Conferences
WSWG 23
6-8 Oct 2006 / University of Massachusetts at Amherst

David Singing a Psalm
The Formation of Ancient Song Collections

Original Orientation Statement: WSWG 23 will bring together specialists in Chinese and other early literatures, from among several who have been in contact during the previous months by E-mail, on the subject of the structure and evolution of ancient song collections, focusing on the Chinese Shr ("Poems") repertoire, and also considering parallels in the Indian Rg Veda and the Hebrew Psalms. Data from unwritten song traditions (Chippewa, Sioux, and Tikopia) will also be noticed. One participant, Alice Cheang, will give a public lecture the previous Thursday, 5 Oct 06, for students majoring in Chinese and other foreign languages or in Comparative Literature, on the multiple career paths open to them.

The topics listed below, and their order in the program, are merely suggestive; new topics are expected to emerge from the E-mail dialogue during summer. An archive of outlines and research is posted as background for that discussion under the heading of Davidica). The October discussion will proceed in whatever direction the participants at the time wish to take it. Short papers or memoranda on some of topics will be predistributed to participants, either to facilitate or to obviate detailed consideration at the Conference.

Alice W Cheang

Thursday 5 Oct 06

4 PM: Public Lecture: 100 Things to Do with a Language and Literature Degree (Alice Cheang)

Program

Friday 6 Oct 06

6 PM: Kennedy Memorial Banquet (Lord Jeffery Inn, Amherst)

Saturday 7 Oct 06
Analytical Approaches

Chris Beckwith

9 AM: Folk Procedures

Template Songs in the Shr (Bruce Brooks)
Phonological Implications (Chris Beckwith)
Secular Poems in the Rg Veda: 1/126B and Others

10:30 AM: Tea Break

A Taeko Brooks

11 AM: Literary Relations

Duplicated Poems and the Yahweh> Elohim Shift in the Psalms
Common Lines and the Female > Male Shift in the Shr (Taeko Brooks)
The Selah Problem and Habakkuk 3 in the Psalm Tradition

12:30 PM: Lunch

George Kennedy (Whose "Note on Ode 220" is a landmark in Shr Studies)

1:30 PM: Poem Boundaries

Psalm 9/10 and Their Analogues
Shr 220 and Its Cousins (Bruce Brooks)
Social and Material Extensions in the Shr

3 PM:Tea Break

Michael Witzel, Harvard University

3:30 PM. Poem Sequences and Groupings

Subsets in Rg Veda and their Aetiology
Order of Ya Poems in the Han School Shr
The Qumran Psalm Groupings and Sequences

E Bruce Brooks

3:30 PM: Larger Formal Constraints

Decade Structures in the Shr (Bruce Brooks)
Early and Late Endpoints in the Psalms
The Shang Sung and their Rg Veda Counterpart

6 PM: Chinese Banquet (Hunan Garden, Northampton)

Sunday 8 Oct 06
Larger Contexts

James Watts, Syracuse University

9 AM: Poetry and Law-Giving

Reformed Jvng Poems: The Shr as Exempla
Psalms and Codes in Hebrew Tradition
Rg Veda and Aryan Identity

10:15 AM: Tea Break

Tim Lubin, Washington and Lee

10:45 AM: Sacrifice and Its Sequels

An Atharvaveda Hymn and its Canonic Implications (Tim Lubin)
Sacrifice and Devotion in the Psalms
Ancestor Worship and Dynastic Legend in the Shr

12 Noon: Lunch

Roster
In Person / *In Absentia

Christopher I Beckwith (Indiana)
A Taeko Brooks (UMass/Amherst)
E Bruce Brooks (UMass/Amherst)
Alice Cheang (Harvard-Yenching Institute)
Alvin P Cohen (UMass/Amherst)
*Loren D Crow (Northwest Christian College)
Mary E Franck (Warring States Project)
Stanley Insler (Yale)
Tim Lubin (Washington and Lee)
Haun Saussy (Yale)
*Raphael Sealey (Berkeley)
James W Watts (Syracuse)
Michael Witzel (Harvard)

Due to lack of funding, this Conference had to be canceled, and was never rescheduled.

All abstracts and lectures posted on this site are Copyright © by their authors.

Back to WSWG Conferences Index Page

8 Oct 2005 / Contact The Project / Exit to Conferences Page