The Politics of Idealism in Ming China (1368-1644)

China Research Seminar Series talk given by Ying Zhang, Leiden University.

This study examines the social networks surrounding jailed officials in the Ming dynasty and how they were mobilized and deployed. These networks spanned from friendly circles to broader social movements, connecting communities and locales where jailed officials had lived, socialized, and worked. This wide range of activities, on individual and collective levels, show how active and activist the Ming population was. Drawing on the founding emperor’s idealistic vision, they remained engaged in the jailing cases that they deeply cared about; the (un)likelihood of success did not affect their passion for participation. Participating in helping jailed officials became an honorable action to claim, an ideal image to acquire. Individuals who coordinated campaigns on behalf of jailed officials varied in their styles, some resembling the “righteous knight” ideal while others were more in line with the Confucian ethical expectations. The ideal was powerful enough to justify same-sex desire. Beyond stereotypes, we find diverse engagements with cultural ideals, administrative rules, social norms, and political traditions, the backbones of the Ming patrimonial bureaucratic empire.

Ying Zhang holds a join PhD in History and Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan. She taught in the History Department at the Ohio State University before joining the Institute for Area Studies at Leiden University as Leiden Professor of Chinese History. Her research interests include premodern Chinese political culture, bureaucracy, gender and patriarchy, and literati culture. She is the author of two book-length publications: Confucian Image Politics: Masculine Morality in Seventeenth-Century China (University of Washington Press, 2016) and Religion and Prison Art in Ming China (1368-1644) (Brill, 2020). She recently completed a book manuscript on jailing officials in the Ming. 

Image credit: Miguel Angel Payano Jr, “Holding Court” [上朝] 2023