This volume investigates places where old and new elites came together, where these groups met and interacted but also where the rules and conventions for new elites were forged. The book focusses arenas of encounter and (self)representation belonging to the world of leisure and embraces also the organizations and associations which established and ran these spaces and events.

KADOC Artes 10Based on the cultural insight that "historism" understood as the projection of the past into the present by artistic means, or the "invention of tradition" always occurs in close connection with the emergence of nation-states, this volume describes for the first time the cultural and denominational character and development of the Maas-Rhine region during the period between the French Revolution and World War I. Seventeen contributors shed light on the cultural identity of this Catholic-dominated core region of Europe."

The Hsu-Tang Library presents authoritative and eminently readable translations of classical Chinese literature, in bilingual editions, ranging across three millennia and the entire Sinitic world. Master Incapable (Wunengzi) is an important but relatively little-known Daoist work written in 887, as the Tang dynasty (618-907) was breathing its last. The unknown author, a former government official now living as a recluse, witnesses internecine warfare, widespread poverty, and rampant social injustice, and attempts to explain why humanity seems to be plunging into a state of utter chaos. The nucleus of Master Incapable's analysis is his view of the separation of humanity from the natural world, caused by an abnormal growth of the intellect. His critique is as radical as that in the so-called "primitivist" chapters of the Daoist classic Zhuangzi, in which civilization is considered a disease spread by an intellectual and societal elite, "those who are called sages." The way out of mankind's predicament, he argues, consists in deconstructing conventional wisdom, and in ridding oneself of desire and intentionality, thereby finding one's way back to naturalness and effortless action. Fiercely egalitarian in tone, Master Incapable also criticizes superstition, offers a coherent philosophy of reclusion, and holds highly original views on life and death, and language and intellect in the animal world. As a work of literature, it combines forcefully argued discussions and alternative interpretations on well-known historical episodes with glimpses into the private life of the philosopher, his family members and entourage. This fully annotated translation, the first in English, also includes an introduction to help explain the unique position the work occupies in the history of Daoism.