Page 169 - 2022(1) International Confusion Studies

Int. Confucian Stud. 2022; 1(1): 162–172

Chengxi Bei*
A Review of Classicism, the Imperial Civil
Examination System, and Cultural History:

Selected Works of Benjamin A. Elman

https://doi.org/10.1515/icos-2022-2011

Abstract: In his personal collection of writings titled Classicism, the Imperial Civil
Examination System, and Cultural History: Selected Works of Benjamin A. Elman,
Elman reveals the cultural-historical orientation of his research on classicism and
imperial examinations. Through his own “contextualization” research, Elman re-
examines the changing of the academic paradigmatic shift of Chinese classicism
and the shift in the themes and content of the Imperial Civil Examination System.
He discovers that the popularity of textology dispelled the ideology shaped by Neo
Confucianism in the Song and Ming dynasties, which contributed to the ideolog-
ical liberation and scientific consciousness of scholars in the Qing Dynasty. The
Imperial Civil Examination System, as an institution that shaped the value identity
of the cultural elite, also showed the gradual dismantling of the dominant
discourse in the Qing Dynasty. The thematic changes also indicated the gradual
deconstruction of the dominant discourse of the Qing, and the abolition of the
Imperial Civil Examination System signified the collapse of imperial ideology.
Ultimately, Elman reflects on the role of Confucianism, concluding that it was
involved in the complex transformation of China from ancient times to the present,
and that its own vicissitudes played a crucial role in the turn of China’s
modernization.
Keywords: Elman, contextualization, classicism, the Imperial Civil Examination
System, cultural transformation

Since the publication of several of his influential monographs, including From
Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial
China (Elman, 1985a, 1985b), and Classicism, Politics, and Kinship: The Ch’ang-chou

Article note: This article was first published in Chinese in Issue 1, Volume 1 of International Studies
on Confucianism (《国际儒学》). Some updates and adaptation have been made for the English
version, which was translated by Keyou Wang.

*Corresponding author: Chengxi Bei, School of Humanities, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China,
E-mail: zxorvs@qq.com

Open Access. © 2022 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.