Michael James Puett, Professor of Chinese History
Intellectual, cultural, and political history of early China.
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Courses, Spring 2007
Chinese
History 232r (formerly Chinese History 232). Topics in Han History
Catalog Number: 7542
Michael J. Puett
Half course (spring term). Tu., 1–4. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16, 17
Examines various topics in the history of the Han Dynasty.
Recent Publications
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To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China This wide-ranging book reconstructs a long-lasting debate in early China over the proper relationship between humans and gods, a debate that involved rival claims concerning the nature of the cosmos and the spirits, the proper demarcation between the human and the divine realms, and the types of power that humans and spirits can exercise. It is often claimed that the worldview of early China was unproblematically monistic and that hence China had avoided the tensions between gods and humans found in the West. By treating the issues of cosmology, sacrifice, and self-divinization in a historical and comparative framework that attends to the contemporary significance of specific arguments, Michael J. Puett shows that the basic cosmological assumptions of ancient China were the subject of far more debate than is generally thought. Harvard
University Press |
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The Ambivalence
of Creation: Debates Concerning Innovation and Artifice in Early China Michael J. Puett This book studies the debates in the Warring States
and early Han periods (fourth through first centuries BC) concerning
notions of invention and innovation: is it acceptable for humans to
create anew, and, if so, under what circumstances and in what ways?
The author traces this debate in its various cultural manifestations,
analyzing arguments over the nature of human culture, the degree to
which culture is a human fabrication, and the legitimacy of fabricating
a new culture altogether. It also examines the emerging myths of the
time concerning the initial creation of the state and discusses how
these myths were manipulated during the formation of the first empires. hardcover price: $55.00 |
Publications
Books:
To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China. (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002.)
The Ambivalence of Creation: Debates Concerning Innovation
and Artifice in Early China.
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.)
Studies on Sima Qian's Shiji (Records of the Historian): Narrative, Authorship, and Historiography, editor. (Forthcoming from the State University of New York Press.)
Articles and reviews:
“The Offering of Food and the Creation of Order: The Practice of Sacrifice in Early China.” Of Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics, and Religion in Traditional China . Edited by Roel Sterckx. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005.) Pages 75-95.
“Forming Spirits for the Way: The Cosmology of the Xiang'er Commentary to the Laozi. ” Journal of Chinese Religions 32 (2004): 1-27.
“Following the Commands of Heaven: The Notion of Ming in Early China.” The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture . Edited by Christopher Lupke. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.) Pages 49-69.
“The Ascension of the Spirit: Toward a Cultural History of Self-Divinization Movements in Early China.” Religion and Chinese Society . Edited by John Lagerwey. (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2004.) Pages 193-222.
“The Ethics of Responding Properly: The Notion of Qing in Early Chinese Thought.” Love and Emotions in Traditional Chinese Literature . Edited by Halvor Eifring. (Leiden, Brill, 2004.) Pages 37-68.
“Determining the Position of Heaven and Earth: Debates Over State Sacrifices in the Western Han Dynasty.” Confucian Spirituality . Edited by Tu Wei-Ming and Mary Evelyn Tucker. (New York: Crossroad Press, 2003)
“'Nothing Can Overcome Heaven': The Notion of Spirit in the Zhuangzi .” Hiding the World in the World: Essays on Zhuangzi . Edited by Scott Cook. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003)
“Violent Misreadings: The Hermeneutics of Cosmology in the Huainanzi .” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities . 72 (2000): 29-47.
“Humans and Gods: The Theme of Self-Divinization in Early China and Early Greece.” Thinking Through Comparisons: Ancient China and Ancient Greece . Edited by Stephen Durrant and Steven Shankman. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002)
“Philosophy and Literature in Early China.” The Columbia History of Chinese Literature , edited by Victor Mair. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001)
“China in Early Eurasian History: A Brief Review of Recent Scholarship on the Issue.” Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia . Edited by Victor Mair. (Washington D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man, 1998), pp. 699-715.
“Sages, Ministers, and Rebels: Narratives from Early China Concerning the Initial Creation of the State.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies , 58.2 (December 1998): 425-479.
“Nature and Artifice: Debates in Late Warring States China Concerning the Creation of Culture.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies , 57.2 (December 1997): 471-518.
Review of Stephen Durrant's The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian . Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies , 57.1 (June 1997): 290-301.