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Project

Local Identity and Global Entanglements of Cantonese Literati during the Ming-Qing Transition (1644-1680s)

In seventeenth-century China, the identity crisis that arose from a dynastic changeover not only raised a discussion on ethnicity, but also led to inter-national cultural interactions in premodern East Asia. Chinese scholarly literature on historiographies of the Ming-Qing transition has neglected the crucial phenomenon of a so-called “localist-turn'' in Guangdong, especially in the context of Sino- European maritime encounters. This project will re-write the narrative of the conflict between the Han Chinese and the Qing Manchus using both historical and literary evidence. By offering novel perspectives of local and global entanglements from peripheral Cantonese literati and the complex Sino-Manchu tension, this research will unfold the creation of local identity, and multifaceted intellectual and cultural interactions between indigenous Cantonese and European merchants. Through both local and global historical lenses, this project will examine the life and work of a Cantonese Ming-loyalist scholar, Qu Dajun (1630-1696), who was the leading figure of the elite circle in Guangdong. Also, it will analyse how the notion of “Guangdong Culture” was created collectively by the Cantonese literati. Their perceptions of the “other”, self-proclaimed identity of “our Cantonese” and newly-defined “barbarians”, including the Japanese, Dutch, and Portuguese, deserve a thorough study which can shed fresh light on Sino-Manchu, Sino-Japanese and Sino-European entanglements in maritime Canton.

Date:27 Nov 2020 →  Today
Keywords:Ming-Qing Transition, Guangdong Culture, Ming Loyalism, Maritime History, East Asian Cultural Sphere, Global Perspective
Disciplines:Early modern history, Literatures in Chinese, Asian history, World history
Project type:PhD project