The Rise of Technocratic Culture in High-Qing China

This dissertation examines a technologically specialized officialdom of Manchu called bondservants (or booi) that thrived in the eighteenth century. Through a case study of Tang Ying (1682--1756), a supervisor of the Imperial Porcelain Manufacture and a prolific playwright, I demonstrate the formation of what I call a "technocratic epistemology" across disparate fields of technical, artistic, and literary production. One of my key arguments is that bondservants differed from traditional Han scholar-officials in their practical approach to technological knowledge and their expanded literary representation of intercultural experiences in the multiethnic empire. Both contributed to the practice of statecraft that is modern in nature. In research questions and method, this project lies at the intersection of the history of technology, literature, and material culture. Tang Ying's case not only provides a vintage point for observing a technocrat's lineage, training, and career path, it also allows us to view the Qing empire from such previously little-studied vantage points as manufacture, technical knowledge, and fiscal management. This case study adopts a mobile perspective, following