Nathan Vedal
Biographic Data
| ID | 1259067 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nathan Vedal |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nathan |
| FAMILY NAME | Vedal |
| SIGNATURE | VEDAL N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8020-2192 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Literati of the Garrisons
Conventionally characterized as a perfunctory exercise established to bolster the ranks of Manchu officials, the Qing dynasty civil service translation examination, and its accompanying curriculum of literary and classical training, played a major role in the development of literary-intellectual values among members of the Eight Banners. This article demonstrates how it contributed to the emergence of a multiethnic population of Manchu, Mongol, a…
The Culture of Language in Ming China
The scholarly culture of Ming dynasty China is often seen as prioritizing philosophy over concrete textual study. Nathan Vedal uncovers the preoccupation among Ming thinkers with specialized linguistic learning, a field typically associated with the intellectual revolution of the eighteenth century.
Dame Wang’s Dumplings
This article examines the surprising attention to taboo works of Chinese erotic literature within the corpus of early Manchu literary translations, focusing on the Manchu interpretations of Jinpingmei (The plum in the golden vase), Xixiang ji (The story of the western wing), and Rouputuan (The carnal prayer mat). The Qing court is well known to have sponsored translations of core works of the Chinese classical and historical tradition, while simu…
The Manchu Reading of Jinpingmei
This article examines the notorious, but little-studied Manchu translation of Jinpingmei. I argue that the translation embraces multiple levels of translingual literacy, embodied in the philological reading aids provided throughout the text. The forms of commentary contained within require a reconsideration of Manchu reading practices and allow for a comparison with approaches to Sinitic writing and vernacular reading across early modern East Asi…
From Tradition to Community
From Tradition to Community
This article examines the emergence of a new emphasis on contemporary specialized knowledge in sixteenth-century China. During this period, sources of authority such as antiquity and the court came to lose their elevated status. As a result, scholars increasingly saw the expertise of a contemporary disciplinary community as a superior standard for validating knowledge. This trend appeared in scholarly collaboration and the citation of contemporar…
New Scripts for All Sounds
I argue that cosmological methods, and the debates they inspired, were a major source of innovation in phonological scholarship during the late Ming. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scholars strove to document the scope of possible sounds existing in the universe. Realizing the Chinese script was insufficient to fully record them, they explored new notation systems to comprehensively describe sound. Although competing contemporaneous approache…
Preferring Omission over Falsity
Neglected in the current scholarship on Qing dynasty court compilations, the dictionary commissioned by the Kangxi emperor in 1710 is an important source for understanding the nature of court-commissioned reference works in the early Qing. TheKangxi Classic of Characters, although typically believed to have improved on Ming and early Qing dictionaries by virtue of its greater inclusion of source materials, in fact had a more complicated relations…
Preferring Omission over Falsity
Neglected in the current scholarship on Qing dynasty court compilations, the dictionary commissioned by the Kangxi emperor in 1710 is an important source for understanding the nature of court-commissioned reference works in the early Qing. TheKangxi Classic of Characters, although typically believed to have improved on Ming and early Qing dictionaries by virtue of its greater inclusion of source materials, in fact had a more complicated relations…
From Tradition to Community
This article examines the emergence of a new emphasis on contemporary specialized knowledge in sixteenth-century China. During this period, sources of authority such as antiquity and the court came to lose their elevated status. As a result, scholars increasingly saw the expertise of a contemporary disciplinary community as a superior standard for validating knowledge. This trend appeared in scholarly collaboration and the citation of contemporar…
Preferring Omission over Falsity
Neglected in the current scholarship on Qing dynasty court compilations, the dictionary commissioned by the Kangxi emperor in 1710 is an important source for understanding the nature of court-commissioned reference works in the early Qing. TheKangxi Classic of Characters, although typically believed to have improved on Ming and early Qing dictionaries by virtue of its greater inclusion of source materials, in fact had a more complicated relations…
New Scripts for All Sounds
I argue that cosmological methods, and the debates they inspired, were a major source of innovation in phonological scholarship during the late Ming. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scholars strove to document the scope of possible sounds existing in the universe. Realizing the Chinese script was insufficient to fully record them, they explored new notation systems to comprehensively describe sound. Although competing contemporaneous approache…
From Tradition to Community
From Tradition to Community
This article examines the emergence of a new emphasis on contemporary specialized knowledge in sixteenth-century China. During this period, sources of authority such as antiquity and the court came to lose their elevated status. As a result, scholars increasingly saw the expertise of a contemporary disciplinary community as a superior standard for validating knowledge. This trend appeared in scholarly collaboration and the citation of contemporar…
The Manchu Reading of Jinpingmei
This article examines the notorious, but little-studied Manchu translation of Jinpingmei. I argue that the translation embraces multiple levels of translingual literacy, embodied in the philological reading aids provided throughout the text. The forms of commentary contained within require a reconsideration of Manchu reading practices and allow for a comparison with approaches to Sinitic writing and vernacular reading across early modern East Asi…
The Culture of Language in Ming China
The scholarly culture of Ming dynasty China is often seen as prioritizing philosophy over concrete textual study. Nathan Vedal uncovers the preoccupation among Ming thinkers with specialized linguistic learning, a field typically associated with the intellectual revolution of the eighteenth century.
Dame Wang’s Dumplings
This article examines the surprising attention to taboo works of Chinese erotic literature within the corpus of early Manchu literary translations, focusing on the Manchu interpretations of Jinpingmei (The plum in the golden vase), Xixiang ji (The story of the western wing), and Rouputuan (The carnal prayer mat). The Qing court is well known to have sponsored translations of core works of the Chinese classical and historical tradition, while simu…
Literati of the Garrisons
Conventionally characterized as a perfunctory exercise established to bolster the ranks of Manchu officials, the Qing dynasty civil service translation examination, and its accompanying curriculum of literary and classical training, played a major role in the development of literary-intellectual values among members of the Eight Banners. This article demonstrates how it contributed to the emergence of a multiethnic population of Manchu, Mongol, a…
Art (7 works) · Chinese history and philosophy (7 works) · History (7 works) · Literature (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Archaeology (4 works) · China (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Linguistics (4 works)