Ideographia

The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe

By: David Porter

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Hardcover | 1 July 2002

At a Glance

Hardcover
312 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 2.06

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From the first successful Jesuit mission in 1583 until the disastrous failure of the British trade embassy in 1816, China's cultural practices transfixed the attention of Western philosophers, theologians, architects, artists, entrepreneurs, and social critics. The direct influences on European culture were many and profound, ranging from Chinese teahouses in European palace gardens to adaptations of Chinese plays for the popular stage, from calls for the restructuring of the civil service on the model of Chinese meritocracy to the espousal of Confucian precepts in the moral education of children.

More significant than even such readily visible gestures of imitation and appropriation, however, were the interpretive strategies that accompanied them: the processes by which Europeans translated the unfamiliar and often enigmatic artifacts of Chinese culture into familiar forms of meaning, thus engaging them in the emergent discourses of European modernity.

This book traces recurrent patterns in the European imaginative constructions of China through four illuminating spheres of encounter: linguistic, theological, aesthetic, and economic. How might we compare the perplexity of Europeans before the Chinese writing system with their experience of Chinese religious practice, trade policy, or porcelain design? The author shows how the remarkably consistent interpretive paradigms revealed through such comparisons suggest not only how historical circumstances condition and constrain responses to the foreign but also how an active engagement with the cipher of foreignness shapes the way a society comes to understand itself.

Industry Reviews

"David Porter, in an intelligent and erudite book, examines four episodes of early modern European images of China that shaped European values and self-concepts..." - International History Review

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Non-Fiction History Regional & National History European History Sociology & Anthropology Society & Culture Cultural Studies General & World History Asian History

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Linguistic Legitimacy and the Interpretation of Chinese Writing	p. 15
The Formation of an Ideal	p. 21
The Legitimacy of Chinese Writing	p. 34
A Scholarly Obsession	p. 49
A Chinese Babel	p. 73
The First Ancestor: Intimations of Chinese Divinity	p. 78
From Babel to Babylon: Jesuit Readings of Chinese Religious Doctrine	p. 83
The Rites Controversy	p. 108
China and the Rise of Libertinism in France	p. 122
Chinoiserie and the Aesthetics of Illegitimacy	p. 133
Authority	p. 143
Nature	p. 169
Sexuality	p. 181
Commercialist Legitimacy and the China Trade	p. 193
The Legitimacy of Commerce	p. 198
Chinese Trade Policy	p. 207
Obstructionism in Chinese Society	p. 211
The Illegitimacy of Chinese Authority	p. 227
Epilogue	p. 241
Notes	p. 247
Bibliography	p. 269
Index	p. 287
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Ideographia

The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe

At a Glance

Hardcover

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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