Spring 2007 Report:

During the Spring of 2007, the Early China Seminar at Columbia University continued its wide-ranging discussions of the history, culture, archaeology, language, and art of China from prehistoric times up to 200 C.E. Profs. David Prager Branner [林德威] of the University of Maryland and Li Feng 李峰 of Columbia University served as co-Chairs. The Seminar’s discussions continue to focus on problems associated with literacy in early China. Presenters included some of the preeminent specialists on this period in greater China and the West, and the 30 or so participants came from institutions all over the northeast of the United States.!

The Seminar is the premiere venue for the study of Early China on the East Coast of the United States and has been supported since its inception by the CCKF.

Eight papers were presented over the course of four meetings.

• On February 24, 2007, Lothar von Falkenhausen (University of California at Los Angeles) spoke on “Oral Performance and Written Transmission in Ceremonial Contexts: The Nature of Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions in Light of the Recent Finds from Yangjiacun”. Falkenhausen drew materials from Yángjiācūn (陜西眉縣楊家村) into the larger question of how Western Zhou bronze inscriptions were actually formed, including the roles of donor and audience in the lineage ceremony at which an inscribed vessel would have been dedicated.

• On February 24, 2007, Yang Nan 楊楠 (Central University of Nationality, Beijing; visiting University of North Carolina), read “良渚文化興衰原因 [The Rise and Decline of the Neolithic Liangzhu Culture of Southeastern China]” in Chinese. Yang summarized archaeological findings from the socially stratified Liángzhǔ 良渚 Culture (named after the modern town of Liángzhǔ in Yúháng County, Zhejiang 浙江余杭良渚), which flourished for a millennium between about 5200 and 4200 B.C.E.

• On March 17, 2007, Constance Cook (Lehigh University) read “Education and the Way of the Former Kings”. Cook sought to connect the transmission of the liùyì 六藝 originating in Western Zhou with the spread of literacy in the Warring States, in the hands of a diverse and fluid group of master-student lineages.

• On April 7, 2007, Wang Wei 王巍 (Professor and Director of the Institute of Archaeology, CASS) read “關於中華文明起源的幾個問題 [Key Issues in the Origin of Ancient Chinese Civilization: Archaeological Research]” in Chinese. Wang presented an overview of forces and effects connected with the development of Chinese civilization, as now understood with reference to specific archaeological findings. He identified thirteen traits characteristic of Chinese civilization and asserted that there were signs that cultural and geographic forces had led inevitably to the coalescence of the Xià dynasty in the central plains region of modern China.

• On April 7, 2007, Robin Yates (McGill University, Canada) read “Soldiers, Scribes, and Women: Literacy among the Lower Orders in the Early Empire”. Yates argued that although literacy was associated with the court and the ruler’s officials, there was also evidence that some commoners, including soldiers, merchants, and heads of households (including women) must also have had some ability to read and write in Qin times.

• On May 5, 2007, On Matthias Richter (University of Freiburg, Germany; visiting scholar, University of Chicago) read “Enquiring into the Significance of Writing for the Transmission and Stabilisation of Early Chinese Texts”. Richter treated many concrete matters connected with the actual practice of writing as attested in Han bamboo slips, making a distinction between inscriptions and manuscripts (documents where the text is inscribed as against those where it is applied to a surface) and proposing four components to literacy: writing, “encoding” (making language visible), reading, and comprehension.

• On May 5, 2007, Robert Eno (Indiana University) read “Literary and Historical Clues to Ru Disciple Traditions: Zigong and the Identity of the Meng School”. Eno’s paper examined the historical role of Confucius’ disciple Zǐgòng 子貢 in the history of early factionalism within the Ruist school. He argued that Zǐgòng held an important place in the patristics of two major early factions: the Mèng and Yán schools.

• On May 5, 2007, Zeng Zhenyu 曾振宇 (Shandong University) read “荀子“天”論再認識 [Guodian Bamboo Texts and the Philosophical Nature of ‘Tian’ (Heaven) in Xunzi]” in Chinese. Zeng explored the historical origins of three sense of tiān 天 in Warring States thinking: “Heaven” as nature, as a divine force, and as a rational philosophical concept.

17 June, 2007. David Prager Branner