From Tang to Song: Transmissions and Inventions in China's Middle Period, Volume 1
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 13. November 2026
Book
Hardback
472 pages
978-90-485-7210-6 (ISBN)
Description
This volume addresses social, cultural, and artistic change during China's middle period across the Tang dynasty (618-907), the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907-960), and the succeeding Song dynasty (960-1279).
Focusing on historiography, political thought, literati culture, and visual arts, the essays demonstrate how disparate the initiating moments and timelines of change were in different social, cultural, or geographic domains. This volume proposes deconstructing distinct processes of change that trace unique temporal arcs, allowing for new hypotheses regarding causal relations. This approach reveals that many perceived "transmissions" from Tang through Song are better understood as retrospective tenth-century or Song "inventions." The contributing scholars represent many spheres of the field and span several scholarly generations, deploying methodological approaches that encompass cross-genre examinations of canonical and less-studied sources alongside digital humanities techniques.
Accessible to scholars and students of middle period China at all levels, this volume introduces readers to key figures, texts, and debates from Tang to Song while proposing new frameworks and raising important new questions for multiple fields.
Focusing on historiography, political thought, literati culture, and visual arts, the essays demonstrate how disparate the initiating moments and timelines of change were in different social, cultural, or geographic domains. This volume proposes deconstructing distinct processes of change that trace unique temporal arcs, allowing for new hypotheses regarding causal relations. This approach reveals that many perceived "transmissions" from Tang through Song are better understood as retrospective tenth-century or Song "inventions." The contributing scholars represent many spheres of the field and span several scholarly generations, deploying methodological approaches that encompass cross-genre examinations of canonical and less-studied sources alongside digital humanities techniques.
Accessible to scholars and students of middle period China at all levels, this volume introduces readers to key figures, texts, and debates from Tang to Song while proposing new frameworks and raising important new questions for multiple fields.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Academic
Illustrations
10 s/w Tabellen, 5 s/w Zeichnungen, 28 s/w Photographien bzw. Rasterbilder, 33 s/w Abbildungen
10 Tables, black and white; 5 Line drawings, black and white; 28 Halftones, black and white; 33 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-90-485-7210-6 (9789048572106)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Robert Hymes is Carpentier Professor of Chinese history at Columbia University. His work has focused on the social and cultural history of middle period China, studying elite culture, family and kinship, religion, and medicine among other topics. He is currently pursuing two projects, on the East Asian origins of the Black Death and on the problem of "belief" in the middle period. His monographs Statesmen and Gentlemen (1986) and Way and Byway (2002) won the Joseph Levenson Prize of the Association for Asian Studies.
Anna M. Shields is Gordon Wu '58 Professor of Chinese Studies at Princeton University, and her work focuses on Tang, tenth century, and Song literature and literary history. Recent publications include the co-edited volume Religion and Literature in Medieval China: The Way and the Words (with Gil Raz, 2023), and "Avatars of Li Bai: Producing Tang Poets in the Northern Song Dynasty," forthcoming in Imperial Authority and Cultures of Learning in Byzantium and Tang and Song China.
Anna M. Shields is Gordon Wu '58 Professor of Chinese Studies at Princeton University, and her work focuses on Tang, tenth century, and Song literature and literary history. Recent publications include the co-edited volume Religion and Literature in Medieval China: The Way and the Words (with Gil Raz, 2023), and "Avatars of Li Bai: Producing Tang Poets in the Northern Song Dynasty," forthcoming in Imperial Authority and Cultures of Learning in Byzantium and Tang and Song China.
Content
Introduction Part 1: Historiography and Political Thought 1. The Tang-Song Transition in Modern China 2. From the Arts of Governance to the Learning of Emperors: Reading Taizong Mirror Literature 3. A Song Sojourner to the Tang Bellosphere: Opposition to Wars of Choice from Tang to Mid-Song 4. How the Tang Became "Ancient" (gu ?): Evolving Models of Tang Literary History in the Northern Song Part 2: Literati Identity and Culture 5. Spatial and Cultural Transitions: Voices Tracing the Rise of the Studio in Middle Period China 6. Reading Worldview Change from Ghost Stories: Belief (xin ?) in Tang and Song 7. Mapping Emotions in the Tang-Song Transition: The Case of Pleasure 8. Reframing Humor: The Shifting Representation of Banter Culture in Middle Period China 9. Reprographics in the Tang-Song Transition Part 3: Art and Visual Culture 10. The Tang-Song Transition through the Lens of Buddhist Patronage at Dunhuang 11. Thinking about Painting, as Expressed in Poetry: Three Stages 12. Looking at Pictures: Imagining Vision and Visualizing Mimesis in Collections of Painters' Biographies across the Tang-Song Transition