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Liulichang: Circulation, Consumption, and Exchange in Qing Beijing - Sponsored by the Society for Qing Studies

Sat, April 2, 5:15 to 7:15pm, Washington State Convention Center, Floor: 6th Floor, Room 609

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Liulichang, in Beijing’s dense Outer City, was the largest book, art, and antique market in North China during the Qing Dynasty. Browsing in Liulichang was requisite for scholar-officials visiting Beijing, and many recorded their impressions and lists of items purchased. This panel explores how a late imperial market and its patrons both submitted to and resisted government regulations, scholarly trends, and artistic traditions. Papers by Zhang and Mokros examine Liulichang’s commercial publishing industry. Zhang introduces Liulichang as a hub of legal and administrative publishing, independent from the imperial publishing house. In conjunction with Jiangnan publishers, Liulichang publishers contributed to an emergent national legal publishing market. Mokros demonstrates that Liulichang’s shops marketed a plethora of informational texts, stationery, placards, and gazettes desired by examination-takers and official visitors. The papers by Yoo and Yin consider the consumer experience of Liulichang. Yoo poses Liulichang as a space of transnational circulation and exchange of books. Her paper investigates how bookshops marketed their wares, including censored and unorthodox texts, to eighteenth-century Chinese and Korean elites. Yin’s paper turns to the art and antiques market in Liulichang, and shows how merchants and bureaucratic elites patronized the market for eighteenth-century paintings. Yin argues that both social classes shaped the local culture of Liulichang. Together, these papers demonstrate that Liulichang shops catered to visitors with diverse motives and interests. As visitors strolled and purchased in Liulichang, they commemorated meaningful experiences in writings and collections. More than a market, Liulichang was the site of personal, cultural, and knowledge exchange.

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