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Course Readings for Prof. Jenny So's Guest Seminar, March 5

Below are the readings suggested by Prof. So. I am attaching her email comments regarding the readings, so that they may guide you through this rather large amount of text. The books and catalogs are available in the Joukowsky Institute library, 70 Waterman, 3rd Floor.

NOTE: these readings are now under the Course Readings section of this Wiki, and is password protected.

From Prof. So: In terms of advance reading around the topic, there's actually very little written specifically on the issue of "archaism" in early China. Once you get into Han China or later, especially Song, Ming, and Qing, you have your choice of literature on the subject.

What little I can recommend therefore, are the following:

1. Jenny F. So. Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections. New York and Washington, DC: Arthur M. Sackler Foundation and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 1995. Introducion, section 4.2, esp. pp. 39-40.

2. Jessica Rawson. "Novelties in Antiquarian Revivals: the Case of Chinese Bronzes", in The National Palace Museum Research Quaterly, vol. 22, no. 1, Autumn, 2004, pp. 1-34.

3. Lothar von Falkenhausen. "Antiquarianism in Eastern Zhou Bronzes and its Significance." Paper delivered at the "Reinventing the Past: Antiquarianism in East Asian Art and Visual Culture--Part 2", organized by the Center for the Art of East Asia, University of Chicago, November 3-5, 2006. Abstract only available on line; proceedings under preparation. Essentially what is in chapter 8 of his recent book "Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000-250BC): The Archaeological Evidence" (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, 2006.)

These deal essentially with evidence in bronze.

1. Jessica Rawson. Chinese Jade: from the Neolithic to the Qing. London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1995. Especially Introduction, pp. 22-27 on jade's "Durability". (Deals specifically with evidence in jades)

The following are my own more recent forays into this topic, unfortunately unpublished, but which material (with updates and revisions) will appear in my seminar presentation:

1. Jenny F. So. "Revisiting Antiquity in Late Bronze Age China" unpublished lecture delivered in HK 2001.

2. Jenny F. So. "Antiquity in Eastern Zhou Bronzes." Unpublished manuscript drafted 2005.

Finally, Professor Li Ling (Peking University) has a monograph on "archaism" throughout Chinese history (published by my department in 2005). It is the only publication of this scope, but it is written in Chinese, and may not be accessible to some students. The book may not be easily available in the U.S. too. I'll FedEx a copy to you.

As you can see, my reading list may not be too helpful, because they tend to presume certain background in the arts of early China. So if students come with a general background on bronzes and jades from early China (i.e. Neolithic through Bronze Age), that should be adequate. For this, I would suggest "The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology" (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1999), and other similar "picture catalogues" with general introductions to early Chinese bronzes and jades.

and:

I forgot to add another background title for possible reading:

Michael Loewe & Edward L. Shaughnessy. The Cambridge History of Ancient China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Especially chapters on "Shang Archaeology" (Robert Bagley); "Western Zhou Archaeology" (Jessica Rawson); "The Waning of the Bronze Age: Material Culture and Social Developments" (Lothar von Falkenhausen) because their sources are archaeologically, and object based. All other chapters are good for general historical background, of course.