textuality and orality

1. textuality and orality cursory remarks

2. 拜拜 • today’s gathering: why these invitees • only some modest attempts to generalize • 萊頓大學，漢學研究院

3. long term project • when data are sparse=>long term trends more revealing • China scholars connect developments to dynastic boundaries=> find other factors for measuring change, ignore dynasties • processes of change rather than so-called origins=>inventions just the start of something, not the end

4. materiality • what we really know (in historical sequence): • oracle bones: thrown away • bronze inscriptions: on the inside of vessels with sacrifice • oath slips: buried as sacrifice/testimony • bamboo slips: graves, only later in former archival contexts • wooden slips: archival contexts, communication • silk: graves, probably also for public display and prestige • inscriptions in stone • Qin: invisibly on mountains • Eastern Han: publicly in grave cults, before city gate etc. • metal, pottery : in graves • fibres=> paper: replaces wood for archive and communication; replaces silk much later

5. the person who writes • prestigious & few & hidden (Shang until mid 4th century BCE) • professional & writing down prestige contents (late 4th century BCE – 1st century BCE)=> scribes~historians≠thinkers • professional & management (3rd century BCE onwards)=> scribes • writing as elite identity (slowly from 1st century CE onwards)

6. identifying the writer • remarkably late (SimaQian—maybe, mostly second half 1st century BCE) • from “traditions” (not texts) to “canonical books” (of necessity with invented authors) • self-identification as author • stimulated by phenomenon of the written memorial? • author as owner books (late 1st century BCE, think of Ban family)

7. identifying books • confusion about non-existence of “closed books” before Han=>stories of destroyed books (from the Qin censorial memorial in Shiji) and their discovery • crucial efforts Liu Xiang, Liu Xinc.s. • need: timeline when pre-Han books start being closed down into a canonical version (Lunyuexample)

8. owning texts/books • patrons • ownership of texts (until after Shiji)=> creation little libraries in “bookform” (Lüshichunqiuonwards, including Shiji) • ownership of single, titled books individuals as owners • what do we know?

9. but • existence texts or their improved version books is not yet the whole history • is a text communication or record • is it an ultimate record or just a record • groups ideas to personal ideas • are texts read and/or only learned for oral usage • where is the ultimate truth: in the text or in the oral tradition • what happens to the oral • who read, when, where, why • how do texts change the tradition

10. Wang Mang: questions & claims • uninteresting questions • usurper: and so what, he was more competent and certainly more intelligent than most predecessors • socialist: anachronistic label • Confucianist: what does it mean in the first place? • successful: bad luck of worst Yellow River flooding in centuries • my claim • he reflects a new approach to textuality that presages Confucian/clasicist/Daoist traditions of the following millennia • pace Kang Youwei, he has far more in common with Wang Mang than with Confucius

11. Wang Mang: precursors • late 1th century BCE recognition “classical” books (≠traditions) as basis political debate • creation first catalogue of discrete objects (Liu Xiang& Xin) instead of ideas or lineages (Sima Tan) • new types of quotations (Lunyuand so on) • first revealed text

12. Wang Mang’s innovations • based empire on the plan of a quasi-old text (zhouli) instead of new policies for new times • written propaganda distributed to actual people (compare inscriptions Qin) • first consciously incomplete quotation (A 至於 B) • analysis of 劉 • belief in power of renaming • creating fictional portents (from texts) on new scale • large scale upgrading classical scholarship in terms of personnel (later retrospectively ascribed to Emperor Wu)

13. continuation Wang Mang • Liu Xiu regime • Daoist traditions • classical scholars