UID:
almahu_9949546548402882
Format:
1 online resource :
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19 b&w figures
ISBN:
9780231553766
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9783110749663
Content:
The scholarly culture of Ming dynasty China (1368-1644) is often seen as prioritizing philosophy over concrete textual study. Nathan Vedal uncovers the preoccupation among Ming thinkers with specialized linguistic learning, a field typically associated with the intellectual revolution of the eighteenth century. He explores the collaboration of Confucian classicists and Buddhist monks, opera librettists and cosmological theorists, who joined forces in the pursuit of a universal theory of language.Drawing on a wide range of overlooked scholarly texts, literary commentaries, and pedagogical materials, Vedal examines how Ming scholars positioned the study of language within an interconnected nexus of learning. He argues that for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thinkers, the boundaries among the worlds of classicism, literature, music, cosmology, and religion were far more fluid and porous than they became later. In the eighteenth century, Qing thinkers pared away these other fields from linguistic learning, creating a discipline focused on corroborating the linguistic features of ancient texts.Documenting a major transformation in knowledge production, this book provides a framework for rethinking global early modern intellectual developments. It offers a powerful alternative to the conventional understanding of late imperial Chinese intellectual history by focusing on the methods of scholarly practice and the boundaries by which contemporary thinkers defined their field of study.
Note:
Frontmatter --
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Contents --
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Note on Language --
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Introduction --
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PART I Sound and Script --
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CHAPTER 1 The Number of Everything: Music, Cosmology, and the Origins of Language --
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CHAPTER 2 Letters from the West: Sanskrit, Latin, and Phonetic Legibility in Ming China --
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CHAPTER 3 Script, Antiquity, and Mental Training: Metaphysical Inquiry Into the Nondiscursive Potential of Writing --
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PART II Singing and Speaking, Reading and Writing --
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CHAPTER 4 Opera and the Search for a Universal Language --
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CHAPTER 5 Reading the Classics for Pleasure: Prose as Verse, Verse as Music --
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PART III Philology: The Making and Remaking of a Discipline --
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CHAPTER 6 Afterlives: Ming Methods and Their Competition in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries --
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CHAPTER 7 The Reinvention of Philology: Specialization, Disciplinarity, and Intellectual Lineage --
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Epilogue --
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Acknowledgments --
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Notes --
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Selected Bibliography --
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Index
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Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
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In English.
In:
Columbia University Press Complete eBook-Package 2022, De Gruyter, 9783110749663
In:
EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English, De Gruyter, 9783110993899
In:
EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022, De Gruyter, 9783110994810
In:
EBOOK PACKAGE Literary, Cultural, Area Studies 2022 English, De Gruyter, 9783110993752
In:
EBOOK PACKAGE Literary, Cultural, Area Studies 2022, De Gruyter, 9783110993738
Language:
English
URL:
https://doi.org/10.7312/veda20074
URL:
https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780231553766
