2009/05/01 by Hsien-Chi Wu · 3 citations
Social Sciences · #Archaeology #Art #Chinese history and philosophy #Context (archaeology) #History #Human rights #Japanese History and Culture #Law #Legitimacy #Literature #Political science #Politics #Power (physics) #Representation (politics) #Sociology #Torture #Vernacular #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
paper · doi:10.1179/175975909x466435
published in Ming Studies 2009(1), 42-55 (Taylor & Francis)
openalex publication_date 2009/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/17
This paper explores the literary representation of torture in four seventeenth-century vernacular short novels concerned with the conflict between the Donglin faction and eunuch Wei Zhongxian and the broader context of the fall of the Ming. These works neither condemn nor query the use of judicial violence, but rather inform their readers that such violence is bound up with political power, and is immoral only when the agent of violence is not entitled to the political power and legitimacy that violence embodies.