Online Sinology Fortnightly (2023 Fall)

To promote academic exchanges of Classical Learning and Sinology within HKBU, the Academy will continue to organize the Sinology Fortnightly series. Every two to three weeks, a scholar, from or outside the university, that specializes in Sinology or Chinese studies, will be invited to host an interactive session with the audience and share his or her research insights and findings in a casual ambience. The series is now conducted online. All are welcome to register for it and join us.

Below are details of the seminars in 2023 Fall:

First session: Marital Affection and Gender Relationship in Works of Talent Couples in Qing Dynasty
2023/10/18 |14:00-15:30
Speaker: Dr. Ho Kelvin Yu Hin (Assistant Professor, Department of Chinese Literature, Hong Kong Chu Hai College)
Dr. Ho Kelvin Yu Hin is an assistant professor in the Department of Chinese Literature at Hong Kong Chu Hai College. He obtained his master’s degree and doctoral degree at Hong Kong Baptist University in the Department of History. Dr. Ho was also a visiting scholar at the Department of History of the University of California, San Diego, and the Department of History of Tsinghua University. Before joining Hong Kong Chu Hai College, Dr. Ho had taught a wide range of courses related to the history and culture of China, the history and culture of Hong Kong, the history of historiography, and historical theory at different tertiary institutions, including the Department of History at the Hong Kong Baptist University, the College of Professional and Continuing Education of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the School of Continuing and Professional Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Community College of City University.
His research interests include Ming and Qing history, the history of Hong Kong, the history of East Asia, historical theory and practice, Chinese family history, Chinese gender history, masculinities and men’s studies, Ming-Qing women’s writings and literary culture. He is the author of Zhangfu shouze yu ‘qijia’ zhi dao: Qingdai jiaxun zhong de nanxing qigai 丈夫守則與「齊家」之道：清代家訓中的男性氣概 (How to be a husband: Models of masculinity as seen in household instructions〔jiaxun〕in Qing China) and Yan wei xin sheng: Ming Qing shidai nüxing shengyin yu nanxing qigai zhi jiangou 言為心聲：明清時代女性聲音與男性氣概之建構 (A study of women’s voices in constructing masculinities in Ming-Qing China). He has published more than 40 research papers in this field in academic journals and conferences in China Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and the United States. His articles can be found in Historical Studies of Women and Gender, Chinese Studies, Newsletter for Research in Chinese Studies, Bibliography Quarterly, Journal of History and Anthropology, and other journals.
Language: Cantonese
Moderator: Dr. Shen Sicong (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Summary (Recorded by Guan Jinglin)
In this lecture, by sifting through records preserved in Hu Wenkai’s Lidai funü zhuzuo kao (Investigation into the literary works of women writers of successive dynasties) of Qing dynasty husbands and wives—their poetical songs and answers and their collaborative literary drafts—Dr Kelvin Yu-hin Ho portrayed for us the creative face of Qing dynasty women as well as the mutual creative momentum and division of workload of both sexes in their ‘companionate marriages’.
Dr Ho first presented a retrospective of research results hitherto that included the history of gender and literary works by ancient women writers. She considers that the mainstream agenda of Chinese gender history has gradually shifted from one that is ‘woman-centric’ to one where issues such as the relationship between the sexes and the relative distribution of power in ancient China are paramount. As such, notions of ‘masculinity’ and male social relationships have begun to be examined afresh. In respect of ‘masculinity’, research has hitherto rarely drawn attention to the written contribution of men to literature by women. In terms of
male social relationships, scholars have proposed the notion of ‘partnership marriages’ to describe the relationship between husbands and wives. Material from the Qing dynasty that might help fill this research lacuna undoubtedly includes records of the literature of poetical songs and answers and the collaborative literary drafts of husbands and wives. Dr Ho took this as the subject of hisf presentation, and from a gender-based perspective, investigated the Qing dynasty culture of poetical songs and their answers, appraising anew marital relationships inside the households of Qing dynasty scholar-officials and women’s expectations of the male role, with the aim of addressing the research imbalance in the field and making a contribution per se.
Following on from this, Dr Ho turned his focus onto analysing specific case studies in Lidai funü zhuzuo kao and found three types of situations arose in respect of gifted scholarly married couples of the Qing dynasty. The first of these is when both the husband and wife contribute to a ‘composition comprising poetical songs and answers’; the second is when a husband and wife publish a literary work together in collaboration, which could be called ‘joint printing’, or ‘joint type-facing’, ‘joint woodcutting’; and the third is when the works of the husband or wife are presented as an appendix to the literary anthology of the other. These records reflect the mutual cathartic release of heartfelt voices and the mutual encouragement and support through literary expression of the ‘companionate marriages’ of gifted scholarly married couples of the Qing dynasty. Dr Ho paid special attention to introducing the poetry anthologies and literary works of three such couples: Chen Peizhi and Wang Duan, Sun Yuanxiang and Xi Peilan, and Li Changxiang and Yao Shu. In addition, drawn from the literary creations of gifted wives, the expectations and admonitions of Qing dynasty women towards the male role can be clearly observed: firstly, they stress the establishment of an equivalent title and moral code—‘husband-of-honour’—that represents exemplary conduct; secondly, they criticise
inadequacies in their husbands’ characters; and thirdly, they alert their husbands not to sink into being intoxicated by female eroticism. All these embody the important status of the role wives had in maintaining the family.
In conclusion, from an analysis of the literary works of Qing dynasty women and gifted scholarly married couples, Dr Ho has come recognise that, by comparison with the idealised model where ‘a husband is the moral authority of his wife’, the practical realisation and potentialities inherent in relationships between the sexes in ancient China were much more complex. At the very least in the Qing dynasty scholar-official class, there existed ‘companionate marriages’ in which, by virtue of their roles, both parties shared equivalent expectations of the other party, and both were responsible for maintaining household relationships. The level of participation and enthusiasm of gifted wives in the formulation of the notion of ‘husband-of-honour’ was high.
Lecture video: HKBUTube Bilibili

Second session: Comparing Chinese and European Epistolary Cultures of the 12th Century
2023/10/30 | 10:30-12:00
Speaker: Dr. Tsui Lik Hang (Assistant Professor, Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong)
Lik Hang Tsui is Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese and History of the City University of Hong Kong. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Peking University and obtained a doctoral degree from the University of Oxford. Prior to joining CityU, he worked as a Departmental Lecturer in Classical Chinese at the University of Oxford, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University with the China Biographical Database (CBDB). He specializes in mid-imperial period Chinese history and culture, as well as the digital humanities. He has received various research grants, and has published over 20 scholarly articles and book chapters. He is currently completing a book on epistolary culture in Song China and planning another one about digital humanities in China. For his research he received accolades from the International Convention of Asia Scholars and a New Researcher Award from his College in CityU. He convenes the Digital Society research cluster there to promote interdisciplinary research. He is also elected a Fellow at both the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. For his teaching he is recently awarded the CityU Teaching Excellence Award.
Language: Putonghua (Supplemented by English)
Moderator: Dr. Shen Sicong (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Summary (Recorded by Zhang Zixuan)
Dr Tsui Lik Hang’s lecture titled ‘Fish and Geese of East and West: A Comparison of Twelfth Century Chinese and European Epistolary Culture’ took as its foundation his collaborative article written with Oxford University scholar Bernard Gowers ‘The Epistolary Cultures of Twelfth Century China and Western Europe: A Comparison’ (published in Clio at Beida, issue 20). It expounded to us the separate but contemporary (twelfth century) epistolary traditions of the literate classes in the different geographical regions of East and West.
Dr Tsui first drew attention to the phenomenon that most research publications detailing historical comparisons between China and Europe gather themselves in concentrations focused either on ancient classical times or the early modern era, while the twelfth century that is situated in the Medieval period is often neglected. The reason why the twelfth century has been selected here as an epoch worthy of comparison is because the contemporary literate class of the Western world had reached a sizeable body of individuals, to the extent that it has been regarded as representing a ‘proto-Renaissance’. At the same time, however, China was mired in the decline of the Northern Song dynasty and the transference of Song dynasty rule to South China as its historical background. The epistolary traditions of the literary class of both cultures flourished, which is why they possess the potential for fruitful comparison.
The literary culture of Europe stemmed principally from Christian traditions of the classical era and cultural traditions of other religions. In the twelfth century, in the wake of the writing and dissemination of a series of compilation texts that pertained to important scholarly issues (for example, Gratian’s Decretum), in fact, the homogeneity of bibliographic content of the culture of the literate class increased. At the same time, members of the European literate class formed contacts with educational institutions that were enrolling teachers and students, which meant that epistolary culture had an important function in maintaining and knitting together the coherence of the literate community. In Europe, the art of letter writing (Ars dictaminis) followed established formulas, and epistolary practice could be regarded as literary format with which the literate class in the twelfth century were fully familiar. Understanding how to write a letter had become an essential prerequisite for a member of the twelfth century European cultural elite.
Latin-speaking European society and Song dynasty epistolary culture both manifested letters written by knowledgeable and administrative elites, which not only served the purpose of promoting interaction, but also functioned in emphasising cultural viewpoints. What needs to be recognised is that the Song dynasty—as an administrative bureaucracy—had an immense influence on epistolary culture, to the extent that even the private correspondence of shi dafu scholar-officials was likely to receive subtle, unconscious, but profound influence as exerted by the letter-writing conventions of officialdom. The epistolary practice of the literate class of neighbouring states, for example under the Jin dynasty regime, also imbibed influence from the Song dynasty cultural elite.
Differences between the two, however, lie in the convention that writing letters and editing compilations of them was one of the most important undertakings of the literate class in European culture, by comparison with which the letters of well-known literary figures of the Song dynasty were often assembled in non-mainstream compilations and most certainly not issued singly in their own right. There are also significant differences between the letters written by Song dynasty and Western European women, and so too those by the rulers of the two regions. Even so, the two cultures both emphasised the creation of literary texts whose physical appearance was elegantly beautiful, and this has also become an important documentary foundation for investigating Eastern and Western epistolary practice.
In the last section of the lecture, Dr Tsui suggested areas where further cross-national, cross-regional, and cross-sectoral research into epistolary culture could take place, and whether that of the Song dynasty could be fruitfully compared with that of early modern Europe.

Third session: Case Studies of Incomplete Graphs on Wooden Slips of the Han Dynasty Unearthed in Northwestern China and Reading of the Relevant Texts
2023/11/7 | 15:00-16:30
Speaker: Dr. Shen Sicong (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, Hong Kong Baptist University)
Dr. Shen holds a PhD degree in Chinese Philology from the Fudan University. She is mainly engaged in the study of pre-Qin, Qin and Han scripts and excavated documents. She is now focusing not only on the interpretation of the texts written in the wooden manuscripts, such as the names of the ancient people they contain, but also on the historical-geographical issues recorded in the wooden slips of the Han Dynasty discovered in the area at the western side of the Great Wall. She has published several academic articles in journals such as Excavated Documents, Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts, The Study of Chinese Characters.
Language: Putonghua
Moderator: Dr. Leung Yuet Ngo  (Research Associate, Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Summary (Recorded by Guan Jinglin)
This lecture by Dr Shen Sicong was divided principally into three parts: a preamble, an introduction, and a research report.
In her preamble, Dr Shen first delivered a concise summary of excavated written material of many kinds, including oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, treaties of alliance, and Chu, Qin, and Han texts on bamboo slips and silk canvases. Dr Shen also recommended that we read Qiu Xigui’s essay ‘Jiefang yilai guwenzi ziliao de faxian he zhengli’ (Discovery and editing of ancient text material in China since 1949). She then focused on introducing the narrative of the discovery of Han dynasty texts on bamboo slips in northwest China and their principal characteristics. ‘Bamboo slips of northwest China’ means bamboo and wooden writing slips discovered in the Han dynasty borderlands of northwest China, including Gansu, Xinjiang, and the Ejin Banner in Inner Mongolia. Their contents mostly record matters that include the political and military situation in the northwest during the Western and Eastern Han dynasties and explanation of relationships with the Central Plains and the Western Regions.
In her introduction, Dr Shen outlined two examples of how earlier distinguished scholars have used exegetical reading of writings on Han dynasty bamboo slips as a starting point for research to investigate conclusively problematic aspects of Han dynasty history and geography. The first example she cited was Qiu Xigui’s ‘checking the personal name “Beiyuanzhi” as found in Dunhuang Han dynasty bamboo slips against related authoritative historical material recounted in the Hanshu (Book of the Han dynasty)’. The second example was Hidemasa Nagata’s ‘checking the name of the beacon tower in the appellation “not invade the beacon tower” found in Han dynasty bamboo slips of Juyan and the revision of the post road of the Jiaquhouguan under the administration of the duwei Commandery of Juyan’.
In her research report, Dr Shen shared three case studies of exegetical reading of Han dynasty texts on bamboo slips of the northwest that she had explored during her work. The first was authoritative checking of the personal name Xiao’er 小兒. She considers that the name Huang Xiao □ 黃小□ in bamboo slip 73EJT21:385 could be better understood if changed to Wu Xiao’er 武小兒 and that the original explanation for the first character—which was Huang 黃 —should be revised, as the character is much closer in form to Wu 武; and besides, in bamboo slips of the Han dynasty, the character Wu 武 can be a surname. The character □ survives only in a fragmentary form but can be recognised by comparing with the character er 兒 (which is erroneously written as mao 皃). Evidential exemplars of the name Xiao’er 小兒 are found in Han dynasty bamboo slips and seals, and in the transmitted texts.
The second case study pertains to the characters hou 候 and hou 侯, which appear extremely similar but whose usage in the Han dynasty bamboo slips of the northwest is sharply differentiated. Hou 候 usually denotes the name of an official, whereas hou 侯 is customarily used as a title of high-ranking feudal nobility, as a surname, or in an adulatory function in names that beautify the individual concerned. Usages of this type can be found in seals of the Han dynasty. Taking this as a yardstick, the original exegesis of the two-character collocation Zihou 子候 can now be corrected to Zihou 子侯. The third case study concerns editorial confirmation of characters that have survived in a fragmentary and damaged state in books on bamboo slips of the Han dynasty according to the fundamental nature of compilation of these texts. The first slip often summarises the names of officials mentioned in the entire book, for example, that it contains ‘someone, someone, and so on’, and a list is thereby given in the order in which the names appear. Dr Shen has discovered that in the new Juyan bamboo manuscripts Jiaquhouguan suizhang pinhan baxiu huanshi (The official of the beacon fire tower of Jiaquhouguan, because or poverty and cold, has been relieved of his duties and his food returned), fragmentary characters in the first and last slips of the set both indicate the same personal name of the ‘official of the beacon tower’, and by comparison of their graphic forms, the fragmentary characters on the two slips in the text can be finally confirmed as Yu Gong 虞恭.
Finally, Dr Shen believes that when researching into excavated text, the starting point should be exegesis of written characters, and only when combined with the timeframe of their writing and their principal characteristics and grounded in smooth explanation of textual meaning can systematic research take place.
Fourth session: A Sage or A Vengeful Ghost: The Sacrifices and Belief of Deng Ai (197? –264) in Early Medieval China
2023/11/15 | 15:00-16:30
Speaker: Dr. Chang Huilin (Assistant Professor, Department of Chinese Literature, Hong Kong Chu Hai College)
Dr. Huilin Chang holds a PhD degree in Chinese and history from the City University of Hong Kong. She currently serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese Literature, Hong Kong Chu Hai College. Before joining the Hong Kong Chu Hai College, she was the Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research focuses on early Medieval China and places a strong emphasis on common beliefs. She is also interested in the historical narrative of Shiji and the text-making of seal impression catalogues in late imperial China.
Language: Putonghua
Moderator: Dr. Shen Sicong (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Summary (Recorded by Guan Jinglin)
In this lecture, Dr Chang Huilin explored the evolution from the Han to Tang dynasties of sacrificial ceremonies commemorating Deng Ai from the dual perspectives of national official ceremonies and local folk ceremonies.
During the epoch of the Three Kingdoms, Deng Ai was a celebrated general of Cao Wei. In the year 264, he aroused the suspicions of Sima Zhao and was murdered. After his death, both in official circles and among the common people, sacrificial ceremonies commemorating him successively appeared and differentiated themselves into two types: those that regarded him as an evil spirit and those that regarded him a virtuous individual deceased. Located at the two extremes of sacrificial ceremonies commemorating humans and gods, the relationship between evil spirits and the virtuous individual deceased is complex and fluid, and these official and folk sacrificial ceremonies reflected a dynamic relationship between them and national governmental power and prestige.
Dr Chang first reviewed ten historical sources from the Western Jin to the Northern Wei dynasties related to sacrificial ceremonies in favour of Deng Ai and indicated that scholarly opinion considers that official ceremonies had as their aim recounting the injustice suffered by Deng Ai and redressing it. The emergence of folk ceremonies, on the other hand, was connected to the political achievements of local officialdom and control over and governance of individual districts.
Following this, Dr Chang carried through a research process by which she used these ten historical sources to view sacrificial ceremonies commemorating Deng Ai from many different perspectives. From the perspective of the nation state, the significance of Deng Ai’s death lay in consolidating imperial power, and subsequent sacrificial ceremonies stemmed from a perceived need to placate his evil spirit and earn the trust of the general populace, and they were not aimed at righting a wrong. From the perspective of ordinary people, sacrificial ceremonies commemorating Deng Ai derived themselves first from the officiators themselves taking advantage of unconnected matters to extrapolate unrelated conclusions and thereby seize hold of his achievements to raise their own reputations. Later, the scope of sacrificial ceremonies expanded, and the identification of Deng Ai’s image as that of an evil spirit became set in stone. In addition, from the standpoint of official ceremonies commemorating Deng Ai in the Yan and Yong districts, local administrative officials sought to personify Deng Ai and to transform him into a godlike figure that interconnected with localities as an expression of a culture of tribal political power. By the Northern Wei, Deng Ai had become, in official circles, the paragon of a loyal minister who had been wronged, while amongst the common throng, he had evolved into a ‘conventionalised’ evil spirit and accorded sacrificial ceremonies as such.
Finally, Dr Chang indicated that by the Tang dynasty and subsequently, Deng Ai’s image had assumed a fixed formulation of ‘with slander victorious and the Way eliminated, his dedicated loyalty caused him to suffer misfortune’, and he was received into the ranks of individuals honoured with imperial sacrificial ceremonies. As ‘Deng Ai, the taiwei commander of Wei’, he became one of the sixty-four celebrated generals, both ancient and modern, that the Historical Bureau deemed worthy of receiving sacrificial ceremonies.
In conclusion, when officialdom enacted sacrificial ceremonies in favour of Deng Ai, it was as a deceased virtuous individual and as a cultural marker for sustaining the power and prestige of the political regime. By contrast, amongst the common people, the Deng Ai who received sacrificial ceremonies resembled the images of evil spirits represented by the multiplicity of ghosts and spirits of the Zhiguai (‘Demonic fiction’) genre of tales of the Six Dynasties. These different images were determined by the narratives of the elite and fashioned through the writing of historical books and documents, and they have survived down the long ages.
Fifth session: Urban Landscape, Site of Memory, Lyricism of Ci Poetry: Cultural Significance of The Red Bridge of Yangzhou in Qing Dynasty
2023/11/23 | 15:00-16:30
Speaker: Dr. Yu Yuming (Demonstrator, School of Chinese, The University of Hong Kong)
Yuming YU obtained her Ph.D. from The University of Hong Kong (2023), awarded with a Swire Doctoral Scholarship since 2017. She is currently a demonstrator at the School of Chinese, The University of Hong Kong. She obtained her B.A. in Arts from Wuhan University and her M.A. in Classical Chinese Literature from Nanjing University. Her research interest is Ci Poetry, Chinese Women's Literature, and Ming-Qing Literature. Her doctoral dissertation is entitled Cities, Crises, Ci Lyrics: Huaihai Poets of the Taiping Rebellion Era.
Language: Putonghua
Moderator: Dr. Shen Sicong (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Summary (Recorded by Zhang Zixuan)
This lecture by Dr Yu Yuming, Demonstrator at the School of Chinese of the University of Hong Kong, was titled: ‘Urban Landscape, Site of Memory, Lyricism of Ci Poetry: Cultural Significance of The Red Bridge of Yangzhou in Qing Dynasty.’ It took as its theoretical basis three important characteristics that are elucidated in the French historian Pierre Nora’s Les Lieux de Mémoire: ‘from the outset, the yearnings of memory must be present’, ‘sustained memory fluctuations’, and ‘the unforeseen metamorphosising ability of branches and tendrils during their growth’. Using these, she concluded that the Red Bridge of Yangzhou in the Qing dynasty was a ‘site of memory’ imbued with special characteristics. In addition, from the three perspectives, ‘the modelling of memory and the formation of landscape’, ‘alterations in the scenic vista and their characterisation of the rise and fall of dynastic fortune’, and ‘the site of memory and lyricism’, and matched to exquisite material drawn from scroll paintings, album pictures, and district histories as well as facsimiles, she revealed the rich and detailed implicit meanings of the Red Bridge in Qing dynasty Yangzhou.
First, Dr Yu indicated that in the late Ming dynasty, the Red Bridge had not yet been mentioned in district histories. Compared with the celebrated site the Pingshan (Peaceful Mountain) Hall of the Song dynasty and its ‘illustrious fame’, the Red Bridge was a scenic location that embodied the characteristics of the Qing dynasty, was rich in change, and possessed greater potential for literary expression. In the first part of her lecture, ‘the modelling of memory and the formation of landscape’, Dr Yu considered the entire sequence of events of the ‘Red Bridge ritual ablutions and poetry party’ and analysed in detail the recollections that Wang Yuyang and Yuan Yuling held of this incident and their recasting of it, in addition to the intentional memory as recorded in Yisheng chuji (Relying on the voice: first compilation): ‘The Red Bridge and Orchid Pavilion should be mentioned in the same breath.’
In the second part of the lecture, ‘alterations in the scenic vista and their characterisation of the rise and fall of dynastic fortune’, Dr Yu investigated the relationship of the Red Bridge and Yangzhou’s parks and gardens to the rise and fall of the fortunes of the Qing empire. She paid special attention to citing the definition of ‘scenic creation’ in John Wylie’s Landscape and from this perspective analysed structural alterations to the Red Bridge and the name change it underwent, as well as the expansion of the landscape associated with the Red Bridge that resulted from Emperor Qianlong’s state visit to South China and the Emperor’s efforts at recreating the Red Bridge.
After the second part of her lecture had concluded, Dr Yu made special mention of the narrative of calling Yangzhou ‘Wucheng’ and that this had already appeared prior to the war in which the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was suppressed, which manifested itself in the decline and degeneration of Yangzhou’s parks and gardens under the gradual deterioration in trade of salt due to diminishing regulatory measures in salt commerce. In the third part of her lecture, Dr Yu centred on the landscape of the Red Bridge as described in lyric songs (ci poetry) both before and after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and continued her exploration in this direction. Using three notions as her points of entry, ‘the emotional anxiety and resentment of a prosperous world in the imagination’, ‘sorrowful feelings in imagery of a war-torn land’, and ‘journeys of yesteryear and doleful anxiety through the prism of the vicissitudes of fortune’, she focused on the compositions of Jiang Chunlin, Du Wenlan, and other lyric song poets of the Huaihai region to explain that the formulation of the ‘site of memory’ was a gradual process and that this ‘site of memory’ and the ‘history of lyric song’ had an osmotic relationship.

Sixth session: Northern Song Readings of the Daoist Classics: Between Syncretism and Political Instrumentalization
2023/12/12 | 15:00–16:30
Speaker: Dr. Richard J. Sage (Senior Research Assistant, Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, Hong Kong Baptist University)
Dr. Sage holds a Magister Artium (M.A.) in Sinology (major), Chinese Art & Archaeology and Mongolian Studies from the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich and a Ph.D. in Chinese Language and Literature from Hong Kong Baptist University. His research focuses mainly on early Daoist texts and their commentarial traditions, early Buddho-Daoist interaction and interconnection, and the political instrumentalization of exegetical literature.
He recently was a Research Fellow at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Sinology of the University of Munich. Currently, he is a Senior Research Assistant at the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology where he participates in the first complete translation of the Guoyu as well as that of selected works of Prof. Jao Tsung-i into English (Xuantang anthology). Furthermore, he is part of the international research project “Global Reception of the Classic Zhuangzi,” and has several publications on Han to Song era Daoist literature forthcoming and in preparation.
Language: English
Moderator: Dr. Shen Sicong (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, Hong Kong Baptist University)

Summary (Recorded by Zhang Zisuan)
In this lecture, Dr Richard Sage of the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology principally explored interpretive tactics of Daoist classics during the epoch of the Northern Song dynasty emperor Huizong and analysed the function these tactics had in infusing syncretism and imparting political instrumentalisation.
Dr Sage first elucidated traditional viewpoints, that is, Huizong was a foppish scion of the royal house who was more interested in art and religion than the business of government; however, through analysis of Huizong’s writings on Daoist issues, Dr Sage proposed an alternative assessment to this. A close reading of Huizong’s writings reveals that when faced with the differing aims of the various target audiences he faced, he deliberately altered his literary image and tone: in his religious writings and imperial edicts, he depicted himself as a messianic Daoist deity, while in his philosophical writings, he described himself as an enlightened and sagely ruler. This certainly contradicts the traditional views historians have had of him that paints him as a religious fanatic.  
Dr Sage also introduced the historical background to the Northern Song dynasty governmental reforms known as the ‘New Policies’. Sanjing xinyi (New meanings in three canonic texts) by Wang Anshi, Wang Pang, Lü Huiqing, and others was presented to the emperor Shenzong in 1075. It swiftly became a course taken by candidates in the imperial examinations used to select officials. This in turn meant that candidates had to maintain unanimity with the reform party otherwise their future governmental careers would be influenced. In addition, Dr Sage also mentioned the relationship Huizong had to the shenxiao (deity-Heaven) Daoist sect. Lin Lingsu regarded Huizong as the embodiment of the Daoist deity Changsheng Dadi (The Immortal Emperor) and established a network of shenxiao temples across the entire empire as well as transforming already existing Daoist temples. Huizong took his holy and sagely image and employed it in his edicts and religious writings. At the same time, Dr Sage also raised the issue of Huizong’s early interest in Daoism and the circumstances of his invitations to Daoist masters of all kinds to come to his palace. He also commanded that a collection be assembled of all available Daoist scriptures and thereby enforced containment of the spread of heretical teachings. 
In conclusion, through fresh interpretation of Daoist scriptures and via different texts, Huizong was able to construct his different images. Not only was he a messianic god in the eyes of Daoist believers, but to the government bureaucracy, he was also an enlightened sagely ruler. These different readings and how they were applied to different target audiences indicates clearly that Huizong was seeking to acquire authority over the entire religious and philosophical language that was employed.