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Zuozhuan (Zuo Tradition) is the foundational text of Chinese historiography and the largest text from preimperial China. For two millennia, its immense complexity has given rise to countless controversies, with scholars debating its nature, time of composition, and historical reliability. In the present volume—the first of its kind in any Western language—leading scholars of ancient China, Greece, and Rome approach Zuozhuan from multi-faceted perspectives to examine in detail Zuozhuan's sources, narrative patterns, and meta-narrative devices; analyze the text in dialogue with other ancient Chinese works; and open it to the comparative study with ancient Greek and Roman historiography. Contributors are: Chen Minzhen, Stephen Durrant, Joachim Gentz, Martin Kern, Wai-yee Li, Nino Luraghi, Ellen O'Gorman, Yuri Pines, David Schaberg, and Kai Vogelsang.

Myth and the Making of History examines the relationship between myth and history in early China, a topic that has been explored by American paleographer and scholar of ancient China Sarah Allan throughout her career. Allan has worked at a crucial and sensitive intersection, where myth and history collide at the very heart of China's origin story. Her work has created an intellectual space in which the disciplines of philosophy, history, anthropology, archeology, philology, and literature have come together, helping to change the way scholars conceive of historical patterns in China's past. In Myth and the Making of History, eleven senior and emerging scholars, from both China and the West, respond to the intellectual challenge raised by Allan's theoretical model of analysis of mythologized and historical figures (and even dynasties) that have intrigued scholars for generations and play a central role in the Chinese historical imagination. The book will be of great interest to all scholars and students of China—of whatever level and discipline—and, indeed, those concerned with other early civilizations as well.

This book presents the foundations of classical Chinese aesthetic discourse - roughly from the Bronze Age to the early Middle Ages - with the following animating questions:What is art?Why do we produce it?How do we judge it?The arts that garnered the most theoretical attention during this time period were music, poetry, calligraphy, and painting, and this book considers the reasons why these four were privileged. Whereas modern artists most likely consider themselves musicians or poets or calligraphers or painters or sculptors or architects, the pre-modern authors who produced the literature that established Chinese aesthetics prided themselves on being wenren, “cultured people,” conversant with all forms of art and learning. Other comparisons with Western theories and works of art are presented at due junctures.Key Features Addresses Chinese aesthetic discourse on its own terms Provides comparisons of key concepts and theories with examples from Western sources Includes more coverage of primary sources than any other English-language book on the subject Each chapter opens with a helpful summary, highlighting the chapter's key themes

This book explores the aesthetic consciousness of the Shang Dynasty and its influence on Chinese aesthetic development and contemporary aesthetic creation.The Shang Dynasty is the first era in China with authentic historical documentation. Its artifacts and inscriptions have great aesthetic value and serve as vivid and rich records of aesthetic concepts. By examining the production and use of pottery, jade, bronze, and oracle bone inscriptions, the book sheds light on the functions of these creations as media for conveying emotions driven by human nature. By discussing how the Shang script was invented and used, the author explores the significant role it played in the development of the aesthetic consciousness of the Chinese ancients. Based on surviving documents, including the hexagrams in the Book of Changes, the Pan Geng in the Book of Documents, and the Shang Songs in the Book of Songs, he further examines the poetic characteristics of Shang literature, recognizing it as both historically and literarily significant.The title is essential reading for scholars, students, and general readers interested in Chinese aesthetics, ancient Chinese civilization, culture, and art.

This is the first volume of a two-volume set on the names of China, focusing on the country's official titles throughout history.Using interdisciplinary approaches from fields such as history, geography, ethnic studies, linguistics, psychology and toponymy, this two-volume set examines the origin and evolution of China's names over more than 4,000 years of history. The first volume examines the official names of the country given by the rulers or government, including the names of the imperial dynasties, from the earliest Xia to the last Qing, and the title of the Republic of China, which symbolises a new era in national naming. The author examines the common features as well as the cultural contexts and historical traditions that underlie these diverse titles. The origins and meanings of national titles, their secondary connotations, evolving understandings and related implications are explored. The book also analyses the lifespan and spatial references of these national titles.This book will appeal to both academic and general readers interested in Chinese history, Chinese historical geography and Chinese toponymy.

This book provides a detailed introduction to the study of the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips, explaining the preservation and analysis of the artifacts and their significance in historical research of the pre-Qin period.The Tsinghua Bamboo Slips are a collection of Chinese texts inscribed on approximately 2,500 bamboo slips. They were excavated from a Warring States Period tomb and are now preserved at Tsinghua University. The book delves into the traditions and discoveries of bamboo manuscripts in China and discusses the preservation and research of the slips, covering the procedures of artifact processing, authentication, digitization, editing, and interpretation. The manuscripts are remarkable for their quantity, period of creation, and distinctive content coverage. They contain important historical documents that differ from or are missing from the extant literature. The analysis of these texts helps to unravel some of the unresolved mysteries in pre-Qin historical studies and illuminates scientific achievements of ancient China previously unknown to the world.This book is essential reading for scholars and students of Chinese studies, pre-Qin history, and early literacy. It will also appeal to general readers interested in ancient Chinese history and culture.

Pakistan occupies an elevated role in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and hosts its ‘flagship'project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It has attracted the largest volume of investments under the BRI and opened itself comprehensively to its transformative potential. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of CPEC's impact on Pakistan's economy, politics, and society, covering its developmental benefits as well as resulting controversies.Interdisciplinary and international experts capture the complexity of CPEC, presenting new empirical data in the form of interviews, archival materials, and documentary evidence. Covering topics ranging from agriculture to the environment, gender to security, they focus on local outcomes challenging prevalent narratives about the BRI as a strategic, China-driven vehicle to transform other countries in its image. They argue that examples like CPEC should be understood as interactive processes between China and its international partners, which produce interdependent relations between them. Beyond the case of CPEC, these findings contribute to the burgeoning field of ‘Global China', through a comprehensive yet granular assessment of the first ten years of the BRI's flagship project.This book will be of interest to scholars of area studies, regionalization, international relations and development studies, as well as China studies and South Asia studies focused on the most important and far-reaching national-level implementation of the BRI to date.

This book, the first research publication on China's archery culture to appear in the English language, introduces the historic development, key concepts, and research methodologies for archery studies. Archery was the most important weapon of war in pre-modern China; at the same time, archery practice was intimately tied to Confucius'cultural and pedagogic ideals. Chinese archery was divided into the domains of military archery (wushe) and ritual archery (lishe), and may be further distinguished into han (Chinese) and hu (barbarian) archery traditions. Bringing together the leading scholars in this field, including Ma Mingda, Stephen Selby, Ma Lianzhen, Peter Dekker, and others, this book presents the most comprehensive statement on archery studies to date. In particular, it provides an in-depth survey of archery development during the Qing period and offers a unique cultural perspective to understanding China's last imperial dynasty—through the lens of Manchu archery.

A Dictionary of High Frequency Function Words in Literary Chinese is the first comprehensive work on the subject that constitutes a new approach to teaching and learning by providing both a reference tool and a reader.This dictionary can serve both as a reference book and as an anthology for teaching and learning literary Chinese (the premodern written language) and both ancient and contemporary Chinese culture. It differs from the traditional design of dictionaries in that it includes detailed explanations, with examples, for different uses of the graphs most often used to represent function words in literary Chinese. To facilitate teaching and learning through association, the early meaning, extended meanings, and borrowed meanings for each graph are provided, along with explanations supported by the various stages of the historical development of the graph and other relevant research. Each word is grouped into the primary word class to which it belongs, based on its lexical or grammatical meanings, its collocations, and its function in a sentence. Modern idioms derived from words and phrases in the sample passages are provided in order to promote cultural knowledge and show the important role literary Chinese continues to play in everyday life. All Chinese words are provided with Putonghua romanization to facilitate learning and recall through sound; special pronunciations are explained. This book can be used as a textbook, as extended reading, or as a reference work for undergraduate or graduate classes on literary/classical Chinese, Chinese manuscript studies, Chinese language and culture, Putonghua, translation studies, or even linguistics. It can also be used as an anthology from which the teacher can select passages for students to study.

The global public health crisis of COVID-19 highlights the importance of digital technology. The digital economy is also booming during the pandemic, which has become one of the major driving forces of economic recovery. Given the vital importance of digital technology and the digital economy, this book provides an in-depth understanding of their implications for the sustainable development of ASEAN-China relations from various perspectives. In addition, authors also contribute their resourceful insights on the sustainable development of both China and ASEAN Member States (AMS) through the lens of eco-tourism, carbon neutrality, social inequality, and others.This book provides a series of high-quality policy recommendations. Specific policy recommendations include: 1) China and ASEAN should launch a project to identify connectivity gaps and detail how this might evolve in future investment in digital and ICT (science, technology and innovation). 2) Efforts should be intensified in digital literacy programs, capacity building, and promotion of digital skills to build workforce capacity in the digital age. 3) As a pacesetter in the digital inclusion agenda in the healthcare sector, China can cooperate with other AMS on digital healthcare projects. 4) Action plans should increase collaborative manufacturing and develop mutual trust in supply chains. 5) China and ASEAN should align STI policies with industrial policies and cooperate in adopting frontier technologies while diversifying their production bases by mastering many existing technologies.6) ASEAN and China should continue facilitating e-commerce, including paperless customs clearance, electronic transaction documents, digital authentication, and electronic and online payments.

Understanding Authenticity in Chinese Cultural Heritage explores the construction of'authenticity'and its consequences in relation to Chinese cultural heritage—those objects, texts, and intangible practices concerned with China's past. Including contributions from scholars around the world reflecting on a range of different materials and time periods, Understanding Authenticity emphasizes the situatedness and fluidity of authenticity concepts. Attitudes toward authenticity change over time and place, and vary between communities and object types, among stakeholders in China as they do elsewhere. The book examines how'authenticity'relates to four major aspects of cultural heritage in China—art and material culture; cultural heritage management and preservation; living and intangible heritage; and texts and manuscripts—with individual contributions engaging in a critical and interdisciplinary conversation that weaves together heritage management, art history, archaeology, architecture, tourism, law, history, and literature. Moving beyond conceptual issues, the book also considers the practical ramifications for work in cultural heritage management, museums, and academic research.Understanding Authenticity in Chinese Cultural Heritage provides an opportunity for reflection on the contingencies of authenticity debates - not only in relation to China, but also anywhere around the world. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in a variety of fields, including heritage studies, Asian studies, art history, museum studies, history, and archaeology.

Archaeological discoveries over the past one hundred years have resulted in repeated calls to'rewrite ancient Chinese history.'This is especially true of documents written on oracle bones, bronze vessels, and bamboo strips. In Writing Early China, Edward L. Shaughnessy surveys all of these types of documents and considers what they reveal about the creation and transmission of knowledge in ancient China. Opposed to the common view that most knowledge was transmitted orally in ancient China, Shaughnessy demonstrates that by no later than the tenth century BCE scribes were writing lengthy texts like portions of the Chinese classics, and that by the fourth century BCE the primary mode of textual transmission was by way of visual copying from one manuscript to another.

China has a history of more than 5,000 years of civilization, but when, where, and what kind of process did the splendid Chinese civilization come into being? Many predecessors in academia and masters of Chinese studies have discussed this issue. The author of this book adopts a multi-disciplinary research method, extensively uses the theories of archaeology, history, and anthropology, systematically sorts out and analyzes archaeological discoveries, and analyzes various ancient histories handed down from ancient times. The legend tried to do an integrated interpretation, put forward a series of innovative theoretical viewpoints, and constructed a brand-new ancient history research system. The topic is an interested issue for scholars and experts to discover the development of Chinese civilization. The materials, including data, illustrations, are the newest ones; they can help readers and researchers to better understand and research ancient China.

The three-volume sets constitute the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management, KSEM 2022, held in Singapore, during August 6–8, 2022. The 169 full papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 498 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections:Volume I: Knowledge Science with Learning and AI (KSLA)Volume II: Knowledge Engineering Research and Applications (KERA)Volume III: Knowledge Management with Optimization and Security (KMOS)

The three-volume sets constitute the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management, KSEM 2022, held in Singapore, during August 6–8, 2022. The 169 full papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 498 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections:Volume I:Knowledge Science with Learning and AI (KSLA)Volume II:Knowledge Engineering Research and Applications (KERA)Volume III:Knowledge Management with Optimization and Security (KMOS)

In Painting Architecture: Jiehua in Yuan China, 1271–1368, Leqi Yu has conducted comprehensive research on jiehua or ruled-line painting, a unique painting genre in fourteenth-century China. This genre relies on tools such as rulers to represent architectural details and structures accurately. Such technical consideration and mechanical perfection linked this painting category with the builder's art, which led to Chinese elites'belittlement and won Mongol patrons'admiration. Yu suggests that painters in the Yuan dynasty made new efforts towards a unique modular system and an unsurpassable plain-drawing tradition. She argues that these two strategies made architectural paintings in the Yuan dynasty entirely different from their predecessors, as well as making the art form extremely difficult for subsequent painters to imitate.

China has a history of more than 5,000 years of civilization, but when, where, and what kind of process did the splendid Chinese civilization come into being? Many predecessors in academia and masters of Chinese studies have discussed this issue. The author of this book adopts a multi-disciplinary research method, extensively uses the theories of archaeology, history, and anthropology, systematically sorts out and analyzes archaeological discoveries, and analyzes various ancient histories handed down from ancient times. The legend tried to do an integrated interpretation, put forward a series of innovative theoretical viewpoints, and constructed a brand-new ancient history research system. The topic is an interested issue for scholars and experts to discover the development of Chinese civilization. The materials, including data, illustrations, are the newest ones; they can help readers and researchers to better understand and research ancient China.

The fu genre (or “rhapsody” in English) is one of the major genres of Chinese poetry throughout imperial history. This volume presents close readings of representative works in the genre, spanning over a millennium of its history. Each chapter contains a complete translation of major fu poems, accompanied by an essay presenting the work or works in historical context and also examining their significance in contemporary culture. Ranging in style and topic from the exuberant accumulation of detail in Yang Xiong's “Shu Capital,” translated by David R. Knechtges, to the luscious lyricism of Wang Bo's “Spring Longings,” translated by Timothy W. K. Chan, the poems present a panorama of how the genre has been used for both personal and social expression. While the individual essays examine their respective subjects in depth and detail, collectively the essays also offer a sweeping survey of the fu genre from the Han (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.) through the Song (960–1279 C.E.) dynasty.

With over 60 contributions, The Tokugawa World presents the latest scholarship on early modern Japan from an international team of specialists in a volume that is unmatched in its breadth and scope.In its early modern period, under the Tokugawa shoguns, Japan was a world apart. For over two centuries the shogun's subjects were forbidden to travel abroad and few outsiders were admitted. Yet in this period, Japan evolved as a nascent capitalist society that could rapidly adjust to its incorporation into the world system after its forced'opening'in the 1850s. The Tokugawa World demonstrates how Japan's early modern society took shape and evolved: a world of low and high cultures, comic books and Confucian academies, soba restaurants and imperial music recitals, rigid enforcement of social hierarchy yet also ongoing resistance to class oppression. A world of outcasts, puppeteers, herbal doctors, samurai officials, businesswomen, scientists, scholars, blind lutenists, peasant rebels, tea-masters, sumo wrestlers, and wage workers. Covering a variety of features of the Tokugawa world including the physical landscape, economy, art and literature, religion and thought, and education and science, this volume is essential reading for all students and scholars of early modern Japan.

Scholarship on early China has traditionally focused on a core group of canonical texts. However, understudied sources have the potential to shift perspectives on fundamental aspects of Chinese intellectual, religious, and political history. Yegor Grebnev examines crucial noncanonical texts preserved in the Yi Zhou shu (Neglected Zhou Scriptures) and the Grand Duke traditions, which represent scriptural traditions influential during the Warring States period but sidelined in later history. He develops an innovative framework for the study and interpretation of these texts, focusing on their role in the mediation of royal legitimacy and their formative impact on early Daoism.Grebnev demonstrates the centrality of the Yi Zhou shu in Chinese intellectual history by highlighting its simultaneous connections to canonical traditions and esoteric Daoism. He also shows that the Daoist rituals of textual transmission embedded in the Grand Duke traditions bear an imprint of the courtly environment of the Warring States period, where early Daoists strove for prestige and power, offering legitimacy through texts ascribed to the mythical sage rulers. These rituals appear to have emerged at the same period as the core Daoist philosophical texts and not several centuries later as conventionally believed, which calls for a reassessment of the history of Daoism's interrelated religious and philosophical strands. Offering a far-reaching reconsideration of early Chinese intellectual and religious history, Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China sheds new light on the foundations of the Chinese textual tradition.

This book is about the tension between de facto political power and the claims to intellectual and moral leadership of the shi (‘gentleman class') in Early Medieval China.Shelun, or Hypothetical Discourse, is a hitherto neglected Chinese literary genre. The author for the first time places the surviving texts against the political background that accounts for its rise and decline in early medieval China. Comprehensively annotated translations of seven Hypothetical Discourses are placed in the context of their authors'lives and times, with an emphasis on the post-Han examples of the genre.This thorough study gives insight into this subgenre of fu by which the world of the Chinese gentleman class finds an always ambiguous expression in the rhyme-prose texts under review.

Theatrical performance occupied a central place in the emotional and political life of the Qing dynasty imperial household. For over two centuries, the Qing court poured a tremendous amount of human and material resources into institutionalizing the theatrical arts for the purposes of entertainment and edification. The emperors and empresses were ardent patrons and key players in establishing an artistic form that the court theatre called its own. They went to great lengths to cultivate a discerning taste in theatre and oversaw the artistic and managerial aspects of court theatrical activities. In the imperial theatrical spaces within and outside the Forbidden City, which were designed and built with the capacity to produce stunning visual effects, theatrical productions were staged to entertain imperial family members and to impress obeisance-paying guests from near and afar. Much scholarly attention has been devoted to understanding the dynamics between the Qing court theatre and the burgeoning popular theatrical traditions outside the court. However, the insights drawn from recent studies have only begun to be applied to the analysis of dramas commissioned by the Qing court for various ceremonial occasions. Treating Qing dynasty court theatre as a unique site in which to examine important but uncharted realms of Chinese theatrical experience, Staging for the Emperors examines two distinct and interlocking dimensions of the Qing court theatre—the vicissitudes of the palace troupe and the multifaceted functions of court-commissioned ceremonial dramas—to highlight the diverse array of views held by individual rulers as they used theatrical means to promote their personal and political agendas. Drawing on recently discovered materials from a variety of court administrative bureaus, memoirs, diaries, and play scripts written for court ceremonial occasions, this study places the history of Qing court theatre in the broader context of Qing cultural and political history. It demonstrates that theatre, like other forms of courtly art, served the individual rulers'desire to embody virtue, to entertain at leisure, and to project aspirations. Staging for the Emperors would appeal to readers interested in China studies and performance studies. It would also appeal to those outside the field of China studies who are interested in developing a crosscultural perspective on the interplay between state rituals, power, identity formation, and theatrical experiences.

This textbook provides a comprehensive scholarly introduction to Classical Chinese and its texts. Classical Chinese is the language of Confucius and Mencius and their contemporaries, who wrote the seminal texts of Chinese philosophy more than 2,000 years ago. Although it was used as a living language for only a relatively short time, it was the foundation of Chinese education throughout the Imperial age, and formed the basis of a literary tradition that continues to the present day. This book offers students all the necessary tools to read, understand, and analyse Classical Chinese texts, including: step-by-step clearly illustrated descriptions of syntactic features; core vocabulary lists; introductions to relevant historical and cultural topics; selected readings from classical literature with original commentaries and in-depth explanations; introductions to dictionaries and other reference works on the study of ancient China; and a guide to philological methods used in the critical analysis of Classical Chinese texts. The extensive glossary provides phonological reconstructions, word classes, English translations, and citations to illustrate usage, while the up-to-date bibliography serves as a valuable starting point for further research.

While cultural literacy in early China was grounded in learning the Classics, basic competence in official life was generally predicated on acquiring several forms of technical knowledge. Recent archaeological finds have brought renewed attention to the use of technical manuals and mantic techniques within a huge range of discrete contexts, pushing historians to move beyond the generalities offered by past scholarship. To explore these uses, Technical Arts in the Han Histories delves deeply into the rarely studied'Treatises'and'Tables'compiled for the first two standard histories, the Shiji (Historical Records) and Hanshu (History of Han), important supplements to the better-known biographical chapters, and models for the inclusion of technical subjects in the twenty-three later'Standard Histories'of imperial China. Indeed, for a great many aspects of life in early imperial society, they constitute our best primary sources for understanding complex realities and perceptions. The essays in this volume seek to explain how different social groups thought of, disseminated, and withheld technical knowledge relating to the body, body politic, and cosmos, in the process of detailing the preoccupations of successive courts from Qin through Eastern Han in administering the localities, the frontier zones, and their numerous subjects (at the time, roughly one-quarter of the world's population).

In the mid-eleventh century BCE, the Zhou overthrew the Shang, a dynastic power that had dominated much of northern and central China. Over the next three centuries, they would extend the borders of their political control significantly beyond those of the Shang. The Zhou introduced a political ideology centered on the Mandate of Heaven to justify their victory over the Shang and their territorial expansion, portraying the Zhou king as ruling the frontier from the center of civilization. Present-day scholarship often still adheres to this core-periphery perspective, emphasizing cultural assimilation and political integration during Zhou rule. However, recent archaeological findings present a more complex picture.Many Worlds Under One Heaven analyzes a wide range of newly excavated materials to offer a new perspective on political and cultural change under the Western Zhou. Examining tombs, bronze inscriptions, and other artifacts, Yan Sun challenges the Zhou-centered view with a frontier-focused perspective that highlights the roles of multiple actors. She reveals the complexity of identity construction and power relations in the northern frontiers of the Western Zhou, arguing that the border regions should be seen as a land of negotiation that witnessed cultural hybridization and experimentation. Rethinking a critical period for the formation of Chinese civilization, Many Worlds Under One Heaven unsettles the core-periphery model to reveal the diversity and flexibility of identity in early China.

This book draws together the contrasting strands on the advancement and impact of Confucianism within modern day China. It examines the events from the 20th and 21st centuries to help unravel the reasons why Confucius belief endured within a rapidly modernizing China. Kong Fu-Tzu and Confucianism have undergone dramatic ups and downs during the 20th century in China, and the ideological/political struggles between the groups who worship Confucius and the'anti-Confucius'groups have existed for half a century. Following the Cultural Revolution, the study of Kong Fu-Tzu and Confucianism has progressed further. The book sorts out Kong Fu-Tzu and Confucianism's history in the last century and analyzes important topics and issues. Librarians: ebook available.

The three-volume set LNCS 12681-12683 constitutes the proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications, DASFAA 2021, held in Taipei, Taiwan, in April 2021. The total of 156 papers presented in this three-volume set was carefully reviewed and selected from 490 submissions. The topic areas for the selected papers include information retrieval, search and recommendation techniques; RDF, knowledge graphs, semantic web, and knowledge management; and spatial, temporal, sequence, and streaming data management, while the dominant keywords are network, recommendation, graph, learning, and model. These topic areas and keywords shed the light on the direction where the research in DASFAA is moving towards. Due to the Corona pandemic this event was held virtually.

The three-volume set LNCS 12681-12683 constitutes the proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications, DASFAA 2021, held in Taipei, Taiwan, in April 2021. The total of 156 papers presented in this three-volume set was carefully reviewed and selected from 490 submissions. The topic areas for the selected papers include information retrieval, search and recommendation techniques; RDF, knowledge graphs, semantic web, and knowledge management; and spatial, temporal, sequence, and streaming data management, while the dominant keywords are network, recommendation, graph, learning, and model. These topic areas and keywords shed the light on the direction where the research in DASFAA is moving towards. Due to the Corona pandemic this event was held virtually.

The three-volume set LNCS 12681-12683 constitutes the proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications, DASFAA 2021, held in Taipei, Taiwan, in April 2021. The total of 156 papers presented in this three-volume set was carefully reviewed and selected from 490 submissions. The topic areas for the selected papers include information retrieval, search and recommendation techniques; RDF, knowledge graphs, semantic web, and knowledge management; and spatial, temporal, sequence, and streaming data management, while the dominant keywords are network, recommendation, graph, learning, and model. These topic areas and keywords shed the light on the direction where the research in DASFAA is moving towards. Due to the Corona pandemic this event was held virtually.

Nationalism is pervasive in China today. Yet nationalism is not entrenched in China's intellectual tradition. Over the course of the twentieth century, the combined forces of cultural, social, and political transformations nourished its development, but resistance to it has persisted. Xin Fan examines the ways in which historians working on the world beyond China from within China have attempted to construct narratives that challenge nationalist readings of the Chinese past and the influence that these historians have had on the formation of Chinese identity. He traces the ways in which generations of historians, from the late Qing through the Republican period, through the Mao period to the relative moment of'opening'in the 1980s, have attempted to break cross-cultural boundaries in writing an alternative to the national narrative.

This exciting third volume of David B. Honey's comprehensive history of Chinese thought begins with China after nomadic invaders overran the northern regions of the historic kingdom. The differentiation between scholarly emphases—northern focus on the traditional pedagogical commentary, and southern classical school's more innovative commentary—led to an emphasis on the interpretation of the overall message of a text, not a close reading of smaller sections. As Honey explains, serious attention to the phonological nature of Chinese characters also began during in this long era. Based on the work of earlier Sui dynasty classicists, Kong Yinga and his committee produced the Correct Meaning commentary to the Five Classics during the early Tang Dynasty, which is still largely normative today. The book demonstrates that the brooding presence of Zheng Xuan, the great textual critic from the Eastern Han dynasty, still exerted enormous influence during this period, as his ritualized approach to the classics inspired intellectual followers to expand on his work or impelled opponents to break off in new directions.

Volume II of David M. Honey's comprehensive history of Chinese thought covers a vital 500-year stretch in China's history, from national unification in 221 BCE to the first post-imperial fragmentation into rival northern and southern polities. This volume discusses the reconstitution of the classics after the textual devastation wrought by the policies of the First Emperor of Qin, who destroyed many of them, and their eventual canonization by the crown during the Western Han period. Honey also examines the professionalization of Chinese classical scholarship as a state-sponsored enterprise, whereby private masters gave way to tenured academicians who specialized in single classical works. This volume also covers the development of various subgenres in the discipline of philology by the three great Eastern Han classicists Liu Xiang in textual criticism, Xu Shen in lexicography, and the polymath Zheng Xuan in the exegesis of virtually all the classics. Honey concludes with an examination of Zheng Xuan as the inspiration for other exegetical modes to explain textual complexities following this era.

A multidisciplinary environmental history of early China's political systems, featuring newly available Chinese archaeological data This book is a multidisciplinary study of the ecology of China's early political systems up to the fall of the first empire in 207 BCE. Brian Lander traces the formation of lowland North China's agricultural systems and the transformation of its plains from diverse forestland and steppes to farmland. He argues that the growth of states in ancient China, and elsewhere, was based on their ability to exploit the labor and resources of those who harnessed photosynthetic energy from domesticated plants and animals. Focusing on the state of Qin, Lander amalgamates abundant new scientific, archaeological, and excavated documentary sources to argue that the human domination of the central Yellow River region, and the rest of the planet, was made possible by the development of complex political structures that managed and expanded agroecosystems.

This book draws together the contrasting strands on the advancement and impact of Confucianism within modern day China. It examines the events from the 20th and 21st centuries to help unravel the reasons why Confucius belief endured within a rapidly modernizing China. Kong Fu-Tzu and Confucianism have undergone dramatic ups and downs during the 20th century in China, and the ideological/political struggles between the groups who worship Confucius and the'anti-Confucius'groups have existed for half a century. Following the Cultural Revolution, the study of Kong Fu-Tzu and Confucianism has progressed further. The book sorts out Kong Fu-Tzu and Confucianism's history in the last century and analyzes important topics and issues. ••• Librarians: ebook available (Series: Philosophy in Modern China) [Subject: History, Asian Studies, Chinese Studies, Confucianism, Philosophy]

This study uncovers the traditions behind the formative Classic Shàngshū (Venerated Documents). It is the first to establish these traditions—“Shū” (Documents)—as a historically evolving practice of thought-production. By focusing on the literary form of the argument, it interprets the “Shū” as fluid text material that embodies the ever-changing cultural capital of projected conceptual communities. By showing how these communities actualised the “Shū” according to their changing visions of history and evolving group interests, the study establishes that by the Warring States period (ca. 453–221 BC) the “Shū” had become a literary genre employed by diverse groups to legitimize their own arguments. Through forms of textual performance, the “Shū” gave even peripheral communities the means to participate in political discourse by conferring their ideas with ancient authority. Analysing this dynamic environment of socio-political and philosophical change, this study speaks to the Early China field, as well as to those interested in meaning production and foundational text formation more widely.

Regional Literature and the Transmission of Culture provides a richly textured picture of cultural transmission in the Qing and early Republican eras. Drum ballad texts (guci) evoke one of the most popular performance traditions of their day, a practice that flourished in North China. Study of these narratives opens up surprising new perspectives on vital topics in Chinese literature and history: the creation of regional cultural identities and their relation to a central “Chinese culture”; the relationship between oral and written cultures; the transmission of legal knowledge and popular ideals of justice; and the impact of the changing technology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on the reproduction and dissemination of popular texts. Margaret B. Wan maps the dissemination over time and space of two legends of wise judges; their journey through oral, written, and visual media reveals a fascinating but overlooked world of “popular” literature. While drum ballads form a distinctively regional literature, lithography in early twentieth-century Shanghai drew them into national markets. The new paradigm this book offers will interest scholars of cultural history, literature, book culture, legal history, and popular culture.

The South of The City white bone case, the night rain killing demons, the rape killing cases, the case is complicated and confusing, but I believe, there is only one who truly wants to do it! — — Tang Yuan Fang

The 4 volume set LNCS 12112-12114 constitutes the papers of the 25th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications which will be held online in September 2020. The 119 full papers presented together with 19 short papers plus 15 demo papers and 4 industrial papers in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 487 submissions. The conference program presents the state-of-the-art R&D activities in database systems and their applications. It provides a forum for technical presentations and discussions among database researchers, developers and users from academia, business and industry.

The 4 volume set LNCS 12112-12114 constitutes the papers of the 25th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications which will be held online in September 2020. The 119 full papers presented together with 19 short papers plus 15 demo papers and 4 industrial papers in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 487 submissions. The conference program presents the state-of-the-art R&D activities in database systems and their applications. It provides a forum for technical presentations and discussions among database researchers, developers and users from academia, business and industry.

The 4 volume set LNCS 12112-12114 constitutes the papers of the 25th International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications which will be held online in September 2020. The 119 full papers presented together with 19 short papers plus 15 demo papers and 4 industrial papers in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 487 submissions. The conference program presents the state-of-the-art R&D activities in database systems and their applications. It provides a forum for technical presentations and discussions among database researchers, developers and users from academia, business and industry.

A smart and accessible introduction to the most important works of ancient Chinese philosophy—the Analects of Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Sunzi, Xunzi, and Han FeiziThis book provides an unmatched introduction to eight of the most important works of classical Chinese philosophy—the Analects of Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Sunzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi. Combining accessibility with the latest scholarship, Paul Goldin, one of the world's leading authorities on the history of Chinese philosophy, places these works in rich context as he explains the origin and meaning of their compelling ideas.Because none of these classics was written in its current form by the author to whom it is attributed, the book begins by asking,'What are we reading?'and showing that understanding the textual history of the works enriches our appreciation of them. A chapter is devoted to each of the eight works, and the chapters are organized into three sections:'Philosophy of Heaven,'which looks at how the Analects, Mozi, and Mencius discuss, often skeptically, Heaven (tian) as a source of philosophical values;'Philosophy of the Way,'which addresses how Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Sunzi introduce the new concept of the Way (dao) to transcend the older paradigms; and'Two Titans at the End of an Age,'which examines how Xunzi and Han Feizi adapt the best ideas of the earlier thinkers for a coming imperial age.In addition, the book presents clear and insightful explanations of the protean and frequently misunderstood concept of qi—and of a crucial characteristic of Chinese philosophy, nondeductive reasoning. The result is an invaluable account of an endlessly fascinating and influential philosophical tradition.

This book focuses on reinterpreting mythical China from the perspective of the cultural theory of big tradition. It is divided into two parts: the first explains the theoretical development and features of the Chinese version of big tradition, identifying the differences between the Eastern and Western cultural traditions (big tradition and great tradition). The second part then reinterprets the core values and mythical ideas of Chinese civilization and traditional culture from the perspective of big tradition.Moving beyond the small tradition of text centrism and using new methods and materials, the book reveals the original meaning and the cultural coding function of big tradition during the preliterate period. Drawing on integrated evidence from literature handed down from ancient times, oral and intangible cultural heritage, tangible culture, cross-cultures, image culture and unearthed documents, the book interprets Chinese cultural traditions and spiritual values from local, archaeological, experiential and survival perspectives, to help readers better understand the mythical codes and genes of early Chinese culture.

There is a stark contrast between the overarching importance of history writing in imperial China and the meagerness of historical texts from the centuries preceding the imperial unification of 221 BCE. However, recently discovered bamboo manuscripts from the Warring States period (453–221 BCE) have changed this picture, leading to reappraisals of early Chinese historiography. These manuscripts shed new light on questions related to the production, circulation, and audience of historical texts in early China; their different political, ritual, and ideological usages; and their roles in the cultural and intellectual dynamics of China's vibrant pre-imperial age.Zhou History Unearthed offers both a novel understanding of early Chinese historiography and a fully annotated translation of Xinian (String of Years), the most notable historical manuscript from the state of Chu. Yuri Pines elucidates the importance of Xinian and other recently discovered texts for our understanding of history writing in Zhou China (1046–255 BCE), as well as major historical events and topics such as Chu's cultural identity. Pines explores how Xinian challenges existing interpretations of the nature and reliability of canonical historical texts on the Zhou era, such as Zuo zhuan (Zuo Tradition/Commentary) and Records of the Historian (Shiji). A major work of scholarship and translation, Zhou History Unearthed sheds new light on early Chinese history and historiography, demonstrating how new archaeological findings are changing our knowledge of China's pre-imperial days.

This volume covers the philosophical, historical, religious, and interpretative aspects of the ancient Guodian bamboo manuscripts (郭店楚簡) which were disentombed in the Guodian Village in Hubei Province, China, in 1993. Considered to be the Chinese equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls, these manuscripts are archaeological finds whose importance cannot be underestimated. Many of the texts are without counterparts in the transmitted tradition, and they provide unique insights into the developments of Chinese philosophy in the period between the death of Confucius (551-479 BCE) and the writings of Mencius (c.372-289 BCE), and beyond. Divided into two parts, the book first provides inter-textual contexts and backgrounds of the Guodian manuscripts. The second part covers the main concepts and arguments in the Guodian texts, including cosmology and metaphysics, political philosophy, moral psychology, and theory of human nature. The thematic essays serve as an introduction to the philosophical significance and the key philosophical concepts/thought of each text contained in the Guodian corpus. Each chapter has a section on the implications of the texts for the received tradition, or for the purpose of comparing some of the text(s) with the received tradition in terms of the key philosophical concepts as well as the reading and interpretation of the texts. The volume covers most of the texts inscribed on the 800-odd slips of the Guodian corpus dated to the fourth century BCE.

Guo Qiyong's edited volume on contemporary Chinese philosophy offers a detailed look at research on Chinese philosophy published from 1949-2009 in Mainland China and Taiwan. The chapters in this volume are broken down into either major themes or time periods in the history of Chinese philosophy. In each chapter after summarizing significant aspects of a particular theme or time period, lists are drawn up of the most important works, along with comments on their individual contributions. This volume allows readers to both familiarize themselves with specific texts and become immersed in the more general philosophical discourse surrounding the history of Chinese philosophy. It provides an in-depth look into serious debates and major discoveries in Chinese language philosophical scholarship from 1949-2009.

Coping with the Future: Theories and Practices of Divination in East Asia offers insights into various techniques of divination, their evolution, and their assessment. The contributions cover the period from the earliest documents on East Asian mantic arts to their appearance in the present time. The volume reflects the pervasive manifestations of divination in literature, religious and political life, and their relevance for society and individuals. Special emphasis is placed on cross-cultural influences and attempts to find theoretical foundations for divinatory practices. This edited volume is an initiative to study the phenomena of divination across East Asian cultures and beyond. It is also one of the first attempts to theorize divinatory practices through East Asian traditions.

This book is a timely response to a rather urgent call to seek an updated methodology in rereading and reappraising early Chinese texts in light of newly discovered early writings. For a long time, the concept of authorship in the formation and transmission of early Chinese texts has been misunderstood. The nominal author who should mainly function as a guide to text formation and interpretation is considered retrospectively as the originator and writer of the text. This book illustrates that although some notions about the text as the author's property began to appear in some Eastern Han texts, a strict correlation between the author and the text results from later conceptions of literary history. Before the modern era, there existed a conceptual gap between an author and a writer. A pre-modern Chinese text could have had both an author and a writer, or even multiple authors and multiple writers. This work is the first study addressing these issues by more systematically emphasizing the connection of the text, the author, and the religious and sociopolitical settings in which these issues were embedded. It is expected to constitute a palpable contribution to Chinese studies and the discipline of philology in general

This book starts from a first general observation: there are very diverse ways to frame and convey scientific knowledge in texts. It then analyzes texts on mathematics, astronomy, medicine and life sciences, produced in various parts of the globe and in different time periods, and examines the reasons behind the segmentation of texts and the consequences of such textual divisions. How can historians and philosophers of science approach this diversity, and what is at stake in dealing with it? The book addresses these questions, adopting a specific approach to do so. In order to shed light on the diversity of organizational patterns and rhetorical strategies in scientific texts, and to question the rationale behind the choices made to present such texts in one particular way, it focuses on the issue of text segmentation, offering answers to questions such as: What was the meaning of segmenting texts into paragraphs, chapters, sections and clusters? Was segmentation used to delimit self-contained units, or to mark breaks in the physical appearance of a text in order to aid reading and memorizing, or to cope with the constraints of the material supports? How, in these different settings and in different texts, were pieces and parts made visible?

O Dao De Jing (ou Tao Te Ching), tradicionalíssima coletânea de provérbios chineses, é a raiz de tradições religiosas e filosóficas milenares como o Taoísmo e o Zen. Nos últimos séculos, após inúmeras traduções, despertou o interesse do público ocidental. A Editora Unesp lança agora tradução inédita com um enfoque particular: tornar mais compreensível a complexa tradição cultural da China possibilitando uma visão de como seu povo percebe o mundo. Laozi, o possível autor do Dao De Jing, é um dos três principais entre os primeiros pensadores chineses. Ele, ao lado de Confúcio e Mozi, criou as visões de mundo e atitudes que influenciarem a cultura chinesa por milênios. Há relatos de que teria sido mestre de Confúcio, mas enquanto o primeiro se tornou o paradigma do homem de ação, o tradicionalista apegado aos ritos, o segundo simboliza o homem contemplativo, o quietista voltado para os arcanos da natureza. Nesta edição, seu texto de apenas 5 mil palavras (caracteres) é acompanhado dos comentários de Heshang Gong, o Senhor às Margens do Rio, personagem dono de uma biografia tão mistificada quanto à do próprio Laozi. Trata-se de uma versão integral de um dos três textos-base para a interpretação do Dao De Jing. Foram também traduzidos os trechos mais relevantes do prefácio de Ge Xuan (164 –244) e breves notas biográficas escritas por Sima Qian (145 a.C. – 90 ou 85 a.C.), o primeiro grande historiador chinês. Já a apresentação do sinólogo e diplomata brasileiro, Giorgio Sinedino, intitulada'Laozi e a história das ideias na China', introduz ao leitor o Dao De Jing, e o guia pelo labirinto de crenças, práticas e instituições ligadas a este fenômeno complexo ao longo da antiga história daquele país. O resultado é uma versão crítica que, em seu conjunto, como escreve Sinedino, pode'revelar verdades pelo menos tão sólidas quanto a opinião dos mercados, as efemérides da imprensa ou os axiomas do direito e da economia'. Se para o leitor ocidental, o pensamento chinês antigo parece intrinsecamente autoritário, elitista e xenófobo, o Dao De Jing mostra que esta é uma verdade parcial. Acaba-se por descobrir que'o pensamento chinês está orientado a criar um tipo de ecumenismo de natureza não muito diferente do Ocidente globalizado – sem pluralismo, contudo'.

Traditional Chinese philosophy, if engaged at all, is often regarded as an object of antiquated curiosity and dismissed as unimportant in the current age of globalization.Written by a team of internationally renowned scholars, this book, however, challenges this judgement and offers an in-depth study of pre-modern Chinese philosophy from an interdisciplinary perspective. Exploring the relevance of traditional Chinese philosophy for the global age, it takes a comparative approach, analysing ancient Chinese philosophy in its relation to Western ideas and contemporary postmodernist theories. The conversation extends over a broad spectrum of philosophical areas and themes, ranging from metaphysics, hermeneutics, political theory, religion and aesthetics to specific philosophical schools including Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. By engaging many time-honoured philosophical issues from a comparative perspective, this book bridges the gap between Eastern and Western thought and emphasises the need for a newly fortified global humanism and a deeper appreciation of different philosophical and religious values in an age gripped by large-scale crises.Arguing that traditional Chinese philosophy has immediate relevance to the many challenges of modern life, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Asian Philosophy and Asian Studies in general.