abstract: This article argues that the celebrated aesthetics of Tao’an mengyi 陶庵夢憶 by Zhang Dai 張岱 (1597–1689) are inseparable from the system of bonded labor that structured late-imperial Chinese elite culture. Often read as exemplary memory writing, the collection constructs an aesthetic centered on spectacle, surface, and perceptual disorientation. I argue that this aesthetic both depends on and obscures a pervasive system of human commodification, which I approach through the analytic lens of slavery. Drawing on recent scholarship that emphasizes the ubiquity of trafficking, the article shifts focus from defining enslaved populations to examining a broader system of social transactionality. Readings of essays on theater, visual display, and elite sociability show how aesthetic effects rely on the precise coordination—and erasure—of labor. Zhang Dai’s fascination with illusion and perfect staging reflects and reproduces a world structured by mastery over others. At moments, especially in depictions of sex work, this aesthetic distance becomes unstable, revealing underlying tensions. Ultimately, Tao’an mengyi not only represents but enacts an aesthetics of control, inviting readers to participate in transforming domination into aesthetic pleasure. 摘要: 本文主張，張岱之《陶庵夢憶》的美學與晚期帝制中國之依附性勞動體 制密不可分。其審美以奇觀、表面與感知錯置為核心，既奠基於亦遮蔽人身 商品化，本文以「奴隸制」作為分析概念。透過細讀戲曲、展示與社交場景，指 出審美效果依賴對勞動的精密調度並將其抹除，從而再生產支配他人的社 會結構。部分涉及性交易之描寫亦顯露出內在張力。總之，《陶庵夢憶》不 僅再現，亦實踐一種將支配轉化為審美愉悅的控制美學。
abstract: This study presents a comprehensive view of middle-period China by focusing on excavated epitaphs from Liao, Song, and Jin tombs. It systematically examines the social backgrounds of epitaph users, compares their compositions across dynasties, and delineates societal trends in North and South China. Although the stratum of officials dominated the use of epitaphs across all dynasties, the overall social composition of epitaph users reveals divergences between northern and southern dynasties. The Liao displayed the strongest aristocratic traits, with a remarkable proportion of epitaphs belonging to upper-level Khitan nobles. The Northern Song exhibited meritocratic characteristics, with a considerable number of epitaphs belonging to scholar-officials and shi 士 literati. It also featured the most diverse backgrounds among non-literati elite users, some of whom were expressive in their epitaphs, suggesting a lively local society. The destructive wars of the early twelfth century deepened the North-South divide. In the North, under the Jin, Jurchen and Han Chinese elites turned away from the use of epitaphs. In the Southern Song, the literati predominated among burials with epitaphs, while non-literati elites became more silent compared to their Northern Song predecessors. Many new types of epitaphs emerged in the southeastern region, where Neo-Confucianism flourished. These may have served as a means for Neo-Confucians to express their intellectual identity. The variety of these epitaphs further signaled growing internal differentiation among literati users. This macro-level comparative research of excavated epitaphs illuminates the distinctive characteristics of each society, traces long-term developments, and offers explanations for these changes. 摘要: 南北對峙的遼、宋、金是中古向近世中國轉變的關鍵時期。本研究全 面收集遼、宋、金出土墓誌，以統計方法分析其使用者，宏觀呈現各朝上層 菁英在「死後世界」的組成與差異。本文發現，各朝墓誌的主要使用者都是官 吏，但整體的使用者身份組成有明顯南、北差異。遼代集中於契丹貴族，北 宋多為地方菁英。南、北差異隨宋金戰爭而擴大。金代隨葬墓誌的上層菁英遽 減，女真貴族亦罕用墓誌。南宋墓誌的隨葬增加，且更集中在官吏與士人， 東南地區亦出現許多新型態的墓誌，推測與理學興起有關。從跨越朝代與 國別的出土墓誌可見南、北社會的特點與發展。
abstract: This article examines the power of song within the High Qing phil-ological movement known as evidential scholarship ( kaozheng xue 考證學). Focusing on the celebrated poet Huang Jingren 黃景仁 (1749–1783) and his association with the influential evidential scholar Zhu Yun 朱筠 (1729–1781) during Zhu’s tenure as education commissioner of Anhui Province, it challenges modern accounts that oppose lyric subjectivity to philological inquiry. I argue that prevailing understandings of both High Qing literature and scholarship fail to apprehend the integral connection between poetic and evidentiary practices in the period. For Qing writers such as Huang and Zhu, the idea of song afforded not merely aesthetic expression but a medium of self-evident, apodictic proof. Close readings of key episodes show how this claim to truth functioned as a nexus of shared immanence wherein writing presents itself as singing and reading unfolds as an act of present listening. By attending to this regime of “notional song,” the study reframes evidential scholarship not as a protoscientific divergence from the poetic but as a culture in which sound, citation, and proof were mutually constitutive. 摘要: 本文探討「歌」在清代盛世考證學語境中的作用。以詩人黃景仁 (1749–1783)及其與朱筠(1729–1781)在安徽學政任內的交往為線索，本 文重新審視近 現代將抒情的內在性對立與考證學術的敘述框架。作者指出，廣為流傳的 對清代文學與學術實踐的論述，往往忽略了詩歌作與考證學之間的內在聯 繫。對黃景仁與朱筠等人而言，「歌」不僅用於審美表達,更發揮著一種自證 自明的媒介作用。本文透過對「歌」的若干關鍵場景的細讀來說明，詩歌的 真理主張是在一種共享的臨在經驗中展開的——書寫在此呈現為歌唱，閱 讀則成為當下的聆聽。從「意念之歌」的角度出發，本文主張考證學不應被 理解為與詩性深具分歧的前科學，而應被納入一種能使聲音、引證與證成彼 此交織、相互生成的文化框架之中。
