Embodied Geographies of Han Dynasty China: Yang Xiong and his Reception

The dissertation constructs a detailed reception history for the controversial yet highly influential poet and thinker Yang Xiong (53 B.C.E.-18 C.E.) exposing to view the complex interplay between regional and imperial identity, the replicating relationship between biography and autobiography---between text and body, and the layered shifts in Ruist (Confucian) practices as these unfold over the changing intellectual and political landscape from the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) to the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). This study traces the readership and interpretation of Yang Xiong's works and biography mapping the relationship between the history of a text and the history of the author. The first chapter explores the formative years of Yang Xiong reception and his move from mere scholar-recluse to sage, solidifying his place in the central tradition rather than the limited and regional. The second chapter explores the interplay between Yang Xiong's role as an astronomer and the increased readership of his Tai xuan jing in the context of developments in xuanxue. The third chapter focuses on the transitional period with the decline of xuanxue and the rise of new readership for Yang Xiong within the Guwen movement. The fourth chapter looks at the startling division in scholarly interpretation of Yang Xiong's works and actions in the Song dynasty (960-1279) and Yang Xiong's reestablishment on the regional landscape of his native Shu (in modern Sichuan). The final chapter outlines the developments that occurred after the Song and offers a broad set of conclusion for the whole of this study. Overall, this study reveals how changes in the understanding of the cosmos, the conception of human nature, Ruist practices, and the role of the sage blend in the reception history of Yang Xiong moving him across the geography of traditional elite society between the regional world of his native Shu and the imperial capital as his reception threads across the span of pre-modern Chinese intellectual history.