MANUSCRIPT SOURCES AND THE TRANSMISSION OK KNOWLEDGE IN EARLY CHINA

The course aims to provide the tools for a preliminary study of Chinese manuscripts written on silk and bamboo from IV to I century B.C. and to investigate the ways through which early Chinese texts were compiled and transmitted.

1. Knowledge and understanding:
a) To apply the basic structures of classical Chinese language to the study of Chinese manuscripts.
b) To know the tools to analyze and translate texts of the classical Chinese corpus, both received and manuscript versions.
2. Applying knowledge and understanding:
a) to know how to identify the basic grammatical structures and being able to analyze texts in the light of their contexts.
b) to know how to identify the most appropriate tools to analyze and translate a given text.
3. Making judgements:
a) to be able to analyze, interpret and translate - using appropriate tools supported by basic notions of palaeography, codicology and hermeneutics - ancient Chinese manuscripts and to know how to use properly primary and secondary sources.

Competence of Classical Chinese thought and pre-Han Chinese literature and language; ability to read critical sources in modern Chinese.

The recent discovery of Chinese manuscripts from the pre-imperial period has open new interpretations on the development of philosophical and religious thought in ancient China. The course is focused on the reading and on the philological and philosophical analysis of the most representative excavated manuscripts from IV to I century B.C.

COMPULSORY TEXTS:

1- Andreini, Attilio (a cura di), Laozi, Il Canone della Via e della Virtù, Torino, Einaudi, 2018.

2- Martinelli, Lucia Cesarini, La filologia, Roma, Editori Riuniti, rist. 2006.

Additional material will be provided during the course via MOODLE


Dictionaries:

1) The best option is the Grand Ricci (available in hard copy in our library). Free access to the Grand Ricci Online is granted to all Ca' Foscari students:
Link: http://chinesereferenceshelf.brillonline.com/grand-ricci

The dictionary is also accessible from the database catalogue: http://www.unive.it/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=32451

2) Kroll, Paul W., A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese, Leiden, Brill, 2014.
Available also via Pleco.
Free accessis granted to all Ca' Foscari students:
https://chinesereferenceshelf.brillonline.com/chinese-english/;jsessionid=B45947AC91981B7D0CFDD07BF006CA9B

3） TLS - Thesaurus Linguae Sericae
http://tls.uni-hd.de/
(start from “Basic Search”…）

4） http://www.zdic.net/


5) Reconstruction of archaic pronunciations by W. Baxter e L. Sagart:
https://ocbaxtersagart.lsait.lsa.umich.edu/BaxterSagartOCbyMandarinMC2014-09-20.pdf

The exam will be oral and it will test the student's ability to analyze from a philological-philosophical point of view some of the texts examined during the course

Ex cathedra: during the course the teacher will guide the students through the grammatical analysis and through the comprehension of selected Early Chinese texts (both manuscripts and received versions) and their contexts.

English

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