{"product_id":"the-culture-of-language-in-ming-china-sound-script-and-the-redefinition-of-boundaries-of-knowledge-9780231200752","title":"The Culture of Language in Ming China Sound","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe scholarly culture of Ming dynasty China is often seen as prioritizing philosophy over concrete textual study. Nathan Vedal uncovers the preoccupation among Ming thinkers with specialized linguistic learning, a field typically associated with the intellectual revolution of the eighteenth century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis brilliant, important book successfully reinstates the centrality of philology to late imperial Chinese intellectual culture. By liberating philology from the narrowly defined discipline of linguistics, Vedal powerfully unfolds how the historical understanding of the study of language is pivotal in the reconsideration of the boundaries of knowledge, intellectual change from the Ming to the Qing, and ways of forming intellectual communities. -- Suyoung Son, author of \u003ci\u003eWriting for Print: Publishing and the Making of Textual Authority in Late Imperial China\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRequired reading on the historiography of language and writing in China.  With clarity, insight, and impressive erudition, Vedal weaves together material from fields including philosophy, poetry, music, lexicography, religion, and mathematics, showing the richness and sophistication of Ming philology and its persistence through the Qing and down to the present. -- David Lurie, author of \u003ci\u003eRealms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis important study recovers a long-ignored domain of vibrant intellectual activity that was long thought to be nonexistent or, worse, uninteresting. Vedal shows that scholars in the Ming were deeply engaged in the creative study of language and devised novel ways of understanding it. A significant contribution to Chinese intellectual history. -- Bruce Rusk, cotranslator of \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Swindles Selections from a Late Ming Collection\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGrand in scope and ambition, \u003ci\u003eThe Culture of Language in Ming China\u003c\/i\u003e presents new and boldly interdisciplinary research. Connecting phonology to music, Chinese to Sanskrit, classical scholars to opera librettists, and Confucians to Buddhists, it will become a must-read for scholars of late imperial China and beyond. -- Ya Zuo, author of \u003ci\u003eShen Gua’s Empiricism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy examining Ming philology on its own terms rather than through the lens of later critics, Vedal reconstructs its richly comprehensive view of language. His inspiring exploration of linguistic study in relation to script and sound, cosmology, mental discipline, and moral message sheds new light on the learned culture of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China and invites comparison with other parts of the early modern world. -- Ann Blair, coeditor of \u003ci\u003eInformation: A Historical Companion\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA highly interesting and important book, not just for those specializing in late imperial China, but also for outsiders to the field, who are curious about the historical study of language. * Journal of Chinese History *\u003cbr\u003eVedal’s work illuminates the veiled context of Ming philology and reflects its moral motivation, thus offering another mirror for observing the culture and knowledge of language in China. * The Chinese Historical Review *\u003cbr\u003eA brilliant and stimulating book . . . It should be required reading for anyone who works in early modern China. * China Review International *\u003cbr\u003eOn the basis of a large body of still under-studied Chinese philological texts from the 16th and 17th centuries, Vedal documents in impressive detail an important transformation in knowledge production in Chinese philological tradition. * Monumenta Serica *\u003cbr\u003eVedal makes a point to draw from largely unknown thinkers to produce a more nuanced portrait of Ming intellectual culture, an intellectual culture not dominated by a handful of eminent personalities but populated by a sprawling constellation of scholars. * Asian Studies Review *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNote on Language\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart I. Sound and Script\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1. The Number of Everything: Music, Cosmology, and the Origins of Language\u003cbr\u003e2. Letters from the West: Sanskrit, Latin, and Phonetic Legibility in Ming China\u003cbr\u003e3. Script, Antiquity, and Mental Training: Metaphysical Inquiry Into the Nondiscursive Potential of Writing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart II. Singing and Speaking, Reading and Writing\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4. Opera and the Search for a Universal Language\u003cbr\u003e5. Reading the Classics for Pleasure: Prose as Verse, Verse as Music\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePart III. Philology: The Making and Remaking of a Discipline\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e6. Afterlives: Ming Methods and Their Competition in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries\u003cbr\u003e7. The Reinvention of Philology: Specialization, Disciplinarity, and Intellectual Lineage\u003cbr\u003eEpilogue\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eBibliography\u003cbr\u003eIndex","brand":"Columbia University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51534923694423,"sku":"9780231200752","price":27.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780231200752.jpg?v=1755858069","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-culture-of-language-in-ming-china-sound-script-and-the-redefinition-of-boundaries-of-knowledge-9780231200752","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}