Spring 2025

All text-reading sessions take place in Rockefeller Hall, Room 374 (Asian Studies Lounge) at 3:30-5:30 p.m. unless noted otherwise.

1/31 “Biographies of Exemplary Women” in 19th century Vietnam

 Kathlene Baldanza, Asian Studies, Penn State University

2/28 “Accidental Status: Reassessing Protection Privilege in Northern Song (960-1127)”

Eric S. Lee, History, Cornell University

3/21 "Sacred Performances and Epigraphic Echoes: Temple Festivals in North China during Late Medieval China"

Yumeng Zhang, Asian Literature, Religion & Culture, Cornell University

4/18 Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium

Thomas P. Kelly, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University

Previous Text Readings

Fall 2024

9/27 Bingta menghen lu 病榻夢痕 [Traces of Dreams on a Sick Man’s Bed]

Patricia Buckley Ebrey, History, University of Washington

10/25 Burning Wood to Fire Ceramics in Jingdezhen

Chen Kaijun, East Asian Studies, Brown University

11/2 Blood and the injured body in literate Chinese medicine: Two cases from the formulary of Xu Shuwei

Yi-Li Wu, Women’s and Gender Studies and History, University of Michigan

11/15 Classical Chinese in Mexico, in 1923, on Mesmerism: Two Examples

Xiangjun Feng, East Asian Studies, University of Toronto

Spring 2024

2/2 The Emergence of the Yuan non-Han Ancestry in Late Qing North China

Tomoyasu Liyama, Faculty of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, Waseda University

3/8 Animating Forces

Andrew Schonebaum, East Asian Studies, University of Maryland

3/22 Epitaphs Made Widely Available

Man Xu, History, Tufts University

4/12 Naming and Knowledge in the East Asian Sea.

Su-yeon Seo, Asian Studies, Cornell University

Fall 2023

9/22 Cosmic Correlations in Dali-Kingdom Buddhism 

Megan Bryson, Religious Studies, University of Tennessee

10/20 Old Ghosts in Tang Chang'an: Two Stories 

Xin Wen, East Asian Studies, Princeton University

11/10 Kang Youwei's Roman Diaries (1904) 

Haun Saussy, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago

Spring 2023

2/17 Content and Form: Dunhuang Anthologies of Tang Poetry

Casey Stevens, Asian Studies, Cornell University

3/31 Xunzi's (荀子) "On Rituals" (禮論)

Michael Nylan, History, UC Berkeley

4/14 “How does Language Work?: Vasubandhu(世親)’s Discussions from the Abhidharmakośa(bhāṣya) (阿毘達磨倶舍論)”

Liyu Hua, Asian Studies, Cornell University

4/21 Xingke tiben: A Murder Case from 1762

Matthew Sommer, History, Stanford University

Fall 2022

10/14 Reading Artisanal Knowledge from 16th century Korea

Kang Hyeok Hweon, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Washington University at St. Louis

10/28 "The Record of the Relocation of the Stone Classics to the Prefectural School of Jingzhao Prefecture."

Jeffrey Moser, History of Art and Architecture, Brown University

11/11 A Taiping General’s Poem in the Anti-Qing Revolution

Yue (Mara) Du, History, Cornell University

12/2 "What Troubles the World is Inequality": Politics Before Metaphysics in Guo Xiang's 郭象 (252-312) Zhuangzi 莊子 Commentary”

Lucas Bender, East Asian Languages, Yale University

Spring 2022

2/11 "Gong Xin, Xin ke zeng bu gu jin yi jian 新刻增補古今醫鑑" (1576)

Jingya Guo, History, Cornell University

4/15 The 1265 Dual Steles: Narrating, Visualizing, and Gendering a Quanzhen Daoist Lineage on Stone

Wang Jin Ping, History, National University of Singapore

5/6 "Fengshui in Texts from Qing China."

Tristan Brown, History, MIT

5/20 Chinese Buddhist liturgical texts (zhaiwen 齋文) composed largely in parallel prose (pianliwen 駢儷文 or siliuwen 四六文)

Stephen Teiser, Religion, Princeton University

Fall 2021

10/1 Songs to Encourage the Cessation of Litigation (Xisong ge 息訟歌) in Ming and Qing.

Joseph Dennis, History, University of Wisconsin

10/29 Qiu Jun's "Daxue yanyi bu"

Tim Brook, History, University of British Columbia

11/12 “Yuan-Ming Nourishing Life (yangsheng) Texts: the Discourse of Men.”

He Bian, History and East Asian Studies, Princeton University

12/3 Fan Zongshi's "Jiang shouju yuanchi ji" and the Reception of an Impossible Text

Nathan Vedal, East Asian Studies, University of Toronto

Spring 2021

2/12 Writing and Printing for Praying: Colophons of Dali Buddhist Scriptures

Yuanyuan Duan, Asian Studies, Cornell University

3/5 The Dao of soliciting a patron:  Zheng Xia 鄭 俠 (1041-1119)'s "Letter presented to [the] Transport Intendant"  上漕車書 (Anon, Guo chao er bai jia ming xian wen cui  國朝二百家名賢文粹)

Beverly Bossler, History, Brown University

4/2 Qianlong Emperor’s Poem, “On the Mirror” 

Sophie Volpp, East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature, UC Berkely

5/8 Phonology and Human Difference in the Late Ming: Chen Di's "Mao shi guyin kao zixu (Author's Preface to Investigation of the Ancient Pronunciations in the Mao Odes)" (1606)

Leigh Jenco, Government, London School of Economics and Political Science

Fall 2020

9/11 “Rhetorical and Receptional Politics of Cheng Xuanying’s (ca. 605-690) Commentary on Zhuangzi”

Shuheng “Diana” Zhang, East Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania

10/17 Diary of a temple association from Shanxi and a ritual text that likely originated in Guizhou province. 

Meir Shahar, East Asian Affairs, Tel Aviv University

11/13 Bones, Brains, and Meridians: Animated Anatomy and Image-Text Analysis

Lan Li, Humanities, Rice University

12/4 Reading Adultery in the Criminal Records of Late Chosŏn Korea

Jisoo Kim, History, George Washington University

Spring 2020

1/31 Sengyou on Translating Scripture: China’s First Attempt to Conceptualize a Literary Other

Dan Boucher, Buddhist Studies, Cornell University

5/1 [CANCELED] Advertising Commercial publications in Early Modern China: Paratexts and Targeted Readerships

Cynthia Brokaw, History, Brown University

Fall 2019

10/4 The Material Power of Stone in Writing

Dorothy Ko, History, Barnard College

10/18 What You Can Buy and What You Can’t: Two Essays From Xianqing Ouji

Tina Lu, East Asian Languages and Literatures, Yale University

11/15 Humans as Drugs (renyao 人藥) in the Ming and Qing Dynasties: Selected Texts from Chinese Materia Medica (bencao 本草)

Chung Erqi, Philosophy, Syracuse University

12/6 Literary Prowess and Politics among the Vietnamese in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Keith Taylor, History, Cornell University

Spring 2019

2/22 A Unique Eunuch Document of the late Qianlong Reign

Norman Kutcher, History, Syracuse University

3/8 The Shinsen jikyō (898-901) preface and the move from glossae collectae to dictionary

John Whitman, Linguistics, Cornell University

4/19 Digital humanities workshop on Methods of Digital Prosopography: Data Mining and Data Visualization

Song Chen, Chinese History, Bucknell University

5/3 Carved in Stone: The Use of Engraved Stele in Song Local Governance, 960-1279

Zoe Shan Lin, History, Ithaca College

Fall 2018

10/26 One of the earliest miracle tales about Guanshiyin (Avalokiteśvara)

Victor Mair, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania

11/2 “Expressions of the heart from the exuberances of wind, clouds, moon, and dew”: encounters with a poetess in the Record of Lingering Fragrance (1814)

Hoai Khai Tran, Asian Studies, Cornell University

11/21 Digital humanities - new ways to mine online databases for Chinese Studies

Michael Stanley-Baker, History and Medical Humanities, Nanyang Technological University

Spring 2018

2/23 Thinking Through Parallels: The Classic of Odes and its Echoes in Early Sources

Micheal Hunter, East Asian Languages & Literatures, Yale University

3/16 Religious Boilerplate vs. Snapshot of the Once Lived: A Middle-Distanced Reading of the Entombed ‘Letters to the Underworld’ 告地書

Dewei Shen, East Asian Studies, Stanford University

4/20 Many Ming Temple Inscriptions from Henan

Bruce Rusk, Asian Studies, University of British Columbia

5/4 The Re-Theorization of Ritual Healing in Song Huizong’s Comprehensive Record of Sagely Beneficence 聖濟總錄

TJ Hinrich, History, Cornell University

Fall 2017

9/8 Excessive Cult or Proper Ritual? Religious Boundaries and Imperial Politics as Seen from a Shanghai Manuscript”〈柬大王泊旱〉

Guolong Lai, Art History, University of Florida

9/29 The Bells of Liang Qi 梁其鐘 : A Musical Reading of a 9th-century BCE Chinese Bronze Inscription

Jeffrey Tharsen, Humanities, University of Chicago

10/20 Cantonese Migrant Networks: Two Stone Inscriptions from the West River Basin

Steven B. Miles, History, University of Washington in St. Louis

11/17 A Ming Dynasty Inscription on the Sublime Relationship between Humans and Spirits at the Lingqiu Temple at Fajiu Mountain, Zhangzi county, Changzhi, Shanxi (明嘉靖九年（1530）重修靈湫廟記神神人人之事：山西長治長子縣發鳩山的靈湫廟碑文)

Robin McNeal, Asian Studies, Cornell University

Spring 2017

3/3 What Was Writing for? Transmission Scenes in Warring States Excavated Manuscripts

Du Heng, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Harvard University

4/14 The Charms of Mandarin in the Qīng and the Key to Northern and Southern Guānhuà

Richard Vanness Simmons, Languages, Rutgers University

4/21 Of Turnips and Apricots: Livelihood and Lifestyle in the Northern Wei as Seen through the Agricultural Treatise Qímín Yàoshù 齊民要術

Francesca Bray, Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh

5/5 Reading Sinitic Medical Texts in Mid Edo period Japan: Kagawa Shūtoku (1683-1755)

Clarence Lee, Business, Cornell University

Fall 2016

Vietnamese Regulated Verse in Two Poets: Nguyễn Trãi (1380-1442) and Hồ Xuân Hương (1772-1822)

John Phan, Asian Studies, Rutgers University

Chan Buddhist Interpretations of the Investigation of Things (gewu): Dahui Zonggao (1089-1163) and Hanshan Deqing (1546-1623)

Ari Borrell, International Bibliography, Modern Language Association

Preface, Guiyi fang

Xiao Rong, History, Shenzhen University

Negotiated Past: Zeng Bu’s (1036-1107) Diary and Court Politics in Twelfth-Century China

Yung-chang Tung, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University

Spring 2016

2/19 Cho Soang's 赵素昂 (1887-1958) Preface to Hanguo wenyuan 韓國文苑 (1932)

Han Songyeol, East Asian Studies, Princeton University

Ming Tongue-Biting Cases

Chen Shiau-Yun, History, Cornell University

Wang Jianxun ⺩王建勳, “Chongxiu hetaosidagu miao bei ji” 重修河套四⼤大股廟碑記, 1898

Wang Yi, History, Binghamton University

How to Read Editorial Principles: Yu Chu xinzhi 虞初新志 and Installment Publication

Son Suyoung, Asian Studies, Cornell University