Speaker: Eric S. Lee, Cornell University

Accidental Status: Reassessing Protection Privilege in Northern Song (960-1127)

Lee writes:

Much of what we have been told about governance during middle and late imperial China revolves around the narrative of a meritocracy created and maintained by the civil service examination system.  Against an earlier emphasis on the emergence of social fluidity in the tenth and eleventh centuries, this project contributes to the current scholarship by revealing alternative systems underpinning the social reproduction of the ruling elite and explores their far-reaching consequences for the state-society relationship. In particular, this project analyzes the role of the protection privilege system, or yinbu 蔭補, in northern China during the Northern Song (960-1127). As a primary channel of bureaucratic recruitment, the protection privilege granted hereditary access to political status and social privilege to family members of qualified officials. By a rough estimate, its recipients constituted at least one-third of the entire Song official roster. However, for such a statistically significant method of social reproduction, protection privilege has yet received attention proportionate to its social implications in English, Chinese, and Japanese scholarship. 

The group meets monthly during the semester to explore a variety of classical Chinese texts and styles. Other premodern texts linked to classical Chinese in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese have been explored. Presentations include works from the earliest times to the 20th century. Workshop sessions are led by local, national, and international scholars.  Participants with any level of classical Chinese experience are welcome to attend.  

• At each session, a presenter guides the group in a reading of a classical Chinese text. Attendees discuss historical, literary, linguistic, and other aspects of the text, working together to resolve difficulties in comprehension and translation.
• No preparation is required; all texts will be distributed at the meeting.

A light dinner will be served.