Four distinguished speakers trace evolution of ancient texts

2017-6-29 Source: Chinadaily

Participants in the first annual PhD student workshop on Canonical Texts and Commentaries The International Center for the Study of Ancient Text Cultures of Renmin University of China hosted its first annual PhD student workshop on Canonical Texts and Commentaries in Beijing from June 18 to 24, 2017. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The International Center for the Study of Ancient Text Cultures of Renmin University of China hosted its first annual Ph.D. graduate student workshop on Canonical Texts and Commentaries in Beijing from June 18 to 24, 2017, with four distinguished professors in the fields of Chinese, Greek and Roman antiquity presenting day-long lectures in English or in Chinese with simultaneous translation.

The workshop began on the morning of June 19 with a welcome and introductory address by Professor Martin Kern from Princeton University, who is the director of the center. A renowned scholar of early Chinese history, literature and textual culture, Kern talked about how texts accumulate over time, and what kind of interpretive challenges modern researchers encounter when dealing with them.

Pointing out the limited emphasis on original authors in antiquity, but also the importance of ancient commentators and editors (including Confucius), Kern reviewed in detail examples from Shijing (The Classic of Poetry), the most invoked text in all of ancient Chinese literature. He stressed the importance of the imperial court scholars in the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BC -220) for the formation of the Confucian Canon and discussed how with the Shijing the fundamentally political nature of Chinese literature was established.

Reflecting on the interplay of oral and written practices in the early transmission in the Chinese classics, Kern showed how a poem or song was flexibly shaped and recomposed according to the needs of the times and sociopolitical agendas.

On the second day, Professor Xu Jianwei from Renmin University of China traced the development of early Chinese texts, and how they were molded by the commentary traditions of later generations. Continuing Kern’s earlier focus on Shijing, Xu presented fascinating findings from his research for a new edition of the classic that he is currently co-authoring. He pointed to important Japanese scholarship from the early 20th century that established the very early date of the character dictionary Erya ("Approaching Elegance"), a work whose first three chapters may predate Confucius. Xu explained how even the Mao commentary to the Shijing, dating from the Han dynasty, contained traces of this extremely ancient dictionary, despite the fact that at the time, the Shijing itself was at least in part transcribed from memory.

Professor Martin Kern from Princeton University, director of the center, addresses the workshop. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Professor Glenn W. Most from Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa delivered a lecture in which he traced the early history of the Homeric epics from oral to written texts, and how by the fifth century BC, the ancient Greeks could not conceive of their classical texts without thinking of particular authors (a striking difference to ancient China). Most highlighted that the reading of an ancient Greek text together with its commentary would have required not one person but at least two, who would read aloud together. He also discussed the question of allegoresis, in which certain passages were "decoded" as allegories to mean something altogether different — a fruitful observation that allowed for productive comparisons with ancient China.

Professor Denis Feeney from Princeton University delivered the lecture on June 22 about Latin canons and commentaries, and the importance of the Greek commentary tradition for Latin literature. As Feeney pointed out, after the Greeks, the Romans were the only ones in Western antiquity who developed their own literature, starting in 240 BC with the first translation of a text from Greek into Latin. From then on, Roman literature and Roman commentary always followed the Greek model. Most interestingly, however, Roman literature developed radically different from both Greek and Chinese literature, as it was neither sponsored by the imperial state as it was in China or by kings it was in Greece with the royal library of Alexandria, but entirely by individual authors whose work was sponsored by prominent patrons. In most cases, these extraordinary individuals were not originally Roman citizens but came as multilingual foreigners to Rome where they worked as slaves, servants, or tutors to their patrons.

Following the four days of lectures, a full day was given to the students to present their own work in light of what they had learned over the course of the week. The workshop concluded with another plenary session on Saturday where the four professors recalled the important themes of the week and praised the smooth organization by Renmin University and the wonderful contributions of the students throughout the week.

The next such workshop for PhD students from around the world, again hosted at Renmin University of China by its International Center for the Study of Ancient Text Cultures, will take place in January 2018.

Professor Xu Jianwei from Renmin University of China delivers a lecture at the workshop. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Professor Denis Feeney from Princeton University gave a speech during the workshop. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Professor Glenn W. Most from Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa gives a speech during the workshop. [Photo provided to China Daily]