Dedication -- List of Maps, Figures, and Tables -- introduction: the zhengsheng 正 mode -- Showing Up in Shishuo xinyu -- Biography Large and Small -- A More Real Xuan -- Directions Toward a More Real Xuanxue -- Conclusions, Findings, and Suggestions -- Xun Xu's Use of Zhou Antiquity -- Politics of Precision -- Archeology, Historiography, and the History of Sciences and Technologies -- The Earliest Sources for Xun Xu's Life -- The Seven Chapters and Acknowledgments -- 1. the xuns of yingyin and luoyang -- Commemorating Kin and Supporting Learning: Yingchuan to about 212 AD -- The Lay of the Land -- Xun Leadership In and Around Yingyin -- The "Commemorative Tablet 碑 for Prefect of Palace Writers Xun Yu" -- Xun Yijing Scholarship -- The Xuns in Luoyang to about 282: Sorting Out Zhengshi Styles and Establishing Jin Imperial Ties -- Xun Can, a Prototype of the Zhengshi-era Mavericks -- Xun Yi and the Traditional Path Followed by Can's Older Siblings -- The Impact of Xun Scholarship in Luoyang -- Xun Musicologists and Legists -- Xun Xu's Foothold onto a New Career -- Xun-Family Pathos in an Entombed Epitaph of 295 AD -- "Commemoration for Xun Yue of Yingchuan Yingyin, Jin-[Era] Late Gentleman-in-Attendance of the Palace Writers" -- Xun Wives and Daughters -- Material and Evocative Aspects of Xun Burials -- Memory and Counter-Memory -- 2. xun xu's first posts, ca. 248-265 -- The Political Taint of Cao Shuang's Regime, 240-249 -- Former Cao-Wei Men as Ethically Correct Jin Stalwarts -- The Cooperative Exegete -- Factions -- Anti-Xun Xu Roots in the Wu War Factionalism -- The Tone of Xun Xu's Early Career -- Factions as Cooperative Struggle -- 3. aesthetics and precision in court ritual songs, ca. 266-272 -- Wealth and Collecting -- Design and Construction -- A Coterie of Lyric-Writers for Court Music -- Higher and Lower Music.

Court Music and Party Music -- A Lyric-Writing Competition -- The Song-Writers as Political Actors -- Competing Lyrics for the Dance-Song Performances -- A Turn toward an Aesthetic of Precision -- The Aesthetic and Philosophic Thrust of Xun's Lyrics -- Who Was the Xun Balladeer? -- 4. commandeering staff and proclaiming precision, ca. 273-274 -- High-Stepping into Bureaus and Imperial Holdings -- Problems in the Bureaucratic Structure of the Palace Writers Office -- An Archival Project with Zhang Hua -- The Wider World of Metrology -- Xun Xu's Metrology -- Xun Xu the Hypersentient "Metrosophist" -- Xun Chuo, Writing For and About Family -- The Earliest Descriptions of the Process behind Xun's Metrology -- The Inner Story of Xun's Metrology -- The Antiquarian Flurry -- Xun Xu's 274 ad Colophon Stating Seven Old Devices as Metrological Witnesses -- Tracing Ghosts of the Official Bronze Foot-Rule of Jin -- Li Chunfeng's Antiquarian Jury -- Li Chunfeng Throws Solvent on Legend and Evidence -- Ritual Mensuration, Music, and Early Sciences -- The Prisca Zhou -- Habits of Science in the Third Century: Status, Sites, Techniques -- 5. a martinet of melody, ca. 274-277 -- Problems of Pipes and Pitches -- Flutes, Regulated Pitch, and Musical Scales -- Xun Xu's Regulators and Di-Flutes -- Xun Xu's Flutes Versus Lie He's Mode -- Songshu's Bundle of Documents On Xun Xu's Musicology -- Annotated Translation of Xun Xu's Memorial of 274 ad and Xun's Dialog with Lie He -- Songshu Part 17: Xun Xu's Flute Temperament and the Impact of New Modes -- The Pitch Distortions That Xun Xu's New Flute Indirectly Attempted to Solve -- The Modal Variety That Xun Xu Attempted to Thwart -- Proto-Sage Versus Martinet -- Ruan Xian's Complaint: The Flutes Are Shrill and Laden with Grief -- Ruan Xian in Mundane Terms.

The Ruan Xian and Shan Tao Legends as Framed by Western Jin Politics -- 6. a new day, new antiquities, new factions, ca. 277-284 -- Policies That Shooed Off the Princes and Promoted the Rank-and-File -- A New Day: Victory Celebrations -- First Reactions to the Ji Tomb -- Antiquities Emerge as Victory Is Celebrated -- Translation of the"Mu Tianzi Zhuan" Preface by Xun Xu's Official Team, Written 282-83 -- The Team Members -- The Ji-Tomb Texts Are Folded into Ongoing Work on the Jin Palace Classics Register (Jin Zhongjing Bu) -- The Rest of the World Weighs In -- Calligraphy and Access -- The Zhang Hua Ambit -- Xun Xu and Zhang Hua as Forces in the Jin Offices for Historiography -- Changes in Methods of Historiography -- Chronology as Theory and Practice -- Xun Xu's Attempt to Impose a Zhou Chronology in the "First" Annals Edition -- The Use of Shiji, and Several Candidates for the "Other" Annals Edition -- A Foot-Rule Bubbles Up as Attacks on Xun Xu Begin -- 7. "they've stolen my phoenix pool", 284-89 and beyond -- Zhi Yu's Ambit and a New Anti-Xunism -- Zhi Yu's and Wang Jie's Ideas about the Historiographical Value of Commentaries -- Xun Xu in a Time of Anti-Xunism -- Assessments in 286 of Hua Qiao's History of Later Han -- Xun Xu's Demotion and Demise -- The Post-Xun Xu Resumption of the Debate about Where to Begin the Jin Dynasty -- Prisca Antiqua: The Spirit of Western Jin Scholarship and Letters -- The Primordial as Contactable -- The Personal as Contactable -- Bibliography -- Index.