Witchcraft and the Rise of the First Confucian Empire.

Intro -- Contents -- List of Charts and Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Numbers as Narrative and as Method -- Polyphonic Voices and Retrospective Constructions -- Who Were the Confucians? -- Summary of Chapters -- Chapter One: Minority as the Protagonists: Revisiting Ru 儒 (Confucians)(Confucians) and Their Colleagues under Emperor Wu (141-87 BCE) of the Han -- Ru, a Minority Group -- Backgrounds of Eminent Officials -- Principles of Hierarchy -- Where Were the Ru, the Huang-Lao Followers, and the Legalists? -- Sima Qian's Classification of His Contemporary Officials -- Reassessing the Recommendation System and the Imperial Academy -- Sources of the Myth -- A Displaced Chapter: "The Basic Annals of Emperor Wu" (Xiaowu benji 孝武本紀) of The Grand Scribe's Records -- Manipulated Political History: "The Collective Biographies of Ru" -- Chapter Two: A Class Merely on Paper: A Study of "The Collective Biographies of Ru" in The Grand Scribe's Records (Shi ji 史 ) -- Ru Identity Suppressed by Conflicts -- Transforming "Ru" Into Confucians -- Xueguan in "The Collective Biographies of Ru" -- Invoking a Sacred history of Ru Officials -- Genuine or Constructed History? -- Constructing a Homogenous Textual Community -- Representing or Producing? -- Redefining the Principles of Hierarchy -- Sima Qian's Representation of Officialdom under Emperor Wu -- Tailoring the History -- Chapter Three: An Archeology of Interpretive Schools of the Five Classics in the Western Han Dynasty -- Fragmented Scholarly Lineages -- Revising Sima Qian -- The Emergence and Proliferation of Interpretive Schools -- Continuity or Disruption -- Locating the Turning Point -- Chapter Four: A Reshuffle of Power: Witchcraft Scandal and the Birth of a New Class -- A Fundamental Disjunction -- The Rise of Ru Officials -- Witchcraft Scandal and the Birth of a New Class.

Chapter Five: Begin in the Middle: Who Entrusted Ru with Political Power? -- Huo Guang's Dictatorship and Ru Discourse -- Techniques of the Classics ( Jingsu 經 ) and Legitimacy of the Throne -- Ru Officials Under Huo Guang and Emperor Xuan -- Moral Cosmology and Emperor xuan -- Who Entrusted Ru with Political Power? -- Conclusion -- Ru Before the Rise of the Ru Empire -- Recruitment System of the Han Empire Revisited -- Appendix: Major Official Titles of the Western Han Dynasty -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Sources in Western Languages -- Chinese and Japanese Sources -- Index.

Contests long-standing claims that Confucianism came to prominence under China's Emperor Wu.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.