2015

Jesse Watson

  • Doctoral Student
  • University of California, Berkeley
Picture of Jesse Watson

Project

The Empire as Local: New Perspectives on Early Chinese Empires from Excavated Documents (221 BC-AD 220)

Program

Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in China Studies Predissertation-Summer Travel Grants

Department

History

Abstract

My dissertation challenges the widespread assumption that excavated archives imply totalizing imperial control from the center. Instead, I argue that imperial power was exercised and had its basis at the local level. To do this, I use case studies drawn from the early empires of Qin and Han (221 BCE-220 CE) that focus on four key aspects of imperial presence on the local level—law, ritual, transport, and imperial discourse.