The Hong Kong Baptist University Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology serves a unique role in promoting classical Chinese studies by integrating expertise in the various disciplines of Sinology, from classical philology to comparative and theoretical approaches, ranging over every aspect of traditional Chinese culture.We maintain close relationships and collaborations with leading research institutions all over the world, including The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures (CMTC) of The Queen’s College, University of Oxford.

Since the Academy's five-year partnership with CMTC in 2019, apart from the long-term plan of Oxford Scholar Lecture Series, we will also jointly organize the Online Conference: Poetic Traditions in Manuscript Cultures with the Centre.

Dates: 16-17 September 2021 (Thursday and Friday)
Time:
16 September: 9:00–18:30 (GMT+1)
17 September: 9:30–15:00 (GMT+1)
Venue: Online
Language: English

Our inter-disciplinary forum will bring together scholars working on different pre-modern cultures interested in the manuscript representation and transmission of early poetry. It will review the tension between the oral performative element of early poetic traditions, on the one hand, and the written element in the material context of manuscript cultures and reading audiences, on the other.

Participating scholars include:

Prof. Chen Zhi, Director of the Hong Kong Baptist University Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology

"Xiaoyao and shuchi: a few special uses of alliterative binomes" (Click on the title to watch video)
Through the analysis of binomes in bronze inscriptions and bamboo and silk manuscripts, this paper shows how their variants and related expressions enable us to reinterpret passages from the received Classics which had previously been misunderstood or misinterpreted.

Dr. Adam Schwartz, Associate Director of the Hong Kong Baptist University Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology,
Dr. Dirk Meyer, Director of The Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures (CMTC) of The Queen’s College, University of Oxford

"Aural Fixity and Semantic Flexibility in the Early Chinese Songs: The Case of ‘White boat’ 白舟 / ‘Cedar boat’ 柏舟 in the Ānhuī University Manuscripts" (Click on the title to watch video)
Based on the Shī manuscript of the Anhui University we show how during the Warring States period (ca 453-221 BC) different text communities could fill the sound moulds of aurally fixed Songs creatively for their purposes.

Schedule: https://poetictraditions.org/