EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Cross-sectional 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 236 Qing and Republican period in works such as the the Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine of Henri Doré (1853–1931). I argue that, first, household encyclopedias were a major source of Jesuits’ knowledge on China’s language, geography, history, technical know-how as well as religious beliefs and practices; therefore, closer investigation of this genre is required to understand the history of European knowledge about China since the 17th century. Second, missionary sources bear testimony to the way household encyclopedias were actually read. Given the close collaboration between missionaries and their Chinese interlocutors, I use Western to contribute to the history of texts and reading practices in Late Imperial China. Yue Isaac (University of Hong Kong) Coarse Tea and Insipid Rice: The Politics of Eating in the Northern Song Period Key words: Northern Song, food, politics The gastronomic culture of the Northern Song period occasionally wins credit as the first pinnacle of culinary refinement in Chinese history. In reality, it was much more complex than this reputation sug- gests. On the one hand, society’s predilection for grandiosity and exoticism is vividly reflected in its attitude toward food, in particular through the development of various exquisite dining customs. On the other hand, a noticeable undercurrent also developed and became popular among certain elite circles of Northern Song men, who reproved this gastronomic practice as extravagant and immoral. This suggests that, contrary to popular belief, the culinary landscape of the Song Dynasty was far from static. Instead, society’s gustatory preferences were constantly being pulled toward two extremes: toward an extravagant culinary aesthetic that correlated with the growth of contemporaneous materialism, or toward a Spartan- like dining philosophy that reflected an emphasis on integrity and morality. In this paper, I aim to examine this tension in gastronomy from a historical-political perspective in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the social significance of food in China during the Northern Song period. Rather than attempting to refute the existence of the Song predilection for culinary extravagance, I intend primarily to examine the different, and often conflicting, voices that collectively constitute the Song’s gastronomic uniqueness. In the end, I hope to better determine the extent to which politics and philosophy played a role in the perception of food at the time. Zhang Lifei (King's College, University of London) Archery as Material Culture in Qing China Key words: Qing history, Manchu civilisation, archery, nationalism, CCP After the fall of the Qing empire, one of the “national arts” in Manchu civilisation, namely archery, continued as a red thread through China’s material cultures. This paper seeks to explore the question, as to how archery was remoulded in Republican China into an object of Chinese nationalism. Its status as an authentic element of “Chinese culture” grew throughout the twentieth century and culminated in victory of the Chinese Communist movement. Using Qing and Republican sources, the material and symbolical value of archery shall be explored. Zheng Cheng (Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Science) How the Earliest Known Gunpowder Formulae Came to Us? TheWujing Zongyao (1047) and Its Readers Key words: military manual, gunpowder, history of reading, circulation of books, China Wujing Zongyao 武經總要 (Complete Essentials for the Military Classics) is a military encyclopedia compiled by the officials of Song dynasty in the mid-eleventh century. Nowadays it is regarded as a pre-