Tang Center for Early China

唐氏早期中國研究中心
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March 31, 2023

Early China Seminar Lecture Series

Title: “Fall of the Scribes and the Rise of Han Literati”
Speaker: Christopher J. Foster, University of London
Time: March 31, 2023 (4:30-6:30 PM EST)
Venue: Faculty House
*Please check the announcement board in the first floor lobby for room information.
**Please see Seminar Safety Guidelines for attendance information.

In the early Western Han, hereditary scribal families enjoyed a privileged status that provided them access to bureaucratic office. This status was guarded through a government-sanctioned examination system, outlined in the Han legal code, which tested knowledge of primers like the Cang Jie pian. Yet over the course of the Han, informal education networks, such as those fostered in the military, spread scribal primers and the unique literacy they taught extralegally to unintended audiences, even conscripted peasant soldiers. This presentation examines how the loss of control over “scribal literacy” undermined the status of scribes and incited competition over mastery of the written word in specific, as a criterion for judging who was best suited to run the empire. With the fall of the scribes, a space opened for a new form of classicism to arise during the Han, one championing the “moral literacy” of the literati, demonstrated through exegesis of classics now anchored in the authority of Confucius.

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Filed Under: events-upcoming, Uncategorized

Announcement

February 10, 2023
Early China Seminar – Maddalena Poli 
Forthcoming Publication
Spring and Autumn Historiography: Form and Hierarchy in Ancient Chinese Annals – Newell Ann Van Auken
Publication in the Tang Center Series in Early China 
Mediation of Legitimacy in Early China: A Study of the “Neglected Zhou Scriptures” and the Grand Duke Traditions – Yegor Grebnev

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Tang Center for Early China – Columbia University
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1140 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
Tel: 212.854.5546  Fax: 212.851.2510
E-mail: [email protected]

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