Event

May 9, 2023
Empire under the Night Sky: Recording Field Allocation in Chinese Local Gazetteers

Field allocation (or fenye) is a heaven-earth correspondence system that correlated constellations with discreet geographic regions of the Chinese empire based on the ancient Chinese cosmology of inseparable heaven, earth, and human world. Theories surrounding fenye correlations emerged during the eighth to third centuries BCE for uses in political prognostication and continued to develop through the tenth century CE.  

As the western astronomical and calendrical knowledge were introduced into late imperial China, it became more obvious that fenye did not fit with such modern understandings of astronomical science. However, fenye remained ubiquitous in China in the centuries during and after the Jesuit mission. In thousands of surviving local gazetteers—published semi-official geographic overviews of provinces, prefectures, and counties—fenye correlations were recorded through the sixteenth and nineteenth century. Over this time, Chinese literati contested, reconstituted, and updated this ancient knowledge in significant and surprising ways.  

In this roundtable, three working group members will each use 10 mins to introduce this phenomenon from their individual research perspectives to open discussions on the role that fenye played in late imperial China, in particular for local societies and the general public. We invite the department members to join us in collectively revealing that as new knowledge about the heavens and earth was globalized across Eurasia, it was also profoundly localized. In the Chinese case, there was not one “Chinese” response to the arrival of Western learning—but many.

Address
MPIWG, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Room
Room 265 & Online
Contact and Registration

Attendance is mandatory for Department III members. We additionally have room for ten guests and welcome those who wish to join us.

Please register in advance by emailing EVENT_DEPT3@MPIWG-BERLIN.MPG.DE with subject heading "RSVP Dept III Colloquium" and the date of the colloquium you wish to attend.

About This Series

The Department III Colloquia are regular meetings for the department members to discuss our work in progress, to comment, and to help each other in our writing process. The format is a discussion of a pre-circulated paper, led by an introductory comment by an external discussant.

2023-05-09T13:30:00SAVE IN I-CAL 2023-05-09 13:30:00 2023-05-09 15:00:00 Empire under the Night Sky: Recording Field Allocation in Chinese Local Gazetteers Field allocation (or fenye) is a heaven-earth correspondence system that correlated constellations with discreet geographic regions of the Chinese empire based on the ancient Chinese cosmology of inseparable heaven, earth, and human world. Theories surrounding fenye correlations emerged during the eighth to third centuries BCE for uses in political prognostication and continued to develop through the tenth century CE.   As the western astronomical and calendrical knowledge were introduced into late imperial China, it became more obvious that fenye did not fit with such modern understandings of astronomical science. However, fenye remained ubiquitous in China in the centuries during and after the Jesuit mission. In thousands of surviving local gazetteers—published semi-official geographic overviews of provinces, prefectures, and counties—fenye correlations were recorded through the sixteenth and nineteenth century. Over this time, Chinese literati contested, reconstituted, and updated this ancient knowledge in significant and surprising ways.   In this roundtable, three working group members will each use 10 mins to introduce this phenomenon from their individual research perspectives to open discussions on the role that fenye played in late imperial China, in particular for local societies and the general public. We invite the department members to join us in collectively revealing that as new knowledge about the heavens and earth was globalized across Eurasia, it was also profoundly localized. In the Chinese case, there was not one “Chinese” response to the arrival of Western learning—but many. MPIWG, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany Room 265 & Online Stamatina Mastorakou Stamatina Mastorakou Europe/Berlin public