(Saturday 3:15 PM – 4:45 PM)

“Miraculous Births, Ethnoi, and Other Myths: Qin Origins” – Jason Hagler, University of Pennsylvania

In constructing history the earliest texts we find the mythic texture of the past is often mingled with the favored hobgoblins of more recent academia.  Ethnos stands alongside ancestors hatching from eggs and taking either too seriously presents problems.  The issues in Qin origins serve as an interesting case in mixing myth modern and ancient.  This paper examines the analysis of several sites that have been identified as precursors of or early Qin in the context of the Eastern Migration theory of Qin origins, which seeks to confirm the Bamboo Annals account of the early Qin using archaeology.  This theory states that the Qin are Dongyi influenced by the Shang who migrated west some time before the Early Western Zhou.  The claims are typically made on the strength of shared traits or similarities with the Shang.  In contrast, I examine the data by starting with the features we observe at the sites and comparing them to the features we would expect assuming the theory is true and find a number of problems with the model and discuss, briefly the ways in which it supports some form of Western Origin hypothesis, which says that the Qin culture developed in situ, with a constructivist model akin to the work of Shi Dangshe.

“Who built the “Wall in the North” and what does Chinggis Khan have to do with it?” – Dotno Dashdorj Pount, University of Pennsylvania

Long mounds stretching beyond the horizon in Mongolia are marked as the “Dikes of Chinggis Khaan” in many national maps. One goal of this paper is to distinguish between the wall built by the Liao from those built by the Jin. Moreover, this leads to some puzzles regarding the myth that arise from these walls, and their implications to our understanding of Chinggis Khan. We know these walls were important in the history of medieval Mongolia, but the iconic Secret History of the Mongols is silent about the existence of these walls. Not surprisingly, given the canonical status this text has achieved in the 20 th century, the Mongol-Jin interaction before Chinggis Khaan’s rise to power is largely ignored in modern scholarship: just one way in which the Secret History continues to shape Mongolian self-image today. Indeed, the locations and structures of these walls reflect a past with a highly complex interaction between the Mongolian steppes and the dual-cultured empires arising in or near Manchuria. This past is now forgotten, but its reconstruction could help us understand the nature of wall-building better. In this paper, I will trace the historiography of these walls in both China and Mongolia, discuss the strategic assumptions that underly their interpretation, and thereby interrogate the tension between national myths of yore and now in Mongolia and China regarding the materiality of built structures.

“The road to the top: Shi’s attainment of political power during the Warring States period (403 B.C. to 221 B.C.)” – Yiwen Qiao, University of Pennsylvania

As Martin Kern suggests in “Bronze Inscriptions, the Shijing and the Shangshu,” the idealized and systematized imaginations of antiquity, especially of the Western Zhou period (fl. 11 th century BCE – 771 BCE) by texts composed in the Eastern Zhou period (770–255 BCE) can be regarded as the source of classical Chinese religion, sociopolitical order and cultural accomplishment. As a group that was responsible for the production of these texts, shi士 laid the foundation of intellectual and administrative frameworks for the Chinese society. This paper intends to examine how the shi gradually obtained political power during the Warring States period (403 B.C. to 221 B.C.) through analysis of ancient text such as the Zuo Commentary左傳, the Xunzi荀子, the Han Feizi韓非子 etc. The paper attributes the rise of the shi in the Warring States period to the unprecedentedly conducive social environment, self-definition and ability of the shi and their promotion of a vision of a ruler-centric state. Most importantly, this paper demonstrates how the dominating voices of the shi on the subject of interpreting the Way (Dao道)were sharply contrasted by the silence of other people’s discussion on the topic. Silence of social groups other than the shi assured the shi of their monopolization of the interpretation of the Way, which allowed the shi to travel from state to state, court to court, to promote their theories of ideal way of governing, and contributed substantially to their obtainment of political power in the Warring States period.