A Taeko Brooks
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
The Shr Ji and the Eastern Non-Sinitic States
Panel: Center and Periphery in Shr Ji Historiography
AAS Convention, San Diego, 4-7 March 2004

Abstract

A number of significant Spring and Autumn period states have no place in the Shr-jya or Dynastic Houses section of the Shr Ji. This is particularly true of the smaller non-Sinitic states. Their exclusion from the Shr Ji scheme of things appears to be a further step beyond the reluctance of the Dzwo Jwan to acknowledge their actual role in Spring and Autumn history, and in the larger sense, to represent a late stage of the Siniciization process in early Chinese historiography.

As an example of this process, I will consider the history of the eastern state of Jyw, first as reflected in the contemporary Chun/Chyou chronicle, then in the abbreviated and largely dismissive account in the Dzwo Jwan, and finally in the few references to Jyw in the Shr Ji. I will end by noting that this progressive denial of the realities of the ancient multi-state system, which had included both Sinitic and non-Sinitic states in functional parity, and the substitution of the embattled Center/Periphery model, which has been dominant since the founding of the Empire, has blanked out large areas of China's past, and left the facts of early Chinese cultural diversity to be rediscovered in the 20th century by such scholars as Chyen Mu and Owen Lattimore.

This panel was rejected by the AAS Program Committee, and never took place. This page is preserved as a record of work done, rather than work presented. We are grateful to our colleagues for their interest, and hope that a proper venue can eventually be found for sharing their results with the field.

 

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30 July 2003 / Contact The Project / Conferences Page