In 1817 a Cantonese scholar was mocked in Beijing as surprisingly learned for someone from the boondocks; in 1855 another Cantonese scholar boasted of the flourishing of literati culture in his home region. Not without reason, the second man pointed to the Xuehaitang (Sea of Learning Hall) as the main factor in the upsurge of learning in the Guangzhou area. Founded in the 1820s by the eminent scholar-official Ruan Yuan, the Xuehaitang was indeed one of the premier academies of the nineteenth century.

The celebratory discourse that portrayed the Xuehaitang as having radically altered literati culture in Guangzhou also legitimated the academy's place in Guangzhou and Guangzhou's place as a cultural center in the Qing empire. This study asks: Who constructed this discourse and why? And why did some Cantonese elites find this discourse compelling while others did not? To answer these questions, Steven Miles looks beyond intellectual history to local social and cultural history. Arguing that the academy did not exist in a scholarly vacuum, Miles contends that its location in the city of Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta embedded it in social settings and networks that determined who utilized its resources and who celebrated its successes and values.

Contents
 Tables and Figures xxx
 Introduction 1
1 Cosmopolitanism and Insularity: City and Hinterland in
the Pearl River Delta 000
2 Xie Lansheng's City: The Social Itinerary of the
Cantonese Cultural Elite, 1810-1830 000
3 The City's New Landmark: Creating the Xuehaitang,
1820-1830 000
4 Reshaping the Cultural Landscape: History, Poetry, and
Anthology 000
5 Academy, City, and Delta in Crisis and Reconstruction,
1830-1870 000
6 A "Sojourner from Jiangnan": Chen Li and Han-Song
Syncretism in Guangzhou 000
7 Zhu "Jiujiang": Alternative Identities and the Delta's
Critique of the City 000
8 Reflections on the Sea of Learning: Mobility and Identity
in a Cosmopolitan Family 000
Appendixes
A Xuehaitang Co-Directors, 1826-1863 000
B Xuehaitang ji Table of Contents 000
Reference Matter
 Works Cited 000
 Character List 000
 Index 000