Graphics and text in the production of technical knowledge in China : : the warp and the weft / / edited by Francesca Bray, Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, Georges Métailié.

• TeilnehmendeR: Bray, Francesca.; Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, Vera.; Métailie, Georges.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, 2007.
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Language: English
• Series: Sinica Leidensia, v. 79; Sinica Leidensia 79.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (786 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.
• Other title: Preliminary material /; Introduction: The Powers of Tu /; 1. La représentation visuelle dans les pratiques pyro-ostéomantiques dans la Chine Archaïque /; 2. Placed into the right position – Etymological notes on tu and Congeners /; 1. Time, space and orientation: Figurative representations of the sexagenary cycle in ancient and medieval China /; 2. Communication by design: Two silk manuscripts of diagrams (Tu) from Mawangdui tomb three /; 3. Picturing or diagramming the universe /; 1. Mapless mapping: Did the maps of the Shan Hai Jing ever exist? /; 2. The Tables (Biao) in Sima Qian’s Shi Ji: Rhetoric and remembrance /; 3. The Avatamsaka-Sûtra as a ‘Bodhi Mandala Text’ /; 4. Diagrams as an architecture by means of words: The Yanji Tu /; 1. Imagining practice: Sense and sensuality in early chinese medical illustration /; 2. Geometrical diagrams in traditional chinese mathematics /; 3. Woodcut illustration: A general outline /; 1. The representation of plants: Engravings and paintings /; 2. Agricultural illustrations: Blueprint or icon? /; 3. ‘Like obtaining a great treasure’: The illustrations in Song Yingxing’s the exploitation of the works of nature /; 4. Song Yingxing’s illustrations of iron production /; 1. The book-body revealed. The contribution of forensic medicine to knowledge and representation of the skeleton in China /; 2. New maps for the modernizing state: Western cartographic knowledge and its application in 19th and 20th century China /; Index /; Colour plates /
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• ISBN: 1281936111; 9786611936112; 9047422651
• ISSN: 0169-9563
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: edited by Francesca Bray, Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, Georges Métailié.

This collection offers a challenging new interpretation of technical knowledge in Chinese thought and practice. Conveying technical knowledge in China through charts, plans or drawings ( tu ) dates back to antiquity. Earlier studies focused on specialised forms of tu like maps or drawings of machines. Here, however, tu is identified in Chinese terms, viz. as a philosophical category of knowledge production: visual templates for action, spanning a range from mandala to modernist mapping projects, inseparable from writing but with distinctive powers of communication. A distinction is made between two principal types of tu : ritual/symbolic and representational, highlighting essential issues such as historical shifts in their significance, the relations between tu and political power, media for inscribing tu and the impact of printing, and encounters with the West.