The conference is co-sponsored by Dartmouth College and Tsinghua University. See more information on the conference website.

The conference will focus on the problem of the significance of the Tsinghua manuscripts for understanding early Chinese history and history of thought. To this end, we have selected three manuscripts for close reading and detailed discussion, representing three different literary forms. They are a chronological account, Xinian 系年; a song (shi 詩), Zhou Gong zhi qinwu 周公之琴舞, and a document (shu 書),Yue ming 說命, Because of its length, we will only read the first four sections of the  Xinian in detail.

The conference is co-organized by Sarah Allan (艾兰), Burlington Northern Foundation Professor of Asian Studies in honor of Richard M. Bressler, Dartmouth College, and Xing Wen (邢文), Robert 1932 and Barbara Black Professor in Asian Studies, Dartmouth College. The Chinese participants will include Li Xueqin (李学勤) and the team of Tsinghua scholars who are responsible for preparing the manuscripts for publication. Half of the conference participants will be from China; half, from the US and other countries.

The conference is open to a limited number of other scholars and graduate students. For information, please contact Chen Zenghong (zenghong.chen@dartmouth.edu).

The Xinian was published in volume 2 of Qinghua Daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian 清華大學藏戰國竹簡, Zhou Gong zhi qinwu and Yue ming are published in the recently published volume 3.

For a summary account of the contents of volume 3, see Li Xueqin李學勤. “Xin zhengli Qinghua jian liu zhong gaishu 新整理清華簡六種概述,” Wenwu 2012.8: 66-71. This issue of Wenwu also includes a discussion of Zhougong zhi Qinwu by Li Shoukui 李守奎, “Qinghua jian ‘Zhou Gong zhi qinwu’ yu Zhou song 清華簡周公之琴舞與周頌,” on pp. 72-76.

The conference will include both formal papers and detailed collective reading of the manuscripts. All participants will engage in the collective reading and discussion. Scholars who wish to present written papers should submit them before 15 August 2013 for posting on the password-protected section of the conference website. Papers may be in either Chinese or English.