CAS Luncheon Series
Thursday, September 21 12:30-1:30pm
CASE Building room W311
Chinese literature of the Classical Period (mid 5th c. – late 3rd c. BCE) is the core of Chinese cultural identity and the foundation of political thought and philosophy of all later periods. Among the challenges that the literature of that time pose for modern readers is a deficient understanding of the function of the titles. Modern readers tend to take for granted that a title relates to its text meaningfully and thus provides an interpretive cue for readers. However, titles of early Chinese texts are often not meaningfully related to their text but merely serve to identify it. These titles, which I call “indexical title” are sometimes mistaken for thematic or descriptive and used by readers as interpretive cues. In this talk, I will give examples of indexical titles of texts, often found in the same book together with texts that do have meaningful titles. I will explain ways in which we can identify indexical titles and distinguish them from other types of titles, putting our interpretation of the various texts on a more solid basis.
Kun You is a PhD candidate of Chinese Literature in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations at CU Boulder. He is finishing his dissertation on the function of titles in early Chinese textual culture (from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE) with a focus on their paratextual function in early book composition. His study on an early Western Han manuscript text — “The Yellow Emperor as Paratext: the Case of Shiliu jing 十六經 (Sixteen Guidelines)” — has been published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society. His research interests include early and early medieval Chinese literature, intellectual history, and book history.