Organizer: Robert Hymes, Columbia University
Chair: Lisa Ann Raphals, Bard College
The Qian Zuo Du: A Late Han Dynasty Study of the Book of Changes (Yi Jing)
Bent Nielsen, University of Copenhagen
The so-called 'Apocrypha,' Wei shu, which mainly date from the Han Dynasty, have largely been neglected by Western sinological scholarship. During the Later Han and in the centuries following its collapse, the Apocrypha, besides offering significant new interpretations of the Classics, played a crucial role in such important political issues as calendar computations and selection of heirs to the throne. This political application of the Apocrypha accounts for repeated proscriptions, and today only a handful of these texts all of which are associated with the Yi jing have survived. Fragments of the lost texts have been compiled by various Qing scholars and are now also available in modern Chinese and Japanese collections. Basing myself on one of the surviving texts in particular, the Qian zuo du, I attempt to demonstrate the significance this body of literature has for both our understanding of the intellectual life of Han China and our interpretations of the Classics today, in casum the Yi jing or Book of Changes. The discussion centers upon the role of mathematical astronomy, calendar computations, divination, and numerology in Han politics and how the author of the Qian zuo du basing himself on the Book of Changes constructs an integral cosmology.
Purity and Power: The Uses and Misuses of Female Chastity in Eighteenth-Century
China
Janet M. Theiss, University of California, Berkeley
This paper will analyze the contradictory relationship between virtue and social power for women portrayed in legal cases involving conflicts over female virtue from the eighteenth century when the "cult of female chastity" was at its height. Contrary to the view of many scholars that the cult of chastity was uniformly repressive for women, the connection between female virtue and family reputation sometimes allowed women to transform the moral authority derived from adherence to chastity norms into social power within the household or local community. Thus female virtue could function as a kind of symbolic capital for women and their families, becoming a sign of respectability and a measure of status for elite and commoner men in their struggle for upward mobility within the increasingly competitive and complex society of that time.
At the same time, however, powerful women were vulnerable to accusations of licentious behavior which were sometimes employed to remove them from positions of authority within the family or to add fuel to an interfamilial feud. Some adultery cases emerged only when accusations of immoral behavior became useful weapons in feuds over money, property or authority. These legal cases reveal both the complexity of interpretations of chastity and the wide divergence between orthodox moral standards and the uses of female virtue in practice. They portray an instrumental deployment of female virtue as a tool of social status and power by women and their families which undermined the legitimacy of chastity norms as sacred elements of the ritual order.
Gravity: Confucian Politics of Appearances
Weihe Xu, Pacific Lutheran University
There is a blatant politicization of appearances in Confucian classics, declaring that one of the essential functions of li (rites) is to make people look respectful and grave (i.e., respectful to one's superiors and grave to one's inferiors), so that society will be in proper order, and the world free from troubles. By revisiting basic Confucian classics, this paper not only demonstrates those political effects that appearances are alleged to produce, but also attempts to explain the traditional Chinese vigilance against homo ridens, for one interesting consequence of the Confucian politicization of appearances is restrictions upon junzi's (the superior man) laughter especially in public, for a smiling face is deemed, rightly, not terribly awe-inspiring.
"The Wise Ruler Disciplines His Officials, Not His People": The
Treatment of Official Malfeasance in Early Chinese Law
Shikai Hu, University of Toronto
The importance of official malfeasance in traditional Chinese law is shown by the surprisingly large quantity of rules concerning it and the complexity and sophistication of these rules. This emphasis on official malfeasance and its codification into various forms of criminal and administrative laws indicate one of the chief characteristics of the traditional Chinese legal system: the practice of regulating officials rather than the people. This practice has rarely been acknowledged or studied, although it is an essential aspect of the Chinese legal tradition and crucial for gaining insight into it.
This study attempts to fill the lacuna by examining the origin and major stages of development of the official malfeasance in early Chinese law, from earliest times to the T'ang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907). The genesis of the law on the treatment of official malfeasance is traced in as much detail as sources will allow, but the focus is placed on an extensive exploration of the treatment of official malfeasance as well as of official crimes other than malfeasance under Ch'in State law (?-221 B.C.} as revealed in the Yun-meng texts and under the T'ang law as revealed in its Code of A.D. 653.
This study provides a new perspective on traditional Chinese criminal law by using fundamental legal concepts in modern criminology not as the standard but rather as the format for systematic research. It thus explains the law by dissecting it into its three major components: crimes normally included in the criminal code, crimes concerning family relationships, and crimes concerning bureaucracy. Official malfeasance, the main system of negative sanctions for bureaucratic control, and the crimes concerning family ethics developed not only in different directions but also under different guiding principles. The former ultimately received greater emphasis than the latter and became the central feature of the law in its evolution. Traditional Chinese law thus served primarily as a tool for the internal organization and maintenance of the state bureaucracy.
The "Uncrowned King" Reconsidered: Variations on a Theme of Qing and
Han Scholars
Hans van Ess, University of Heidelberg
It is commonly held that starting with Dong Zhongshu the belief became firmly rooted among Han scholars that Confucius was an "uncrowned" or "throneless" king, suwang , who in a subtle way formulated praise and blame on the deeds of rulers of former times and of his own age. According to this idea, a complete system of ideas on rulership was hidden in the Chunqiu. Later, the so-called apocryphal texts are said to have added the notion that the uncrowned king had predicted the rule of the Han. About two thousand years later Qing intellectuals again presented Confucius as an uncrowned king whose main intention was in their eyes institutional change.
Presenting passus from different texts containing the term suwang , this paper will show that it is by no means certain that this binom has to be translated as "uncrowned king." The positions of Han scholars such as Dong Zhongshu, Wang Chong, Ban Gu, He Xiu as well as those of the apocryphal texts will be scrutinized with regard to their use of the term. This survey will show that only very few Han scholars did think of Confucius in terms of an uncrowned king.
Giving an overview of the historical development of the problem the paper will finally focus on commentaries written under the Qing dynasty which refute the concept of Confucius as an uncrowned king, and an explanation for this attitude will be given.