竹塹地區的明志書院與文人的地方生活

Abstract

正統教育對地方生活究竟扮演什麼角色？自清朝以來竹塹地區的居民多自明志書院取得正統的文人身份，並且在新竹地方歷史中獲得核心的角色。書院因此作為一個想像中社會 (imagined community) 形成的核心力量，並且主導社會變遷的方向。一個未被論及的層面是，明志書院對這些文人的地方生活造成更為廣泛的影響，但它是如何發生的呢？此一研究計劃預計使用竹塹地區明志書院的官方檔案、地方文人留下的詩文集、家族族譜資料、淡新檔案來重構以書院為核心的學術社群與地方社會的關係。此一研究計劃具體的目的是追溯這些地方文人的角色，包括了自傳細節的描述、婚姻以及日常生活，也將他們在宗族及寺廟運作時的公共角色以及閑暇生活中對傳統文人生活的品味納入研究的重點。廣義的目標是希望能夠釐清清治以來的學術社群如何對地方社會形成直接或間接的改變。

The proposed project suggests a reversal of the standard approach of past anthropological studies of Taiwan communities. The reversal involves placing at the center of the research with the community as an “imagined” cultural value being studied in combination with actual community processes of directed social reproduction and transformation. For the Qing dynasty era, this specifically suggests that community be studied as a community value where the local academy rather than the village in and of itself played a pivotal role. The proposed project is a continuation of previous research and publications on the role of the Wenshi Academy in community processes of social reproduction and transformation in the Penghu Islands. The specific interest of the proposed project is the role of the Mingzhi Academy in Zhuqian City (now Hsinchu). A three-year project on the Mingzhi Academy will make it possible for a critical-yet-sympathetic critique of Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (1991 [1983]), introducing Taiwan realities into the international theoretical debates on Benedict Anderson's work.