Ming Material Culture: The Example of Ming Books

Speaker: Yuming He | 何予明, Associate Professor of Chinese, UC Davis

This talk approaches Ming block-printed books as objects within material culture rather than as disembodied texts classifiable by our modern system of literary genres. It examines how Ming books functioned simultaneously as intellectual works, commercial commodities, aesthetic artifacts and social markers. Attention to material features—paper, layout, binding, paratexts, and illustrations—reveals how imprints participated in the construction of cultural identities.

First, we will consider editions. The vibrant print marketplace produced multiple versions of the same work, each shaped by editorial choices and marketing strategies. Prefaces, commentaries, and claims of authenticity framed textual authority, while readers engaged these elements to position themselves culturally. A Ming book thus became not a stable text but a site of negotiation among producers and consumers, where material features articulate social aspiration, regional identity and claims to cultural legitimacy.

Second, we will turn to the role of illustrations and the intermediality of book-centered material culture. Illustrated editions—particularly of drama—invite us to see how visual, textual and theatrical media interact. The illustrations did not merely supplement the text; they reframed narrative pacing, highlighted scenes, mediated between stage and page, and transported readers beyond the page into a larger world of knowledge and understanding.

By foregrounding books as material forms, this talk explores some useful perspectives on cultural production and cultural identity in Ming China.

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Yuming He received her B.A. and M.A. from Peking University and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. She taught at Reed College and the University of Chicago before joining the faculty at UC Davis. Her recent work is focused on the history of the book, theater and epistemological processes in late-imperial China. Her book Home and the World: Editing the “Glorious Ming” in Woodblock-printed Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries examines Ming book history by attending to the process of making marketable books in the era.