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The Art of Association
Zhang Yixi is the editor-in-chief
Guangxi Normal University Press, 2022
This book is a breakthrough in the study of the Ming and Qing scholar communities. The book combines scholars in different fields such as literature and history to study various social gathering activities of the Ming and Qing scholars, and explores the multiple aspects of society, clan, space, literature, thought, and medicine around the social collection and urban space, local families, identities/classes, etc., and presents the diversity of the daily life and academic activities of the Ming and Qing scholars, as well as the complex relationship between the social network. At the same time, it also studies the collection of literati societies in Japan and Vietnam in the eighteenth century, which helps to deepen the study of ming and qing intellectual history, cultural history and social history from the perspective of East Asia. In addition, the various cross-border handovers and multiple inquiries presented in the book also provide useful references for future academic operations.
"Observing the Situation and Watching the Wind":
Put the collection in the context of the times
Text | Wang Fansen
Source | Preface to The Art of Association
A few years ago, Yi Xi came to me in the research office to ask me about compiling a collection of papers, and he planned to cooperate with Wang Changwei and Professor Xu Qixiong of the National University of Singapore, and Professor Ho Shuyi of Taipei University to compile a collection of papers with the theme of the Literati Society. He asked me at the time whether it was still appropriate to compile collections of papers at this time, and whether such collections of papers would contribute to the academic community — that was part of his concern. At that time, I suggested that Yixi must insist on a few points: the theme of the collection of papers must be clear, and each paper must present its own ideas around this topic.
In the next few years, I would sometimes hear about the progress of the collection of papers from Yixi, and in order to allow the authors of various articles to gather together for discussion, he successively applied for financial subsidies from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and the "Ministry of Science and Technology", and the two meetings were also held with the assistance of the Institute of Modern History of the "Academia Sinica" and Director Lu Miaofen. The plan of this collection of papers, and the whole team, impressed me, was that in order to have more time to write papers, they extended the time schedule to three years, and at the beginning of the work, the scattered members did not quit their minds, came to Taiwan to discuss and exchange views on each other's thesis topics, until today, finally there is a collection of papers.
This collection of essays is titled on the literati collection of the 16th and 18th centuries, and the period is concentrated in the middle and late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The social gathering activities in the middle and late Ming Dynasty were very exciting and diverse, and the nature and activities of the early Qing dynasty after experiencing the changes in the Ming and Qing dynasties are also worth exploring. At that time, the prevalence of social gathering activities was difficult to imagine, and the Shunzhi Emperor in the early Qing Dynasty also paid special attention to the recent celebrity society, and said that the Shen Jiao Society was "extremely prosperous", mentioning that Sun Chengze was a figure in the "Shen Jiao Society" ("Qing Barnyard Banknotes", "Yun Zi Gong Essay" and other books).
The interesting part of this collection of essays is that many articles can be free from the theme of social collections, and put the collection into the context of the entire era, from the aspects of politics, family, regionality, urban life, cultural transformation, etc., so that the original seemingly ordinary collection of social collections show unique significance.
These articles, some of which have a long relationship with the arrival and dismissal of local officials, suggest that some poetry clubs that seem to be feasting may also have substantial political purposes. Some discuss the connection between social collections and local families, and some use a large number of genealogical data to illustrate the relationship between different social collections and local interpersonal networks and family ecology. Some people also pay attention to the social collection and urban space, as well as the orientation of the literati in the late Ming Dynasty through the exhibition of the social collection. A few others are the relationship between the Tansha collection and the poetry school, with the Eight Strands of Literature, and with the trend of scripture, which seem to be traditional topics, but can all get refreshing conclusions. Another article talks about the difference between the morale style of the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, and the cultural transformation in this change is a topic worthy of in-depth exploration. Two other articles expand their horizons to other classes or fields closely related to the scholar class, including healers and painting appreciation. In the past, although we could see some information on the associations of healers, it was through this article that we understood that there was such a close relationship between healers and literati societies.
The articles have their own themes and span different regions, in addition to the north and south of Beijing, Yangzhou, and Zhejiang, as well as Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong and other places outside Jiangnan, showing the team's attempt to discuss a wide range of social gatherings in various places. Two other articles on the japanese and Vietnamese collections also show that this collection of essays cares about the neighboring countries of East Asia, and from a more diverse and holistic perspective, looking at the development of the entire East Asian world with China as the center.
Many years ago, I wrote several articles on the history of the ideological life of the Ming Dynasty, several of which were related to the Xueshan School in the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, when I noticed that there were many societies in the name of scriptures, history or reading in the late Ming Dynasty, which were rare before this, but in the late Ming Dynasty, they sprang up in large numbers, and many of them were very influential, such as the Fushe and Reading Societies in Jiangnan. For the emergence of such collections, I think this is related to the study of scripture and history, especially the revival of scripture. However, in recent years, I have further observed that in addition to psychology, at least there are various ideological conditions such as the literary retro movement. In particular, the literary retro movement, because it advocates that ancient poems and texts must be copied, and then search for ancient classics, has played a role in promoting the popularity of ancient books. On the other hand, although this movement advocates retro, it is not limited to Confucian classics, so it brings liberation compared to the previous style of study. Revival of scripture was not formally proposed until the end of the Ming Dynasty, so we must take a serious look at the revival of late Ming classics, which has the special significance of its time and has a great impact.
Taking this as an example, when we discuss the history of the middle and late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, we must talk about it with a broader vision. I like the term "watching the wind", when a certain trend rises, it is like a gust of wind blowing through, all sides of an era, more or less will be affected by this trend, and often multi-level and multi-faceted interaction, back and forth. Such changes are more complicated when encountering major changes like those of the Ming and Qing dynasties. In addition to the object of study, it is also necessary to include the trend of the object of study and various turbulent changes in the discussion. In addition, the development of history often has different forces competing and cooperating at the same time, so the social collection will not be just a social gathering, but will be combined with other factors of this era to ferment, and may also be mutually exclusive, but even exclusion is a very noteworthy phenomenon.
What this collection of essays does can be said to be a kind of "observation of the situation and the wind", and the collection is placed in the context of the times, and the authors can grasp the subject of research with a more comprehensive vision. Nowadays, the collection of essays has been published by the two cross-strait publishing houses, which makes people feel happy that this collection of essays has contributed to the study of social collections in the Ming and Qing dynasties.