The Compilation and Publication of Ming Dynasty Local Gazetteers Viewed Through Their Material and Structural Elements

Speaker: Joe Dennis, Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This talk will examine the various component parts of Ming dynasty local gazetteers and discuss what they reveal about gazetteer compilation, publication and circulation. About 1000 gazetteer titles from the Ming (1368-1644) are still extant. From these remaining works, we can learn about material elements, such as book boxes, covers, stitching, paper, ink and seals; as well as who compiled, financed and printed them; and how the printers were hired, what they were paid and how they circulated.

Prefaces, postfaces, principles of compilation and other paratextual elements reveal much information about both the literary and technical production of gazetteers. Gazetteer subject matter and its arrangement, illustrations and changes over time will also be addressed.

Click the More Details button to RSVP or register now(opens in a new tab).

Joseph Dennis is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in late imperial China. He is the author of Writing, Publishing, and Reading Local Gazetteers in Imperial China, 1100–1700 (Harvard Asia Center, 2015), and articles on Confucian school library book collections, book prices, and other aspects of Chinese book history. He also is a creator of the Books in China Database, a web tool for researching the circulation of books in Ming, Qing, and Republican China. Professor Dennis is a past president of the Society for Ming Studies, and his work has been supported by fellowships from the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, the NEH, the Max Planck Institute for History of Science, the Geiss-Hsu Foundation, and other organizations. His latest research is on anti-litigation songs 息訟歌 and he has an article on this topic forthcoming in May, 2026 in Hsiang Lectures on Chinese Poetry.