Early Medieval China Workshop
Prague, November 22–23, 2025
Faculty of Arts, Charles University, nám. Jana Palacha 2, Praha 1, 1st floor, room 104
Organized by the Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation International Sinological Center at Charles University in Prague
The Early Medieval China Workshop will bring together scholars interested in the dynamic and multifaceted world of China between the third and seventh centuries CE. This formative period, marked by political fragmentation, cultural innovation, and profound religious and philosophical transformations, continues to inspire rich scholarly debate. The workshop aims to create a space for dialogue across disciplines—history, literature, art history, archaeology, and religious studies—exploring a broad range of themes: the interaction between local and imperial identities, the transmission of ideas across religious and philosophical traditions, the representation of the human experience in literature and visual culture, and the social and institutional mechanisms that shaped early medieval society. The workshop seeks to foster a collaborative environment where insights from different fields can converge to illuminate the intellectual and cultural landscapes of early medieval China.
Held in Prague, the event continues the Oriental Institute’s tradition of Early Medieval China workshops, promoting research and awareness of this particular field of study.
Programme update Early-Medieval-China-Workshop-2025-program final
Abstracts The Little Book of Abstracts
Keynote lecture:
Antje Richter (University of Colorado, Boulder, US)
Saturday, November 22, 9:45 – 10:45, Faculty of Arts, P104
Health & the Art of Living: Illness Narratives in Early Medieval Chinese Literature
In this talk, I introduce a recently published book that offers reflections on health and illness in early medieval Chinese literature (ca. 200–ca. 600). Surveying a range of literary sources—essays, prefaces, correspondence, religious scriptures, and poetry—I explore the spectrum of views on health and illness expressed in these texts. Part I, centered on the essay “Nurturing the Vital Breath” in Liu Xie’s Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, reveals the deep concern of writers, troubled by overwork and excessive mental exertion, with the preservation and cultivation of their literary creativity. For them, the ability to write was inextricably connected with their social roles as officials. Part II turns to self-narratives of health and illness in authorial prefaces, informal notes, formal letters, and official communications. Writers of these texts depicted their physical condition according to specific rhetorical purposes, whether that was to legitimize authorship, maintain intimate relationships, or avoid office. Part III describes the rise of sickbed poetry, shaped by Xie Lingyun and the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra, which established illness as a topic in the refined literature of the period. Drawing attention to the grounding of literature in the lived experience of their creators, this book illuminates the conditions of literary production in early medieval China.
