TY - BOOK ID - 78677949 TI - Literate community in early imperial China : the northwestern frontier in Han times PY - 2019 SN - 1438475144 9781438475141 9781438475134 1438475136 1438475128 PB - Albany, New York : State University of New York Press, DB - UniCat KW - Chinese language KW - Literacy KW - Illiteracy KW - Education KW - General education KW - Archaic Chinese language KW - Proto-Chinese language KW - Writing KW - History. KW - Archaic Chinese KW - S04/0520 KW - S15/0200 KW - History KW - China: History--Han: 206 B.C. - 220 A.D KW - China: Language--General works UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:78677949 AB - "In Literate Community in Early Imperial China, Charles Sanft looks at interactions with text during the Han period and argues that they were more widespread than has been recognized. Archaeologists have excavated a tremendous number of written materials left behind at military installations in the northwestern border regions of China, and scholars have often studied these documents for what they tell us about institutions. But their cultural aspects have received far less attention. Sanft brings an innovative interdisciplinary analytic framework to the study of these documents. He offers a new way to distinguish between reading and writing, which allows for an improved understanding of how text worked in early China, and concentrates on the community rather than the individual. In doing so, he is able to show that a much broader section of early society had meaningful interactions with text. This is a major shift from previous understandings, and makes Literate Community an important contribution to early China studies, the study of literacy, and the global history of non-elites"-- ER -