@article {Zhang:November 2008:0082-5433:246,
	author = "Zhang, Ning",
	title = "Corps et peine capitale dans la Chine imperiale Les dimensions judiciaires et rituelles sous les Ming",
	journal = "T'oung Pao",
	volume = "94",
	year = "November 2008",
	abstract = "This article takes as its starting point an examination of the statute of the body as an object or space upon which judicial violence was exerted in imperial China: what were the criteria governing the institution of capital punishment? In particular, what was the role of suffering, either physical or moral, and of the infamy that fell not only upon the executed person but also on the entire community? The discussion focuses on the particular case of the Ming dynasty, during which the codes and judiciary institutions were thoroughly revamped and extreme forms of punishment hitherto neglected or incompletely codified reappeared. Beyond the legal system proper, the article attempts to retrace the ritual and religious context in which that juridical restoration took place and to analyze what could be called "judicial violent death". Then it ponders on a possible relationship between state-inflicted death and certain forms of ritual management that allowed to articulate the practices of the imperial bureaucracy with those of local communities. In particular, the figure of the ancestor, seen as a political institution, is examined from the perspective of the changes brought to capital punishment.",
	pages = "246-305(60)",
	url = "http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/top/2008/00000094/F0020004/art00002"
	doi = "doi:10.1163/008254308X385897"
}