Dr. Adam Schwartz’s Academic Visits around the World (2019)
Dr. Adam Craig Schwartz, Associate Director of the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, specializes in the study of early Chinese civilization with a focus on oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, and bamboo and silk manuscripts. In the past year, he participated in a number of major academic conferences and hosted several lectures worldwide, exchanging ideas with scholars and students from different fields of study.
Oxford, England: “Happiness in Henan, Circa 1200 BC: A Study of the Divination Coda kan 侃 in the Huayuanzhuang East Oracle Bone Inscriptions” (2019/5)
Dr. Schwartz was invited by the University of Oxford China Centre to give a talk on Shang history. Launched in May 2008, the University of Oxford China Centre joins together experts of China from across the whole University, co-ordinating activities in all areas of study of China, past and present, from the perspectives of language, culture, thought, fine art, history, geography, politics, law, humanities, environment, society, economy, science, and technology. The Centre is now the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom and Europe.
In this talk, Dr. Schwartz pointed out that prior to the recent discovery of Huayuanzhuang East Oracle Bone Inscriptions, we lacked a systematic and detailed account based on primary sources of what caused people happiness in the Shang period and knew basically nothing about what caused happiness for people other than the Shang kings. Even for the relatively well-documented Shang kings, we only knew a few causes of happiness for them, like the birth of a prince, a successful hunting, and victory in battle. The Huayuanzhuang East oracle bone archive from Henan province, especially the inscriptions that end with the divination coda
kan 侃 “happy” or contain the binary coda
ruo 若 (favorable) +
kan 侃, provides a coherent and unified picture into what things caused happiness for a man of royal pedigree in 1200 BC Shang China.
Changsha, Hunan: International Conference on “Materiality of Knowledge in Chinese Thought: Past and Present” (2019/9)
The International Conference on “Materiality of Knowledge in Chinese Though: Past and Present” was presented by the Yuelu Academy of Hunan University and the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures at The Queens’ College in the University of Oxford and held at the Yuelu Academy. The conference dealt with issues of materiality of knowledge in the following three spheres: “The Materiality of Text Production and Text Performance,” “Materiality of Collections and Anthologies,” and “Materiality of Libraries and Archives.” Dr. Schwartz presented a paper on “The Materiality of Knowledge in China’s First ‘Certified’ Genealogy.” Special attention was given to a piece of oracle bone that records the genealogy of an elite non-royal family in the Shang period. This material document raises questions about the relationship between orality and writing and the concept of authentication at this time.
(From left) Dr. Adam Craig Schwartz, Prof. Christoph Harbsmeier (University of Oslo), Dr. Dirk Meyer (The Queen's College, University of Oxford)
Anyang, Henan: “International Symposium on the 120th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions” (2019/10)
The International Symposium on the 120th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions was jointly presented by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Ministry of Science and Technology, State Language Commission, State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the People’s Government of Henan Province. The symposium, held at the National Museum of Chinese Writing in Anyang, Henan between October 18th to 20th, 2019, gathered over two hundred experts and scholars of the field to commemorate the storied discovery of oracle bone inscriptions. The meeting was comprised of several keynote speeches and panel discussions on the deciphering of characters in oracle bone graph, oracle bone inscriptions and the study of Shang history, oracle bone studies and other key topics. Dr. Schwartz gave a presentation on the “Divinatory Functions of Coda kan 侃 in Huayuanzhuang East Oracle Bone Inscriptions and the Subjective Feelings It Expressed,” discussing the feelings Chinese people in early historical periods had and the causes of their happiness.”
