With this book, Yang Yuanzheng has produced what will long be regarded as a ground-breaking milestone in the voluminous scholarship on Jiang Kui (1155–1221). Based in part on his 2011 discovery of a m
In The Chinese Idea of a University: Phoenix Reborn, Rui Yang conceptualizes the cultural foundations of modern university development in Chinese societies. Instead of focusing on the uniqueness of the societies, this book aims to prove that one educational purpose could be fulfilled via many paths, and that most of the characteristics the university could be found in other institutions of higher learning. Citing the practices of four selected Chinese societies, Yang opposes the existence of an impassable chasm between Chinese and Western ideas of a university and argues that it is possible to combine Chinese and Western ideas of a university. Also, this book is one of the first in English to theorize the Chinese idea of a university. It links the historical events to the present, in a context of an enormous impact of Western academic models and institutions, from the beginning of modern universities in Chinese societies to the contemporary period.
Grounded in a desire to bring back to life rare items from the University of Hong Kong’s Fung Ping Shan Library that are entwined within the world of music and to place them in a context of books and images in American, British, and other Asian collections, Chinese Music in Print views the library as a repository not of information but of artifact, and then uses these artifacts as a means for generating scholarly narrative. It begins by assessing seminal texts in the Confucian canon set against the delicacy of the concubine and amanuensis Shen Cai’s calligraphy and poetry. Confucianism was itself a crucial aspect of courtly life, and an exploration of its ritual is the book’s second theme. Vernacular genres of opera and song are represented in the third chapter, while the Great Sage returns in the fourth for an exploration of the repertoire and richness of his favourite instrument, the qin. The final chapter ends the journey with discussion of the legacy of generations of Europeans who
