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T’ang Studies: The Next Twenty-five Years

An International Conference to Celebrate the 25th

Anniversary of the T’ang Studies Society


University at Albany

Albany, New York

May 8–9, 2009

 

The T’ang Studies Society held an international conference, co-sponsored by the Society and University at Albany, to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the society. 


The conference took place on the University at Albany campus in Albany, NY, on May 8 and 9, 2009.

Conference Program:

The goal of the conference was to assess the current state of T‘ang studies and to encourage new avenues of research and collaboration among scholars of medieval China.  Response to the call for proposals was enthusiastic, and the selection of papers for presentation was based both on the quality of the individual proposals and on the need to create panels of papers on related topics that fit with the themes of the conference.  The schedule of papers was:

Panel One

  1. Jonathan Skaff, “Sui-Tang Diplomatic Protocol as Eurasian Ritual”
  2. David L. McMullen, “Disorder in the ranks: Tang court assemblies and fault-lines in the Tang governmental structure”
  3. Norman Harry Rothschild, “Cakravartin, Ceremony and Conflagration: Wu Zhao and the Pançavarsika of 694”
  4. Michael R. Drompp, “(Re-)Packaging the Past: Assessing the Huichang Era”

Panel Two

  1. Patricia Karetzky, “Tang Metropolitan Style in Religious Art”
  2. Michelle C. Wang, “Of Dhāraṇīs and Maṇḍalas:  Mogao Cave 14 and Esoteric Buddhist Art of the Tang Dynasty”
  3. Suzanne Cahill, “Material Reflections of Identity and Hierarchy:  The Essays on Vehicles and Clothing in the Official Histories of the Tang Dynasty”

Panel Three

  1. Mark Halperin, “Transcendents for the Rest of Us:  The Divine and Prosaic in the Shenxian ganyu zhuan”
  2. Jinhua Jia, “Du Guangting and the Hagiographies of Tang Daoist Priestesses”
  3. Sungwu Cho, “Funerary Ritual of Medieval Daoist Priests”
  4. Mario Poceski, “Hagiographic Representation and Historical Reimagining of Tang Chan”

Panel Four

  1. Beverly Bossler, “Entertaining the Elite:  Courtesans and their Patrons from the Eighth to Tenth Centuries”
  2. YAO Ping, “From “Merry Making” to “Great Bliss”: Sexuality in Tang China”
  3. WANGLING Jinghua, “The Shaping of Du Mu's Fengliu Poetic Personality”

Panel Five

  1. Paul W. Kroll, “On the Study of Tang Literature”
  2. James M. Hargett, “The Record (Ji 記) Form and its Role in the Development of Prose Travel Literature during the Tang”
  3. Luo Manling, “Imagining the Kaiyuan and Tianbao:  The Construction of Mosaic Memory in the Post- Rebellion Anecdotes”
  4. Charles Hartman, “Du Fu in the Poetry Standards (Shige 詩格) and the Origins of the Earliest Du Fu Commentary”

Panel Six

  1. Jack W. Chen, “Social Networks, Ghosts, and the Question of Anyi Ward”
  2. Oliver Moore, “Flows of Time between Tang City and Province”
  3. Linda Rui Feng, “Crimes and Criminality in Tang Chang’an”

Panel Seven

  1. Alexei Ditter, “The Auto-Inscribed Life:  Self-authored Muzhiming in the Mid- to Late-Tang”
  2. Ian Chapman, “One Foot out of the Grave: Inscribing Holy Lives in Tang China”
  3. Chen Huaiyu, “Tradition and Transformation:  An Overview of Recent Chinese and Japanese Scholarship on Tang Epigraphical Materials”
  4. Jessey J. C. Choo, “A Life Inscribed—The Ritualization of Life and Death in Tang Muzhi”

Round-Table:  Tang Studies in the Next 25 Years

  1. Patricia Ebrey
  2. Eugene Wang
  3. Graham Sanders


For a complete text of the program, click TSSProgram.pdf.  (323 KB)


Conference Registration:

The Department of East Asian Studies at the University at Albany arranged the registration of participants and special guests.  All other attendees had to register for the conference by April 3, 2009. 

There was a complimentary reception for all participants Friday evening and a banquet, with a separate fee, on Saturday evening. Because of budgetary constraints in a difficult economic climate, attendees who were neither presenters nor special guests paid a conference fee and, optionally, a banquet fee as listed below.

  1. Conference Fee (regular):  $90
  2. Conference Fee (graduate student) $35
  3. Banquet Fee (optional):  $40



Hotel Reservations:

A block of rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn Albany/SUNY Area was reserved at a special conference rate for those attending the conference.  The Department of East Asian Studies at the University at Albany made reservations and paid for the hotel accommodations of participants and special guests. All other attendees made their own arrangements. Note that the hotel set aside a limited number of discounted rooms for conference attendees. Attendees were encouraged to make reservations early to secure that rate.


The hotel is located 5 miles from the Albany airport; transportation options from the airport can be found at the airport website, www.albanyairport.com

Contact information for the conference hotel:

Hilton Garden Inn Albany/SUNY Area

1389 Washington Ave.

Albany, New York

USA 12206

Tel: +1-518-453-1300

Fax: +1-518-453-1301


Contact Us:

Please address inquiries about the conference to the following address:


conference@tangstudies.org

You can also contact the chair of the Organizing Committee:

Professor Anthony DeBlasi
Department of East Asian Studies
Humanities 210
University at Albany
Albany, NY 12222

Most recently updated: 02/03/2016