Project

Religion and the Material Culture of North China, 1300-1900

Program

ACLS Fellowship Program

Department

History and East Asian Studies

Named Award

supported in part by the Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr. Fund for Chinese History named award

Abstract

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.