Records of Diverse Matters; 博物志 Bo Wu Zhi

Records of Diverse Matters; 博物志 Bo Wu Zhi PDF Author: Zhang Hua
Publisher: DeepLogic
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 55

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Book Description
Zhang Hua's (c. 290 CE) Bowuzhi 博物志 "Records of Diverse Matters" was a compendium of Chinese stories about natural wonders and marvelous phenomena. It quotes from many early Chinese classics, and diversely includes subject matter from Chinese mythology, history, geography, and folklore. The Bowuzhi, which is one of the first works in the literary genre of zhiguai "tales of anomalies; supernatural stories", records the earliest versions of several myths, such as the white yenü "wild women" living south of China in a society without men. Scholars have described the Bowuzhi as "a miscellany of scientific interest" (Needham et al. 1980: 309) and "an important minor classic".

Records of Diverse Matters; 博物志 Bo Wu Zhi

Records of Diverse Matters; 博物志 Bo Wu Zhi PDF Author: Zhang Hua
Publisher: DeepLogic
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 55

Get Book Here

Book Description
Zhang Hua's (c. 290 CE) Bowuzhi 博物志 "Records of Diverse Matters" was a compendium of Chinese stories about natural wonders and marvelous phenomena. It quotes from many early Chinese classics, and diversely includes subject matter from Chinese mythology, history, geography, and folklore. The Bowuzhi, which is one of the first works in the literary genre of zhiguai "tales of anomalies; supernatural stories", records the earliest versions of several myths, such as the white yenü "wild women" living south of China in a society without men. Scholars have described the Bowuzhi as "a miscellany of scientific interest" (Needham et al. 1980: 309) and "an important minor classic".

Appropriating Antiquity for Modern Chinese Painting

Appropriating Antiquity for Modern Chinese Painting PDF Author: Chia-Ling Yang
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501358359
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
The pursuit of antiquity was important for scholarly artists in constructing their knowledge of history and cultural identity in late imperial China. By examining versatile trends within paintings in modern China, this book questions the extent to which historical relics have been used to represent the ethnic identity of modern Chinese art. In doing so, this book asks: did the antiquarian movements ultimately serve as a deliberate tool for re-writing Chinese art history in modern China? In searching for the public meaning of inventive private collecting activity, Appropriating Antiquity in Modern Chinese Painting draws on various modes of artistic creation to address how the use of antiquities in early 20th-century Chinese art both produced and reinforced the imaginative links between ancient civilization and modern lives in the late Qing dynasty. Further exploring how these social and cultural transformations were related to the artistic exchanges happening at the time between China, Japan and the West, the book successfully analyses how modernity was translated and appropriated at the turn of the 20th century, throughout Asia and further afield.

Understanding Chinese Culture

Understanding Chinese Culture PDF Author: Guobin Xu
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 981108162X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Promoting cultural understanding in a globalized world, this text is a key tool for students interested in further developing their understanding of Chinese society and culture. Written by a team of experts in their fields, this book provides a survey of Chinese culture, delving deeper into areas such as Chinese philosophy, religion, politics and education. It offers the reader a wide range of essential facts to better understand contemporary China through its history and cultural background, touching on key areas such as the development of science and technology in China, as well as the country’s economy and trade history, and is a key read for scholars and students in Chinese Culture, Sociology and Politics.

Dictionary of the Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume 3

Dictionary of the Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume 3 PDF Author: Zheng Jinsheng
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520291972
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 796

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Book Description
The Ben cao gang mu, compiled in the second half of the sixteenth century by a team led by the physician Li Shizhen (1518–1593) on the basis of previously published books and contemporary knowledge, is the largest encyclopedia of natural history in a long tradition of Chinese materia medica works. Its description of almost 1,900 pharmaceutically used natural and man-made substances marks the apex of the development of premodern Chinese pharmaceutical knowledge. The Ben cao gang mu dictionary offers access to this impressive work of 1,600,000 characters. This third book in a three-volume series offers detailed biographical data on all identifiable authors, patients, witnesses of therapies, transmitters of recipes, and further persons mentioned in the Ben cao gang mu and provides bibliographical data on all textual sources resorted to and quoted by Li Shizhen and his collaborators.

The Chinese Myths

The Chinese Myths PDF Author: Tao Tao Liu
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 0500777675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
This is a concise and entertaining guide to the complex tradition of Chinese mythology. While many around the world are familiar with some aspects of Chinese myth through Chinese New Year festivities or the classic adventures of the Monkey King in Journey to the West few outside of China understand the richness of Chinese mythology, influenced by Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Offering much more than any competing overview of Chinese mythology, The Chinese Myths not only retells the ancient stories but also considers their place within the patterns of Chinese religions, culture and history. Tao Tao Liu introduces us to an intriguing cast of gods, goddesses, dragons and monks, including: the ancient hero, Yi the Archer, who shot suns out of the sky to save humanity from a drought; Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, to whom there are temples dedicated all over East Asia; and Madame White Snake, a water snake spirit in the guise of a mysterious widow, her story adapted into countless films and operas. This book is for anyone interested in China, as knowing its myths allows readers to understand and appreciate its culture in a new light.

Concepts of Nature

Concepts of Nature PDF Author: Hans Ulrich Vogel
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004187510
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
This book, inspired by the sociologist Günter Dux, co-edited by the historian Hans Ulrich Vogel, and introduced by Mark Elvin, is a collective intellectual masterpiece written by some of the world’s leading scholars. Its purpose is to illuminate premodern Chinese ways of thinking about Nature by comparing them with their counterpart traditions in Europe. In so doing it also subtly reshapes our understanding of premodern European concepts of the natural world. The domains covered principally include philosophy, language, poetry, science, and mathematics, and their relations with society, technology, and politics. By analyzing the frequent partial similarities between these great two cultural areas in the context of their overall contrasts, it points the way for the first time to defining accurately the differences that have been critical for world history.

A History of Groves

A History of Groves PDF Author: Jan Woudstra
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317200160
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
The grove, a grouping of trees, intentionally cultivated or found growing wild, has a long diverse history entwined with human settlement, rural practices and the culture and politics of cities. A grove can be a memorial, a place of learning, a site of poetic retreat and philosophy or political encampment, a public park or theatre, a place of hidden pleasures, a symbol of a vanished forest ecology, or a place of gods or other spirits. Yet groves are largely absent from our contemporary vocabulary and rarely included in today’s landscape practice, whether urban or rural. Groves are both literal and metaphorical manifestations, ways of defining spaces and ecologies in our cultural life. Since they can add meaning to urban forms and ecologies and contribute meaningfully to the significance of place, critical examination is long overdue. The editors have taken care to ensure that the text is accessible to the general reader as well as specialists.

Chinese Annals in the Western Observatory

Chinese Annals in the Western Observatory PDF Author: Edward Shaughnessy
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501517104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of documents of all sorts have been unearthed in China, opening whole new fields of study and transforming our modern understanding of ancient China. While these discoveries have necessarily taken place in China, Western scholars have also contributed to the study of these documents throughout this entire period. This book provides a comprehensive survey of the contributions of these Western scholars to the field of Chinese paleography, and especially to study of oracle-bone inscriptions, bronze and stone inscriptions, and manuscripts written on bamboo and silk. Each of these topics is provided with a comprehensive narrative history of studies by Western scholars, as well as an exhaustive bibliography and biographies of important scholars in the field. It is also supplied with a list of Chinese translations of these studies, as well as a complete index of authors and their works. Whether the reader is interested in the history of ancient China, ancient Chinese paleographic documents, or just in the history of the study of China as it has developed in the West, this book provides one of the most complete accounts available to date.

Animals Through Chinese History

Animals Through Chinese History PDF Author: Roel Sterckx
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108428150
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This innovative collection opens a door into the rich history of animals in China. This title is also available as Open Access.

Knowledge in Translation

Knowledge in Translation PDF Author: Patrick Manning
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822986272
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
In the second millennium CE, long before English became the language of science in the twentieth century, the act of translation was crucial for understanding and disseminating knowledge and information across linguistic and geographic boundaries. This volume considers the complexities of knowledge exchange through the practice of translation over the course of a millennium, across fields of knowledge—cartography, health and medicine, material construction, astronomy—and a wide geographical range, from Eurasia to Africa and the Americas. Contributors literate in Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Minnan, Ottoman, and Persian explore the history of science in the context of world and global history, investigating global patterns and implications in a multilingual and increasingly interconnected world. Chapters reveal cosmopolitan networks of shared practice and knowledge about the natural world from 1000 to 1800 CE, emphasizing both evolving scientific exchange and the emergence of innovative science. By unraveling the role of translation in cross-cultural communication, Knowledge in Translation highlights key moments of transmission, insight, and critical interpretation across linguistic and faith communities.