Division of Humanities - Academic Talk - The Afterlife of Su Shi under Jurchen Rule: The Making of a Literati Model in Middle Period North China

Ms Lili XIA

Abstract:

As a transnational iconic poet across East Asia since the Middle Period, Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101), the best-known Northern Song dynasty (960–1126) scholar-official and literary genius, set up a role model for literati culture whose profound impact has well persisted even to this day. This presentation deals with his many lives that unfolded in the Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115–1234), a conquest dynasty ruled by Jurchen people in Middle Period North China. The burgeoning Jin literati culture modeled on Su Shi not only reaffirms the tenacity and adaptability of the afterlife of this cultural hero, but the long-forgotten story under Jurchen rule also urges us to revisit and complicate the overall literary landscape of Middle Period China.

Biography:      

Lili XIA is a PhD candidate in the Department of East Asian Studies at Princeton University. Titled “Claiming China against the North-South Divide: Classical Traditions and Literati Culture in the Jurchen Jin Dynasty (1115–1234),” her dissertation deals with Jin literature and art in North China as rival narratives of the mainstream Southern Song literary history. Her broader research interests include cultural memory projected in Chinese literature, issues of antiquarianism, classicism and canonization, transmediality between poetry and painting, social networks of the literati community, as well as book history and material culture.