Abstract

Kenneth Brashier

Reed College

Wen, Wu and me, too: A hypothesis on public memory construction in early China

Without the tools that structure today’s public memory such as a pervasive written record and a continuous year count, how did the stars of early imperial China ever hope to secure historical remembrance? This presentation will argue that the classics-oriented, memorization-based education of the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) provided constellations of old heroes – specifically groups of usually two to five personages who shared a common trait – and public memory was mapped by drawing lines from the new stars to these old constellations. A Han astronomer would form a triumvirate with the two great astronomers listed in the Shangshu; a Han general would be added to the list of five tireless pre-imperial supporters of the court; and many Han literati would find themselves numbered among Confucius’s seventy-two disciples. Given this practice of coattail immortality, they (and we) are left with the question: Legitimate mnemonic or cheeky hyperbole?