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The book examines the relationship between imperial examinations and literature from the perspective of restoring the cultural ecology of imperial examinations in Ming China, breaking through the paradigm of pure literature research. This book presents an important practice in adjusting the pattern of literary research. The contents of this book include five mutually independent but supportive parts: 1) the living conditions and careers of the literary attendants; 2) the educational background and school's consciousness of the Ming literati; 3) top candidates and Ming literature; 4) genres of imperial examination and the Ming society; 5) exam cheating cases from the perspective of politics and literature. This book will appeal to readers interested in Chinese literature and culture and the imperial examination system in ancient China.

This book conducts a panoramic study on the history of China's Science and Technology which focuses on the Medium and Long-Term Science and Technology Program (MLSTP). In general these Programs have a duration of 5-30 year. This book provides an epochal assessment of the project's conceptual context over the past 60 years.. The author shows that the historical evolution and conceptual development of China's MLSTP are the result of an amalgamation of political, economic and social factors within distinct contemporary contexts. As a national action plan, MLSTP has incorporated many of the factors that go beyond the intentional factors of science and technology. MLSTP is not only a macro vision and blueprint for scientific and technological development; it is also a political act of realizing the national will. While ensuring the MLSTP builds on its great achievements, the author also reflects upon its deficiencies and disadvantages in order to better promote the advancement of science and technology in China.This book comprehensively lays out the historical and theoretical dimensions. Based on a clear vision of historical constructivism the author has compiled the MLSTP philosophy of different eras into a conceptual framework for this era and used this framework to research and analyze the historical and conceptual evolution of MLSTP. Research on MLSTP is important for as enrichment of contemporary studies in the history of science and the science and technology policy. In 2010, more than 60 years after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the country had enacted 10 MLSTP programs.This book separates the development of the MLSTP into three different historical eras: the era of economic planning, the era of economic transformation and the new century. Each historical epoch corresponds to a different MLSTP philosophy concept, which enables us to study the conceptual evolution of MLSTP using historical research as our foundation.

China's sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw an unprecedented explosion in the production and circulation of woodblock-printed books. What can surviving traces of that era's print culture reveal about the makers and consumers of these books? Home and the World addresses this question by carefully examining a wide range of late Ming books, considering them not merely as texts, but as material objects and economic commodities designed, produced, and marketed to stand out in the distinctive book marketplace of the time, and promising high enjoyment and usefulness to readers. Although many of the mass-market commercial imprints studied here might have struck scholars from the eighteenth century on as too trivial, lowbrow, or slipshod to merit serious study, they prove to be an invaluable resource, providing insight into their readers'orientations toward the increasingly complex global stage of early modernity and toward traditional Chinese conceptions of textual, political, and moral authority. On a more intimate scale, they tell us about readers'ideals of a fashionable and pleasurable private life. Through studying these works, we come closer to recapturing the trend-conscious, sophisticated, and often subversive ways readers at this important moment in China's history imagined their world and their place within it. 2015 Joseph Levenson Book Prize, Pre-1900 Category, China and Inner Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies

Motion pictures were first introduced to China in 1896 and today China has become a major player in the film industry. However, the story of how Chinese cinema became what it is today is an exceptionally turbulent one. It encompasses incursions by foreign powers, warfare among contending rulers, the collapse of the Chinese empire, and the massive setback of the Cultural Revolution.The Historical Dictionary of Chinese Cinema covers the history of Chinese cinema from its very beginning in 1896 to the present. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section contains several hundred cross-referenced dictionary entries on films, directors, and historical figures. This book is an excellent access point for anyone interested in Chinese cinema and for scholars interested in investigating ideas for future research.

Sometime before 1579, Zhou Lujing, a professional writer living in a bustling commercial town in southeastern China, published a series of lavishly illustrated books, which constituted the first multigenre painting manuals in Chinese history. Their popularity was immediate and their contents and format were widely reprinted and disseminated in a number of contemporary publications. Focusing on Zhou's work, Art by the Book describes how such publications accommodated the cultural taste and demands of the general public, and shows how painting manuals functioned as a form in which everything from icons of popular culture to graphic or literary cliche was presented to both gratify and shape the sensibilities of a growing reading public. As a special commodity of early modern China, when cultural standing was measured by a person's command of literati taste and lore, painting manuals provided nonelite readers with a device for enhancing social capital.