Remapping the Past

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The Astrolabe

An ancient instrument for solving problems of location and distance, as well as time

Astrolábon órganon is the word used in Ptolemaeus Syntaxis 5.1 to describe a form of armillary sphere consisting of both fixed and rotating rings for determining the ecliptic co-ordinates of stars. Also called astrolabe were two-dimensional representations of the celestial sphere: over fixed disks with a representation of the horizon of the earth (in each case for a specific geographic latitude) and its parallels up to the zenith lies a rotating representation of the heavens (called ‘spider’ or ‘net’) with zodiac and indicators for some of the brightest stars. On the back is an indicator (‘alidade’) with visor plates for calculating the height of the stars. The astrolabe allows its user to determine the hours of day and night, the positions of stars, and the height and depth of objects on earth (mountains, buildings, wells). The oldest extant descriptions of the flat, planispheric astrolabe come from Iohannes Philoponus, 6th century AD, and (in Syrian) from Severus Sebokht, c. 660 AD. Indirect references may date back as early as Theon (4th cent.). Between the 8th and the 9th centuries the Arabs appropriated the knowledge of the astrolabe. At the end of the 10th century and again in the 12th century, they passed it on to Western Europe, where astrolabes were constructed up until the 17th cent. Today, one Byzantine astrolabe (from 1062) is extant, as are some 750 Arabic-Islamic astrolabes and approximately the same number of European astrolabes.

This information is abstracted from Brill's New Pauly, the English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. The encyclopaedic coverage and high academic standard of the work, the interdisciplinary and contemporary approach and clear and accessible presentation have made the New Pauly the unrivalled modern reference work for the ancient world. For more information see www.brillsnewpauly.com or visit our website catalog: www.brill.nl/bnp
Brill’s New Pauly and the complete original Der Neue Pauly, the recognized standard reference works for students and scholars of the ancient world are also available online. This dual-language edition offers basic and advanced search facilities and is fully browsable. New English translations are added as they become available. See www.paulyonline.brill.nl for more information and a demo version.

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Publications & Services> Books> Book Series> Remapping the Past

Remapping the Past

Fictions of History in Deng’s China, 1979-1997

Howard Yuen Fung Choy

Books

Available
Publication year: 2008


Series:	Leiden Series in Comparative Historiography, 3
ISBN-13 (i)The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) has been changed from 10 to 13 digits on 1 January 2007:	978 90 04 16704 9
ISBN-10:	90 04 16704 8

Cover:	Hardback
Number of pages:	x, 278 pp.

List price:	€ 99.00 / US$ 147.00

Table of contents

Introduction
I. Regional Histories and Family Fables: From Root Search to New Historicism
II. The Outlying and the Peripheral: Myths of Migrants and Minorities
III. From the Country to the City: Nostalgia for the Hometown
IV. The Bodily Text and the Textual Body: The Violence of History
Conclusion
Back(ward) to the Future: Toward a Retro-fiction

Appendix
What Is Held and in Whose Hand? An Etymological Reexamination of shi

Bibliography
Index

Readership

Scholars and students interested in contemporary Chinese literature, historical fiction, the history of China, and literary criticism.

About the author(s)

Howard Y. F. Choy is assistant professor at Wittenberg University. He received his Ph.D. in comparative literature and humanities from the University of Colorado (2004) and is the assistant author of The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Confucianism (New York: Rosen, 2005).

The most prominent literary phenomenon in the 1980s and 1990s in China, historical fiction, has never been systematically surveyed in Anglophone scholarship. This is the first investigation into how, by rewriting the past, writers of Deng Xiaoping’s reform era undermined the grand narrative of official history.
It showcases fictions of history by eleven native Chinese, Muslim and Tibetan authors. The four chapters are organized in terms of spatial schemes of fictional historiography, namely, regional histories and family romances, discourses on diaspora and myths of minorities, nostalgia for the hometown in the country and the city, as well as the bodily text and the textual body, thus broadly covering the eternal themes of memory, language, food, sex, and violence in historical writing.

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