Tang-Song Religious and Medical Texts

Catalog description

This seminar aims at developing the skill in reading religious and medical texts of a range of different genres from the Tang-Song period, including treatises in medical theory, no sological texts, recipe compilations, material medical, macrobiotic texts, Buddhist and Daoist meditation and ritual instructions, as well as case histories in anecdotal forms. There are a variety of topics we can choose to focus on the studying those texts, and the choice will be made on the students' on research interests. Each week we will look at one type of texts, consider its edition, textual history, chapter organization and genre (sometimes with background readings), read line-by-line a sample text assigned in advance, as well as sight-read short samples that students bring to class. . At least one year Classical Chinese is required.