2024 Conferences:
February 8-10, 2024
Third Workshop on the Shiji Translation Project: Chapters 23,25,26,27,28 and 30. Organizer William H. Nienhasuer, Jr., Emeritus Halls-Bascom Professor of Chinese Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison
March 1-4, 2024
Local Communities in Early China. Organizer Professor Michael Nylan UC Berkeley, History Department, and Graduate Student Assistant: Nicholas Constantino.
May 2-5, 2024
Translate all of the Tsinghua University Warring States bamboo manuscripts. Organizer Edward L. Shaughnessy The University of Chicago; East Asian Languages and Civilizations
May 28-June 1, 2024
The Making and Unmaking of Home: Writing Workshop-completion of an anthology of translated texts for the teaching of women in Chinese religions. Organizer Megan Bryson is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
2023 Conferences
Crossing Boundaries: Conversations on Multilingual Manuscripts and Inscriptions November 3-4, 2023
Conference Participants:
1.) Charles Sanft; University of Tennessee/ Imre Galambos; University of Cambridge: Conference Chairs
2.) Brandon Dotson; Georgetown University
3.) Amanda Goodman; University of Toronto
4.) Guolong Lai; Westlake University
5.) Xin Wen; Princeton University
6.) Martin Kern; Princeton University
7.) Heng Du; Wellsley College
8.) Marjorie Burge; University Colorado Boulder
Daoism on Cliffs, in Caves, and Inscriptions: October 7-8, 2023
Conference Participants:
1.) Gil Raz; Dartmouth College
2.) Li Song; Dartmouth College
3.) Richard G. Wang; University of Florida
4.) Stephen Bokenkamp; Arizona State University
5.) Jingyu Liu; Harvard University
6.) Joy Lidu Yi; Florida International University
7.) Wei Wu; Arizona State University
8.) Jessey Choo; Rutgers University
9.) Aaron Reich; Saint Joseph’s University
10.) Sonya Lee; University of Southern California
11.) Peng Liu; Rutgers University
12.) Tyler Feezell; Dartmouth College
Conference Participants:
- Alexander, Katherine; Assistant Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder
- Bryson, Megan; Associate Professor, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- Cheng, Hsiao-wen; Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania
- Choo, Jessey; Associate Professor, Rutgers University
- Heller, Natasha; Associate Professor, University of Virginia
- Kang, Xiaofei; Associate Professor, George Washington University
- Lai, Rongdao; Assistant Professor, McGill University
- Ma, Xu; Assistant Professor, Lafayette College
- Pang-White, Ann; Professor, University of Scranton
- Valussi, Elena; Senior Lecturer, Loyala University
- Waltner, Ann; Professor, University of Minnesota
Autobiography in Premodern Asia – January 6-8, 2023
Saturday January 7th
9:30-10:30 Matthias Richter (University of Colorado Boulder), “Imagined Autobiographical Voices in Early Chinese Masters Literature”
10:30-11:30 David Atherton (Harvard University), “Autobiographical Form as Epiphenomenon in Ihara Saikaku’s Life of an Amorous Woman”
11:30-12:30 Rahul Bjørn Parson (UC Berkeley), “Auto-Allegory: The Ardhakathānaka of Banārasīdās”
14:00-15:00 Stewart, Devin (Emory University), “Wealth, Books, and Conceptions of the Self in Pre-Modern Arabic Autobiography”
15:00-16:00 Antje Richter (University of Colorado Boulder), “Presenting the Sick Self in Early Medieval Chinese Epistolary Writings”
16:00-17:00 Xiaojing Miao (Pembroke College), “The Master of Extreme Torment: Lu Zhaolin and ‘Letting Go of My Illness’”
Sunday January 8th
9:30-10:30 Xiaofei Tian (Harvard University), “The Turning Point: A Narrative of Change in Early Medieval Chinese Autobiographical Writings”
10:30-11:30 Alexi Ditter (Reed College), “Identifying the “Self” in the Self-Authored muzhiming of the Tang Dynasty (618–907)”
11:30-12:30 Christina Laffin (University of British Columbia), “Women’s Self-narratives and Romantic Heroines: Early Japanese Vernacular Memoirs and The Tale of Genji”
14:00-15:00 Chong Fu , “Onomancy and Eti(m)ology of Names: from the Autobiographical Verses of the First Nuns to the Aspirational Vows of the Bodhisattvas”
15:00-16:00 Matthew Wells (University of Kentucky), “One’s Self in Another: Revealed Auto-Hagiography in the Shangqing Tradition”
16:00-17:00 Roundtable discussion
Southeast Early China Roundtable – November 11-12, 2022
Friday, November 11, 2022
5:00-6:30 pm Keynote Lecture: Dr. Keith Knapp, The Citadel
“The Birth of Popular Confucianism: Evidence from Dunhuang of the Creation of the Twenty-four Filial Exemplars”
Saturday, November 12, 2022
9:30 – 10:00 Andrew Meyer (Brooklyn College, CUNY) – “Heaven’s Whim versus Heaven’s Will: Debates Over State and Cosmos in the Warring States”
10:00 – 10:30 Uffe Bergeton (UNC Chapel Hill) – “Philosophical Significance of Name Taboo variants in the transmission of the Dàodéjīng: the Case of Cháng常 and Héng 恒”
11:00 – 11:30 Charles Sanft (University of Tennessee) – “Hanging Spring: Manuscript Sources and Received Accounts”
11:30 – 12:00 Leslie Wallace (Coastal Carolina University) – “Animal Imagery in Eastern Han Tomb Reliefs from Shanbei”
1:30 – 2:00 Jianjun He (University of Kentucky) – “The Way to Becoming a Master: Shishuo 師說, shifa 師法 and the Institutionalization of Ru Schools in Han Dynasty”
2:00 – 2:30 Andrew Chittick (Eckerd College) – “Maritime Commodity Trade in the Jiankang Empire”
2:30 – 3:00 Rob Campany (Vanderbilt) – “Polluting Dreams in the Han Period and Early Medieval Period.”
3:30 – 4:00 Stephen Kory (University of Florida) – “Second Chances: The Redemption and Rebirth of Xin Xuanzi 辛玄子 (fl. 80 CE) in the Declarations of the Perfected”
4:00 – 4:30 Fan Zhang (Tulane University) – “Xianbei Zoomorphic Plaques: Art, Migration, and Human-Environment Entanglement”
4:30-5:00 SEECR Business meeting
Sunday, November 13, 2022
9:30 – 10:00 Lidu Yi (Florida International University) – “Seeing Buddha in the Afterlife: A Case Study of the Xing Hejiang Tomb”
10:00 – 10:30 Cuong T. Mai (Appalachian State) – “How did Ouluo 歐羅 become Âu Lạc? Tracing the Changing Referents of a Name (3rd century BCE – 15th century CE)”
10:30 – 11:00 Sarah Mattice (University of North Florida) – “Feminist Reclamation and Early Chinese Philosophy”
Shiji 史記 Translation Workshop – October 27-30 2022
Friday, 28 October 2022
Morning Session 1 9:00-10:30 Chapter 17
10:30-10:45 Coffee break
Morning Session 2 10:45-12:30 Chapter 17
Afternoon Session 12:00-3:30 Chapter 18
Coffee Break 3:30-3:45
Afternoon Session 2 4:00-5:30 Chapter 18
Saturday, 29 October 2022
Morning Session 1 9:00-10:30 Chapter 19
Coffee break 10:30-10:45
Morning Session 2 10:45-12:30 Chapter 19
Afternoon Session 1 2:00-3:30 Chapter 20
Coffee Break 3:30-3:45
Afternoon Session 2 4:00-5:30
Lecture: Hans van Ess, “The Shiji and Confucius”
Sunday, 30 October 2022
Morning Session 1 9:00-10:30 Chapter 20
Coffee break 10:30-10:45
Morning Session 2 10:45-12:30 Chapter 22
Afternoon Session 12:00-3:30 Chapter 22
Coffee Break 3:30-3:45
The Intersections of Literature and Religion in Premodern China – October 21–22, 2022
Confirmed Participants and Presentation Titles Faculty Presenters:
1. Robert Campany (Vanderbilt University): Narrative in/and/as Religion in Premodern China
2. Jessey J.c. Choo (Rutgers University): Narrating Salvation in Medieval Chinese Entombed Epitaph Inscriptions for Lay Buddhists
3. Robert Hymes (Columbia University): Reflections on Miracles, Salvation, and Community
4. Manling Luo (Indiana University): The Proselytizing Storyteller and His Social Networks in Tang Buddhist Miracle Tales
5. Jonathan Petit (University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa): A Maidservant or a Daoist Master: Difference and Divergence in Medieval Daoist Hagiographies
6. Anna Shields (Princeton University): What about Daoist Poetry in the Tang? Traces and Erasures of Daoism in Tang shi ji shi
7. Song Gang (University of Hong Kong): A Mirror of Magic and Spiritual Power: Christian Stories in Late Ming Fujian
Graduate Student Presenters:
1. Yalin Du (Princeton University): Seeing is Believing: Mogao Cave 323 Revisited, on Visuality and Narrativity
2. Bojue Hou (Indiana University): State Sacrifice Hymns of Empress Wu in the Old History of the Tang
3. Filippo Ugolini (Princeton University): A Ninth-Century Dream and Its Interpretation
4. Liying Xu (Arizona State University): From an Image of Literatus to a Daoist Symbol: Shi Jianwu, West Mountain, and the Development of Daoist Symbolic Identity
5. Yiwen Zheng (Indiana University): The Extraordinariness in Du Guangting’s Lu yi ji
Reading Tang Literature Across Disciplines – May 6-7, 2022
“Reading Tang Literature across Disciplines”
Organizer: Nicholas Morrow Williams (Arizona State University)
Draft Program:
Friday, May 6
Morning Session
9:00am: Welcome (Nicholas Morrow Williams)
9:20–10:00am: Timothy W. K. Chan (Hong Kong Baptist University): How to Write a Hagiography in Parallel Prose: Wang Bo on Śākyamuni’s Enlightenment
10:05–10:45am: Richard Van Ness Simmons (The University of Hong Kong): The Language of Táng Poetry as Entryway into the Spoken Language of the Táng
10:50–11:30am: Lucas Bender (Yale): Jiaoran’s Metaphors for Artistry
12:00pm: Lunch
Afternoon Session
2:00–2:40pm: Richard John Lynn (University of Toronto): Du Xunhe 杜荀鶴 (846-904) and the High Tang
2:45–3:25pm: Chen Zhinan (University of Washington, Seattle): A Glance into the Tang Literary Tradition——Notes on Dunhuang Manuscript P. 2526
3:30–4:10pm: Thomas Mazanec (UC Santa Barbara): Religious and Literary Infrastructure in the Tang-Song Transition: The Case of Bai Juyi
4:15–5:05pm: Lucas Klein (Arizona State University): Tang Metaphysics and Translation Theory
Saturday, May 7
Morning Session
9:00–9:40am: Rebecca Doran (University of Miami): Reconstructing and Recontextualizing Zhuangtai ji 妝臺記 (Record of the Dressing Table)
9:50–10:30am: Wu Wei (Arizona State University): Set in Stone: How the Tang Literati Constructed the History of Daoism
10:40–11:20am: Tom Noel (Villanova): Fake News in the Classical Canon
11:30am–12:10pm: Marie Bizais-Lillig (University of Strasbourg (France)): Tracing Back Snippets of Knowledge Embedded in Tang Poems
12:30pm: Lunch
Afternoon Session
2:00–2:40pm: Linda Rui Feng (University of Toronto): Making Sense of Scents in Tang Literature: Prose Anecdotes and Beyond
2:45–3:25pm: Hin Ming Frankie Chik (Arizona State University): The Ritualistic Abdication: A Research Note on the Formalistic Edicts of Abdication in the Sui-Tang Transition
3:30–4:10pm: Josiah Stork (University of Wisconsin-Madison): Reading the Dragons of the Tàipíng Guǎngjì: A Queer Eco-critical Approach
4:15–5:05pm: Nicholas Williams (Arizona State University): Liu Zongyuan’s Dialogue with Tradition: On the “Tian dui
Ritual and Contemplative Practices in Chinese Buddhism and Daoism – March 4-5, 2022
Organizer: Dr. Mario Poceski, University of Florida
Friday Morning Session
9:00 Opening Remarks (Mario Poceski)
9:20-10:00 Poul Andersen (Univ. of Hawaii): Ti and yong, Dao and fa: A Daoist theory of ritual
10:10-10:50 David Mozina (independent): Ritual practices in Daoist Fengdu traditions during the Southern Song dynasty
11:00-11:40 Matthew Wells (University of Kentucky): Refined contemplation 精思 in the Shangqing tradition
12:00 Lunch
Friday Afternoon Session
2:00-2:40 Dixuan Chen (Grinnell College): Healing rituals in early Chinese Buddhism
2:50-3:30 April Hughes (Boston Univ.): Recitations of Buddhist scriptures according to Dunhuang manuscripts
3:30-4:00 coffee break
4:00-4:40 Jiang Wu (Univ. of Arizona): Reading and writing as contemplative practices in Chan Buddhism
4:50-5:30 Final Discussion
Saturday Morning Session
9:20-10:00 Joshua Capitanio (Stanford Univ.): Liturgy as Contemplative Practice in Song Daoism
10:10-10:50 Gil Raz (Dartmouth College): The emergence of Daoist iconographic practice: contemplation or ritual?
11:00-11:40 Richard G. Wang (Univ. of Florida): Ming Daoist master Liu Yuanran’s discourse on neidan in the context of ritual
12:00 Lunch
Saturday Afternoon Session
2:00-2:40 Joy Lidu Yi (Florida International Univ.): Liturgical practices in a Dhāranī Sūtra and the protection of royals in medieval China
2:50-3:30 Jimmy Yu (Florida State Univ.): Chan meditative practices of the Southern Song period
3:30-4:00 coffee break
4:00-4:40 Morten Schlütter (Univ. of Iowa): Evolution of meditation in the Platform sutras
4:50-5:30 Final Discussion
Reading Workshop on Tang Literature: Fu Poetry – February 27-29, 2020
Organized by Dr. Paul Kroll, University of Colorado Boulder
Meeting schedule unavailable at this time
Shiji Translation Workshop – November 7-10, 2019
Organized by Dr. William Nienhauser, University of Wisconsin Madison and Series Editor
Meeting schedule unavailable
Cambridge History of China Workshop – September 6-7, 2019
Meeting schedule not available.
Shiji Translation Workshop – November 1-4, 2018
Organized by Dr. William Nienhauser, University of Wisconsin Madison and Series Editor
Meeting schedule unavailable
21st Southeast Early China Roundtable – October 27-29, 2017
Meeting schedule unavailable
Friday, November 11, 2016 (Eide Library):
Opening Remarks:
Anna M. Shields, President, T’ang Studies Society
Nicholas Williams, Editor, Tang Studies
Panel One: New Perspectives on Tang Dynasty Political History
Panel Chair: Anthony DeBlasi, University at Albany
Panel Two: Tales, “Notes,” and Anecdotes: Prose in the Tang
Panel Chair: Sarah Allen, Wellesley College
Panel Three: Tang in the World
Panel Chair: Michael Drompp, Rhodes College
Panel Four: Ritual Environments of the Tang Dynasty: Text through Context
Panel Co-Chairs: Amy McNair, University of Kansas; Tracy Miller, Vanderbilt University
Saturday, November 12, 2016 (Eide Library)
Panel Five: Doing Things with Things: Religious Objects of the Period of Division, Sui, and Tang
Panel Chair: Wendi Adamek, University of Calgary
Panel Seven: Social History of the Tang
Panel Chair: Nicolas Tackett, University of California Berkeley
Lunch Presentation:
“The Chinese Biographical Database (CBDB) Project and Tang Studies”
Xin Wen, Harvard University
Panel Six: New Approaches to Tang Poetry
Panel Chair: Christopher Nugent, Williams College
Panel Eight: Influences of Religion on Tang State and Regional Identity
Panel Chair: James Robson, Harvard University
Round-Table: Reflections on Past Paths and Future Directions in the Study of the Tang and the Role of the Tang Studies Journal