New Frontiers in the Study of Medieval China

Qian Tang zhi zhai The New Frontiers in the Study of Medieval China workshop series will center on the most important and influential new sources for and approaches to the study of medieval China. The initial workshops of this series will focus on muzhiming—stone slabs interred within a tomb and typically inscribed with a biography, an account of the burial, and a rhymed eulogy. Excavated by the thousands in recent decades and with new finds occurring almost daily, muzhiming are a unique cultural form of commemorative epigraphy through which contemporary scholars can explore a diverse range of artistic, literary, religious, and economic practices. These initial workshops will explore fundamental questions about the nature of and approaches to muzhiming. The participants of the workshop are among the leading scholars of medieval China and muzhiming from Asia, Europe and the US and from the disciplines of Art History, History, Literature, and Religion. It is intended that conversations begun between workshop participants through translation, close reading of sources, and broader discussions of presented topics will generate methodologies and resources useful to future research on aspects of medieval China often understudied in Western scholarship.