Organizer and Discussant: Joanna Handlin Smith, Harvard Journal of Asiatic
Studies
Chair: Irene Bloom, Columbia University
Ming Music and Ming History
Joseph S. C. Lam, University of Pittsburgh
Music is a neglected topic in modern studies of Ming China. The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, Part I, for example, includes only ten indexed references to the topic. Nonetheless, Ming China was a musical world, in which emperors, scholar-officials, and commoners produced and consumed a large variety of music. With its distinctive aesthetics, works, and styles, Ming music defined the different social classes and interrelated people of diverse backgrounds, who participated as patrons, critics, producers (musicians) and consumers (audiences). Thus, knowledge of the music and the role it played is essential to a historical understanding of Ming China.
To illustrate the vast variety of Ming music that might be used in future research, this paper introduces its representative sources, which include court manuals of state sacrifices and music; scholar-officials' anthologies of music and theories for the seven-string zither (qin); texts of musical dramas and poetry; music guides in encyclopedias; literary accounts about musicians, musical works and activities. To discuss the historical significance of Ming music, this paper examines it along three important threads of the Ming world: (1) appropriation and transformation of cultural conventions-scholar-officials, such as Zhu Zaiyu and Wang Tingxiang, adjusted historical musical theories and practices to meet contemporary needs; (2) interactions between elite and popular concerns-elitist music, such as Kun operas, depended on performers who lived as commoners; (3) boundaries between male and female domains, which were reinforced by some musical genres, such as qin music, and blurred by others.
Ming Thought
Willard Peterson, Princeton University
There has been a general trend away from studies of Confucianism as philosophy or as ideas of a political or learned elite. There has been a move away from studies of Buddhism as doctrine and organized practice, and from discourse that was depicted in a series of publications as syncretism. Scholarly interests have shifted more to the social aspect of "thought"-education, literacy, examinations, printing, access to knowledge with special status implications, forgery, patronage, enhancement of local standing, ritual, community building and mobilization, political opportunism.
A symptom of the shift has been to refer simply to Ming Confucianism as "the orthodoxy," a notion which de-emphasizes historical change and has no more explanatory value than amorphous references to "Confucianism." Can we lump together as "orthodoxy" Ming T'ai-tsu's vision of imperially-sanctioned teachings and practices imposed from Nanking with Ch'eng-tsu's sponsorship of the printing and dissemination of the Five Classics, the Sung Masters and the Buddhist Tripitaka? Can we lump together as "Confucianism" Ch'iu Chun's massive statecraft compilation and its program for institutional reform with Wang Chi's discourses on moral rearmament? Can we lump together as "Buddhism" Chiao Hung's learning and faith with a village White Lotus leader's appeals to his fellows? Are we using appropriate categories? The field of Ming intellectual history needs to continue to re-examine how ideas affected conduct, and how they functioned in a range of social situations. We need more exploration and exposition of what Quentin Skinner calls "meaning" in historical texts.
The Study of Ming Literature
David T. Roy, University of Chicago
Enormous strides have been made in the study of Ming literature in the last two or three decades. These advances have substantially changed our picture of the field and laid the foundation for further exploration of areas that have remained largely terra incognita up until now. The most conspicuous of these developments has been the increasing level of sophistication in the study of vernacular literature, which has resulted in startling changes in our perception of the historical evolution and significance of the genres of writing that constitute this category. Although drama and prose fiction in the vernacular may have had earlier origins, the last century and a half of the Ming dynasty is now seen to be the time during which these two genres, in all their forms, reached full maturity and established themselves as recognized vehicles for elite discourse, at the same time that they continued to have wide popular appeal. These altered perceptions owe a great deal to the outpouring of new scholarship in China, including specialized journals devoted to the study of particular novels and the publication of facsimile reprints of rare editions that were hitherto inaccessible, but they have also received much of their impetus from Western scholars who have approached the study of this field in new ways. Areas that require intensified further research, in my opinion, include the complex symbiotic relationship between narratives in the literary and vernacular languages and between works of drama and fiction.
A Decade of Writing on Ming Art History
Marsha Weidner, University of Kansas
During the twenty-some years before the decade under consideration here, 1986-96, Ming art moved out of the shadow of the Song and Yuan and came into its own as a field of study. Painting and calligraphy were singled out as fine arts knowable apart from other objects that composed the Ming aesthetic environment, and the literati culture of Jiangnan dominated our view of the Ming period. Contemporary scholars emulated late-Ming connoisseurs in authenticating objects and refining the canon. Surveys offered cohesive narratives rich in stylistic analysis; the scholar-amateur tradition was celebrated in exhibitions; monographs were written on individual artists; and the study of Dong Qichang became a growth industry.
The continuation of these trends over the last decade is exemplified by the massive 1992 exhibition centered on Dong Qichang, which forcefully demonstrated the staying power of conservative scholarship. Concurrently, exercises in recovery and new modes of analysis offered alternative perspectives on the Ming. Some recoveries were archaeological, but most involved the recognition of artists, categories of art, and mediums excluded from the scholarly canon. Methodological experimentation, often cued by studies in Western art and other disciplines, led to inquiry into such matters as art and the construction of social identity, art as a medium of political discourse, artists' practices and markets, and consumer patterns. All of these new ventures fostered fruitful interdisciplinary exchange.
This diversification and openness notwithstanding, we have yet to embrace Ming aesthetic culture broadly and produce integrated accounts with women, monks, ethnic minorities, and members of the lower classes in the same frame as upper-class men. This not only limits our appreciation of the range of Ming visual culture, but may well obscure some of its unique aspects.