Localizing Learning: The Literati Enterprise in Wuzhou, 1100–1600 (Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series) - Hardcover

Bol; Peter K.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674267931 ISBN 13: 9780674267930

Publisher: Harvard University Asia Center, 2022

Synopsis

As the first intellectual history of Song, Yuan, and Ming China written from a local perspective, Localizing Learning shows how literati learning in Wuzhou came to encompass examination studies, Neo-Confucian moral philosophy, historical and Classical scholarship, encyclopedic learnedness, and literary writing, and traces how debates over the relative value of moral cultivation, cultural accomplishment, and political service unfolded locally.

The book is set in one locality, Wuzhou (later Jinhua), a prefecture in China’s Zhejiang province, from the twelfth through the sixteenth century. Its main actors are literati of the Song, Yuan, and Ming, who created a local tradition of learning as a means of cementing their common identity and their claim to moral, political, and cultural leadership. Close readings of philosophical and literary texts with quantitative analysis of social and kinship networks consider why and how the local literati enterprise was built.

By treating learning as the subject, it broadens our perspective, going beyond a history of ideas to investigate the social practices and networks of kinship and collegiality with which literati defined themselves in local, regional, and national contexts.

About this title

About the Author

Peter K. Bol is Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Asia Center
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674267931
• ISBN 13: 9780674267930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448