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Internal Cultivation or External Strength?: Claiming Martial Arts in the Qing Period

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2019, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, East Asian Studies.
Martial arts in China has always had multiple meanings, depending on the context in which it was understood. This project seeks to evaluate what the different meanings of martial arts changed over the Qing period and how different people employed these understandings at different times and in different circumstances. By placing martial arts as the focal point of analysis, something rarely seen in academic scholarship, this project highlights how there the definition of martial arts has always been in flux and it is precisely that lack of definition that has made it useful. This project begins by focusing on establishing a historical overview of the circumstances during the Qing period within which martial arts developed. It also analyzes and defines both the important analytical and local terminology used in relation to discourse surrounding the martial arts. Chapter 1 looks at official documents and analyzes how the Qing court understood martial arts as a means of creating a political narrative and how the form of that narrative changed during the Qing, depending on the situations that required court intervention. Chapter 2 will analyze how Han martial artists employed their martial arts as a means of developing or preserving a sense of ethnic strength. Chapter 3 expands the discussion include how Han men and women reimagined their own gender identity using martial arts practice and discourse. Chapter 3 also highlights how literature written by Han women was able to use martial arts practice as a means of breaking down previous gender norms, while stories written by Manchu men used female martial artist character to push social agendas. This project will look at the changing meanings of martial arts in the Qing, laying the groundwork for future scholarship.
Ying Zhang (Advisor)
Morgan Liu (Committee Member)
Patricia Sieber (Committee Member)
86 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • McNally, I. (2019). Internal Cultivation or External Strength?: Claiming Martial Arts in the Qing Period [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1557155402412377

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • McNally, Ian. Internal Cultivation or External Strength?: Claiming Martial Arts in the Qing Period. 2019. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1557155402412377.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • McNally, Ian. "Internal Cultivation or External Strength?: Claiming Martial Arts in the Qing Period." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1557155402412377

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)