EASCM workshop 5: Orthopraxy, Orthography, Orthodoxy

The European Association for the Study of Chinese Manuscripts (EASCM) and the Center for Ancient Chinese Texts and Images (CATI) at the Institut für Sinologie of Heidelberg University is organizing an international conference on the topic of Orthopraxy, Orthography, Orthodoxy––Emic and Etic Standards and Classificationsof Chinese Manuscripts, to be held from July 11 through 13, 2014 at the
Internationales Wissenschaftsforum, Heidelberg.

On a scale unprecedented and unmatched anywhere else in the world, China over the
course of the last century has enjoyed a tremendous increase of historical source texts
through excavation. Manuscript texts retrieved particularly from early but also from
medieval sites have multiplied the volume of text that is available to us from those
periods and have brought to light whole new genres of literature, breathtaking
historical information, and hitherto unknown script styles. Most of these manuscripts
have been recovered during well-documented archaeological excavations, but an
increasing number are also being discovered by illegal digging and subsequently sold
without any information on their archaeological origins.
The pluralistic origins of these sources, as well as the richness of their contents
and broad range of their forms, have created new practical, theoretical, and
methodological challenges, among them questions of standards and classification. A
reappraisal is called for, not only of the explanatory models that historical sources
themselves supply us with, such as the narrative of the sudden unification of the script
under the First Emperor, but also of long-cherished criteria, beliefs, and practices that
we use to apply to our subject, such as criteria to distinguish between different hands,
the belief that traditional sources have already provided us with a good grasp of what
was considered orthodox and what not, and the practice of studying manuscripts only
on the basis of transcriptions of their text.

Twenty of the foremost specialists on ancient and medieval Chinese
manuscripts from Europe, the United States, China, and Japan will share the results of
their research on theoretical, palaeographical, phonological, historical, hemerological,
medical, and institutional aspects of manuscripts and discuss them with an audience
of colleagues from various disciplines as well as doctoral and graduate students.
 

Contact:
Prof. Enno Giele
Institut für Sinologie
Akademiestraße 4-8
69117 Heidelberg

Tel.: +49 (0)6221 54 7736

E-Mail: enno.giele@zo.uni-heidelberg.de