February 19, 2027
Early China Seminar Lecture Series
The seminar will be in a hybrid mode. Remote attendees will be able to access seminar presentations online via Zoom. The Q&A sessions, however, will only be available to those who attend in person.
Title: “Why Did Sima Qian Rank Confucius among the ‘Hereditary Houses’?
A New Interpretation”
Speaker: Heng Du, Wellesley College
Time: February 19, 2027 (4:30-6:30 PM EST)
Venue: Faculty House and Zoom
*Please check the announcement board in the first floor lobby for room information.
**Please use the ‘Request Pre-circulated Paper’ link to RSVP by February 13 . All visitors without a CUID are required to receive pre-authorization to gain access to Morningside campus as per guidelines of Columbia Morningside campus access. Attendees must present a government-issued ID with their name matching exactly the name registered for the event, along with an one-time QR code (via email), for entry.
Why is the biography of Confucius, an alleged ‘sans culottes’ (buyi 布衣), included in the section in Shiji 史記on aristocratic lineages, the “Hereditary Houses” (shijia 世家)? In this talk, I suggest that this century-old question can potentially unlock an overarching agenda behind Sima Qian’s 司馬遷 (?145 – ?86 BCE) universal history. I will first provide extensive textual support for Liao Ping’s 廖平 (1852-1932) hypothesis, namely that Sima Qian defines the “hereditary house” not by lineage or status alone, but by its persistence across time. Building on this thesis, I demonstrate the centrality of Confucius’ placement to Sima Qian’s historiographical agenda, namely his conjuring of a new form of nobility from the ashes of Bronze Age aristocracy, whose systematic destruction, especially during the rise of the bureaucratic empires, is a central thread of the “Hereditary Houses.” Confucius’ three forms of immortality, encompassing lineages not only biological but also intellectual and textual, gesture toward a new form of temporal perdurance in the realm of wen 文 (civilization; writing). By reconceptualizing historiography, Sima Qian provided the necessary infrastructure for this new form of nobility and immortalization.
