Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i

- 80 Ming-Ch'ing Studies in Japan: 1982 Ueda Noboru -^- W L^, Shigaku zasshi $Zjk3$Úw· 92·5 (May 1983>' 193-199. Translated by Joshua A. Fogel, Harvard University The new scholarly trends first apparent in the past two or three years took concrete shape in works written in 1982. One of these trends was enhanced academic exchange with the People's Republic of China. Symbolic of this development was the collection of essays contributed to the International Academic Symposium on Ming and Ch'ing History convened at Nan-k ' ai âjpl·j University in August 1980: Ming-Ch'ing shih kuo-chi hsueh-shu t'ao-lun-hui lun-wen-chi 0ft % &&1%'???&£?&*-% (Essays from the International Academic Symposium on Ming and Ch'ing History, Tientsin People's Press). There has also been a noticeable increase in the Chinese scholarly world of interest in Japanese research. An essay by Hamashima Atsutoshi /f^jft ZVjiPye was published in a Chinese journal (see below), and we have also heard that the nei-bu Q%p ("internal circulation only") journal Chung-kuo shih yenchiu tung-t'ai ^ffi jE-MJLfj) Qj has introduced trends in Japanese scholarship as well as having excerpted and translated several Japanese essays. Furthermore, opportunities for Japanese researchers to peruse materials held in China have substantially increased, and welcome indeed are developments toward sharing of historical documents, as manifested for example by Hamashima Atsutoshi's "A Brief Introduction to the An Wu ch'in-shen hsi kao, Held in the Peking Library" ^^ ISO |^I1í ^4T? ^; ^L% ^1^^??£%(Hokkaido daigaku bungakubu kiyó ${J}q %Az?r 'iJt-^îA^r 30.1). By the same token, there has been heightened interchange in the form of Chinese scholars spending extended periods in Japan. Last year Fu I-ling 1!f ^L'$L, the renowned social-economic historian, visited Kyoto, and Chou Yuan- lien j-if V& mr , a specialist in Ch'ing history, visited Tokyo. One concrete result of Chou' s stay was the publication of his essay, "The Ch'ing Imperial Clan" /¦a ^q ß) ^.fltfc (Gakujutsu kokusai kôryïî sankó shiryóshú '^? fâfàn-'&Lfâ f W f ' Meiji *& diversity 80) . At present many Japanese students are pursuing research at various universities in China; they are also learning about Chinese realities first-hand. If those who have established close ties with Chinese scholars publish the results in the next three or four years, then Japanese sinology will be immeasurably advanced . Two recent scholarly trends have been: the summing up of studies done in the 1970' s (work regarding the Chinese gentry would be a representative example) that developed the theory of historical stages with particulars from China's actual historical development; and the emergence - 82 of methods fundamentally different from that of the theory of stages of development. Concerning the former, Hamashima Atsutoshi's essay in Gendai rekishigaku no seika to kadai íl^^^'^-^^-^r^^f^CAchievements and topics of contemporary historiography, ed. Rekishigaku kenkyukai//j£ XÍ£J1¡f ?µ\ fcíí\ ) summarizes the results of Japanese research in the 1970' s concerning the issue of kySdotai -/T l*J>^or "community." A leader in the field of social and economic history throughout the 1970' s , Hamashima also published the i_ Ilvolume Mindai Konan nóson shakai no kenkyu ñfl Iv /J_ l^)yS_ 7Jv] %zS-^\ F¦vft'-fii (Studies in Kiangnan rural society in the Ming dynasty, Tokyo University Press). On the basis of earlier work, he systematically describes issues such as water utilization practices, the equal field-equal labor service system, and popular rebellion. Iwama Kazuo fô p3j " Wi. has similarly published a book in an area straddling the fields of intellectual and social-economic history, Chugoku no hoken teki sekaizô ?[f] 0) .^J^-ti^ l£%i^¿ (China's feudalistic world view, Miraisha) . It is hoped that both volumes will elicit reviews of their own. Of the two scholarly trends mentioned above, the latter both criticizes methods based on a theory of class struggle and developmental stages as well as supports a method that might be termed "structural understanding." The undermining of trust in the theory of stages of societal development is consistent with the general state of contemporary thought. The present age is one...