The Social Life of Inkstones Read Along: Introduction

[forestofglory]

Welcome to the first post of our read a long of The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China by Dorothy Ko! For this post we are reading the introduction.

Since this the introduction to the book, I thought it might be nice for us to introduce ourselves, so here are some optional discussion questions:

1. What do you hope to get out of reading this book? What do you hope to get out of the read a long format?

2. What is your experience reading academic history books? (No experience necessary of course, but it's helpful for me to know for planning purposes)

3. What is your experience using an inkstone or writing languages that historically where written with inkstones?

4. In the introduction what did you find interesting and/or exciting?

Comments

[rhysiana]

*waves* I'm rhysiana! Very excited to start this read-along!

1) What do you hope to get out of reading this book? What do you hope to get out of the read along format?

I'm hoping to get lots of interesting information on a niche subject (my favorite!) and the read-along format gives me actual deadlines for reading the various chapters, which means I'm less likely to read the intro and then wander off and forget to read the rest, plus actually getting to discuss the subject matter with other interested people in a less strictly academic environment.

2) What is your experience reading academic history books?

My minor in college was modern Latin American history, and the professor who taught all those classes was really good at getting us to read everything on two levels: the content presented (ie, the actual history being discussed) and how it was presented. What was the author's goal in writing? Did they succeed in the way they chose to present their writing? I honestly think those classes taught me more about the craft of writing than any literature class I ever took.

I also took a class on ancient Chinese history that had a lot of focus on artifacts, but it was a very broad survey course, so I'm looking forward to this very specific deep dive.

3) What is your experience using an inkstone or writing languages that historically where written with inkstones?

I have taken both Chinese and Japanese, but all of my experience writing characters has been with a pen. I have been to a store selling calligraphy supplies in China, though, and seen inkstones for sale in the modern context. (Miraculously, I avoided buying one.)

4) In the introduction what did you find interesting and/or exciting?

I enjoyed the author laying out how she intends to approach the subject, and also all the tantalizing initial bits of information about the historical figures we'll be meeting. All of the discussion of the gendering of scholarship and valorization of intellectual pursuits over anything physical was also very interesting, especially after having read Jeannie Lin's Tang Dynasty Lotus Palace mystery series, in which one of the main characters is a young woman who longs to be a scholar, and discovers (through dressing as her brother) that the women with the most freedom to participate in scholarly discussions were the courtesans students preparing for the imperial exams visited regularly. See also: Sleuth and the whole exam system implications there, plus the subtleties this adds to the relationship between Tang Fan (first place exam passer, government official, of humble origins) and Sui Zhou (militarily/physically focused to the point of irritation to his family, of noble origins). I really like the interplay of knowledge gained from actual historical research and well-researched historical fiction.

[theladyscribe]

What was the author's goal in writing? Did they succeed in the way they chose to present their writing?

I took a research methods class in grad school that asked these questions and also emphasized looking at how the writer came to their conclusions (ie, what sources they used and how they used them). That's something I always keep an eye out for in the intros and acknowledgements. Ko doesn't go into her methods in detail in the intro, though she does mention that her research was very hands-on, so I'm curious to see if we get more information on that aspect of it as the book progresses.

[rhysiana]

Yes, I'm very interested in learning more about how she chose to approach it! (It's always so interesting to get little glimpses of the extremely niche arguments happening in an academic field about what is and is not worthy of study, or what methodology should be considered best. I once went to a lunch talk by a history prof about his new book, the translation of a small-town Japanese man's diary, and he spent 90% of the time defending the continued study of diaries and other first-person accounts rather than telling us about his actual book.)

[forestofglory]

I think Francesca Bray and Dorothy Ko are having an argument like that! At least Bray has lot to say about Ko's work in her book, and Ko has cited Bray here as having a very broad view of what "technology" is

[rhysiana]

Ooooh, academic drama!

[xmarksthespotwhereistand]

The way she talks about it, makes one think we should also create an inkstone through the course of this read along.

[forestofglory]

I would love to make and inkstone! It looks like it takes a lot of skill though

[cortue]

Oo, those both sound like very cool classes, or a series of classes in the Latin History minor case. I wish my university would've had classes on such topics. And I appreciate your professor's focus on analyzing the author's intent and effectiveness.

What an interesting idea about the intellectual freedom of courtesans!

[rhysiana]

They were very good classes (if depressing, in the case of modern LatAm history)!

There's a new book in the Lotus Palace series coming out soon, and I'm looking forward to seeing if I pick up on different things in it after reading this book.

[forestofglory]

The thing about valuing scholarship over anything physical was also mentioned in Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China by Francesca Bray which I'm reading now. Bray talks about how all women where expected to do physical labor and thus where seen as lower under this hierarchy.

I have the 1st book of the Lotus Palace Mystery and I really need to read it soon!

[rhysiana]

So funny that the Bray book keeps crossing into our discussion here too! Clearly you themed your current reading selections well.

I hope you like the Lotus Palace book!

[anehan]

Ooh, interesting observation about Tang Fan and Sui Zhou! This makes me want to learn more about how the exam system/civil service/ etc. thing of Chinese society worked. My background is so inadequate for this read-along that I expect the whole thing is going to be me going "oh noes, I wish I knew more about this". *g* Self-deprecation aside, I do think that's exactly what's going to happen, though it doesn't actually bother me at all.

[rhysiana]

(Catching up on replies!)

I wouldn't worry about not having a strong history background, because that feeling of "oh, now I need to go read about this! and this!" is what drives people to history PhDs. It just never ends! I actually had a long talk with my main history professor back in college about how impossible it felt to write a thesis statement for a paper because there was so much I didn't know yet. How could I possibly write a thesis statement before I'd done most of the research reading???