04
Thursday, 4:00pm –5:30pm
S EMINAR R OOM A , CIW B UILDING
Centre on China in the World,
MAY Australian
Building 188, Fellows Lane
2017 (between Law School and South Oval)
Zhu Yayun
is a PhD scholar at the Australian Centre
on China in the World, ANU
A Splendid Party: Zhou Lianggong
(1612–1672) and His Friends in Literary
Nanjing, 1669
Qing official and art patron Zhou Lianggong 周亮工
(1612–1672) held a party for twenty Nanjing-affiliated
painters and poets on a fine winter’s day in 1669. This
party allows us to observe cultural life twenty-five
years after the Ming-Qing dynastic transition. Despite
Nanjing’s political significance as a former Ming capital,
it was literary sociability, not political contestation,
that dominated the social life of Nanjing’s artists and
literati members in the late seventeenth century.
Research School of Asia & the Pacific
http://chinainstitute.anu.edu.au/events/seminarseries
04 May 2017, 4:oopm–5:30pm ( T H U R S DAY )
S EMINAR R OOM A , CIW B UILDING
Australian Centre on China in the World, Building 188, Fellows Lane, ANU
http://chinainstitute.anu.edu.au/events/
Zhu Yayun
A Splendid Party: Zhou Lianggong (1612–1672)
and His Friends in Literary Nanjing, 1669
The ANU China Seminar Series is the pre-eminent
forum for discussion of China and the Sinophone world
at the Australian National University, where over fifty
senior academics as well as many post-doctoral fellows
and graduate students conduct research on the region.
Invited speakers come from across the full range of
disciplines. They include senior scholars from in and
outside the ANU, younger academics, post-doctoral
research fellows, and advanced graduate students. The
Seminar Series provides an arena in which to examine
China in its widest sense, to acquaint people with a
range of China-related research that might otherwise
lie outside their scope of contact, and to offer a social
setting for discussion of matters of mutual interest. It
aims at a broad audience: members of academic staff
from many fields; undergraduate and graduate students;
policy-makers; and interested members of the public.
With the consent of speakers, seminars are recorded
and made publicly available through the Seminar Series’
website to build an archive of research on the Sinophone
world. The seminar runs on alternate Thursdays during
the ANU’s teaching terms.
AFTER THE SEMINAR
To allow for informal discussion, the seminar will be
followed by a dinner with the guest speaker at 6.15 pm.
All are welcome, though those who attend will need to
pay for their own food and drinks. As a reservation must
be made, please RSVP by noon of the day before the
seminar to [email protected].
This is the story of an elegant party. It was given by the Qing official
and art patron Zhou Lianggong 周亮工 (1612–1672) in his Pavilion for
Viewing Paintings on a fine winter’s day in 1669. Over twenty Nanjingaffiliated painters and poets gathered there. Among his guests were
some of the greatest artists of the age. Zhou’s student, Huang Yuji
黃虞稷 (1629–1691), described the gathering and celebrated these
cultural luminaries in a ninety-line ballad. The party was so successful
that Zhou claimed that it was “the most splendid event in Nanjing
over several decades.” Such was his affection for his guests that he not
only collected their works, but wrote a biography of them, published
posthumously by his son.
I use Zhou’s party as the keyhole through which to observe cultural life
twenty-five years after the Ming-Qing dynastic transition. This single
episode affords us broader views of friendship networks, interactions
between Qing government officials and Ming loyalists, and discourses
on art practices and milieu in the late seventeenth century. I argue
that, despite Nanjing’s political significance as a former Ming capital,
it witnessed little artistic and literary resistance against the Qing rule
during this period. Instead, it was literary sociability, not political
contestation, that dominated the social life of Nanjing’s artists and
literati members in the late seventeenth century.
ZHU YAYUN is a PhD scholar at the
Australian Centre on China in the World
at The Australian National University.
He is currently writing his disseration on
a cultural and social history of the city
of Nanking in late-Ming and early-Qing
China.
The China Seminar Series is sponsored by the China
Institute, the Research School of Asia and the Pacific,
and the Australian Centre on China in the World at The
Australian National University.
Convenors: Amy King ([email protected]), Elisa
Nesossi ([email protected]), and Mark Strange
([email protected]).
For further details of the series:
http://chinainstitute.anu.edu.au
Research School of Asia & the Pacific