Opportunity for Graduate Students at Oxford

Call for Applications

Graduate Workshop: ‘Research Training in Old Chinese: Text and Textuality’

(Deadline — Friday, 11 June 2010)

Series convenor: Dr Dirk Meyer, The Queen’s College, University of Oxford (dirk.meyer@orinst.ox.ac.uk)
Workshop organizers: Dirk Meyer (dirk.meyer@orinst.ox.ac.uk), Dan Holloway (daniel.holloway@area.ox.ac.uk).

We invite applications from graduate students (at any level) for participation in a workshop, Research Training in Old Chinese: Text and Textuality. It will be the fourth in a series of five workshops designed to address different thematic areas of pre-imperial and imperial China and Old Chinese. It will be held in Oxford from 24 to 28 June 2010. The workshop series is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and British Inter-university China Centre (BICC). For UK-based graduate students, we will cover travel expenses, accommodation, and board. We will accept 15-20 participants.

Applications should include: a CV, no longer than one page, with details of university and departmental affiliation, and proficiency in English and Chinese; a brief letter, also no longer than one page, stating your specific interest in participating in the workshop. Letters of recommendation are welcome but not obligatory. The deadline for applications is Friday 11 June 2010 at noon (12 o’clock). Successful candidates will be notified soon after this date.

All applications should be submitted to:
Dr Dirk Meyer
e-mail: dirk.meyer@orinst.ox.ac.uk

AND

Dan Holloway
e-mail: daniel.holloway@area.ox.ac.uk

Please specify in your application if you require accommodation for the time of the workshop

The workshop series Collaborate Research Training in Old Chinese arose from concerns that the study of Old Chinese, Chinese philosophy and classical Chinese literature are under serious threat in the United Kingdom. Classical Sinology in the UK has become marginalized; its international visibility is limited. Individual institutions in the UK tend to be small and no institution, if operating in isolation, can host the critical mass of experts in the different fields of traditional Sinology. None is therefore fully equipped with the relevant research tools needed to provide substantial training in Old Chinese. The present workshop series for intensive graduate research training aims to address this. Its idea is to connect UK centres for the study of Old Chinese into a nationwide network in order to facilitate specialized research-training in Old Chinese phonology, palaeography, grammar, literature, philosophy, and religion, and to strengthen the international visibility of traditional Sinology in the UK.

An essential element of the series is to open up research areas for graduate students that until recently were little studied in the UK. In all, five research clusters that constitute the basis for a comprehensive study of Old Chinese will be covered in a series of workshops over a period of two years, from January 2009 to September 2010. They are:

(1) Philosophy and Religion in Pre-modern China (held in Edinburgh, 29.01-02.02. 2009)

(2) Old Chinese Phonology and Palaeography (held in Oxford, 25.08-03.09.2009)

3) History and Historiography (held in Cambridge, 24-28.03.2010)

(4) Text and Textuality (to be held in Oxford, 24.06-27.06.2010)

d) Art and Archaeology (to be held at SOAS, London, 21-24.09.2010)

At each workshop, recognized specialists will cover different aspects of the research cluster under study. Depending on the complexity of the topic, each specialist will have up to half a day to introduce relevant research tools, read a selection of texts with the participants, and discuss those texts’ theoretical implications. Each meeting will close with a round-table discussion involving all the specialists and participants. This will offer an integrated picture of the different aspects and problems of each cluster’s field of study. Both UK-based and international specialists will introduce their fields of research. It will thus be possible to inform participants of the latest issues and research strategies in the study of Old Chinese, and to train them as competent researchers in a way that would be impossible at any individual institution in the UK. The outputs of the workshop series will also be digitized and embedded in the online learning and research tools of the British Inter-university China Centre (BICC). This will make the workshop materials accessible to students at all UK Higher Education Institutions.

The workshop series is especially geared towards masters’ and doctoral students of Old Chinese in the UK, but it should also appeal to post-doctoral researchers. To facilitate student participation, travel expenses, food and board for each meeting will be covered. Students from abroad are also welcome to participate: the series should be a platform for graduate students to build up international connections, vital for further research. Overseas students will be expected to meet their own costs, or have their institutions do so.

Each meeting will invite up to 20 participants. Participant groups will be fluid over the duration of the series: students will be matched to their specific training needs. It is the particular strength of the series not only to inform its participants about the latest trends in scholarship, but also to introduce them to the use of the relevant research tools – tools to which most students would otherwise have no access, since few institutions host the concentration of specialists necessary for such multi-faceted research training.

Specialists attending the workshop ‘Text and Textuality’

Professor Martin Kern, Princeton (keynote)
Dr Dirk Meyer, Oxford (workshop organizer and series convenor)
Professor Joachim Gentz, Edinburgh (series co-organizer)

Professor Wolfgang Behr, Zurich
Professor emeritus Glen Dudbridge, Oxford
Dr Michael Loewe, Cambridge
Professor Michael Nylan, Berkeley
Dr Matthias Richter, Boulder

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