Defamiliarizing the Foreigner: Sima Qian’s Ethnography and Han-Xiongnu Marriage Diplomacy
@article{Chin2010DefamiliarizingTF, title={Defamiliarizing the Foreigner: Sima Qian’s Ethnography and Han-Xiongnu Marriage Diplomacy}, author={Tamara T. Chin}, journal={Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies}, year={2010}, volume={70}, pages={311 - 354} }
Tamara T. Chin examines how relations between China and the Xiongnu transformed the discourse of China’s imperial frontiers during the Han dynasty (206 b.c.e .–220 c.e .), and particularly how early Han dynasty political debates about the Han-Xiongnu “peace through kinship” (heqin 和親) treaty shaped Sima Qian’s ethnography. She shows that Sima Qian, whose description of the Xiongnu introduced empirical ethnography into the Chinese tradition, represented the Xiongnu from multiple perspectives and…
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