君權已經旁落，則君主為求收回權力、或臣僚中之不滿於竊取權力者，亦將結黨以爭，漢、唐、宋、明各代的黨爭無不如此。 故就東漢、中唐、北宋、晚明等黨爭的形成原因來說，均難謂為出於某一單純原因而係由於各種因素的湊合，例如東漢黨爭的形成，君權旁落與取士制度關係取大，仕途壅塞則其助力，中唐牛李黨爭的形成，政策的不同，取士制度，均為主要原因，而君主所採「分而治之」的手段，君不明斷，仕途壅塞，均有助力，北宋的范仲淹、王安石及其反對者的鬥爭，主因即在學術政策的不同，地域的不同，君主的領導方式，亦有重要關係，晚明黨爭的發生，君主的領導無方最為重要原因，品性、地域的不同， 仕途的壅塞，取士制度等，均有關係。 最後我們認為朋黨的形成，一般都是出於「弱者」意識，所謂弱者，亦即自認其利益未被照顧或未被妥善照顧的人，這種人往往構成一個「不滿的利益集團」，不論何時何地，只要有「不滿的利益集團」存在，即可能出現朋黨。