UCSC seminar on early modern China–Part 1
I am reading some recent scholarship with six graduate students in the fall quarter. The first set of readings includes Frederic Wakeman's “China and the Seventeenth-century World Crisis," the first two chapters of Wai-yee Li's Women and National Trauma in Late Imperial Chinese Literature, and James Frankel's chapter “Making Manchus and Muslims” in the edited volume Cosmopolitanism in China.
"Critical to this political process of rise, adjustment, and fulfillment were the Chinese who collaborated in the Manchus’ development into imperial Confucian dynasts. These Han played different roles at different times, and their social backgrounds corresponded to successive stages of the conquest: early transfrontiers men who took on a Manchu identity among the tribal aristocracy as Nurhaci rose to power, Liaodong militarists who formed a new Han banner elite of their own as the northern provinces were brought under domination, northern Chinese landed gentry who claimed high political roles for themselves in exchange for helping the Manchu prince regent Dorgon take over the central government in Beijing, and Jiangnan literati who accepted jobs as pacification commissioners in order to facilitate the civil conquest of the south without bloodshed and strife. With the exception perhaps of the first group, many of these Han supporters of the Qing remained ambivalent toward the Manchus. The Manchus were not without comparable ambivalences of their own."
These Chinese collaborators and supporters of the Manchu regime at different phases of conquest were clearly making a very different political choice from those who joined the resistance. Who were traumatized? How many of them were traumatized? The overwhelming amount of poems and literature produced during Ming-Qing transition, according to Wai-yee Li, show strong feelings and sharp demarcation between Chinese subjects and Manchu conquerors. But Wakeman argues long ago that the majority of Chinese intellectual and political elites chose to work with the Qing dynasty. It is important to separate the majority of bureaucrats who decided to protect their interests by working with the new regime from those minority of scholars who fought Manchu tooth and nail and produced the national trauma literature Wai-yee Li analyzes.
There are two kinds of evidentiary analysis in Li's book: (1) biographical studies to identify male and female voices, and (2) allusion to historical precedents and what these precedents meant or implied in the contexts of Ming-Qing transition [For example, the discussion on Wang Zhaojun on p. 18 or Zhang Liang on pp. 119–120]. The biographical analysis grounds male or female voices in historical reality. Then Li shows how these historical figures manipulated masculine and feminine dictions in order to convey variety kinds of political messages.
Who were these traumatized poets? Wai-yee Li identifies the following poets:
Contextual evidence and dating are both critical for Li's interpretation. At times Li's analysis reads like an endless regression of evidential exegesis and is seriously testing her reader's patience. But I think it is important to separate historical figures from their masculine and feminine personae–a solid but difficult task for advancing our understanding of literary representation of Ming-Qing transition.
This small but exceptional group of Ming loyalists left us a tremendous body of poems that defied psychological and gender boundaries in so many meaningful ways. Its legacy as Li argues, continued to resonate through China's turbulent century of wars and revolutions.
The Chinese collaboration
For the previous millennium (1000–2000), China was twice conquered by an alien minority. The first time was Mongol conquest and the second the Manchu. The Mongol Yuan dynasty was short-lived because, among other reasons, the Mongol rulers displaced the Chinese elites institutionally and deprived them of political power. The Manchu, on the other hand, shared power with the Chinese elites, kept their land and privilege, and promised them more. Wakeman provides the following statements regarding how the ethnic Chinese elites who worked for the new Manchu regime:"Critical to this political process of rise, adjustment, and fulfillment were the Chinese who collaborated in the Manchus’ development into imperial Confucian dynasts. These Han played different roles at different times, and their social backgrounds corresponded to successive stages of the conquest: early transfrontiers men who took on a Manchu identity among the tribal aristocracy as Nurhaci rose to power, Liaodong militarists who formed a new Han banner elite of their own as the northern provinces were brought under domination, northern Chinese landed gentry who claimed high political roles for themselves in exchange for helping the Manchu prince regent Dorgon take over the central government in Beijing, and Jiangnan literati who accepted jobs as pacification commissioners in order to facilitate the civil conquest of the south without bloodshed and strife. With the exception perhaps of the first group, many of these Han supporters of the Qing remained ambivalent toward the Manchus. The Manchus were not without comparable ambivalences of their own."
These Chinese collaborators and supporters of the Manchu regime at different phases of conquest were clearly making a very different political choice from those who joined the resistance. Who were traumatized? How many of them were traumatized? The overwhelming amount of poems and literature produced during Ming-Qing transition, according to Wai-yee Li, show strong feelings and sharp demarcation between Chinese subjects and Manchu conquerors. But Wakeman argues long ago that the majority of Chinese intellectual and political elites chose to work with the Qing dynasty. It is important to separate the majority of bureaucrats who decided to protect their interests by working with the new regime from those minority of scholars who fought Manchu tooth and nail and produced the national trauma literature Wai-yee Li analyzes.
National Trauma?
In what sense could we speak of "national trauma" during the Ming-Qing transition? Who was traumatized? Whose nation was it? Ming or Qing were dynasties, defined by the patrilineal succession of the rulers' family. The father's house itself was not a nation. The Chinese collaborators were supporting the new Heavenly mandate and Aisin Gioro family. Those who figured the fall of Ming dynasty as collective trauma were overwhelmingly outnumbered by the Chinese collaborators. The poems of those who remained nostalgic and resisted the Manchu conquest persisted and resonated with many anti-Manchu reformers and revolutionaries at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of twentieth century.There are two kinds of evidentiary analysis in Li's book: (1) biographical studies to identify male and female voices, and (2) allusion to historical precedents and what these precedents meant or implied in the contexts of Ming-Qing transition [For example, the discussion on Wang Zhaojun on p. 18 or Zhang Liang on pp. 119–120]. The biographical analysis grounds male or female voices in historical reality. Then Li shows how these historical figures manipulated masculine and feminine dictions in order to convey variety kinds of political messages.
Who were these traumatized poets? Wai-yee Li identifies the following poets:
- Male voices: Wu Zhaoqian, Deng Hanyi, Qu Dajun, Chen Zhilong, Xia Wanchun, Li Wen, Song Zhengyu, Xia Yunyi, Song Zhengbi, Wang Shizhen, Mao Xiang, Xu Ye, Gu Yanwu, Qian Qianyi.
- Female voices: Xu Can, Wang Duanshu, Li Yin, Liu Shu, Liu Rushi, Wu Qi, Zhou Qiong, Cai Yindu, Gu Zhenli.
Contextual evidence and dating are both critical for Li's interpretation. At times Li's analysis reads like an endless regression of evidential exegesis and is seriously testing her reader's patience. But I think it is important to separate historical figures from their masculine and feminine personae–a solid but difficult task for advancing our understanding of literary representation of Ming-Qing transition.
This small but exceptional group of Ming loyalists left us a tremendous body of poems that defied psychological and gender boundaries in so many meaningful ways. Its legacy as Li argues, continued to resonate through China's turbulent century of wars and revolutions.
In Li’s comparison between male poets writing and female diction and female poets writing in male diction, we discussed the ways in which male literati engendered a violation of sovereignty by mapping it onto the bodies of women. At the same time, I am intrigued by the adoption of a female narrator, such as Wu Zhaoqian’s quatrains assuming the feminine name Liu Susu. Here, the feminine voice is also a point of self-expression, especially the invocation of famous, ill-fated courtesans in such poems that convey the sense of pitiful fate and lack of agency. I see that this communicates the self-pitying lamentations of the literati and the sense of de-masculinization in the experiencing the conquering the nomadic Manchus, who embody a “wu” (martial arts) masculinity in contrast. In this way, the literati remove themselves from a responsibility or blame of the loss of country; rather, they seem to see it as an unfortunate but fateful event that is outside of their individual control.
ReplyDeleteIf Li has problematized the categories of male and female as points of analysis for social conditions and poetic expressions in the Chinese tradition and particularly during the Ming-Qing transition, the works she presents also display the shifting dynamics of power ascribed to masculine and feminine. In feeling disempowered and humiliated, the poets resort to a feminine voice to alienate themselves from the confrontation with their Manchu counterpart.
With regard to the presence of cosmopolitanism in early Qing China, James Frankel chose compelling examples to show the ruling elite’s commitment to foster a peaceful coexistence between diverse ethnic communities. While looking to conditions nearing the end of the Qing empire may be completely anachronistic in analyzing cosmopolitanism in the early Qing, I am still curious about the extent to which foundations of federalist administration set during the early Qing may have resulted in the mayhem during its downfall. An example of this may be the brutal ethnic conflicts that took place in places like Yunan, where long-term neglect and active discrimination against non-Han, non-Manchu groups finally resulted in bloody revolts and massacres. Was there a key moment of shift during 250-year reign of the Qing dynasty or were those conflicts rooted in its administrative organization from the beginning?
The Manchu wu masculinity at first seemed incompatible with the Chinese wen masculinity. Neither was defined biologically. The discursive (wen) masculinity could be clearly identified in masculine diction? Could we say the same about discursive femininity?
ReplyDeleteFederalist administration? An interesting way of putting it. I look forward to reading your response on R. Kent Guy's book.
PRC took the playbook from Qing and declared itself a multi-ethnic state. Unlike Qing, PRC is a modern republic and warrants equal legal status for all minority groups. To be fair, this is not the main thrust of Li's argument.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Women and National Trauma is a work of literature and philology, it benefits historians in a myriad of ways. For one, the poems featured and Li’s analysis allow historians a glimpse into the minds of devout elite throughout the Ming-Qing transition. From their perspective, how many traitorous collaborators did there appear to be? How promising was the pro-Ming resistance? How prevalent was Manchu theft of wives?
ReplyDeleteIn future work, scholars must avoid the notion that trauma and collaboration are mutually exclusive. Officials who opted to join the ranks of the Qing state may have concealed their trauma for the sake of opportunity; all Ming loyalists did not necessarily experience trauma, let alone one of a scale so severe it fostered a collective identity. As male loyalist writers employed female diction as a veil, who else was hiding?
I thank Sarah for bringing up wen and wu. Perhaps poetry and other expressions of wen served as a mechanism for emasculated Han elite to reclaim their masculinity, classifying their wen as superior to the Manchu wu? Further, I second Wilson’s interrogation of approaches to the morality surrounding collaboration. As Wakeman explained, Qing collaborators utilized the regime change to implement stabilizing socio-political reform that they could not under the static Ming regime.
Perhaps you have more to say about Wakeman's piece? Some of your notes will suffice.
ReplyDeleteHi Bristol, you replied Kyu's comment. What you need to do is to create your own comment and publish it to the blog.
ReplyDeleteYes, in this sense Li's choice of national trauma is a reasonable one.
ReplyDeleteFor Kyu: Wakeman's piece is sweeping. Your point on Frankel is an interesting one. The flip side of simultaneity is compromising the purity or integrity of one's former cultural belonging. The idea of "negotiation" may be more applicable here for the process of identity formation on an individual level.
ReplyDelete