4. Open Season: the Historical Context

Thanks! I was adding them earlier today and realized that there must be a lot that I had missed. I was thinking that this theme would really be for episodes where historical context is more or less the main point, so I might not add all of those but you are right about some of them (e.g. iconoclasm).

Jan on 22 April 2024

Classification of people in relation to custom

Where can i find the Xunzi (?) classification of people in relation to custom you mention around minute 8.

Peter Adamson on 22 April 2024

Xunzi passage

Here you go: X.Q. Wang 王先謙 (compiler), Xunzi jijie 荀子集解, 3 vols. (Shanghai: Sao ye shan fang, 上海: 掃葉山房; 1926), quoted at M.E. Lewis, The Construction of Space in Early China (Albany: 2005), 198.

Jan on 23 April 2024

Re: Xunzi passage

Thank you! I was particularly wondering about the models vocabulary and the "100 models", which are missing from the quoted passage.

I found a reference to the "100 models" in Knoblok, p. 206:
"Of the sources of ritual principles, none is more important than the sage kings. But one asks: There are a
hundred sage kings, which one ought I to use as my model?"

But in this passage the models seem exclusive and not to be followed together.

dukeofethereal on 3 May 2024

Recommending two excellent Chinese History podcasts!

Hi, Peter i would like to recommend two excellent podcasts, one is a long running series that started back in 2010, called the 'China History Podcast', by Laszlo Montgomery it covers episodes in themes and not chronological from History of Taiwan, to History of Tea, Philosophy, poetry, Ethnic minorities, etc...

One of my top 5 favourite over the last decade or so alongside yours and History of England podcast (David Crowther).

Here is the website for it https://teacup.media/

Also the 2nd Podcast is a recent podcast which covers interviews with scholars on various topics of Chinese History, 18 episodes so far and the bulk of the episodes are time periods you are not covering (Post Han Period but several centuries after Han period, we're talking Ming/Qing period).

https://www.chinesehistorypodcast.com/

You might enjoy these two particular episodes although covering topics from Ming/Qing era

https://www.chinesehistorypodcast.com/e/wang-yangming-and-the-school-of-mind-an-interview-with-professor-israel/

https://www.chinesehistorypodcast.com/e/cultural-production-in-the-ming-qing-transition-a-conversation-with-professor-lynn-struve/