Research from Archival Case Records

Philip C. C. Huang taught at UCLA from 1966 to 2004, advancing to “Professor, Above-Scale” in 1991, and has taught at the Renmin University of China, in the Law School and the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, since 2005. He was the founding director of UCLA’s Center for Chinese Studies from 1986 of 1995, the (founding) editor of Modern China: An International Journal of History and Social Science from 1975 to the present, and the (founding) editor of 中国乡村研究 (Rural China: An International Journal of History and Social Science) from 2003 to the present. His major publications are his trilogy on rural China: The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China, 1985 (awarded the Fairbank prize of the American Historical Association); The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350-1988, 1990 (awarded the Levenson prize of the Association for Asian Studies); and 超越左右：从实践历史探寻探寻中国农村发展出路 (Beyond the Left-Right Divide: Searching for a Path of Rural Development in China from the History of Practice), in Chinese only, 2014. And his trilogy on Chinese civil justice: Civil Justice in China: Representation and Practice in the Qing, 1996; Code, Custom, and Legal Practice in China: The Qing and the Republic Compared, 2001; Chinese Civil Justice, Past and Present, 2010. All the books in English have been published in multiple printings and editions in Chinese. Kathryn Bernhardt is professor emerita of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Rents, Taxes, and Peasant Resistance: The Lower Yangzi Region, 1840-1950 (Stanford University Press, 1992; awarded the 1992 John K. Fairbank prize of the American Historical Association) and Women and Property in China, 960-1949 (Stanford University Press, 1999) and co-editor (with Philip C. C. Huang) of Civil Law in Qing and Republican China (Stanford University Press, 1994).

• IntroductionPhilip C. C. HuangPart One Analytical Approaches: History of Practice•Women's History•Local Administration•Discourse Analysis•Case Records as Ethnographic Evidence1. The History-of-Practice Approach to Studying Chinese Law (Introduction to Chinese Civil Justice, Past and Present)Philip C. C. HuangPractice as Opposed to Theory: Legal Formalism and the History of Practice of American LawPractice as Opposed to Representation: Qing LawPractice as Opposed to Institutions: Male and Female Inheritance Rights and Their Actual OperationThe History of Practice vs. Formalist TheoryPractical MoralismDivorce Law Practices and the System of Court MediationThe Third Realm and Centralized MinimalismCommunity Mediation under Minimalist Governance2. Women and Property in China, 960-1949, Introduction and ConclusionKathryn BernhardtIntroductionConclusion3. Illicit Bureaucrats Bradly W. ReedPrefaceThe IssuesPast Scholarship4. From Oral Testimony to Written Records in Qing Legal CasesYasuhiko KarasawaIntroductionThe Status of Depositions in Qing Legal ProcedureWriting Legal Testimony in the Context of Literary CultureRecords of Oral Testimony Written in the VernacularComposing Testimony at the Local Level: A “Directly Examined” Case from BeijingConclusion5. Abortion in Late Imperial China: Routine Birth Control or Crisis Intervention? Matthew H. SommerIntroductionPast ScholarshipAbortion in Qing Legal RecordsUnsafe Abortion in Modern ChinaConclusionPart Two Buying and Selling of Land•Homicides6. Customary and Judicial Practices and the Criminal Sale of Land in Qing ManchuriaChristopher IsettSources and MethodsThe Criminalization of Customary Practice in ManchuriaThe Sale of Qing Land to CommonersRural Agents, Peasant Defiance, and the Politics of Local CompromiseAdjudication in the Face of Criminal Customary Acts7. Guoshi Killing: The Continuum of Criminal Intent in Qing and Republican ChinaJennifer M. NeighborsGuoshi Killing in the Qing DynastyThe Republican CodesConclusionPart Three Tax•Education•Local Governance8. Between the State and the Village: Land taxation and “Substantive Governance” in Traditional ChinaHuaiyin LiIntroductionThe County Government and the XiangdiVillage Regulations on Taxation in the Late QingVillage Regulations on Taxation in the Republican PeriodThe Collection of Enclave TaxesConclusion9. Village-State Cooperation: Modern Community Schools and Their Funding, Haicheng County, Fengtian, 1905-1931Elizabeth VanderVenThe Setting: Fengtian Province and Haicheng CountyFunding the New Community Primary SchoolsMulti-Village Relationships: Creativity, Cooperation, and Conflict10. Power Networks and State-Society Relations in Republican ChinaDanny HsuLocal Governance in Late Imperial ChinaXinmin County in Early Republican ChinaPower Networks in Xinmin CountySub-County Administration in the Early RepublicSichuan and the National GovernmentConclusionPart Four Concubinage•Spousal Abuse •Transnational Families11. Ceremony and the Definition of Marriage under Republican LawLisa TranCeremony in Social PracticeCeremony in Early Republican LawThe Legal Space for Concubinage in the Early RepublicCeremony in the 1929-30 Civil CodeFrom Consent to Complicity under GMD Law12. Spousal Abuse: Divorce Litigation and the Emergence of Rights Consciousness in Republican ChinaMargaret KuoThe Prevalence of Intolerable Cruelty Divorce LitigationFrom Grievance to Injustice: “Naming, Blaming, and Claiming”“Please protect women’s rights”: Cao Xiuzhen’s PleasIntolerable Cruelty Defenses: Marriage Finance, Economic Hardship, and Socioeconomic Interpretations of RightsState Approaches to Intolerable Cruelty Cases: Judicial Outcomes Affirm a Modern Conjugal PatriarchyIndividual Rights and the Ironic Affirmation of Modern Conjugal Patriarchy13. Law, Gongqin and Transnational Polygamy: Family Matters in Fujian and British Malaya, 1855-1942Huey Bin TengBetween Two Worlds: The Making of Chinese Customary Law in MalayaExceptions to the Common Law: The Making of Chinese Customary LawMediation and Enforcement: The Gongqin in Cross-Border Conflicts Part Five Past and Present: Local Administration• Court Mediation14. Centralized Minimalism: Semiformal Governance by Quasi-Officials and Dispute Resolution in ChinaPhilip C. C. HuangThe EvidenceCentralized MinimalismConfucianized LegalismBureaucratization and Minimalism in Contemporary China15. Court Mediation in China, Past and PresentPhilip C. C. HuangThe Ideology of Mediation in the QingThe Actual Practice of Qing CourtsMediation in the RepublicThe Ideology of Mediation in Post-1949 ChinaThe Practice of Court Mediation in Post-1949 ChinaBetween Mediation and AdjudicationThe Nature of Contemporary Chinese Judicial MediationThe Qing, the Republic, and Post-1949 ChinaThe Logic of Chinese Court MediationPostscript16. How a "New Legal History" Might Be Possible: Recent Trends in Chinese Legal History Studies in the United States and Its ImplicationsChenjun YouIntroduction: An Intellectual Earthquake?Westerners’ Misunderstandings of and Reflections on Traditional Chinese LawJudicial Archives and Research on Chinese Legal HistoryChinese Legal History Studies and the Social SciencesDiscovering a Historical Sense in the Meeting of Empiricism and TheoryStones from Other Hills May Serve to Polish the Jade of This One 他山之石，可以攻玉: The UCLA Research Group’s Achievements and Chinese IntrospectionConclusion