The first Cornell Classical Chinese Colloquium speaker of the 2018-19 year, Professor  Mick Hunter from Yale University will be giving a talk entitled "Thinking Through Parallels: The Classic of Odes and its Echoes in Early Sources."

This topic is an offshoot of Professor Hunter's current book project (Early Chinese Thought, Re-Mastered) that critiques the Masters-centric approach to early Chinese thought and suggests a few ways of teaching the subject beyond the Masters. One text that is crucial to his proposed framework is the Shijing 詩經 (Classic of Odes), which he reads as the foundational text of Warring States and early imperial thought. In this seminar, Prof. Hunter will discuss the intertextual parallels he uses to establish the Shijing as "the first Master text."

At each session one participant presents a text in classical or literary Chinese. Attendees discuss historical, literary, linguistic, and all other aspects of the text, and work together to resolve difficulties in comprehension and translation. Presentations include works of all sorts, from the earliest times to the twentieth century.

No preparation required: all texts will be distributed at the meeting