Bruce Rusk
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ADVICE AND INSIGHTS FROM UBC FACULTY ON REACHING OUT TO SUPERVISORS
These videos contain some general advice from faculty across UBC on finding and reaching out to a potential thesis supervisor.
Supervision Enquiry
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Dissertations completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest dissertations.
Marginalia are a variety of writings and symbols drawn by readers on the pages of books. In Chinese history, marginalia were rare in both records and physical books before the late Ming (1368-1644). The early-Qing (1644-1911) calligrapher, bibliophile, and textual scholar He Zhuo (1661-1722) devoted himself to reading and collating books and composed marginalia on hundreds of titles. After his death, the composition and transcription of marginalia started to become a popular scholarly practice. The transcription of marginalia helped to build up a rather efficient model of transmitting information, knowledge, and thought among scholars. It formed a particular scholarly culture—a systematic way for scholars to think and behave. This study explores how this scholarly culture took form, gained momentum, and shaped scholarly styles and scholars’ lives, thoughts, mental states in the Qing dynasty. The main part of this study is made up of four chapters. Chapter 2 introduces the characteristics of marginalia in comparison with other Chinese interpretive texts. Chapter 3 is a case study of He Zhuo’s marginalia. Focusing on He’s marginalia on the Hou Hanshu (History of the Later Han Dynasty [25-220]), this chapter explores He’s reading habits and scholarly practices, and their influence on later scholars and readers. Chapter 4 is concerned with questions of who participated in the practice of transcribing marginalia, how different participants were involved in the process of transcription, and their motives and attitudes. Chapter 5 analyses different transcriptionists’ colophons, so as to explore their private lives and mental states. Qing scholars spent an enormous amount of time and energy composing and transcribing marginalia. They were concerned with both content and form of marginalia. In this process, scholars not only tried to accumulate knowledge, but also pursued its aesthetic values. They inherited reading habits and scholarly approaches from Ming scholars, and developed their own way of reading, doing research, and living.
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Publications
- Symptoms of an Unruly Age: Li Zhi and Cultures of Early Modernity (2018)
Chinese Studies, 36 (4), 317--322 - The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China (2018)
The China Quarterly, 235, 909--911 - The book of swindles: selections from a late Ming collection (2017)
Columbia UP, - Where the Truth Lies: Evidence and Argument in Late Imperial Debates about the Great Learning (2015)
Lectures et usages de la Grande étude, , 187--196 - World antiquarianism: comparative perspectives (Issues & Debates), written by Alain Schnapp, Lothar von Falkenhausen, Peter N. Miller, and Tim Murray (2015)
East Asian Publishing and Society, 5 (1), 139--143 - Artifacts of Authentication: People Making Texts Making Things in Ming-Qing China (2012)
Antiquarianism and intellectual life in Europe and China, 1500–1800, , 180--204 - Critics and commentators: the Book of poems as classic and literature (2012)
Harvard University Asia Center, (81) - Old Scripts, New Actors: European Encounters with Chinese Writing, 1500-1700 (2007)
East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, (26), 68--116 - Not Written in Stone: Ming Readers of the Great Learning and the Impact of Forgery (2006)
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 66 (1), 189--231
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