Over the past fifty years, an ever-increasing number of ancient Chinese manuscripts on bamboo, wood and (rarely) silk have been discovered. Found in waterlogged tombs and wells in south central China as well as in above-ground ruins in the arid Central Asian northwest, these manuscripts date from the fourth century BCE through the third century CE, when paper finally became the dominant stationery for Chinese writing. Their contents cover virtually all areas of knowledge: historical, philosophical, and literary writings that can be compared to the received tradition; technical works on medicine, divination, mathematics, and other disciplines; and an enormous and still growing body of administrative and legal writings that give us unprecedented insights into the sociopolitical and economic structures of ancient China. The richly illustrated lecture shows the range of these newly discovered writings, reflects on the very nature and materiality of early Chinese texts, and discusses problems of ideological bias in their historical interpretation.

Martin Kern (Asian Studies, Princeton University) specializes in the study of Chinese antiquity. The author and editor of numerous books and articles crossing the disciplines of literature, history, religion, and art, he studies the practices of textual composition, transmission, and hermeneutics in the Chinese manuscript culture of the first millennium BCE. He is further interested in the comparative study of antiquity and currently co-edits Philological Practices: A Comparative Historical Lexicon, a project spanning more than twenty premodern philological traditions from around the globe. His current monograph projects include Performance, Memory, and Authorship in Ancient China: The Formation of the Textual Tradition and The Chinese “Classic of Poetry” in Ancient Manuscripts: Studies in Poetry, Poetics, and the Sociology of Text. Kern also serves as President of the American Oriental Society (2023–2024) and directs the “International Center for the Study of Ancient Text Cultures” at Renmin University of China (Beijing).

Accommodation requests related to a disability or health condition should be made by February 6 to Caitlin Palo, cpalo@uw.edu, 206.685.5260.