Susan Naquin

This is a study of the material culture embodied in Chinese temples and their paraphernalia in the late imperial era. It shows how the North China plain was constituted as a cultural region by the two-fold familiarity created by an area-wide cult of Mount Tai and by similar local material and technical resources. Drawing on widely scattered fragments of textual and material evidence, this project brings craftsmen and materials to the fore, shows the importance of temples as high public art, and makes regional culture a subject to study.