Man Li | Ghent University (original) (raw)
Papers by Man Li
The nineteenth and the twentieth centuries in East Asia are known as a time of rapid change. Wher... more The nineteenth and the twentieth centuries in East Asia are known as a time of rapid change. Whereas change was a daily and concrete experience in a globalising environment, it was also the object of psychological fear and ideological desire. During that period, Asian countries and their intellectual and political elites confronted the technical and military superiority of the western powers, as well as local inner tensions and crises, by elaborating patterns of selective imitation, reconsidering their traditional knowledge, and recreating their own cultural background. In order to conceptualise these strategies, Asian intellectuals and political activists faced the theoretical problem of naming the change in which they were living or to which they aspired. In those years, a new vocabulary emerged, constituting a multifaceted discourse on change. Drawing on western cultural traditions, the new vocabulary consisted of words such as enlightenment, renaissance, evolution, revolution and renewal. However, indigenous terms such as i, bian, ge, and xin were also part of it. Nevertheless, quite independently of the cultural context from which they emerged, these terms were resignified within the dynamic context of modernising Asia.
On the one hand, traditional terminology and concepts from Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism found a new configuration that enriched their meanings. Such a process dislocated well-established cultural roots and made them compatible with exogenous systems of knowledge including modern physics and biology, Darwinism, Marxism, Liberalism, and Christian theology. On the other hand, East Asian scholars applied terms such as renaissance and enlightenment to their historical predicament and, in doing so, they appropriated them. In that very moment of appropriation, these terms started to exceed their primary historical referent. They belonged no more to the west alone and became all-encompassing metaphors, universals and tropoi that gave meaning to the experience of change.
The following collection of essays examines this emerging and transcultural discourse on change centred in Asia, though not confined to it. The collection aims to show how different reflections originated in different contexts across Japan and China, formed networks of ideas, and actively related to discussions that were going on in Europe and America. Together, the essays tell a story that is not reducible to the mere paradigm of cultural reception. They consider East Asia not only as a latecomer to the game of modernity, whilst narrating the vicissitudes of a world facing the acceleration of historical development and growing complexity from the specific perspective of China and Japan. Ultimately, this perspective helps us understand the background against which a rhetoric of renewed centrality is growing in Asia today and how it is entwined with a conceptualisation of change that eschews monogenesis and all sorts of linear paternities.
During the period of “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms”, the Khitan Liao and the Kingdom of Wu and... more During the period of “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms”, the Khitan Liao and the Kingdom of Wu and Southern Tang are in frequent contact for economic and geopolitical incentives. Being separated by central dynasties, the Khitan-Southern Tang contact was never realistic nor successful via land route. Their diplomatic contact and business exchanges, however, were realized by maritime route via which plenty of tea were transported from the Southern Tang to the Khitan Liao. The starting and ending point of this maritime tea road is therefore meaningful and significant for historians who are interested in the bilateral relationship between the Khitan Liao and the Southern Tang. Until now , this question has not been discussed and the present essay aims to do some initial reasoning and research on this question.
Keywords: Yingyou, Khitan, Southern Tang, Lushi Nantangshu, sea route, tea
This is an abstract. Please download full version from the Website of our journal “Crossroads - S... more This is an abstract. Please download full version from the Website of our journal “Crossroads - Studies on the History of Exchange Relations in the East Asian World (縱横 - 東亞世界交流史研究/クロスロード - 東アジア世界の交流史研究 / 크로스로드 - 東아시아 世界의 交流史 研究)”:
http://www.eacrh.net/ojs/index.php/crossroads/issue/archive
During late Tang 唐 (618–907), the political landscape of disparate military governorship eventual... more During late Tang 唐 (618–907), the political landscape of disparate military governorship eventually led to national division. Before the appearance of the next dynasty of “Great Unification”, namely, the Song 宋 (960–1279), regional
political powers and not a national authority dominated the political arena.
Looked at in terms of this reality, the present research attempts to discuss political and economic communication among different regimes of the time,
with a special focus on the relationships between the Khitan Liao 契丹遼(907–1125), the Wuyue 吳越 (907–978), and the Southern Tang 南唐(937–975), in order to reveal the structure of the cultural exchange and communications of goods that took place along the entire northeastern borders of China at the time. Three areas will be examined in particular, the
commercial exchanges involved with tea, the spread of military technology(fierce-fire oil, or wild-fire oil, a kind of petrolium), and the politics of maps.
A classic offers us a multitude of possibilities for interpretation. The Laozi (老子), sometimes a... more A classic offers us a multitude of possibilities for interpretation. The Laozi (老子), sometimes also titled Dao De Jing (道德經), is no doubt one of the most influential and controversial philosophical Chinese classics, and it has inspired numerous annotations and interpretations ever since pre-Qin times (221 B.C.–206 B.C.). This paper aims to analyse the interpretation and annotation of the Laozi by Wei Yuan, a scholar from the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), written roughly two thousand years after the original text was created.
rsL ss t t L t s L s r 0 r tu en u eÍ,,"0* r ;ïrrr',j:,i, [ï*ïiïi il:fi í: ue st qf,nlm ,,alu!1, ... more rsL ss t t L t s L s r 0 r tu en u eÍ,,"0* r ;ïrrr',j:,i, [ï*ïiïi il:fi í: ue st qf,nlm ,,alu!1, Íq peuretlsal sr e B, r, *n ^ il g, J g J, "il ffi ; ï :.f ii,i ïïi §,:Jï,,iï,::lï ïii,ïlïï 1ï ;i#il aql are suerunq raqlaq^ , uo,1.nrÀ ;elueuepun, "qi íllurrnglp tn6 ,eoq ueunq aqt ul Surpnlcul'p1.ro^ aqlyo rdu,qr aql ur ]uaraqur sr aurlraqraq^ lo í]rlua truaouad -apur ue se /q3ns se, slsrxa aulr raqlaq/\\ se (uauutsaqr,ri"urïàr]innl"r;;rJJï:", a^ro^ur uorlsanb reluauppun, srq] uo palelnruroj uaaq a^elr ]eql sra^sue aq,.;qrls Philosophy East & West
The first section of the 6th chapter from the book "An Investigation of Communication in the Yuan... more The first section of the 6th chapter from the book "An Investigation of Communication in the Yuan Period - General Picture, Problems, and Limitations"
Books by Man Li
The nineteenth and the twentieth centuries in East Asia are known as a time of rapid change. Wher... more The nineteenth and the twentieth centuries in East Asia are known as a time of rapid change. Whereas change was a daily and concrete experience in a globalising environment, it was also the object of psychological fear and ideological desire. During that period, Asian countries and their intellectual and political elites confronted the technical and military superiority of the western powers, as well as local inner tensions and crises, by elaborating patterns of selective imitation, reconsidering their traditional knowledge, and recreating their own cultural background. In order to conceptualise these strategies, Asian intellectuals and political activists faced the theoretical problem of naming the change in which they were living or to which they aspired. In those years, a new vocabulary emerged, constituting a multifaceted discourse on change. Drawing on western cultural traditions, the new vocabulary consisted of words such as enlightenment, renaissance, evolution, revolution and renewal. However, indigenous terms such as i, bian, ge, and xin were also part of it. Nevertheless, quite independently of the cultural context from which they emerged, these terms were resignified within the dynamic context of modernising Asia.
On the one hand, traditional terminology and concepts from Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism found a new configuration that enriched their meanings. Such a process dislocated well-established cultural roots and made them compatible with exogenous systems of knowledge including modern physics and biology, Darwinism, Marxism, Liberalism, and Christian theology. On the other hand, East Asian scholars applied terms such as renaissance and enlightenment to their historical predicament and, in doing so, they appropriated them. In that very moment of appropriation, these terms started to exceed their primary historical referent. They belonged no more to the west alone and became all-encompassing metaphors, universals and tropoi that gave meaning to the experience of change.
The following collection of essays examines this emerging and transcultural discourse on change centred in Asia, though not confined to it. The collection aims to show how different reflections originated in different contexts across Japan and China, formed networks of ideas, and actively related to discussions that were going on in Europe and America. Together, the essays tell a story that is not reducible to the mere paradigm of cultural reception. They consider East Asia not only as a latecomer to the game of modernity, whilst narrating the vicissitudes of a world facing the acceleration of historical development and growing complexity from the specific perspective of China and Japan. Ultimately, this perspective helps us understand the background against which a rhetoric of renewed centrality is growing in Asia today and how it is entwined with a conceptualisation of change that eschews monogenesis and all sorts of linear paternities.
During the period of “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms”, the Khitan Liao and the Kingdom of Wu and... more During the period of “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms”, the Khitan Liao and the Kingdom of Wu and Southern Tang are in frequent contact for economic and geopolitical incentives. Being separated by central dynasties, the Khitan-Southern Tang contact was never realistic nor successful via land route. Their diplomatic contact and business exchanges, however, were realized by maritime route via which plenty of tea were transported from the Southern Tang to the Khitan Liao. The starting and ending point of this maritime tea road is therefore meaningful and significant for historians who are interested in the bilateral relationship between the Khitan Liao and the Southern Tang. Until now , this question has not been discussed and the present essay aims to do some initial reasoning and research on this question.
Keywords: Yingyou, Khitan, Southern Tang, Lushi Nantangshu, sea route, tea
This is an abstract. Please download full version from the Website of our journal “Crossroads - S... more This is an abstract. Please download full version from the Website of our journal “Crossroads - Studies on the History of Exchange Relations in the East Asian World (縱横 - 東亞世界交流史研究/クロスロード - 東アジア世界の交流史研究 / 크로스로드 - 東아시아 世界의 交流史 研究)”:
http://www.eacrh.net/ojs/index.php/crossroads/issue/archive
During late Tang 唐 (618–907), the political landscape of disparate military governorship eventual... more During late Tang 唐 (618–907), the political landscape of disparate military governorship eventually led to national division. Before the appearance of the next dynasty of “Great Unification”, namely, the Song 宋 (960–1279), regional
political powers and not a national authority dominated the political arena.
Looked at in terms of this reality, the present research attempts to discuss political and economic communication among different regimes of the time,
with a special focus on the relationships between the Khitan Liao 契丹遼(907–1125), the Wuyue 吳越 (907–978), and the Southern Tang 南唐(937–975), in order to reveal the structure of the cultural exchange and communications of goods that took place along the entire northeastern borders of China at the time. Three areas will be examined in particular, the
commercial exchanges involved with tea, the spread of military technology(fierce-fire oil, or wild-fire oil, a kind of petrolium), and the politics of maps.
A classic offers us a multitude of possibilities for interpretation. The Laozi (老子), sometimes a... more A classic offers us a multitude of possibilities for interpretation. The Laozi (老子), sometimes also titled Dao De Jing (道德經), is no doubt one of the most influential and controversial philosophical Chinese classics, and it has inspired numerous annotations and interpretations ever since pre-Qin times (221 B.C.–206 B.C.). This paper aims to analyse the interpretation and annotation of the Laozi by Wei Yuan, a scholar from the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), written roughly two thousand years after the original text was created.
rsL ss t t L t s L s r 0 r tu en u eÍ,,"0* r ;ïrrr',j:,i, [ï*ïiïi il:fi í: ue st qf,nlm ,,alu!1, ... more rsL ss t t L t s L s r 0 r tu en u eÍ,,"0* r ;ïrrr',j:,i, [ï*ïiïi il:fi í: ue st qf,nlm ,,alu!1, Íq peuretlsal sr e B, r, *n ^ il g, J g J, "il ffi ; ï :.f ii,i ïïi §,:Jï,,iï,::lï ïii,ïlïï 1ï ;i#il aql are suerunq raqlaq^ , uo,1.nrÀ ;elueuepun, "qi íllurrnglp tn6 ,eoq ueunq aqt ul Surpnlcul'p1.ro^ aqlyo rdu,qr aql ur ]uaraqur sr aurlraqraq^ lo í]rlua truaouad -apur ue se /q3ns se, slsrxa aulr raqlaq/\\ se (uauutsaqr,ri"urïàr]innl"r;;rJJï:", a^ro^ur uorlsanb reluauppun, srq] uo palelnruroj uaaq a^elr ]eql sra^sue aq,.;qrls Philosophy East & West
The first section of the 6th chapter from the book "An Investigation of Communication in the Yuan... more The first section of the 6th chapter from the book "An Investigation of Communication in the Yuan Period - General Picture, Problems, and Limitations"