UDTR — Radar mondial des droits de la Nature

Out of control: The place of shanshui (mountains and rivers) in the geographical discourse of early imperial China.

Identification

Clé publique

openalex:w2733726948

Auteurs

Sarah Jo-Shao Wang

Année déclarée

1999

Langue déclarée

en

Type source

dissertation

Première détection

2026-11-09T19:10:53.792669+00:00

Dernière observation des métadonnées

2026-11-09T19:10:53.792669+00:00

Dernière vérification HTTP

Non effectuée

Résumé documentaire — langue originale

This dissertation examines the representation of the natural world in early imperial China as developed in two distinct forms, geographical writing and landscape appreciation. Sharing a common language, the relationship between the two poses interesting problems in narratology, poetics, and representation. The term shanshui, for example, refers simultaneously to landscape in terms of aesthetic appreciation and mountains and rivers as physical resources and barriers in the geography. The two forms share this language in addressing common issues of moral authority concerning current imperial rule. But, whereas the geographical discourse expresses the imperial power of the center, a power based in moral virtue, the landscape claims that the moral authority to rule rests on the contrary, in the wilderness landscape on the periphery. The representation of nature embodied in both landscape and geography thus engenders a paradox that encompasses their contending worldviews. This paradox originates in the geographical discourse itself. It records the mountains, rivers and their wu (life forms) as periphery hostile to the center, that must somehow be assimilated. The geography narrates this assimilation via imperial conquest, measurement and standardization ( du), the accessing of resources, the unification of cultural practice, and moral transformation. All of these concerns come together in the myth of the culture hero Yu controlling the floods. However, this center-periphery view proves to be inherently paradoxical. The flooding, unsinified, wilderness to be measured, marked, and conquered, is also, in the rubric of the emergent landscape discourse, the true center of Heavenly moral authority to be worshipped and appeased. It is this central paradox in the representation of the natural world that cleaves to yield the landscape and geography discourses. This paradoxical expression of the geography is further, rhetorically meaningful: an argument claims to be so complete that it encompasses all opposing sides. The landscape discourse continues this rhetoric of paradox, appropriating the same structures of meaning to both oppose and embrace the views of the geography. Landscape and geography contend over language, matter, and authority, yet ultimately, like yin and yang, they are meaningful only in terms of each other.

Identifiants

OPENALEX

W2733726948

Repères documentaires

Famille documentaire

Thèse

Types déclarés par les sources

dissertation

Juridictions étudiées — sources explicites

CN

Entités naturelles mentionnées

Fleuve / rivière · Montagne · Paysage

Les mentions d’entités ne constituent pas une preuve de reconnaissance juridique. La juridiction étudiée est distincte du pays d’affiliation des auteurs.

Sources

OpenAlex · Document 1 · Document 2

• Document · https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstreams/ebb49a22-4140-4e43-9f0e-35072452f830/download
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W2733726948

Statut documentaire

Pertinence à examiner

Bibliothèque

Cette identité n’est pas encore intégrée à la Bibliothèque juridique.