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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250505T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250505T180000
DTSTAMP:20260716T020455
CREATED:20250220T174552Z
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UID:39512-1746460800-1746468000@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:China Humanities Seminar featuring Robert Campany — Traditions of Exemplary Transcendents (Liexian zhuan 列仙傳): A Reading
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Robert Campany\, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in Humanities; Professor of Asian Studies\, Vanderbilt University \n\n\n\nLiexian zhuan\, plausibly attributed to the late Western Han scholiast and court official Liu Xiang 劉向 (79-8 BCE)\, is the earliest extant collection of anecdotes about individuals deemed to have transcended the limits of the human condition to become beings known as xian 仙. In this talk I will explore what it can tell us about the origins and early history of the quest for transcendence. What range of methods does it portray adepts as using to gain extraordinary longevity and other transhuman capabilities? How do its entries depict practitioners’ relations with other people\, with local communities\, and with the landscape? What does the text reveal about the sometimes strange workings of the hagiographic process? (For example\, why do the “wandering women” 游女 mentioned in the Shijing 詩經 poem “The Han is Broad” [“Han guang 漢廣\,” Mao #9] number among its transcendents?) To what extent does the text hold surprises when read against Ge Hong’s 葛洪 similar but much larger compilation made three centuries later? \n\n\n\nRob Campany is Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in Humanities and Professor of Asian Studies at Vanderbilt University. He researches the history of religion in China from the late Warring States to the Tang. His most recent books include The Chinese Dreamscape\, 300 BCE – 800 CE (Harvard University Asia Center Publications\, 2020)\, winner of the Joseph Levenson Prize and the Médaille Stanislas Julien\, and Dreaming and Self-Cultivation in China\, 300 BCE – 800 CE (Harvard University Asia Center Publications\, 2023). \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/china-humanities-seminar-featuring-robert-campany-traditions-of-exemplary-transcendents-liexian-zhuan-%e5%88%97%e4%bb%99%e5%82%b3-a-reading/
LOCATION:Common Room\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, Cambridge\, Massachusetts\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:China Humanities Seminar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/RObert-campany.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250929T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250929T180000
DTSTAMP:20260716T020455
CREATED:20250903T144616Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250903T144617Z
UID:41519-1759161600-1759168800@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:China Humanities Seminar featuring Zhuming Yao —The Early Chinese Lyric “I”: Between Poetics and Hermeneutics
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Zhuming Yao\, Assistant Professor of Chinese & Comparative Literature at Boston University \n\n\n\nMany poems in the Shijing 詩經 feature a lyric “I\,” a first-person voice speaking about intense emotions. Yet\, who those “Is” are has never been clear. After two millennia of commentarial writings\, we are no more certain than the first critics of the Shi about any of the “Is.” On the contrary\, a modern reader is confronted with a range of different readings\, each plausible on its own but none more reasoned than the others. This hermeneutical impasse\, I show in this talk\, results from an interpretive practice that inscribes meaning to\, rather than recovers the referent of\, the lyric “I.” And the inscription is made not through any serious historical or philological investigation but through free\, sometimes idiosyncratic\, imagination of the poetics of the Shi—how the poems are composed\, in what mode of speech\, and with what rhetorical devices. Such poetic claims disguised as hermeneutical solutions have roots in the “I” as a deictic subject position. It helps to generate a group of “type voices” that are inhabitable (and were indeed inhabited) by readers and writers alike. In the broader history of early lyric poetry\, these “type voices” were what became “lyric poets.” But no lyric poet in this early phase\, I also show\, managed to escape completely being a common type. \n\n\n\nZhuming Yao is Assistant Professor of Chinese & Comparative Literature at Boston University. He works on classical Chinese literature of the early and early imperial eras\, with a particular interest in poetics\, philology\, and manuscript culture. Zhuming’s current book project examines the literary significance of the oral word in early Chinese writings\, offering an account of how writing valorizes the oral form and\, in turn\, appropriates its discursive appeal. Before joining BU\, Zhuming taught at Swarthmore College (2023-24). \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/china-humanities-seminar-featuring-zhuming-yao-the-early-chinese-lyric-i-between-poetics-and-hermeneutics/
LOCATION:Common Room\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, Cambridge\, Massachusetts\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:China Humanities Seminar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/chs929.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251020T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251020T180000
DTSTAMP:20260716T020455
CREATED:20250903T150808Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250903T150810Z
UID:41525-1760976000-1760983200@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:China Humanities Seminar featuring Lili Xia — Geocultural “Northernness” of Jurchen-Ruled China
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Lili Xia\,  Assistant Professor\, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures\, Barnard College. \n\n\n\nThe geocultural significance of the “North” was crucial to the competing claims to China between the Jurchen Jin (1115–1234) and Southern Song (1127–1279) dynasties. This talk examines the contemporary conception of “northernness\,” arguing that Jurchen-ruled North China was at once a geopolitical reality and a poetic and intellectual imaginary. First\, after the loss of the Central Plain\, Southern Song literati enshrined their former territory of North China into “sites of memory” (lieux de mémoire). At the same time\, the Jurchen Jin proclaimed legitimacy by invoking its own “northernness” conceived in both literary texts and geocultural contexts. Extending beyond the Central Plain into what I term the Far North—territory inherited from the former Kitan Liao dynasty (907–1125)—this region received substantial cultural investment under Jurchen rule. Using GIS visualization to map historical agents from extant Jin corpora\, I show that these far northern literati were integral to Jin civil society. Finally\, I turn to zhongzhou 中州 as a discursive hallmark in Jin textual production\, a conceptual anchor for “northernness” that served as both cultural self-distinction and\, after the Mongol conquest\, a locus of collective nostalgia. Occupying the “North” with not only geographical but also conceptual significance\, the Jin positioned itself not as an alien regime but as an alternative\, heteroglossic vision of “China.” \n\n\n\nLili Xia is a scholar of premodern Chinese literature\, with a broader interest in Sino-steppe interactions and their role in challenging\, changing\, and pluralizing the mainstream literary history. She is currently working on her book project titled “North against South in Middle Period China: Classical Poetry and Literati Culture under Jurchen Jin Rule (1115–1234).” The book examines how the Sino-Jurchen North articulated a rival vision of China against the cultural orthodoxy of the Han Chinese-ruled South\, and highlights the vibrant and self-defining literati culture under Jurchen rule\, with a particular focus on Jin classical poetry. The book also adopts an interdisciplinary approach that integrates material culture\, digital tools\, and literary sources to better represent Jin literary ecology. It aims to portray Middle Period China as an intersubjective\, transcultural\, and border-crossing space. \n\n\n\nXia received her B.A. and M.A. in Classical Chinese Literature at Fudan University\, and her Ph.D. in East Asian Studies at Princeton University. She was the 2023–24 Louis Frieberg Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 2024\, she is an assistant professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/china-humanities-seminar-featuring-lili-xia-geocultural-northernness-of-jurchen-ruled-china/
LOCATION:Common Room\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, Cambridge\, Massachusetts\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:China Humanities Seminar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/chs1020.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251103T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251103T180000
DTSTAMP:20260716T020455
CREATED:20251020T183037Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251020T183039Z
UID:42796-1762185600-1762192800@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:China Humanities Seminar featuring Matthias Richter — Early Chinese Texts Between Oral Instruction and Written Literature
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Matthias L. Richter\, Associate Professor of Chinese\, University of Colorado at Boulder \n\n\n\nAudiences in early China were probably more aware of technicalities in texts than we are today\, since they had first-hand experience of a predominantly oral textual culture and the management of cognitive load it required. Conventions of structuring texts rooted in this mode of communication must have carried over into the production of texts that were designed for reading. Later readers may not always have recognized such textual forms as intentional. This should give us reason to reconsider whether some features of texts that are commonly considered as accidents of transmission may have been intentional. \n\n\n\nMatthias L. Richter\, Associate Professor of Chinese\, University of Colorado at Boulder\, obtained a PhD in sinology from the University of Hamburg in 2000\, taught at several German universities and the University of Chicago before joining the faculty of CU Boulder in 2007. His research focuses on Warring States and Early Imperial politico-philosophical literature\, particularly questions of rhetoric and redactional strategies\, textual criticism\, the formational history of texts\, and the methodology of studying early Chinese manuscripts. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/china-humanities-seminar-featuring-matthias-richter-early-chinese-texts-between-oral-instruction-and-written-literature/
LOCATION:Common Room\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, Cambridge\, Massachusetts\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:China Humanities Seminar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Matthias-Richter.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260202T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260202T180000
DTSTAMP:20260716T020455
CREATED:20260126T201700Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260126T201702Z
UID:44144-1770048000-1770055200@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:China Humanities Seminar featuring Nathan Vedal — The Art of (Tested) Translation: Manchu Exams in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Nathan Vedal\, Assistant Professor\, Department of East Asian Studies\, University of Toronto; Former Fairbank Center Graduate Student Associate \n\n\n\nThis talk\, introducing a forthcoming monograph (Translation\, Emulation\, and Manchu Literary Culture)\, will consider the institution of a civil service translation examination during the Qing dynasty\, as well as the Manchu translation program in the elite Hanlin Academy. The civil service translation exams\, administered for members of the Eight Banners\, required rigorous literary\, classical\, and linguistic training\, as well as composition of original essays in the Manchu language\, highlighting the critical role of Chinese models in the generation of Manchu literature. Some contemporaneous literati at the Hanlin Academy\, a training ground for officials and court scholars who passed the Chinese civil service exam at the highest level\, underwent a three-year program of Manchu study culminating in a final translation exam. Knowledge of Manchu gained at the Hanlin Academy is evident in the deployment of multilingual literary effects in Chinese compositions. Within Qing literary-intellectual culture\, the juxtaposition of Chinese and Manchu\, through acts of translation and direct imitation\, yielded a productive venue for literary creation and self-fashioning. \n\n\n\nNathan Vedal is an assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto\, specializing in Chinese intellectual and cultural history. He received his undergraduate degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and his PhD in Chinese history from Harvard University. His first book\, The Culture of Language in Ming China: Sound\, Script\, and the Redefinition of Boundaries of Knowledge (Columbia University Press\, 2022)\, won the Morris D. Forkosch Prize from the Journal of the History of Ideas. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/china-humanities-seminar-featuring-nathan-vedal-the-art-of-tested-translation-manchu-exams-in-the-eighteenth-and-nineteenth-centuries/
LOCATION:Common Room\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, Cambridge\, Massachusetts\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:China Humanities Seminar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Vedal_headshot-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260323T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260323T180000
DTSTAMP:20260716T020455
CREATED:20260312T175411Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260312T175414Z
UID:44579-1774281600-1774288800@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:China Humanities Seminar featuring Rebecca Doran — Dress Regulation\, Dynastic Image-Building\, and Geopolitical Competition in Early Medieval China
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Rebecca Doran\, University of Miami \n\n\n\nThe various regimes that emerged during third through sixth centuries grappled from different perspectives with the establishment of dynastic dress regulations\, meant to promote hierarchical order at home and project legitimacy and strength abroad. This form of conveying authority was complicated by geopolitical developments\, including regime changes and tensions between competing regimes. Discussions and decisions regarding dress regulations were informed not only by scholarly understandings of ritual sartorial precedent\, but also by these contemporary sources of friction and identity-building. The talk examines several case studies demonstrating the interconnections during this period between dress regulation\, dynastic image-building\, and inter-dynastic rivalries. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/china-humanities-seminar-featuring-rebecca-doran-dress-regulation-dynastic-image-building-and-geopolitical-competition-in-early-medieval-china/
LOCATION:Common Room\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, 2 Divinity Ave.\, Cambridge\, Massachusetts\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:China Humanities Seminar
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Doran.jpg
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