Symposium: Symposium on Displacement and Convergence in the Age of Multipolarity (550s–610s)

Date of event:   19/05/2021 − 21/05/2021

Title: Symposium on Displacement and Convergence in the Age of Multipolarity (550s–610s) 多極時代中的離散與交匯學術研討會
Series: Harvard-Yale Symposium Series on Middle Period China (first through tenth century CE)
Date: 19-21 May 2021
Organized by: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

This symposium will be a multi-disciplinary examination of the displacement and diasporic communities during the period between 550s and 610s, from the fall of the Liang through the end of the Sui. While scholarship in the past has tended to concentrate on only one side of the Northern and Southern Dynasties histories and literatures, we hope to expand our view from the simple binary model of north and south to include the multiple sites of power and to emphasize the multi-polarity of this age from a decentered perspective. How did the master narratives of different court centers compete with one another? How did individual, clan, and state negotiate with the violent changes of the times and with one another at this particular historical juncture? How did the machinery of the state deal with a newly unified empire after nearly three hundred years of division? What can we gain as medievalists if we examine the limitations of our tools and methodologies imprinted with the modern disciplinary divide and its theoretical underpinnings? These are some of the questions we will address.

本次研討會在時間段上的聚焦點是公元六世紀中期到七世紀初期,也即侯景之亂和蕭梁覆滅後到隋朝末年的這段時間,主題是遷移、離散和多極化。對南北朝的學術考察,傳統上一般局限為或南或北的單方面研究,我們希望把這一簡單的南北模式擴大為多極化模式,從一個去中心化的角度觀察和思考。不同宮廷中心的主流話語和主導敘事如何互相競爭?個人、家族和國家三方面如何應對這一時期充滿暴力的變遷,又如何在這一語境裏進行彼此之間的權力磨合與交涉?國家機器如何處理分裂了將近三百年、新近一統的帝國?作為中古學者,我們檢視被現代學科分離所深深影響的研究方法和理論概念時,又能夠有何等樣的感悟?這些是我們希望討論和思考的話題。

Organizers: Xiaofei Tian (stian@fas.harvard.edu) and Lucas R. Bender (lucas.bender@yale.edu)
Coordinator: Dominic Toscano (dtoscano@g.harvard.edu)

To register for the symposium, please follow the link here. For full programme and more information about the symposium, please visit the website here.