Chow, Kai-wing 1951–

PERSONAL:

Born August 27, 1951, in Hong Kong; married, 1983; children: two. Education: University of California-Davis, Ph.D., 1988.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Languages and Literature, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 707 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana, IL 61801. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Academic. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, assistant professor, then associate professor, 1988—. Curator of the Spurlock Museum.

MEMBER:

Association for Asian Studies.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1997.

WRITINGS:

The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse, Stanford University Press (Palo Alto, CA), 1994.

(Editor, with On-cho Ng and John B. Henderson) Imagining Boundaries: Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts, and Hermeneutics, State University of New York Press (Albany, NY), 1999.

(Editor, with Kevin M. Doak and Poshek Fu) Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 2001.

Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China, Stanford University Press (Palo Alto, CA), 2004.

(Editor, with Cynthia J. Brokaw) Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2005.

(Editor, with others) Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm: In Search of Chinese Modernity, Lexington Books (Lanham, MD), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Kai-wing Chow is an academic and historian. Born on August 27, 1951, in Hong Kong, which was then a territory of the United Kingdom, Chow went on to earn a Ph.D. in 1988 from the University of California-Davis. Upon being awarded his doctorate degree, Chow began working as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, later becoming an associate professor. He also serves as curator of the Spurlock Museum and is a member of the Association for Asian Studies.

Chow published his first book, The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse, in 1994. The account looks into the Chinese elite and intellectuals of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, at a time when many sought to return to a period when Confucian ritualism was stronger, in order to combat a number of socioeconomic, political, and ethical problems faced in Chinese society during those times. Chow analyzes both the intellectual and functional aspects of Confucian ritualism.

Writing in the Historian, Eugene R. Swanger mentioned that the author "persuasively argues" his thesis, adding that "Chow's book is an excellent contribution to recent scholarship on the intellectual history of the Confucian tradition and provides a balance for other studies that have emphasized ideas to the exclusion of symbols." Alexander Woodside, writing in the Canadian Journal of History, called the book "indispensable," adding that "it has illuminating analyses of many mainstream writers, institutions, and social categories in eighteenth-century China which have never previously been examined." Woodside also commented that "one can say at once that he has produced a work of superb scholarship, fluently written, and beautifully researched."

Ron-Guey Chu, reviewing the book in Philosophy East and West, "found Dr. Chow's book extremely informative and very useful as a guide for anyone interested in venturing into the world of late imperial Philosophy East & west Confucianism and the issues it raises." Chu outlined that "the most significant contribution of Dr. Kai-wing Chow's new book, The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China, is its meticulous, issue-oriented discussion of intellectual trends in eighteenth-century China, particularly of the Han Learning school." Chu suggested that readers "should certainly thank him for this very informative work and applaud his effort to connect intellectual developments, in this case Confucian ritualism, with social developments."

Chow edited Imagining Boundaries: Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts, and Hermeneutics with On-cho Ng and John B. Henderson in 1999. The book groups nine original essays, tying them together in an introductory chapter, covering contemporary theoretical accounts of Confucian interpretation, issues of syncretism and working towards self-definition among various Confucian thinkers, and Chinese perspectives on heresy and orthodoxy.

Philip I. Ivanhoe, writing in Philosophy East and West, said that "the volume offers a rich resource for students of the Confucian tradition, and a number of the essays will be appreciated by anyone interested in the general or comparative study of traditions and their interpretation. I learned something important from every essay in this book, and each made me think about new issues in new ways. Some left me with questions as well as answers, which is often a mark of the best original scholarship." Ivanhoe pointed out that Chow's essay contribution to the book, "‘Between Canonicity and Heterodoxy: Hermeneutical Moments of the Great Learning (Ta-Hsueh),’ offers a careful and theoretically sophisticated exploration of the fluid nature of the Confucian canon and specifically the role that textual criticism played in defining a text as Confucian during the late Ming and early Ch'ing periods," appending that "he does a masterful job showing such interaction in the case of the Great Learning." Ivanhoe commented also that "Chow presents a lucid and revealing account of Wang's advocacy of the old version of the Great Learning." Concluding his article, Ivanhoe wrote: "The essays in this volume, especially when compared and contrasted with one another, provide an invaluable and revealing account of the theory and practice of Confucian hermeneutics. Imagining Boundaries is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in how Confucians have read, reinterpreted, and revitalized their tradition and how they might continue to do so in the years to come."

In 2001, Chow edited Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia with Kevin M. Doak and Poshek Fu. A few years later, in 2004, Chow published Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China. The book shows how the Chinese use of woodblock printing, even after the invention of moveable type, allowed for cheaper books and wider circulation due to a larger number of publishers in China, ultimately leading to one of the biggest literacy rates in the world at the time.

Jonathan Porter, writing in History: Review of New Books, remarked that the author "offers a new and interesting exploration of an important dimension of material culture in late imperial China." Porter continued by saying that "as a contribution to the so far relatively unexplored economic and material history of this field, this monograph offers fresh insights." Craig Clunas, writing in the Historian, opined that "it is ironic to note that, in a work that is so concerned with the economics of book production and the relationship between scholars' reputations and publishers' profits, the state of finish of this book should be so shoddy." Bringing up relevant topics in the book, Clunas figured that the typos and factual errors in the book, oddly, "add to an important work of enduring value." Frederick Nesta, reviewing the book in Libraries & Culture, noted the hundreds of citations from the short factual statements throughout each chapter, commenting that "it is as if Chow were recreating the history of the era by reassembling the historical fragments that remained. Even so, the fragments fit together well and provide a solid and important work on the economic and literary foundation of Ming-Qing publishing and a good introduction to Chinese publishing history."

In 2005, Chow edited Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China with Cynthia J. Brokaw. The account looks into the history of the book printing and publishing industry in China. The collection of scholarly essays covers topics ranging from the connection between print culture and manuscript to the creation of niche markets and printers specializing in specific genres.

P.F. Kornicki, writing in the China Review International, noted that the book title "is a revealing one, neatly avoiding as it does several potential pitfalls, for the history of the book in late imperial China is not only the study of printed books and it is not only the study of books in Chinese." Kornicki noted that "there is, however, one important facet of Chinese book history not really addressed in this volume, and it is one that is all the more striking in comparison with the history of the book in Europe, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, and in most of the world. It is the apparent self-sufficiency of China in books. Thus, there is no discussion here of imports." Kornicki commented that "like other reviewers of volumes of essays, I have not been able to engage closely with any of the essays in this one in the space available, challenging and of great interest though they are, and have contented myself with indicating the topics chosen by the contributors. It will be clear, though, that these essays uniformly address the phenomenology of the book as a commercial product and together make an outstanding contribution to our understanding of one of the great book cultures of the premodern world."

This book was followed, in 2008, with Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm: In Search of Chinese Modernity, a book Chow edited with other scholars.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, April, 1998, Pamela Kyle Crossley, review of The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China: Ethics, Classics, and Lineage Discourse, p. 565; December, 2000, Richard Savage, review of Imagining Boundaries: Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts, and Hermeneutics, p. 1707; October, 2005, Christopher A. Reed, review of Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China, p. 1142.

Business History Review, spring, 2005, Barbara Mittler, review of Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China, p. 169.

Canadian Journal of History, August, 1995, Alexander Woodside, review of The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China, p. 398.

China Quarterly, September, 1995, John W. Ewell, review of The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China, p. 909.

China Review International, fall, 2005, P.F. Kornicki, review of Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, p. 377.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, October, 1994, review of The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China, p. 342.

Historian, spring, 1995, Eugene R. Swanger, review of The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China, p. 620; spring, 2006, Craig Clunas, review of Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China, p. 174; fall, 2007, Francesca Bray, review of Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, p. 568.

History: Review of New Books, fall, 2004, Jonathan Porter, review of Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China, p. 35.

Journal of Asian Studies, November, 1994, Richard J. Smith, review of The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China, p. 1231; August, 2001, Matthew Levey, review of Imagining Boundaries, p. 832.

Journal of Economic Literature, March, 2002, review of Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia, p. 329.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, winter, 2007, Joan, review of Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China, p. 507.

Journal of Religion, April, 2001, Lisa Raphals, review of Imagining Boundaries, p. 350.

Journal of the American Academy of Religion, March 1, 2002, Edward Slingerland, review of Imagining Boundaries, p. 188.

Libraries & Culture, spring, 2006, Frederick Nesta, review of Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China, p. 266.

Libraries & the Cultural Record, winter, 2008, Michael Dzanko, review of Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, p. 120.

Philosophy East and West, July, 1997, Ron-Guey Chu, review of The Rise of Confucian Ritualism in Late Imperial China, p. 444; January, 2004, Philip I. Ivanhoe, review of Imagining Boundaries, p. 83.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 1999, review of Imagining Boundaries, p. 12.

Technology and Culture, January, 2006, Hilde De Weerdt, review of Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China, p. 192.

Times Literary Supplement, December 23, 2005, Frances Wood, review of Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, p. 37.

ONLINE

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures Web site,http://www.ealc.uiuc.edu/ (March 22, 2008), author profile.