Position:

Departmental Lecturer in Chinese History; Associate, Pembroke College

Faculty / College Address:

Institute for Chinese Studies

Email:

peter.ditmanson@orinst.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests:

• Chinese cultural intellectual history
• Chinese traditional historiography

Current Projects:

My current project is a study of daoxue Neo-Confucianism as a social movement from the late Southern Song (1127-1279) down to the early Ming period (1368-1644).  I examine the meanings of daoxue affiliation as a form of social and political identity and the ways that these meanings evolve over time and across different geographic regions. 

I am also engaged in a broad study of the commemoration and historiography of the usurpation of the Ming throne by the Yongle Emperor in 1402.  The project examines the social and political dimensions of the efforts from the fifteenth century onward to reconstruct the history of the usurpation and to honor the loyal officials who were martyred.  The ongoing discourse on the usurpation through the Ming and Qing periods sheds light on the enduring fault-line in imperial Chinese political discourse between the prerogatives of the imperium and those of the gentry and the scholarly elite. 

Courses Taught:

Lectures: contributions to East Asian History and Modern Chinese History surveys, MPhil and MSt courses in Chinese Studies

Tutorials: Imperial Chinese History, Modern Chinese History

Recent Publications:

• “Hongwu nianjian de daode lianzheng (Moral Remonstrance in the Hongwu Reign),” forthcoming in Ming Taizu de zhiguo linian ji qi shijian (Ming Taizu’s Administrative Ideas and Practice), Chinese University of Hong Kong.
• “Ming Dynasty,” “Tongdian,” “Yongle Dadian,” “Hai Rui,” “Yongle,” forthcoming in Berkshire Encyclopedia of Chinese History.
• Venerating the Martyrs of the 1402 Usurpation: History and Memory in the Mid and Late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644),” T’oung Pao, Brill, 93.1 (Spring, 2007).
• The Early Ming Imperial University and Xu Cunren,” in Long Live the Emperor!  Uses of the Ming Founder Across Six Centuries of East Asian History, Ming Studies, University of Minnesota, 2007.
• Moralistic Politics in the Early Ming: The Story of Fang Xiaoru,” The Human Tradition in China, Scholarly Resources, Inc., 2002.
• Death in Fidelity: Mid and Late Ming Reconstructions of Fang Xiaoru.” Ming Studies, no. 45-46 (Fall & Spring, 2001).

Further Info:

Recent Panel and Conference Organization:

• “Local and Trans-local Activism in Commemorating the Martyrs of 1402,” International Conference on Translocal and Transregional Dynamics in Chinese History, 960-1911, National University of Singapore, May 2008.
• Co-collaborator for International Conference on Translocal and Transregional Dynamics in Chinese History, 960-1911, National University of Singapore, May 2008.
• “Southern Daoxue in the Yuan: the Problem with Success,” Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore, May 2008.
• Panel Discussant, “Values in Conflict: Confucian Attempts to Resolve Moral Dilemmas,” American Academy of Religion annual conference, Washington, D.C., November 2006.
• “The Politics of Remonstrance: Ruler and Ministers in the late Hongwu Reign,” International Conference on “Ming Taizu and his Times,” Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, March 2006.
• “Female Virtue and Neo-Confucian Views of Commerce in 13th and 14th Century China,” American Academy of Religion annual conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 2005.
• “Ambiguous Victory: Southern Responses to the Adoption of Daoxue Neo-Confucianism at the Yuan Capital at Beijing,” Association of Asian Studies, Chicago, Illinois, April 2005.
• “Regional Neo-Confucianism: Northern and Southern Daoxue in Yuan Dynasty China,” International Conference of Medievalists, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2005.
• “Court Villains as Local Worthies: Mid- and Late-Ming Shrines to the Jianwen Martyrs of 1402,” Conference of the International Association of Historians of Asia, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taiwan, December 2004.