Conference Program

9:30-10:00

Welcoming Remarks

• Scott Waugh, Acting Executive Vice Chancellor, UCLA
• With introductions by Jack W. Chen and David Schaberg

10:00-12:00 

Session 1: From Storytelling to Textuality
Chair: Matthew Cochran, Asian Languages and Cultures (UCLA)

• David Schaberg, University of California, Los Angeles
  "Word of Mouth and the Sources of Han History"
• Andrew Miller, University of California, Los Angeles
  "Place, Space, and Li Daoyuan's Storytelling Repertoire"
• Sarah Allen, Harvard University
  "Oral Sources and Written Accounts: Authority in Tang Stories"

12:00-1:30  Lunch

1:30-3:30 

Session 2: The Idea of Gossip as Concept and Practice
Chair: Maura Dykstra, History (UCLA)

• Jack W. Chen, University of California, Los Angeles
  "Knowing Men and Being Known: Social Networks in the Shishuo xinyu"
• Robert Hymes, Columbia University
  "Gossip as History"
• Dore Levy, Brown University
  "The Retributory Power of Gossip in The Story of the Stone"

3:30-3:45   Coffee Break

3:45-5:45

Session 3: Anecdotes and the Extraordinary
Chair: Hanmo Zhang, Asian Languages and Cultures (UCLA)

• Mark Halperin, University of California, Davis
  "Accounts of the Adept: Daoism as Seen in Song biji"
• Richard Strassberg, University of California, Los Angeles
  "Glyphomantic Intepretation in Chinese Dream Anecdotes"
• Lee Fong-mao, Academia Sinica
  閒話與奇傳：一個非常的觀點

10:00-12:00

Session 4: Borders and Margins of Anecdote
Chair: Brian Bernards, Asian Languages and Cultures (UCLA)

• Xiaofei Tian, Harvard University
  "Tales from Borderland: Anecdote, History, and Literature in Early Medieval China"
• Liu Yuan-ju, Academia Sinica
  Self, Voice, and Gaze: Faxian's Search for Buddhist Scriptures and His Anecdotes
• Cheng Yu-yu, National Taiwan University
  "The Geographical Scale of Traditional Poetic Language: On the Use of Allusion in Huang Zunxian's Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects in Japan"

12:30-1:30   Lunch

1:30-3:30 

Session 5: The Place of Anecdotes in Literary History
Chair: Nathaniel Isaacson, Asian Languages and Cultures (UCLA)

• David Knechgtes, University of Washington
  "Secrets of the Western Han Court Exposed: Anecdotes in the Xijing zaji"
• Anna Shields, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
  "Alternate Views of Literary History:  A Study of the Yuanhe Reign Period as a Literary Moment in Tang and Five Dynasties Anecdotal Texts"
• Ronald Egan, University of California, Santa Barbara
  "Shen Kuo Chats with Ink Stone and Writing Brush"

3:30-3:45   Coffee Break

3:45-5:15  

Session 6: Anecdote, Narrative, Occasion
Chair: Tim Lee, Comparative Literature (UCLA)

• Graham Sanders, University of Toronto
  "The Myth of the Timeless Poem Belied by Anecdotes"
• Michael Fuller, University of California, Irvine
  "From Plots to Fields: Rethinking the Interpretive Privilege of Narrative"

5:15-5:30   Concluding Remarks

• Stephen Owen, Harvard University