#   Structures of Governance in Song Dynasty China 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **September 25, 2023** 

 04:00PM - 04:00PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Yenching Common Room (Rm. 136), 2 Divinity Ave.**  



 

 [ this registration page arrow\_circle\_right ](https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwlfumhpjkjGdQMrSkSfaDmBP5HwCSdFB6h) 

 



 

##  [CHINA HUMANITIES](/china-humanities) 

##  SPEAKER: Charles Hartman, University of Albany (Emeritus) 

 This lecture will introduce my recent book, *Structures of Governance in Song Dynasty China 960-1279 CE* (Cambridge, 2023). Together with its historiographical prelude, *The Making of Song Dynasty History: Sources and Narratives* (Cambridge, 2021), *Structures of Governance* seeks to go beyond the static organizational charts of the official Song History (宋史) of 1345 and offers a new model for thinking about Song governance as a continuum of possible administrative modalities. This continuum, or spectrum of possibilities, links (1) a Confucian preference for established institutions and precedents that circumscribed imperial power and (2) the monarchy’s preference for an ad hoc, pan-sectarian “technocracy.” The result is a more expansive view of political culture as a “technocratic-Confucian continuum.” On the one hand, this model emphasizes how the Song monarchs transformed the imperial clan, its affines, eunuchs, and female palace bureaucrats into a complex corporation that both enabled and benefited from the rapid expansion of the commercial economy. On the other hand, it argues that there were few committed and effective Confucian politicians and, although intellectually and socially influential, they existed in constant political tension with imperial technocrats.

###  About the Speaker 

 Professor Charles Hartman received his PhD in Chinese literature from Indiana University in 1975. He published *Han Yü and the T’ang Search for Unity* (Princeton University Press) in 1986, which received the Levinson Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. Over the past thirty years, his articles on Song dynasty historiography in the *Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies*, *T’oung Pao*, and the *Journal of Song-Yuan Studies* have prepared the way for his current research on how political decision-making influenced Song historical writing. His book, *The Making of Song Dynasty History: Sources and Narratives* (Cambridge, 2021), reviews the compilation of the major works that survive from official Song historiography and distills from these an embedded narrative -- a “grand allegory of Song history” that reflects tension between a model of governance based on Confucian institutionalism and another based on the Song monarchy’s pan-sectarian, technocratic preferences. His latest work, *Structures of Governance in Song Dynasty* (Cambridge, 2023) develops this distinction at length and offers a new model for thinking about the deeper structures of Song governance and of pre-modern China more generally. This model, the “technocratic-Confucian continuum,” reframes the prevailing notion of Confucian political dominance and expands the definition of Song political culture to embrace all its actors.

###  How To join 

 This is a hybrid event. To attend virtually, please add your name and email address to [this registration page](https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwlfumhpjkjGdQMrSkSfaDmBP5HwCSdFB6h). After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with a link and passcode to the event.

 If you have any questions, please conatct Amy Zhang at [ayzhang@g.harvard.edu ](mailto:%20ayzhang@g.harvard.edu)



 

 



 

 See also:- [ Seminar ](/event-type/seminar)
- [ China Humanities ](/seminars/china-humanities)
 
 

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