January 30, 2026

Early China Seminar Lecture Series

Title: “Convict Politics: From Utopia to Serfdom in Early China (221 BCE—23 CE)”
Speaker: Liang Cai, University of Notre Dame
Time: January 30, 2026 (4:30-6:30 PM EST)
Venue: Kent Hall 403

**Please use the ‘Request Pre-circulated Paper’ link to RSVP by January 26 . 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.

This talk, based on newly mined data from newly unearthed manuscripts and traditional sources, explores convict politics in the early Chinese empires. Whereas a substantial number of bureaucratic personnel were convict laborers, assisting local officials, the central court reemployed numerous previously convicted individuals as high officials. The talk argues that convict politics emerged because the mutual responsibility system and high-performance-oriented law extensively criminalized people, including the innocent. Via a framework of legal regulations, structured institutional mechanisms, and systematic administrative processes, convict laborers were integrated as essential aides to officials in the realm of local governance. While being used as objects and instruments to sustain the political economy, convicts at the same time occupied crucial positions in operating the local governmental apparatus, regularly assisting technical bureaucrats in administering the populace. Former convicts were entrusted with power, serving as important officials or even chancellors. At the same time, officials easily fell into the law and became convicts themselves. Severe tension emerged between the nature of the law and the status of convicts, between the lawful and the guilty, and between the philosophical elaboration on the treatment of criminals and the actual practice.