Papers by Bret Hinsch (韓獻博)
Nan Nü
This book uses close readings of Five Dynasties stone inscriptions to understand the conditions f... more This book uses close readings of Five Dynasties stone inscriptions to understand the conditions facing elite women.
Review of the book 何宇軒.丈夫守則與「齊家」之道:清代家訓中的男性 氣概 (How to be a husband: Models of masculinity as see... more Review of the book 何宇軒.丈夫守則與「齊家」之道:清代家訓中的男性 氣概 (How to be a husband: Models of masculinity as seen in household instructions [ jiaxun] in Qing China). Taipei: Xiuwei zixun keji, 2021. 240 pp.
Nan Nü, 2022
Review of the book
江昱緯. 救嬰 與濟貧: 乳婦與明清時代的育嬰堂 (Foundling Home Wet Nurses in Late Imperial Chin... more Review of the book
江昱緯. 救嬰 與濟貧: 乳婦與明清時代的育嬰堂 (Foundling Home Wet Nurses in Late Imperial China).
This book is about the network of foundling homes established by the government and philanthropists in late imperial China to rescue and feed vulnerable babies.
The Cambridge World History of Violence, Vol. II, 2020
This is an overview of various forms of violence and their social functions in imperial China.
Lienüzhuan (Biographies of Women) is the most influential Chinese book about women. However, the ... more Lienüzhuan (Biographies of Women) is the most influential Chinese book about women. However, the process of its composition remains unclear. Readers traditionally considered Liu Xiang the book's editor. Some critics, however, suspect that he wrote some of the narratives himself. This article analyzes the contents of this work to judge whether Liu Xiang should be considered the author or editor.
Lienü narratives about moral exemplars are the most copious genre of imperial writing about women... more Lienü narratives about moral exemplars are the most copious genre of imperial writing about women. While purporting to describe actual events, these texts often mix together fact and fiction, and some are entirely fictional. Although historians have usually analyzed these texts as reflections of social conditions, they can also be read as works of literature.
Comparing lienü tales with other types of narrative reveals the importance of cross-genre literary influence on their origins and development. Lienü authors brought in stylistic devices, tropes, and stock plots from a variety of genres, including narrative history, Sanskrit Buddhist stories, male biography, narrative classical commentary, and vernacular fiction.
The life experiences of the Han dynasty writer Liu Xiang led him to compile an unprecedented coll... more The life experiences of the Han dynasty writer Liu Xiang led him to compile an unprecedented collection of women's biographies, and also influenced the contents and values of this groundbreaking work.
Lienüzhuan 列女傳, a collection of moralistic biographies of women, is one of the most important wor... more Lienüzhuan 列女傳, a collection of moralistic biographies of women, is one of the most important works by the Western Han dynasty scholar Liu Xiang (79-9 BCE). Due to the rising interest in women's history, this book has recently attracted considerable attention. However, the text has an extremely complex and convoluted history. Generations of copiers expanded it by adding new stories. By the Song dynasty, the work had grown from seven to fifteen chapters. Song dynasty editors cut down the text and rearranged it, trying to recapture Liu Xiang's original organization. The transmitted version we have today should be regarded as a Song dynasty reconstruction and might differ somewhat from Liu Xiang's original manuscript in organization and content.
In China, cloth making became more than just an economic activity. The female cloth maker was an ... more In China, cloth making became more than just an economic activity. The female cloth maker was an important cultural image in early imperial China. Writers of various persuasions agreed that making cloth is a highly virtuous female activity, although they disagree as to why this particular kind of labor is good. The moralization of cloth making became an important component of early Chinese female identity. Influential male writers and women of different social strata deployed this image for powerful rhetorical effect.
When Buddhism first entered China, it came under intense attack from nativists. Unfamiliar Buddhi... more When Buddhism first entered China, it came under intense attack from nativists. Unfamiliar Buddhist practices such as celibacy and monasticism initially shocked many Chinese. Buddhist apologists reacted to these critiques by reinterpreting key Chinese ethical concepts as Buddhist virtues. The fusion of Confucian ethics with Buddhist doctrine shaped Chinese Buddhist ideas regarding the ideal woman.
In prehistory the gendered division of labor began to segregate women and men into separate realm... more In prehistory the gendered division of labor began to segregate women and men into separate realms. Over time, various ideologies justified this separation as not just practical, but moral. Evidence from Han dynasty art suggests that in the early imperial era, elite couples practiced physical separation to some degree.
Ban Zhao has traditionally been revered as China’s foremost female scholar and thinker. In additi... more Ban Zhao has traditionally been revered as China’s foremost female scholar and thinker. In addition to completing work on the first dynastic history, His- tory of the Former Han, she is best known as the author of Admonitions for Women, the most influential Chi- nese text on female propriety. In the modern era, the attitude toward Ban Zhao and her canon of female ethics has been very critical, even hostile. Modernizers, revolutionaries, and feminists have dismissed her views as retrograde. More recent scholarship has tried to account for some of the seemingly misogynistic content of Admonitions for Women by viewing it through the gender relations of its era.
Liu Xiang was one of the most important intellectual figures of the Former (Western) Han dynasty.... more Liu Xiang was one of the most important intellectual figures of the Former (Western) Han dynasty. He oversaw a team that edited (and saved from destruction) many of the most important books of antiquity, editing a muddled mountain of bamboo strips into a series of consistent, reliable books that are still in use today. He also compiled several collections of narratives describing moral exemplars, thereby establishing biography as an independent genre. He is perhaps most famous today for his groundbreaking work of narratives about model women entitled Biogra-phies of Women, an innovative work that has exerted enormous infl uence on ideas about gender.
Dong Zhongshu was one of the most important intellectual figures of the early imperial era. Most ... more Dong Zhongshu was one of the most important intellectual figures of the early imperial era. Most significantly, he transformed Confucianism by com- bining traditional moral teachings with metaphysical beliefs. Dong’s reinterpretation of Confucianism cre- ated a comprehensive political ideol- ogy that was used in China until the end of the imperial system in the early twentieth century. Like his Confucian predecessors, Dong emphasized the moral lessons to be gained from the study of history.
In both China and Greece, history initially emerged as a mode of discourse closely related to the... more In both China and Greece, history initially emerged as a mode of discourse closely related to the state. With the rise of comparative global history, however, historians have severed this link, providing scholars of gender with novel tools and perspectives for investigating their subject. Specialists in trans-national history have reflected deeply on the uses and methodology of their pursuit, and their conclusions provide useful guid- ance for historians of gender who venture beyond national borders. Three studies com- paring gender conditions in China with ancient Greece and Persia provide practical case studies on how this sort of research can be conducted, and what sort of contribu- tions it might yield.
Many scholars have assumed that prehistoric images of women unearthed in China depict goddesses a... more Many scholars have assumed that prehistoric images of women unearthed in China depict goddesses and were used in fertility cults. Close examination of these artifacts raises questions about how their creators understood and used them, and their relation to the development of historic Chinese culture.
Imperial historians long assumed that an evil woman shares much of the blame for the fall of each... more Imperial historians long assumed that an evil woman shares much of the blame for the fall of each dynasty. Western Zhou writings hint at a negative female force during the late Shang dynasty. During the Warring States era, this figure became personified as Daji. Writers also inserted anal- ogous evil women from other eras into their discussions of history. During the Western Han, the evil woman theme was systematized and elaborated into long dramatic narratives with pointed ideological content. Due to the influential writings of Sima Qian and Liu Xiang, the assumption that an evil woman can bring down a dynasty became a staple of classical Chinese historiography.
Book Reviews by Bret Hinsch (韓獻博)
Nan Nü, 2019
This richly detailed book describes the lives of Chinggisid women: the wives and daughters of Chi... more This richly detailed book describes the lives of Chinggisid women: the wives and daughters of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan and his successors. Although the main focus is on people and places outside of China, it relates to Chinese history in several respects. First, a profusion of information about the traditional powers, privileges, and lifestyles of Mongol noblewomen elucidates the Yuan 元 dynasty (1271-1368) institution of empress by situating it within a broader historical context. Also, the author describes the marriage of a Jin 金 dynasty (1115-1234) Jurchen princess to Chinggis Khan. Most importantly, Broadbridge's book contributes to a key debate in Chi-nese women's history. Scholars posit various causes for the general downturn in female autonomy after the Tang 唐 dynasty (618-907) and disagree about when this change occurred. Until recently, most historians saw the deterioration of female status as a result of the fundamental cultural, social, and political transformations constituting the momentous Tang-Song 唐宋 transition (750-1250). They argued that during the Tang, influence from nomadic cultures had a liberating effect on China by decreasing the authority of Confucian ethics and the classical rites. Subsequently, Song Neo-Confucians demanded more stringent controls on female behavior, constricting female agency. In recent decades, revisionists have cast doubt on this thesis. They claim that women's legal rights and social roles did not differ much during the Tang and Song.1 Instead, they propose that the decline in women's status began later , during the conquest dynasties of Liao 遼 (907-1125), Jin, and Yuan. Rather than seeing pastoral cultures as elevating women, to the contrary the revision-ists point out the oppressive nature of certain nomadic customs. In particular, they argue that the nomadic stress on bride wealth degraded women to chat-tel, and they were effectively purchased by husbands and permanently owned by in-laws. They see this arrangement as accounting for the custom of levirate. Having paid for a woman, a family would want to keep her even after her husband had died.
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Papers by Bret Hinsch (韓獻博)
江昱緯. 救嬰 與濟貧: 乳婦與明清時代的育嬰堂 (Foundling Home Wet Nurses in Late Imperial China).
This book is about the network of foundling homes established by the government and philanthropists in late imperial China to rescue and feed vulnerable babies.
Comparing lienü tales with other types of narrative reveals the importance of cross-genre literary influence on their origins and development. Lienü authors brought in stylistic devices, tropes, and stock plots from a variety of genres, including narrative history, Sanskrit Buddhist stories, male biography, narrative classical commentary, and vernacular fiction.
Book Reviews by Bret Hinsch (韓獻博)
江昱緯. 救嬰 與濟貧: 乳婦與明清時代的育嬰堂 (Foundling Home Wet Nurses in Late Imperial China).
This book is about the network of foundling homes established by the government and philanthropists in late imperial China to rescue and feed vulnerable babies.
Comparing lienü tales with other types of narrative reveals the importance of cross-genre literary influence on their origins and development. Lienü authors brought in stylistic devices, tropes, and stock plots from a variety of genres, including narrative history, Sanskrit Buddhist stories, male biography, narrative classical commentary, and vernacular fiction.