Flipping through Xinhua and South China Morning Post this morning, I clicked thru a few headlines about Chinese State-Owned Enterprises calling in non-essential workers from Myanmar, US-China performativity on both sides, and also about the Oxford-trained presence in US President Joe Biden’s cabinet (this last from Peter Frankopan’s re-Tweet).
I’m also going through a book, Structures of the Earth: Metageographies of Early Medieval China by D. Jonathan Felt (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center). If you’re looking for an excellent source for not only quantitative analysis of the literary genre of geographical literature, then this book is the place. If you’re looking for a theoretical framework by which to think about China’s practices of geography as well as historiography, then this is the book.
Main gleanings, interesting edges as thought-blade:
“metageography”–according to Martin Lewis and Karen Wiggen, is “the set of spatial structures through which people order their knowledge of the world.”
D. Jonathan Felt, Structures of the Earth: Metageographies of Early Medieval China, Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2021, p. 3.
“Modern examples of global metageographies include Eurocentrism, the East-West model, the nation-states system, the geographic coordinate system, Wallerstein’s world-systems theory, and the first, second, and third worlds.” –D. JONATHAN FELT, STRUCTURES OF THE EARTH: METAGEOGRAPHIES OF EARLY MEDIEVAL CHINA, CAMBRIDGE: HARVARD UNIVERSITY ASIA CENTER, 2021, P. 3.
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“Too often Sinologists construct artificial divisions between Buddhist and “normal” Sinitic literature. But the prominence of Buddhist authors and Buddhist metageographies throughout early medieval geographical literature breaks down these divisions.”
D. JONATHAN FELT, STRUCTURES OF THE EARTH: METAGEOGRAPHIES OF EARLY MEDIEVAL CHINA, CAMBRIDGE: HARVARD UNIVERSITY ASIA CENTER, 2021, P. 53.
Key geographical genre of literature names and texts mentioned in first chapter of Structures of the Earth:
地理记 dili ji [records of the structures of the earth]
地方志 difang zhi [gazetteer]
杜佑 Du You (735-812 CE), Tang critic of medieval local geographies
中国 ‘Middle-Kingdom,’ aka China
华夏 Huaxia, Sinitic cultural/civilizational realm or ecumene
水经注, Shuijing zhu [Guide to waterways with commentary], by 郦道元 (d. 527 CE), an official of the Northern Wei (386-534)
佛国记 Foguo ji [Record of the Buddhist states], by 法显, cf: 法显传 Faxian zhuan [Memoir of the Eminent Monk]
洛阳伽蓝记 Luoyang qielan ji [Record of the monasteries of Luoyang], by 杨衒之
华阳国志 Huayang guozhi [Record of the kingdoms south of Mount Hua, by 常璩 Chang Qu
禹贡 Yu gong [Tribute of Yu]
史记 Shi ji Records of the Historian, by 表演司马迁 Sima Qian (ca. 145-ca. 86 BCE)
河渠书 Hequ shu [Monograph on rivers and canals]
货殖列传 Huozhi liezhuan [Memoirs of moneymakers]
管子 Guanzi [Writers of Master Guan]
山海经 Shanhai jing [Classic of mountains and seas]
淮南子, Huainanzi [Master of Huainan: ] (地形 Dixing [Terrestrial forms], and 齐俗 Qi su [Monograph on geography] chapters)
邹衍 (ca 250), created an alternative metageograhy based on a model of a Kunlun-centered world in which Sinitic civilization inhabits the southeastern corner of the earth.
地理志 Dili zhi [Monograph on geography), most topically comprehensive geographical text to date, by 班固 Ban Gu (32-92)
吴地记 Wu di zhuan [Tales of the land of Wu]
越地传 Yue di zhuan [Tales of the land of Yue], in the 越绝书 Yue jue shu [Lost histories of Yue]
顾恺之 Gu Kaizhi (ca. 345-406), Eastern Jin painter
江赋 Jiang Fu [River fu], by 郭璞 Guo Pu (276-324)
宋永初山川记 Song Yongchu shanchuan ji [Records of the mountains and rivers of the Yongchu reign period of the Song dynasty]
穆天子传 Mu Tianzi zhuan [Account of Mu, Son of Heaven]
张騫 Zhang Qian (d. ca. 114 BCE), went on a mission to the Xiongnu empire
扶南 Funan, a complex Southeast Asia state that arose in 3rd century, elevating the importance of political and commercial relationships in the Southeast Wu region in Yangzi basin.
三国志 Sanguo zhi, by Chen Shou has accounts of diplomatic missions to South and Southeast Asia
扶南传 Funan zhuan [Account of Funan] & 扶南异物志 Funan yiwu zhi [Record of the peculiar things of Funan)
北史 Bei shi [History of the Northern Dynasties]
南史 Nan shi [History of the Southern Dynasties]
边地 biandi [peripheral land]
道整 Dao Zheng, Faxian’s traveling companion
四海百川水源记 Sihai baichuan shuiyuan ji [Record of the source of the hundred rivers within the four seas], by 道安 Dao An (d. 385)
地理书 Dili shu [Geographical writing], by 陆澄 Lu Cheng (425-94)
地记 Diji [Records of the earth], by 任昉 (459-507)
健康 Jiankang (modern day Nanjing)、长安 (modern day Xi’an)、邺 (capital established by Cao Wei founder, Cao Cao, during the Three Kingdoms period) are the three main geographical centers of the 6th century
禹贡地域图 Yu gong diyu tu [Map of the regions of the tribute of Yu], by 裴秀 Pei Xiu (224-71)
畿服经 Jifu jing [Classic of the imperial domain], by 挚虞
Qualities of geographies: 旁 pang [extensive], 通 tong [thorough], 宣 xuan [comprehensive], 简 jian [scant in detail], 裁cai [reductive], 略 lue [outlines]
史通 Shitong [Comprehensive understanding of history], by 刘知几 Liu Zhiji (661-721)
图经 Tu jing [map-treatise]
职方 Zhifang [Zhou office of manager of regions]
周礼 Zhou li [Rituals of Zhou]
萧何 Xiao He (d. 193 BCE), saved the Qin maps from the fire that destroyed Xianyang so he could know the strategic points of the empire
末学 moxue [superficial studies]
疆理天下 jiang li tianxia [regulating the boundaries of tianxia]
元嘉六年地记 Yuanjia liunian diji [Geographical record of the sixth year of the Song Dynasty Yuanjia reign period]
