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T'ang Studies Society Conferences
The T'ang Studies Society is committed to organizing scholarly conferences to advance the dissemination of scholarship on all topics related to the Tang Dynasty. Information on the Society's upcoming and past conferences can be found here.
Upcoming Conference |
The Society does not yet have any new conferences in preparation, but it does intend to sponsor Tang-related conferences in coming years. Please check back here regularly for any updates. Upcoming events are also listed on the main Home page.
"Making Connections: Contemporary Approaches to the T'ang Dynasty, In Honor of the Opening of the Elling O. Eide Library" (November 2016)
"T'ang Studies: The Next Twenty-five Years" (May 2009)
2020 T'ang Studies Society Sponsored Panel at AAS in Boston has been canceled:
The T'ang Studies Society sponsored panel at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We encourage the panel to present its papers at a future conference:
Panel 319: After the Heavenly Qaghans: Multi-ethnic Approaches to the Tang-Song Transition
Saturday, March 21 3:00-4:45 in the Sheraton Boston, Clarendon Room, 3rd floor
Chaired by Luo Xin, Peking University
“Shaping the Shatuo: Origins and Identity of a Turkic Group in Late Medieval North China”
Maddalena Barenghi, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
“Tang and Northern Song Restrictions on Foreign Trade and Intermarriage”
Shao-yun Yang, Denison University
“The Diplomatic Dynamics between the Five Dynasties and Liao”
Soojung Han, Princeton University
“The Political Legacy of Wu in the Tenth-Century Southern Kingdoms”
Andrew Chittick, Eckerd College
Panel Abstract
Many historians have come to regard the Tang-Song transition of ca. 755-1127 as a social, economic, and cultural watershed. However, idealization of early Tang as a uniquely cosmopolitan “age of Heavenly Qaghans” has inclined some toward viewing Chinese society in the transition period as more ethnoculturally homogenous and inward-looking, exhibiting attitudes of ethnic exclusivity, isolationism, or proto-nationalism. As a result, the roles of less typically “Chinese” actors or cultures in the transition are often minimized or ignored. This panel takes an alternative approach of using ethnic and cultural diversity as keys to unlock latent aspects of the Tang-Song transition. Maddalena Barenghi surveys the rise of the Shatuo Türks in the context of the resettlement and growth of Turkic military groups of northern Hedong and questions the way in which a “Shatuo identity” came into being. Soojung Han argues that relations between the first Shatuo-ruled imperial dynasty (Later Tang) and the Khitan empire were rooted in their common Inner Asian origins and set an important precedent for the Song-Liao relationship of parity established in 1005. Andrew Chittick explores the political culture and self-representation of the tenth-century Wu and Southern Tang regimes and argues that they reflect the partial revival of a long-marginalized regional identity originating in the early medieval southern dynasties. Shao-yun Yang reassesses late Tang and Northern Song prohibitions on commercial transactions and intermarriages with foreigners and argues for reading them as pragmatic responses to inter-ethnic civil disputes or frontier unrest, rather than as expressions of xenophobia or ethnic nationalism.
Most recently updated: 04/08/2020