Court Ritual Research Articles

Review: Architecture as Performance in Seventeenth-Century Europe: Court Ritual in Modena, Rome and Paris by Alice Jarrard

Review: Architecture as Performance in Seventeenth-Century Europe: Court Ritual in Modena, Rome and Paris by Alice Jarrard

Performing Patterns: Numinous Relations in Shang and Zhou China

Shamanic and court ritual performance in Shang and Zhou China regulated political and cosmic orders by means of performances that structured the performer-audience relations, moving audiences toward some desired response as a strategy tied to the relation between the cosmos and humans.

:Architecture as Performance in Seventeenth-Century Europe: Court Ritual in Modena, Rome and Paris

:<i>Architecture as Performance in Seventeenth-Century Europe: Court Ritual in Modena, Rome and Paris</i>

Gender in Russian History and Culture by Linda s&gt; Edmondson (review)

REVIEWS 965 government [. . .] passed to the elected institutionsof estate self-government' in the main territoryof centralRussia (p. 75). According to the authors, the boyars and embryonic social estates posed some constraintson the tsar'spower, somethingwhich causedIvan to establish his Oprichnina. 'The essence of the Oprichnina conflict lay [... ] in a disagreement between the tsar and his former associates concerning the way in which centralisationshouldbe implemented'(p. I 23).Since the Oprichnina was designed to suppressthe political independence of the estates, the I566 Assemblyof the Land 'cannotbe consideredto be a trulyestate-representative institution' (pp. 131-32). The authors agree with Platonov that Ivan's Oprichnina was directedagainstthe old princelyaristocracy. Not all readers will apparently be convinced by the social rationale for Ivan's politics proposed by Pavlov and Perrie. Their discussion of estates would have benefited from a definition of an estate. Muscovite local administrationwas a rathercomplex mixtureof elected and appointedofficials with considerableregionalvarietieseven in the heartlandof the realm. Pavlov and Perrie are very successful in integrating recent studies of Muscovite culturein theiraccount of Ivan'spolitics.Ivan'sregimemaintained itselfnot only through coercion, but also throughpublic ritualswhich 'helped to promote the integration and cohesion of the realm' (p. 205). The authors convincingly show that the I547 coronation enhanced the symbolic connection between Moscow, Kiev and Byzantium, but was irrelevantto the Third Rome theory. Pavlov and Perrie also examine the various interpretationsof the victory over Kazan' in icons, architecture,court rituals,and literaryand folkloretexts. They pay due attention to the semiotic and culturalinterpretation of the Oprichnina which explain Ivan's perversities in terms of eschatological expectations and preparations for the Last Judgement. It is, however, unclear why Ivan needed the Oprichnina to harness the princes if he was able to impose service obligations on them before the Oprichnina (cf. p. 70). On the whole, this book can be highly recommended as a balanced and comprehensiveaccount of Ivan IV's reign. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies SERGEI BOGATYREV University College London Edmondson, Linda (ed.). Gender in RussianHistoy and Culture.Studies in Russian and East European History and Society. Palgrave, Basingstoke andNewYork,200 I. XViii + 223 pp. Illustrations. Notes.Index.?52.50. THIS collection of articlesis based on papers presented at a I996 conference in Birmingham devoted to 'gender and perceptions of sexual difference in Russian culture and history'. As all but two of the authors are employed in Britishacademia, the volume presentsa good, if not comprehensive,overview of the contemporary state of the field. The contributorsinclude specialistsin history, literature, and politics, and the period covered ranges from the late seventeenth century to the 1970s. Perhapsthe main weaknessof this volume, as of most articlecollections, is thatit lacksa coherent and cohesive argument. Little attempt has been made either to analyse the state of the field or to 966 SEER, 82, 4, 2004 presentacomprehensive introduction toit.Indeed,astheeditoriswellaware, theprimaryfocusof thesearticlesremainson womenratherthangenderper se.Whiletheconstruction of masculinity is addressed atleastperipherally in severalcontributions, thisabsenceisnoteworthy inlightofthevolume'stitle. Furthermore, severalarticlesonly nod at genderapproachesand instead followthemoretraditional pathsofsocialhistory. Withthesecaveatsinmind, thebookdoespresentarangeofinteresting articles onawidevarietyoftopics. One ofthethemesrunningthroughmanyofthearticlesismotherhood or, perhaps moreprecisely, howmaternity canframeparticular kindsofidentities and strugglesfor power.CatrionaKelly thusexploresthe tensionsarising fromthelateeighteenth-century notionof'pedagogical motherhood'. Itcould legitimize,for example,both educationand independenceas well as the ideologyof separatespheres. Joe Andrewpursuesthissecondtheme,among others,in his examinationof the imageof the womanwriterin the early nineteenthcentury.Inheranalysis oftextsfromtheOldBelievermovement, Irina KorovushkinaPaert instead focuses on the shiftingmeanings of asceticismandmaternity,showinghow an asceticmodelempoweredsome womento aspireto a categoryof manliness andhencespiritual equalitywith men. The renunciation of the sexualizedfemalebodylikewiseprovidesthe backdrop forArjaRosenholm's analysis ofthe'sexless' andhighlymoral'new woman'ofthe i 86os.Yetfemalesexuality wasnotalwaysunruly,asPeterUlf Mollershowsinhisarticleonthecontemporary reception ofLeonidAndreev's controversial storiesof rape,prostitution, and suicide.At issuein the early twentieth century debatewasmuchmoretheanimalviolenceofmalesexuality imposedupon the passivefemalevictim.Sexualityis alsothe topicof Dan Healey'sinteresting pieceon theinventionoftheSovietlesbianin the I 920S, whenbotha tolerantanda repressive approachbrieflycompetedbeforethe victoryof the latterin the early I930S. Indeed,psychiatrists developeda potentiallypositiveimageof the lesbianas an intermediate genderwhose 'masculinity' madeherparticularly well-suited towork. Otherarticles examinewomen'sexperiences ofworkmoreclosely.Melanie Ilicthusdetailsthestate'sattempts toregulate theworkhoursofwomeninthe 1920s, an effortresistedby the supposedbeneficiariesof such protective intervention. Incontrast toIlic'sfocusonlegislation, LynneAttwoodexplores theStalinist pressby tracingrepresentations ofwomen'sworkandmaternity fromthe late 1920S to 1953. Finally,both MaryBuckleyand Sue Bridger probetherelationship betweenpropaganda andrealities. Despitetheidealistic view propagated in public life, women workers in the I930s were predictably enough -belittled and harassed.Yet Buckley also suggeststhat at least some...

Performances of Resistance: Communist Hunger Strikes and Demonstrations in Nationalist Prisons, 1928–1937

Performances of Resistance: Communist Hunger Strikes and Demonstrations in Nationalist Prisons, 1928-1937 by Jan Kiely The history ofCol11lllunist prison resistance in the 1930s·.has long been submerged in the reductive narratives of revolutionary romanticism. Popular fictionalized versions of the sort found in the well-known novel (1958) and film (1959) The Song of Youth and. memoir literature alike··have largely been directed to support Maoist and, later, Dengist political mythologies. Indeed, the great number of prison reminiscences published after 1978 were clearly aimed at reversing Cultural Revolution historical verdicts, like the. "Sixty-One Renegades 'Case," with an eye to raising the non-Maoist "White area urban struggles" to parity with the Long March or Yan' an in the history of the revolution . Such texts tend to declare every hunger strike a "victory" and every moral choice to have been as simple as "Red" and "White."1 All is not lost, however, for those of us who wonder what these experiences and events were really like, how imprisoned Communists actually acted, and what may be learned from these episodes. Memoirists, of course, have a habit of remembering details that do not necessarily fit into their themes and judgments. When such evidence is cross-read with official archival documents and journalistic accounts and the dissonances in the record are closely interrogated , it becomes possible to start peeling back later imposed narratives. What is ex:posed, however, is not merely a sense of the grim, irresolute experiences of political prisoners-though that is surely revealed-but also long-concealed processes , narratives andcultural practices of the time having little to do with the historiography of the revolution. A range of sources, for instance, reveal that only the rare hunger strike lasted as long as six days and most ended after two or three. Why was this? Even allowing for the weakened condition of most prisoners, it seems these strikes were never undertaken with a persistence to the brink of death. On close examination, there are a number of explanations for the short duration of hunger strikes; the most significant of these is that they were not mortal standoffs between the powerful and the desperate, but primarily a form of political theater. Since, at least, the rise of the· influence of Clifford Geertz on historical studies, historians of many parts of the world have made much effective use of theatrical terms to illuminate forms of political practice. For historians of modTwentieth -Century China, Vol. 29, No.2 (April, 2004): 63-88 64 Twentieth-Century China em China, for instance, mention of "political theater" might evoke images of imperial court ritual or student and/or worker demonstrations. But not all political theater in modem China was street theater or dramas set within the halls of governance. In this study, I argue that most Communist-led prison hunger strikes and demonstrations in the 1930s were carefully calibrated· performances of resistance intent on a limited act of communication to several imagined audiences . As such, first, they were framed-restricted, enabled, shaped-by a complex set of institutional and social contexts. The diverse array of institutions' of detention and custodial punishment in Nationalist China constituted the defining stage settings for these acts of resistance. Second, imprisoned Communists acted, as best they could, in accordance with a range of conceptual templates or "scripts" of how properly to conduct resistance. Some of these were Partydirected strategies, but many derived from culturally engrained narratives that were, in Alan Taylor's term, "woven into life" in this period.2 And all were a kind of ordered paradigm of identity performed in a manner to effect meanings of particular relevance within the specific social-cultural setting. In the third and fourth sections of the article, I examine how the performances shaped by these scripts and settings sought, like all performances, to communicate with audiences that the performers conceived of as unified collectivities that would respond in certain predictable ways. Communist resistance in prison not only attempted to forge solidarity with fellow inmates and comrades on the Outside, but, above all, represented appeals to prison staff and judicial officials and a generalized, abstract "public." Patterned on methods devised by European revolutionaries who assumed the...

Changing Patterns of Divinity and Reform in the Late Northern Wei

Changes in Buddhist imagery in the late fifth and early sixth centuries of the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534) have been explained in terms of stylistic evolution or the passive absorption of Chinese influence. However, the abruptness and far-reaching nature of the changes suggest that they were actively implemented. About this time the Northern Wei court initiated a program of extensive reforms, including the creation of court ritual and construction of a new imperial capital, which provide a framework for examining relations between political ideology, cultural identity, the construction of historical continuity, and imagery in the late Northern Wei.

Changing Patterns of Divinity and Reform in the Late Northern Wei

Changes in Buddhist imagery in the late fifth and early sixth centuries of the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534) have been explained in terms of stylistic evolution or the passive absorption of Chinese influence. However, the abruptness and far-reaching nature of the changes suggest that they were actively implemented. About this time the Northern Wei court initiated a program of extensive reforms, including the creation of court ritual and construction of a new imperial capital, which provide a framework for examining relations between political ideology, cultural identity, the construction of historical continuity, and imagery in the late Northern Wei.

State and Court Ritual in China. Joseph P. McDermott

<i>State and Court Ritual in China</i>. Joseph P. McDermott

State and Court Ritual in China (review)

State and Court Ritual in China (review)

The Annals of Lu Buwei: A Complete Translation and Study (review)

Reviewed by: The Annals of Lü Buwei: A Complete Translation and Study Nathan Sivin (bio) John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel. The Annals of Lü Buwei: A Complete Translation and Study. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. xxii, 847 pp. Hardcover $75.00. ISBN 0-8047-3354-6. In view of the mass re-dating of pre-Han texts now under way—often chapter by chapter—it is impossible to say flatly which is the most interesting and influential book written in the mid-third century. Today one can hardly deny the Lü shi chunqiu a place on the short list. For most of the last century, however, it was more an embarrassment than a resource. Despite a German translation by Richard Wilhelm in 1928 and a fine annotated critical edition by Chen Qiyou in 1984 that incorporates important earlier commentary, it went largely unstudied and little read.1 Histories of Chinese philosophy in Western languages have tended barely to mention the book, or to concentrate on issues that betray distaste. For instance, Kung-chuan Hsiao mainly argues that the book is based on "the Pre-Ch'in egocentric philosophy of life," and that Lü designed it principally "to ridicule or criticize the First Emperor" in order to replace him on the throne—two points of interpretation that are best forgotten.2 Benjamin [End Page 407] Schwartz' The World of Thought in Ancient China (1985) consigns the book to the realm of the presumably read but hardly pondered.3 A. C. Graham's Disputers of the Tao (1989) is the first recent history of philosophy to give Lü's book an important place, and is partly responsible for the growth of interest in it. Graham unfortunately agrees with Hsiao that "its organising doctrine . . . is not Taoist but Yangist, that the throne is no more than a means to the protection and fulfillment of personal life for both ruler and subject." The inattention that this reading reflects was no doubt prompted by Graham's view that the book embodied an early stage in the "debasement" of Chinese thought, "when the excesses of correlative system-building have temporarily penetrated to the heart of philosophy" and prompted a retreat from rationality. Whatever he may have meant by rationality, Graham gives a well-informed and valuable analysis of the Annals' schemes of correlation.4 But his discussion does no justice to the book's formative role in Han political philosophy and social thought, and once again demonstrates the sterility of isms in analyzing its thrust. Specialists in the period (mostly graduate students and recent Ph.D.s) have begun to study the Lü shi chunqiu with its social and political as well as intellectual circumstances in mind. They have discovered that its ideas are broad-ranging, novel, and consequential, and its anecdotes trenchant. They have learned that a good deal of what their erudite predecessors asserted was the innovation or influence of the later Huainanzi and Chunqiu fan lu would have been credited to Lü's book had these learned scholars read it. One would expect a history of political thought such as Xiao's to recognize that the book provided a guide and a lasting ideology for a centralized, bureaucratized empire before the first one came into being. Far from a simple-minded doctrine, the ideology of the Annals secures and justifies imperial authority by strictly separating the ruler's functions from those of his officials. The monarch becomes a priestly ritualist who, by ceaseless self-cultivation, keeps the state in harmony with the order of the cosmos, and thus safe against all threats. At the same time, this doctrine limits his power by isolating him voluntarily from the management of his realm. Once the empire came into being, few rulers, in fact, devoted themselves wholeheartedly to this abstemious discipline, but it became a powerful fixture in the rhetoric of imperial public relations and in the design of court ritual. Knoblock and Riegel's book is constructed much more tightly than Knoblock's translation of the Xunzi (1988-1994), which took up three volumes and about 1,150 pages despite the similar sizes of the two Chinese works.5 The new translation of the Annals...

State and Court Ritual in China

1. Introduction Joseph P. McDermott 2. Ancient Chinese ritual as seen in the material record Jessica Rawson 3. The feng and shan sacrifices of Emperor Wu of the Han Mark Edward Lewis 4. The imperial way of death in Han China Michael Loewe 5. The emperor as bodhisattva: the bodhisattva ordination and ritual assemblies of Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty Andreas Janousch 6. The death rites of Tan Daizong David L. McMullen 7. The ceremony of gratitude Oliver Moore 8. The imperial household cults Robert L. Chard 9. The emperor in the village: representing the state in south China David Faure 10. Emperor, elites, and commoners: the community pact ritual of the Late Ming Joseph P. McDermott 11. Manchu Shamanic ceremonies at the Qing court Nicola Di Cosmo 12. On theatre and theory: reflections on ritual in imperial Chinese politics James Laidlaw.

McDERMOTT (Joseph P.), ed., State and Court Ritual in China

McDERMOTT (Joseph P.), ed., State and Court Ritual in China

"Surrounded with Brilliants": Miniature Portraits in Eighteenth-Century England

This essay considers the relation between miniature portraits and the artifacts (such as snuffboxes and jewelery) in which they were commonly incorporated in England in the eighteenth century. Taking into account issues of material culture, court ritual and protocol, and questions of the performative human body within historically specific social and political environments, I argue for a holistic approach to the phenomenon of the portrait-object as a way of opening up avenues toward a better historical understanding of portraiture's functions and of the interactive relationship among imagery, three-dimensional objects, and the gendered body in early modern visual culture.

“Surrounded with Brilliants”: Miniature Portraits in Eighteenth-Century England

This essay considers the relation between miniature portraits and the artifacts (such as snuffboxes and jewelery) in which they were commonly incorporated in England in the eighteenth century. Taking into account issues of material culture, court ritual and protocol, and questions of the performative human body within historically specific social and political environments, I argue for a holistic approach to the phenomenon of the portrait-object as a way of opening up avenues toward a better historical understanding of portraiture's functions and of the interactive relationship among imagery, three-dimensional objects, and the gendered body in early modern visual culture.

Spring and Autumn Period

In the history of chinese religions the Ch'un-ch'iu or Spring and Autumn period (eighth to fifth centuries B.C.E.) was a time of transition between the court rituals of the Western Chou gift-giving society and the private or local cult practices evident in the later Eastern Chou market economy (Cook 1993a). This was the time when the local lords usurped the Chou king's ritual “power” (te) to “charge” (ming) and the Chou lineage lost its authority. The transition is most evident in the speeches (yueh) of the kings and local rulers inscribed on the eating or striking surfaces of the late Western Chou and early Ch'un-ch'iu-period ritual bronze vessels and bells. These speeches or “spoken” liturgies of legitimation initially focused on the spiritually sanctioned right of the ruler to “charge” a gift recipient, but later simply focused on the right of the vessel-maker to charge himself. This shift is most evident after 771 B.C.E. when a western tribal group forced the Chou to flee their ancestral lands and altars. Local lords, originally on the periphery of Chou authority, called themselves kings and manipulated the Chou ideology to legitimate their own independent identities (see Cook on Chu in Cook and Major forthcoming). They relied on the guidance of ritualists (possibly descendants of the Western Chou shih and yin)whose knowledge of Chou liturgy and rites was a valued commodity at local courts (Cook 1993b).

Le pouvoir absolutiste face aux manières conviviales des cercles au XVIIe siècle

The absolutist power in front of the convivial manners of the Cercles during the 17th Century. Claudine Haroche [67-751 In 1634, the Cardinal Richelieu interrupts the meetings of the Conrart circle and declares this clique a compagnie, thus transforming it into a body subject to State authority, in this case, the French Academy. The analysis of the passage from a private sociability (relatively informal) to an institutionalised and academic sociability, enables the distinction of two conceptions of 'ways of behaving' in society during the 17th Century. First, the conception of the absolute Monarchy which strives to establish (through court rituals and rules of etiquette, in particular) a hierarchy of relationships, to organize and control meetings and subject matters in order to subdue and dominate. The second conception, which starts appearing in the circles, encourages an agreeable, civil, relatively free and egalitarian manner as far as subject matters and attitudes are concerned.

Yakaku Teikinsho. Secret Teachings of the Sesonji School of Calligraphy

Y rakaku Teikinsho I ca 1170-1175, is Japan's oldest extant calligraphic treatise.' Less inspired than the later treatises Saiyosho s tjk, ca 1180-1200, and Jubokusho A 1352, it is the work of a poorly regarded mediocrity, Fujiwara Koreyuki Ogf4, 1123?-1175, the sixth head of the Sesonji t#itf school of calligraphy. But mediocrity is sometimes the truest barometer of an age. Because Koreyuki concentrated on surface conventions, his work is now one of our only ways of knowing what these conventions once were. As a result, Yakaku Teikinsho is the seminal statement of the late-Heian and early-Kamakura transition, when traditional arts such as poetry and calligraphy began the process of codification into hereditary schools. Koreyuki came from a minor branch of the Fujiwara family and he never rose above the fourth or fifth rank.2 But his position as court calligrapher, descended from the founder of the Sesonji school, Fujiwara Yukinari MlqlWj )A, 972-1027, qualified him to serve as the official scribe for high-ranking aristocrats and members of the imperial family.3 In this capacity he gained a familiarity with court ritual that he displays in Yakaku Teikinsho, and his text describes the conventions and etiquette of the court calligrapher as defined by the Sesonji school. Koreyuki's mastery of this knowledge ensured his family's survival, but his abilities sometimes failed him. When he prepared official documents for Chancellor Fujiwara Motozane ? t,T 1143-1166, for instance, he

From Court Ritual to Popular Ritual : Ethnohistorical Analysis on the Spread of Durga Puja in Bengal

From Court Ritual to Popular Ritual : Ethnohistorical Analysis on the Spread of Durga Puja in Bengal

The Politics of Stuart Medievalism

When Ruskin coined the term 'Mediaevalism', he did so as a way of contrasting what he saw as a distinctive visual style with two other historical styles, 'Classicalism' and 'Modernism'. Ruskin's terms have since been broadened to include much more than visual style, but his aesthetic preoccupation still clings to 'medievalism'.1 As a consequence, comparatively little has been said about the political implications of turning to the Middle Ages as a model of style or behaviour. On the face of it, those implications would seem to be conservative and authoritarian. Divine right monarchy, theocracy, social and cosmic hierarchy, theological descriptions of authority, all are political ideas that originated in the Middle Ages or achieved dominance then, and all belong to the decidedly conservative end of the political spectrum. One immediately thinks, for example, of how medievalism flourished in the reactionary political atmosphere of nineteenth-century England, when a theological definition of authoritarian order from the past appealed to those with power and privilege as they confronted the threat of political revolution and rapid social change. But while a nostalgic perception of the medieval authority undoubtedly characterizes the nineteenth century, that understanding did not arise then for the first time. Every river has a source, and what might well be thought of as the river of nineteenth-century medievalism is no exception. Just as the conception of the 'middle ages' itself had to arise some time after what we think of as the Middle Ages, so medievalism as a nostalgically conceived repository of political conservatism had to arise at some point after the thing itself had passed, or at least was perceived to have passed. What I want to suggest here is that the key ingredients of what would eventually emerge as nineteenth-century medievalism can be found in the seventeenth century and specifically in the rise of Stuart absolutism under James I. To be sure, in laying down the foundations of centralized power, the Tudors had consciously preserved and in some cases revived certain symbols and rituals of power that had arisen much earlier and were essentially neo-medieval, for they had been rendered obsolete in practice by Tudor policy itself. Court rituals such as the tournament or the disguising, for

The Resident in Court Ritual, 1764–1858

The exchanges that comprised the formal meetings between Indian Rulers and the British Residents attached to their courts both reflected and, in some measure, determined the changing political relationships between the Indian states and the English East India Company. As the Resident and his staff introduced new symbols and meanings into his ritual intercourse with an Indian Ruler, these new elements affected the attitudes and actions taken by the audiences of these exchanges, in both India and Britain. As the military and political power of the Company flowed over or around the regional states of India during the period 1764–1858, the Company's Residents proved able to assert increasing influence over the shape of these rituals in the Indian courts.