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IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 1719: Being Imperial in the East, II: Frontiers, Groups, and Centres in East Asian Empire

Thursday 10 July 2014, 14.15-15.45

Organiser:Geoffrey Humble, School of History & Cultures, University of Birmingham / ERC Project 'Mobility, Empire & Cross-Cultural Contacts in Mongol Eurasia', Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Moderator/Chair:Francesca Fiaschetti, European Research Council Project 'Mobility, Empire & Cross-Cultural Contacts in Mongol Eurasia', Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Paper 1719-aFrontier Monasteries in the Liao and Jin Empires: Regularizing State Regulation of Religious Institutions in Medieval North China
(Language: English)
Jesse D. Sloane, Underwood International College, Yonsei University, Seoul
Index terms: Administration, Ecclesiastical History, Geography and Settlement Studies, Monasticism
Paper 1719-bAccounts of Perfection in a Flawed World: 13th-Century Chinese Literati and Quanzhen Taoism
(Language: English)
Mark Halperin, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures, University of California, Davis
Index terms: Language and Literature - Other, Philosophy, Political Thought
Paper 1719-cBeing Demoted or Being Tamed?: Scholars, Relocation, and Imperial Discipline in Tang China
(Language: English)
Michael Höckelmann, Department of History, King's College London
Index terms: Administration, Education
Paper 1719-dTextual and Oral Canon in China's First Military Encyclopedia
(Language: English)
Marcia A. Butler, Department of History, Missouri State University
Index terms: Literacy and Orality, Mentalities, Military History, Social History
Abstract

While drawing on apparently monolithic Confucian imagery, East Asian empires nonetheless negotiated complex registers of group identities. Jesse D. Sloane analyzes the evolving importance of frontier religious institutions to successive Liao, Jin and Mongol empires in northern China. Examining exile postings of scholar-officials during the Tang dynasty, Michael Höckelmann demonstrates the centrality of the peripheral to the court management of the literati elite. Mark Halperin's reading of Yuan Haowen's (1190-1257) attempts to balance ideological concerns over the Taoist Quanzhen movement with his personal reaction to its charisma and mystery exposes tensions in defining 'Chinese' norms at a time of crisis. Marcia A. Butler examines three middle-era military encyclopedias, arguing that these represent the Song dynasty's (960-1279) effort to consolidate central control.