Conference Programs
Eighth Conference of the Early Medieval China Group
Columbus Convention Center (Room A224)
Thursday, March 13, 2025, 9:00 am–5:00 pm (EDT)
9:00 am Welcome by Antje Richter (University of Colorado Boulder)
9:10–11:10 am, Panel 1, Chair: Xiaofei Tian (Harvard University)
9:10 Qingxuan Wang (Yale University)
“Law and the Healing Cults of China and Rome, 185–500 CE: A Comparative Study of Celestial Masters Daoism and the Cult of Asclepius”
9:40 Peiyuan Shu (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
“Blessing with Propaganda: Auspicious Inscriptions, Politics, and Material Culture of Southern China in the Third Century CE”
10:10 Zhou Zoushiyu (University of Colorado Boulder)
“Burning for Whom: Nuns’ Auto-Cremation in Chinese Hagiography”
10:40 Ranting Zhang (Columbia University)
“Scripture as Spectacle: The Lotus Sutra and the Performance of Imperial Authority in the Sui Dynasty (581–618)”
11:10 am–11:20 pm Break
11:20–1:20 pm, Panel 2, Chair: Meow Hui Goh (Ohio State University)
11:20 Deyi Zhang (University of California Davis)
“The Cricket in the Hall: Minuscule and the Sense of Spatiotemporal in Pre-Tang Poetry”
11:50 Nick Allaman (Ohio State University)
“Categorizing Mixed Feelings: ‘Za shi,’ Affect, and Genre in the Selections of Refined Literature”
12:20 Ruiyi Cao (Nanjing University)
“Nature and Governance: The Construction of Order and the Literati Ideal in Liu Xie’s Discussion of Official Documents in Wenxin diaolong”
12:50 Yanan Xiang (University of Colorado Boulder)
“Competitive Voices: Representations of Childhood Learning in Early Medieval Autobiographical Writing and Historiography”
1:20–2:00 pm Break
2:00–4:00 pm, Panel 3, Chair: Joe Cutter (Emeritus, UW-Madison and ASU)
2:00 Julian Gee (Harvard University)
“To Expel the Rong: Alien Expulsion Proposals and Concepts of the Other in Third-century China”
2:30 Xinyan Chen (University of California Santa Barbara)
“From ‘Running Tiger’ 虎賁 to ‘Jade Tree’ 玉樹: The Evolution of Male Beauty in the Wei-Jin Dynasties”
3:00 Bingxiao Liu (Stanford University)
“The Expansion of Emotion: Public Displays of Emotions in Early Medieval China”
3:30 Guanqi Wang (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
“Restoration, Kingship, and the Historical Cycle: Pei Ziye’s 裴子野 Evaluation of the Decline of the Liu Song Dynasty (420–479)”
4:00–4:15 pm Break
4:15 pm Annual Membership Meeting & Presentation of Awards
Seventh Conference of the Early Medieval China Group
Seattle Convention Center, Rm 307 (level 3)
Thursday, March 14, 2024, 9:30 am–5:30 pm (Pacific Time)
9:30 am Welcome by Antje Richter (University of Colorado Boulder)
9:40–11:40 am, Panel 1, Chair: Keith Knapp (Citadel)
9:40 Aaron Zhao (University of California Santa Barbara)
“Cavalry in China, 3rd Century BCE to 4th Century CE”
10:10 Yanxi Luo (University of Edinburgh)
“Anti-transcendence Discourses in the Baopuzi: Sagehood, Mystery Learning, and Rebellions”
10:40 Wing Yan Ho (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
“Refugees in the 4th to 6th Century: Comparing the Social Policies between the Northern Wei, Liu Song, and
Southern Qi”
11:10 Wu Ke (University of Colorado Boulder)
“On Representations of Lady Xian (ca. 522–602) in Early Medieval Historiography”
11:40 am–11:50 pm Break
11:50–1:50 pm, Panel 2, Chair: Cynthia Chennault (University of Florida)
11:50 Zhu Xu and Yushan Zhang (Harbin Institute of Technology)
“Translating Architecture: Huiyuan’s Vision and Design of the First Buddhist Scripture Repository in China”
12:20 Yuanqiu Jiang (Rutgers University)
“Knowing Listeners: Theories of Voice in Early Medieval China”
12:50 Xiaojing Miao (University of Oxford)
“Individuality through Tradition: The Master of Extreme Torment and ‘Dispelling Illness’”
1:20 Yuxuan Tay (UCLA)
“Like Mother, (un)like Sons: Wu Zhao Vis-à-Vis Zhongzong and Ruizong’s Buddhistic Legitimation through the Case Study
of Imperial Prefaces”
1:50–2:30 pm Break
2:30–4:30 pm, Panel 3, Chair: Kate Lingley (University of Hawai’i)
2:30 Michael Norton (Harvard University)
“Statues of Light: The Iconography of the Five Tan Yao Caves Revisited”
3:00 Meng Tong (University of Kansas)
“Monk Travelers on the Forgotten Road: Patronage of the Early Fifth-century Buddhist Cleric Donors at Binglingsi Cave
169”
3:30 Fan Zhang (Tulane University)
“Revisiting Empress Dowager Wenming’s Mausoleum: Yonggu Stone Chamber and Mausoleum Rituals of the Northern Wei
Dynasty”
4:00 Jinchao Zhao (Tongji University)
“On the Patronage of Miniature Stone Pagodas in Sixth-century Shanxi and Gansu: Dedication, Organization, and
Migration”
4:30–4:40 pm Break
4:40 pm Annual Membership Meeting
Sixth Conference of the Early Medieval China Group
Sheraton Boston, Room: Boston Common
Thursday, March 16, 2023, 9:30 am–5:30 pm (EDT)
9:40–11:40 am, Panel 1, Chair: D. Jonathan Felt (Brigham Young University)
9:40 Ouyang Biqing (Zhejiang University)
“Rethinking Bronze Mirrors in the Three Kingdoms Period”
10:10 Paul Fahr (Ruhr University Bochum)
“Rise of the Meritocracy: Liu Yu’s Way to Power and its Historical Significance”
10:40 June Zhang (University of Cambridge)
“Play and Prestige: Weiqi 圍棋 as a Device for Spiritual and Literary Cultivation in Early Medieval China”
11:10 Lu Kou (Columbia University)
“‘Working in the Office’: Community, Leisure, and Poetry in Early Medieval China”
11:40 am–11:50 pm Break
11:50–1:50 pm, Panel 2, Chair: Meow Hui Goh (Ohio State University)
11:50 Nicholas Williams (Arizona State University)
“Buddhist Verse in Chinese and the Origins of Tonal Prosody”
12:20 Dessi Vendova (Graduate Theological Union)
“Embodied Virtue: Two Chinese Versions of the Story of Rūpāvatī, a Female Past Birth of the Buddha”
12:50 Yuzhou Bai (Princeton University)
“The Impacts of the Nine Ranks System on Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism”
1:20 Tyler Feezell (Dartmouth College)
“Lingbao Daoism, Messianic Figures, and Yu Xin’s ‘Pacing the Void’ Stanzas”
1:50–2:30 pm Break
2:30–4:30 pm, Panel 3, Chair: Xiaofei Tian (Harvard University)
2:30 Tero Tähtinen (Tampere University)
“Spatial Tensions in Tao Yuanming’s tianyuan Poetry”
3:00 Suiyun Pan (Harvard University)
“Approaching the Sea: Xie Lingyun’s Poetic Trajectory Toward a New Understanding of (Un)appreciation”
3:30 Dominic Toscano (Oberlin College)
“Time and the Lyric in the Poetry of Bao Zhao”
4:00 Christopher Elford (Hamilton College)
“The Court Culture of the Copy: Group Composition and Stylistic Originality in Liang Dynasty Literary Salons”
4:30–4:40 pm Break
Fifth Conference of the Early Medieval China Group
Saturday, April 2, 2022, 9:30am–4:50pm (MDT)
Fifth Conference of the Early Medieval China Group
Saturday, April 2, 2022, 9:30 am–4:30 pm (MDT)
9:30 am Welcome by Antje Richter (Univ. of Colorado)
9:40–11:20 am, Panel 1, Chair: Xiaofei Tian (Harvard University)
9:40 Zhao Yi (University of Kansas)
“Heaven, Yellow Springs and Buddhism: Axis Mundi Jars in the Wu Kingdom (222–280
CE) and Western Jin Dynasty (266-316 CE)”
10:10 Li Sijia (University of Colorado)
“‘How Would Later Generations Know Who Finalized My Writings?’: Textual
Production in Lu Yun’s 35 Letters”
10:40 Xinchang Li (University of Colorado)
“Creation of Self in Xi Kang’s Autobiographical Writings”
11:10 Oliver Hargrave (University of Oxford)
“Materiality and the Text: Yan Zhitui on the Care of Books as Physical Objects”
11:40 am–11:50 pm Tea/Coffee Break
11:50–1:20 pm, Panel 2, Chair: Monique Nagel-Angermann (University of Münster)
11:50 Dennis Murphy (Georgia Institute of Technology)
“The White Horse Lord: Gongsun Zan and the Early Medieval Transition”
12:20 Hsiang-Lin Shih (St. Olaf College)
“Confronting Death with Fellow Mortals: Cao Cao’s (155–220) Poetic Approaches to
Mortality”
12:50 Zhinan Chen (University of Washington)
“The “Bibliocaust” Revisited: An Examination of the Destruction of Books in Jiangling in 555”
1:20–2:00 pm Lunch Break / Social Hour on Gather.Town
2:00–3:30 pm, Panel 3, Chair: Keith Knapp (The Citadel)
2:00 Guanrui Gong (University of Colorado)
“Birds and Beasts and Dots and Strokes: (De-)Humanized Nature in Early Medieval Chinese Calligraphic Criticism”
2:30 Amy Zhang (Harvard University)
“Bao Zhao’s yuefu and the Poetics of Impersonation”
3:00 Qiulei Hu (Hunter College)
“The Decentralization of the Past in the Luoyang qielan ji 洛陽伽藍記 (Records of Monasteries of Luoyang)”
3:30–3:40 pm Tea/Coffee Break
3:40 pm Annual Membership Meeting
Fourth Conference of the Early Medieval China Group
Saturday, March 27, 2021, 9:30am–4:50pm (MDT)
Fourth Conference of the Early Medieval China Group
Saturday, March 27,
2021, 9:30am–4:50pm (MDT) 9:30 am Welcome by Antje Richter (Univ. of Colorado)
9:40–11:20 am, Panel 1, Chair: J. Michael Farmer (Univ. of Texas)
9:40 Yixin Gu (Princeton Univ.)
“Is There a Text Beyond Variance? Concepts and Realities about Textual Stability in Early Medieval China”
10:05 Qiaomei Tang (Grinnell College)
“Vice or Virtue? Conflicting Views on Female Jealousy in Early Medieval China” 10:30 Guanrui Gong (Univ. of Colorado)
“Embodying Himself: Bodily Images and the Case for a Sinner in Shen Yue’s ‘Confessions’”
10:55 Marie Bizais-Lillig (Univ. of Strasbourg)
“The Shijing, a Source of Knowledge and Inspiration in Medieval China”
11:20–11:30 am Tea/Coffee Break
11:30 am–1:10 pm, Panel 2, Chair: Keith Knapp (The Citadel)
11:30 Shing Müller (LMU Munich)
“Balls or Peaches: On the Iconography of a Mural in the Tomb of Song Shaozu (477)” 11:55 Sijia Li (Univ. of Colorado)
“Observing a Hair of a Tiger: Diseases, Bibliocaust, and Images of Xiao Yi”
12:20 Soojung Han (Princeton Univ.)
“Empress Dowager Lou the Kingmaker: Identity Politics in Northern Qi (550–577)” 12:45 Winston C. Kyan (Univ. of Utah)
“Filial Crossings: The Shanzi Jataka at Dunhuang from the N. Zhou (557–581)”
1:10–2:00 pm Lunch Break / Social Hour on GatherTown
2:00–3:40 pm, Panel 3, Chair: Cynthia Chennault (Univ. of Florida)
2:00 Zornica Kirkova (Berlin State Library)
“Chanted Objects and Painted Worlds: Screens in Early Medieval Chinese Poetry” 2:25 Xiaojing Miao (Univ. of Colorado)
“A Life of Changes: Tao Yuanming’s Autobiographical Poetry”
2:50 Evan Nicoll-Johnson (Univ. of Alberta)
“Liu Xiaobiao’s Annotations to Shishuo xinyu and the Invention of Literary History” 3:15 Yiyi Luo (Beijing Capital Normal Univ.)
“Early Reception of Yu Xin in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries”
3:40–3:60 pm Tea/Coffee Break
3:50–4:50 pm Annual Membership Meeting