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The Trinity Centre for Asian Studies organises regular public lectures, seminars and outreach activities. This page contains links to information about events that have been organised by the Centre or in association with its members. Events are open to all and free of charge unless otherwise indicated. Details of past events are listed at the bottom of this page.

Our planned face to face events have been cancelled due to the pandemic. However, there are still plenty of ways to stay in touch with research findings in Asian Studies. Please browse our podcasts below, and we will post details of virtual talks that you can join remotely as they are confirmed.

Juan Qian (University of Chicago) - The Loyalty-Compliance Tradeoff: Political Campaigns and Bureaucratic Control in Modern China

Thursday, 28 November 2024, 5:00–6:00 pm
Venue: Zoom
Register here: https://tcd-ie.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lc-GgrT4uGNOk_UqOyyJ2rnxduntEwshy

Between 1949 and 1976, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Chairman Mao Zedong launched a series of chaotic, mass-mobilized campaigns to purge political dissidents and transform China’s socioeconomic landscape. In his book manuscript, Juan Qian explores (1) why there exist significant geospatial variations in the intensity and outcomes of these campaigns, and (2) how Mao-era campaigns shaped the norms, compliance, and responsiveness of the Chinese bureaucracy at the local level in both the short and long term. Drawing on an original dataset of Mao-era campaigns and extensive archival materials collected during the author’s three-year fieldwork, this book manuscript provides a novel perspective on Mao-era campaigns through the lens of authoritarian statebuilding. Despite their apparent chaos and disorder, the campaigns increased Beijing’s capacity to gather information, enhanced local bureaucrats’ compliance with the central agenda, and enabled the central regime to oversee the behavior and performance of local bureaucrats. The book manuscript will also discuss whether modern-day policy implementation campaigns under President Xi Jinping—such as the crackdown on official corruption and gang crimes — reflect the patterns and practices of Mao-era campaigns.

Juan Qian is an Earl S. Johnson Postdoctoral Instructor in Political Science at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on bureaucratic politics, elite dynamics, and policymaking with a regional focus on Asia. His book manuscript, Statebuilding by Campaign: The Making and Shaking of Modern Chinese Bureaucracy, examines how the Chinese regime managed bureaucratic compliance during major political campaigns from 1949 to 1976. His work has appeared in Comparative Politics, The China Quarterly, and other leading publications

Xun Gong (University of Vienna) – Language Contact and the Reconstruction of Tangut Phonology

Tuesday, 19 November 2024, 4:00–5:30 pm
Venue: TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, Sixth Floor

The Tangut language, once spoken by the Western Xia dynasty (1038–1227), presents a unique case for linguistic reconstruction due to its extinction and the limited availability of contemporary data. In this talk, Xun Gong will explore how language contact phenomena have influenced the reconstruction of Tangut phonology. By examining interactions with neighboring languages and analyzing historical linguistic evidence, he aims to shed light on the phonological system of Tangut and its development over time.

Xun Gong is a researcher at the University of Vienna, specializing in Sino-Tibetan languages, with a particular focus on Tangut studies. His work includes the classification of Tangut within the Sino-Tibetan family and the analysis of its phonological features. Notable publications by Xun Gong include "Verb Stems in Tangut and Their Orthography" and "Uvulars and Uvularization in Tangut Phonology." His research contributes to a deeper understanding of the historical linguistics of the Sino-Tibetan language family.

Swami Sarvapriyananda - Spirituality for our times: Sister Nivedita on Vedanta and Vivekananda

Thursday 14 November 2024, 7:30pm
Venue: Trinity College Chapel, Front Square

The Trinity Centre for Asian Studies are pleased to host the Inaugural Margaret Noble (Sister Nivedita) Lecture, to be given by Swami Sarvapriyananda. The lecture will be introduced by Professor Nathan Hill, Director of Asian Studies, Trinity College Dublin.

Margaret Noble was born in Dungannon in 1867, moved to India in 1898 to help Swami Vivekananda to achieve his goal reinvigorate the nation. Swami Vivekananda, a charismatic intellectual and visionary, a disciple of the Indian mystic and saint Ramakrishna, was the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. It is now a world wide spiritual organisation. Margaret Noble died in India in 1911. When she arrived in India she was unknown but by the time she died she was a much loved figure, known in India as Sister Nivedita, essentially for her great love for India, its civilisation, its spirituality, and her selfless work for India. In her funeral site, in Darjeeling, there is a plaque which says: Here lies the ashes of Margaret Noble, Sister Nivedita, who she gave her all to India. There is a Blue plaque in Scott Street in Dungannon, where she was born, about her work in India. But Margaret Noble is relatively unknown in Ireland.

Swami Sarvapriyananda is a renowned scholar and interpreter of Vedanta. He is the Head of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre of New York.

The Trinity Centre for Asian Studies gratefully acknowledges the Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre, Dublin, for sponsoring this lecture series.

To attend, please register by emailing tcas@tcd.ie. The number of tickets available is restricted to the seating capacity of the chapel. Kindly note that public parking is not available within Trinity College, but there are nearby parking facilities.

Dr. Ching-Ling Wang (Curator of Chinese Art, Rijksmuseum), Weaving the Faith: Buddhist Hangings at the Qing Court in the 18th Century

Wednesday 6th November 2024, 6:30pm - 7:30pm
Venue: Hybrid- Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity College Dublin. Also via Zoom

To mark the completion of the conservation of an 18th-century Chinese Buddhist silk hanging, Buddhas of the Three Generations, which has been supported by the Heritage Council, the museum and Trinity College Dublin will co-host a lecture by Dr Ching-Ling Wang. This talk will delve into the creation of the Buddhist hanging within the Qing imperial court and will explore its relationship with painting. In addition to Buddhas of the Three Generations, other Buddhist hangings will be examined to provide context, and to illustrate their religious function and significance. Comparisons will be made between Buddhas of the Three Generations and similar examples preserved in Western collections.

Ching-Ling Wang is curator of Chinese art at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. He received his PhD from Department of East Asian Art History, Freie University, Berlin. His research interests include Ming & Qing court art, literati painting and issues related to artistic exchanges between Europe and China. 

.Chester Beatty’s highlight page can be found here: Chester Beatty Highlights.

Joanna Bialek (Trinity College Dublin) - Reconstructing Grammatical Meaning in Extinct Languages: The Case of Passive in Old Literary Tibetan

Tuesday 5 November 2024, 4-5:30pm
Venue: TRiSS seminar room, Arts Building, sixth floorm

Linguistic contributions were among the very first studies published in European languages in connection with Tibet and its culture(s). Works of Isaac Jacob Schmidt, Alexander Csoma de Kőrös, Anton Schiefner, Heinrich August Jäschke, and Sarat Chandra Das, to mention just the most prominent pioneers, opened the gate to Tibet for Western scholars by making Tibet’s languages intelligible to wider circles of the academic community. These very first attempts to understand languages so much different from any European language owed a great deal to Tibet’s own linguistic tradition, especially the one flourishing after and influenced by the thought of Si-tu Paṇ-čhen Čhos-kyi Ɣbyuṅ-gnas (1700–74). The unrestricted acceptance of the inherited knowledge not only granted Tibetan scholarly tradition deserved attention in the eyes of Western scholars, but also, unfortunately, hindered its critical treatment as required by modern science. Serious consequences that result from this unconcerned approach and the lack of analytical criticism still haunt Tibetan studies today. In my talk, I shall broach the issue of a multilayered language reconstruction illustrated by the passive construction in Old Literary Tibetan. The talk shall clarify several misconceptions or misunderstandings that have accumulated over time concerning passive in Tibetic languages and that exert their influences far beyond the sphere of language acquisition and use.

Joanna Bialek, Ph.D. (2016) is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the project ‘Tibetan Obsolete Mortuary practices and afterlife Beliefs. Language conservatism of religious writings in the service of Proto-Bodish reconstruction’ (TOMB). She is working at the crossroads of historical linguistics and religious studies. She has published Compounds and Compounding in Old Tibetan and A Textbook in Classical Tibetan, as well as articles on Old Tibetan, history of the Tibetan Empire, Dunhuang manuscripts, and funerary practices on the Tibetan Plateau.

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Jacob Dalton -- Managing Secrecy: Early Tibetan Imperial Attitudes toward Tantric Buddhism

Thursday, 31 October, 5-6pm
Venue: TRiSS seminar room

This talk will explore the Tibetan empire's approach to tantric Buddhism during the mid-to-late eighth century, when the empire was at the peak of its power. Over the fifty-year period from 780 to 830, the imperial court oversaw the translation of numerous Buddhist texts, adopting systematic methods for translation and interpretation. The tantras, with their secrecy, coded language, and sometimes provocative imagery, posed unique challenges. Jacob Dalton will examine how the imperial court managed these esoteric texts, balancing their importance to the empire's power while restricting their broader dissemination. Drawing on imperial edicts, Dunhuang manuscripts, and early Tibetan writings, he will trace the court's divided strategy of promoting and controlling tantric Buddhism.

Jacob Dalton is the Khyentse Foundation Distinguished University Professor in Tibetan Buddhism at UC Berkeley. Prior to his role at Berkeley, he worked at the International Dunhuang Project at the British Library and Yale University. His research focuses on tantric ritual, Nyingma religious history, and the Dunhuang manuscripts. He has authored several books, including Conjuring the Buddha: Ritual Manuals in Early Tantric Buddhism (Columbia University Press, 2023), and his current work investigates the early development of Tibet's Great Perfection (Dzogchen) tradition.

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Hiroshima & Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Exhibition: 22-25 October 2024

Trinity College Dublin is honoured to host the Hiroshima & Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Exhibition, co-organized by the Embassy of Japan in Ireland and the School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies.

This exhibition features powerful images and artifacts that bear witness to the devastation of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, offering an opportunity to reflect on the tragic impacts of nuclear warfare. Among the exhibits is the poignant story of Sadako and the Paper Cranes, a symbol of peace and resilience that continues to inspire generations worldwide.

We invite all students, staff, and the wider community to join us for this important event, which underscores our ongoing commitment to peace, remembrance, and dialogue.

For more information, visit: www.tcd.ie/religion/news-and-events.

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Swami Balabhadrananda -- The Self and Divinity in Vedanta

Tuesday 10 September, 2-3pm
Venue: room 2026, Arts Building Annex (across from Douglas Hyde Gallery)

This talk will delve into the core concepts of Advaita Vedanta, a non-dualistic school of Hindu philosophy that posits the essential oneness of the Self (Atman) and the ultimate reality (Brahman). Swami Balabhadrananda will explore how this tradition accounts for the relationship between the individual soul and the divine.

Swami Balabhadrananda is a monk of the Ramakrishna Order. Drawn to the ideals of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda during his student years, Swami Balabhadrananda has since dedicated his life to their teachings.
At the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, he managed the Publication Department, the Youth Study Circle, and various youth conferences and value orientation activities. He later served as the Assistant Secretary of the Institute.
In 2005, Swami Balabhadrananda was appointed as the Secretary of the Ramakrishna Mission in Asansol, where he led the center for seven years. In 2012, he was elected to the Governing Body of the Ramakrishna Mission and assigned to Belur Math, the Headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission, as an Assistant General Secretary. He continues to serve in this capacity.

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TCAS hosts two lectures by Visiting Professor Kirill Solonin (Renmin University of China)

Kirill Solonin (Renmin University of China) - Tangut Synthesis: Sino-Tibetan Buddhism during 11th-13th centuries

Monday 20 May, 10am-12pm
Venue: TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor
Register here: https://tcd-ie.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMlc-2orT0jGdB50FVG3WBfFYwgyaYJaUC5 

Since the inception of Tangut studies, it has been evident that the Tangut Realm was predominantly a Buddhist kingdom. From a textual perspective, the Buddhist corpus available comprises three major elements: Sinitic, Tibetan and a synthetic element, which the scholarship tends to identify as “Sino-Tibetan” Buddhism, i.e. a combination of Sinitic and Tibetan features in one text. After the collapse of the Tangut state in 1227, Tangut Buddhism continued to thrive, and had important impacts on the development of Buddhism in the Central Plains, notably through the initial introduction of Tibetan Buddhism to the Mongol rulers. In this talk, we will explore the key constituents of Tangut Buddhism, discuss the major dimensions of both Sinitic and Tibetan Buddhism within the Tangut Buddhist system and indicate major characteristics of the Sino-Tibetan Buddhism, as they emerge from the available textual heritage. We will also address the issues of historical origins, the variety of textual transmission and translation, the reconstruction of the Tangut Buddhist “system” and other related topics.

Kirill Solonin (Renmin University of China) - Who were the Tanguts and Why study them

Friday 17 May, 2-4pm
Venue: TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor
Register here: https://tcd-ie.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIucO2vqDwsH9ZMM36RNYRXUs1jwM1UzpDh 

Among political regimes established in the Central Plains during the 10-13th centuries, the Tangut Realm occupies a specific position. The Tangut tribes, known in the traditional sources as the dangxiang 党項 were not indigenous to the area of the great loop of the Yellow River, but migrated from the intersection of modern Qinghai and Sichuan provinces, i.e. from the mountainous areas of the Eastern fringes of the Tibetan Plateau. Unlike their contemporaries, the Kitan and Jurcen, who spoke variations of Mongolic languages, the Tanguts were Tibeto-Burman speakers, and their languages remains the best documented TB language, apart from Tibetan. The original title of the Tangut state, normally known as the “Western Xia” 西夏 in the Chinese records, was in the fact “The Great State of White and High”, reminiscent of both their geographical origins, and of certain mythological connotations, many of which remain to be clarified. In the talk we will discuss the hypothesis of the Tangut ethnic origins, the most characteristic features of the Tangut civilization, including their unique language and script, and will try to show the continuity of the Tangut culture during the Yuan and Ming periods. We will specifically concentrate on the indigenous materials, including Tangut poetry and didactic literature, which is now becoming increasingly known to a wider scholarly community. We will also discuss the perspectives of the Tangut studies. 

Kirill Solonin currently holds the position of professor at the School of Chinese Classics, Renmin University of China. He obtained the degree of Doctor of Science from Saint Petersburg State University. As a leading scholar in his fields, Solonin’s research concentrates on Tangut studies, the history of religions, linguistics and philology. His significant contributions include Двенадцать Царств (1995), 大鹏展翅：藏传新旧密咒在西夏的传播 (2022), and "Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra in Tangut Translation" (co-authored with Shintaro Arakawa in 2024).

Webinar: Ruiqing Shen (National University of Singapore) - Inland Min in a historical perspective

note: this event is in Chinese

Friday 17 May 10:30am-12:00pm (Dublin)
Venue: Zoom
Register here: https://tcd-ie.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUrc-mpqDkqGNbrwmOD_YOsYsGJ_56JK4Lg

本次报告尝试总结内陆闽语历时研究的现状并展望未来，共分三个部分：第一部分“何谓内陆闽语”首先回顾了汉语方言学界对于内陆闽语的认识过程，并检讨关于邵将区方言归属的争议；第二部分“迈向原始内陆闽语的构拟”介绍了原始闽北语的构拟成果，并探讨黄坑话、邵将闽语、闽中语对于构拟原始内陆闽语的可能贡献。第三部分“内陆闽语与其他方言/语言的联系”则总结并探讨内陆闽语与沿海闽语、处衢吴语、瓦乡话以及苗瑶语、侗台语在音韵、词汇上的一些联系。

沈瑞清，现为新加坡国立大学中文系助理教授，香港科技大学人文学部语言学博士毕业，研究方向为语音学、演化音系学、语言类型学、汉语音韵学等等。曾于《方言》、《中国语言学集刊（Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics）》、《语言暨语言学（Language & Linguistics）》等刊物发表论著，代表作有《湘西古丈瓦乡话调查报告》（与伍云姬合著）、<闽北石陂方言声调的音系表达>、<黄坑话与早期闽北语>、<闽南语的去鼻化与原始沿海闽语的清响音>、<Interaction Between Min and Other Sinitic Languages: Genetic Inheritance and Areal Patterns>等。

Webinar: John Carlyle (University of Washington) - Some Remarks on the Development of OC *a in Min Chinese

Friday 3 May 10:30am-12:00pm (Dublin)
Venue: Zoom
Register here: https://tcd-ie.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcoc-morjMuH916gJvW3_BR7ctOwkzs5fZ9

In their reconstruction of Old Chinese (OCBS), Baxter and Sagart (2014) use capital *A as an ad-hoc convention to mark unexplained developments of the main vowel *a in the Qièyùn System (QYS). There are three finals in which *A occurs, *-A, *-Aj, and *-Ak. In all cases, the development of *A corresponds to the vocalism ia in Norman (2006)’s Common Dialectal Chinese (CDC). For the final *-Ak, Baxter and Sagart (2014, 226) tentatively treat the development to -jek as a conditioned change that occurred after “dental and palatal initials,” but raise the possibility that dialect variation created exceptions. In support of this stance, they observe that the change did not affect autochthonous words Min Chinese. Both OCBS *-ak (type B) and *-Ak are reflected as *-iɔk in Common Min (Norman 2012). A similar situation exists for the OCBS finals *-aj and *-Aj. In the autochthonous layer of Min, both are *-iai. In addition to the above, Shěn and Zēng (2021) observed that OCBS final *-A(k)-s developed in a parallel fashion to *-Ak. In Min it corresponds to a final that Norman reconstructed as an irregular development of CM *-uo. Shěn and Zēng demonstrated that this development is in fact not irregular, but may be reconstructed for at least three etyma. Here I treat it as #-i , an open-syllable counterpart to CM *-iɔk. In this presentation, I will argue that the *A of the Baxter and Sagart reconstruction represents instances of pre-medieval dialect mixture and that the earliest layers of Min reflect the original situation. I will also make the case that #-iɔ is probably a vestige of the original development of Old Chinese *-a(k/ )-s > #-ah in Min but was later replaced with the competing finals *-y and *-oe due to contact with northern migrants in the early medieval period. 

John Carlyle is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington. His research interests include Chinese historical phonology, dialectology, palaeography, and digital humanities. 

Webinar: Kwok Bit-Chee (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) - 從比較音韻的角度看莆仙片方言在沿海閩語中的位置

note: this event is in Chinese

Friday 10 May 10:30am-12:00pm (Dublin), 17:30pm-19pm (Hong Kong)
Venue: Zoom
Register here: https://tcd-ie.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAtcuCsqz0uHtYe0kg47gkpueaJQ1iuglsh#/registration

沿海閩語由閩東片、閩南片和莆仙片三片方言組成，當中莆仙片 (福建東部莆田、仙游兩地的方言) 的角色比較特別，一般認為它是一種過渡性方言，兼具了閩東片和閩南片的特點。對於莆仙片和其他沿海閩語成員的發生學關係，學界仍有爭議。本文首先對原始沿海閩語的音系進行局部重建，並在此框架下，指出莆仙片和閩南片共享多項韻母上的創新，包括 (1) *ɑ 韻腹裂化、(2) *ɑ、*o、*e 韻腹後輔音韻尾弱化、(3) *-uŋ、*-uk 韻腹元音低化，等等。這些音變大部分都可以按相對時序排列出來。筆者同意Bodman (1985) 的看法，認為歷史上曾經存在過「原始閩南-莆仙片方言」。報告也會簡單討論一些從閩東片遷移到莆仙片的語音特徵。

郭必之，香港中文大學中國語言及文學系教授、粵語研究中心主任、中國文化研究院吳多泰中國語文研究中心名譽研究員，《中國語言學報》(Journal of Chinese Linguistics) 及《中國語文通訊》編委。研究興趣包括漢語方言學 (特別是粵語、閩語及客語)、歷史語言學及接觸語言學，著有Southern Min: Comparative Phonology and Subgrouping (2018)、《語言接觸視角下的南寧粵語語法研究》(2019) 及論文七十餘篇。

New approaches to computational historical linguistics in the Asian context

Monday 29 April, 2-4pm
Venue: TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor

Quantitative methods have been applied to historical linguistics since the early 20th century. However, it is only in recent times that multiple computational methods have flourished in the exploration of the histories of East Asian languages. This workshop showcases diverse computational approaches to understanding linguistic evolution. Zhang Menghan (Fudan University, China), Lai Yunfan (Trinity College Dublin) and Nathan Hill (Trinity College Dublin) will present from distinct angles: first, the inference of prehistoric trajectories within Sino-Tibetan and Kra-Dai populations; second, the application of information theory to explore language subgrouping via sound correspondences; and third, the automated phonological reconstruction of proto-languages employing finite state transducers. Supported by the FAHSS Events Fund. 

2-2:40pm - Zhang Menghan (Fudan University), "Phylolinguistic insights into the prehistories of Sino-Tibetan and Kra-Dai languages"

The study of language origin and divergence is important for understanding the history of human populations and their cultures. As the most linguistically diverse region on earth, East and Southeast Asia have witnessed extensive sociocultural and ethnic contacts among different language communities. Especially, there are several language families such as the Sino-Tibetan languages, which is the second largest one in the world, and the Kra-Dai languages that exhibit tremendous socio-cultural importance in East and Southeast Asia. How to reconstruct the evolutionary processes of these different language families remains a great challenge in traditional historical linguistics. The major reason is the lack of sufficient and continuous historical accounts of their prehistory. Fortunately, applying Bayesian phylogenetic frameworks and triangulating empirical evidence from linguistics, genetics, and archaeology can provide new insights into studying the complex prehistory of languages in the world. In this presentation, we are showing our recent advances in the reconstruction of the prehistory of Sino-Tibetan and Kra-Dai languages in East and Southeast Asia.

2:40-3:20pm - Lai Yunfan (Trinity College Dublin), "Mutual predictiveness of sound correspondences for reconstruction and language subgrouping"

This paper introduces a novel method for evaluating proto-language reconstructions in historical linguistics, using Gyalrongic languages—a conservative subset of Sino-Tibetan—as a case study. Mutual Implicative Entropy (MIE) is applied to assess the genetic distance between related languages and to construct Neighbornet networks for visualizing the subgrouping of Gyalrongic languages. The resulting networks align with qualitative historical linguistic analyses, facilitating adjustments to previous subgroupings derived from Bayesian phylogenetic inference. This method offers a means of detecting nuances in lower sub-branches that might be overlooked by lexicon-based methods, making MIE a quick and efficient tool for validating reconstructions and refining the preliminary structure of language subgroupings in historical linguistics.

3:20-4pm - Nathan Hill (Trinity College Dublin), "Enhancing Proto-Language Reconstruction with CAPR: Advancements in Rule-Based Phonological Analysis"

This paper presents CAPR (Computer-Assisted Phonological Reconstruction), a software tool that employs finite state transducers to assist in the reconstruction of proto-languages, with a focus on Proto-Burmish. CAPR automates aspects of phonological analysis, including the detection of loanwords, and supports the detailed examination of sound changes within daughter languages. By utilizing both forward and backward reconstruction methods, CAPR enhances the efficiency of hypothesis testing in historical phonology. This tool is particularly useful for linguistic communities with limited research resources. The paper outlines the technical framework of CAPR, its application in studying the Bola language, and its impact on streamlining phonological research in computational historical linguistics.

Simone O’Malley Sutton - The Chinese May Fourth Generation and the Irish Literary Revival: Writers of Modernism and Fighters against the Colonial Condition

Thursday 11 April, 5-5:45pm
Venue: TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor

This talk illuminates how the Irish Literary Revival provided an alternative route to the modern for the Chinese May Fourth writers, bypassing discourses on race that saturated literatures produced in the imperial centre. As writers of Modernism and as fighters against the postcolonial condition, both literary movements discovered a form of Modernism in a postcolonised peripheral setting, or a reciprocal type of Postcolonial Modernism as an alternative answer to the twin evils of Colonial Modernity and Capitalist Modernity. Research in original Chinese language sources makes clear how the Irish Revivalists influenced the Chinese May Fourth writers as anti-colonial writers and fighters, and how this process was reciprocal as Asian influences circled back to influence Irish Revivalism. Furthermore, questions of class, socialism and gender complicate this comparison of two contemporaneous early twentieth-century modern literature movements as the Irish and Chinese Renaissance movements shape our global heritage through mutual encounter and reciprocal exchange.

Dr. Simone O’Malley Sutton, after living for six years in Beijing, lectured on modern Chinese history, gender and ethnicity at the University College Cork. She was awarded the Murphy Irish Fellowship in order to attend University of Notre Dame, from 2016 to 2018. Her interests include postcolonialism and gender. Her book entitled The Chinese May Fourth Generation and the Irish Literary Revival: Writers and Fighters was recently published by Palgrave MacMillan. She is a fluent speaker of both Chinese and Irish.

Jobymon Skaria (St Patrick's Pontifical University) - St. Thomas Christians' encounter with the caste system in South India

Thursday 21 March, 5-6pm
Venue: TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor

St. Thomas Christians are a community of Indian Christians who trace their origins to the apostolic mission of St. Thomas in South India. The community is known for its unique blend of Indian and Christian traditions, which developed over centuries of interaction with the local culture. However, one of the most significant challenges that St. Thomas Christians have faced in their history has been the caste system, which has been a source of oppression and discrimination for many Indians. This has resulted in an imbalance in the St Thomas Christians’ social praxis as some members of the community began to question the validity of the caste system and its compatibility with Christian teachings, while others continued to embrace the caste system, seeing it as an essential part of their culture. Today, the St. Thomas Christians continue to grapple with the legacy of the caste system. This lecture examines the scandalous history of St Thomas Christians’ encounter with the caste system.

Dr. Jobymon Skaria is an adjunct lecturer at St Patrick's Pontifical University whose research applies postcolonial approaches to the Hebrew Scriptures. He recently published, 'Dalit Theology, Boundary Crossings and Liberation in India: A Biblical and Postcolonial Study' (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022). His articles include "Golah Politics Unmasked" and "Judean Reception of Elisha Narratives". Dr. Skaria is also an ordained priest in the St. Thomas tradition of the Oriental Orthodox Church.

Dieter Gunkel (University of Richmond) - The syntactic expression of polarity focus in Vedic prose

Tuesday 19 March, 4-5pm
Venue: TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor

Polarity focus (also known as verum focus) is traditionally thought to emphasize the truth of the propositional content of a sentence, or to contrast the truth of its content with the belief that it is not true. It may be understood as the positive counterpart to narrow focus on negation, e.g. Dieter DOES understand syntax vs. Dieter does NOT understand syntax.

This presentation explores how polarity focus is expressed in Vedic Sanskrit prose texts, especially the Aitareya-Brāhmaṇa (AB) and the Jaiminīya-Brāhmaṇa (JB). The first part of the talk is concerned with identifying likely instances of polarity focus in a “corpus” language. These include not only sentences that can be felicitously translated into English sentences with polarity focus intonation but also sentences with discourse properties that are typical of polarity focus: sentences whose propositional content is entirely given in the preceding discourse; sentences that put questions to rest or end the discussion of a particular issue; etc. That process yields a collection of ca. 75 sentences where polarity focus (or narrow focus on negation) is likely.

Those data exhibit systematic departures from the neutral word order of Vedic prose. Leaving some details aside, we observe the fronting of negation, if present; else a preverb, if present; else the verb. I offer some preliminary syntactic analysis and typological comparison of the phenomena.

Dieter Gunkel received his PhD in Indo-European Studies from UCLA in 2010, worked at the LMU Munich as Akademischer Rat (2010–2017), and moved from there to the University of Richmond (2017–), where he is Associate Professor of Historical Linguistics in the Department of Classical Studies and the Linguistics Program. He is especially interested in the historical linguistics of Greek, Italic, and Indo-Iranian languages. One of his current projects involves the relationship between word order and information structure in Vedic prose texts.

Webinar: Binbin Xu (Xiamen University) - 论闽南方言多功能词“kaʔ”的音义共变模式 / The Coevolution of Form and Meaning of the Multifunctional Word kaʔ in Southern Min Dialects

Friday 15 March, 10:30 am-12pm (Dublin), 18:30 pm - 20:00 pm (Beijing)
Venue: Zoom
Register here: https://tcd-ie.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIucuyorDwsG9KLGXCZuIYIE6MVqVmTsSkU

本文在梳理沿海和内陆闽语30个方言点的基础上，详细分析闽南方言多功能词“合”的共时地理分布及阐释变异因素。再深入研究闽南方言功能词“kaʔ”的音义历时发展轨迹，讨论连词“kaʔ”、介词“kaʔ”的音义功能特征。本文认为“kaʔ”作为闽南方言多功能词，在音义演变孳乳过程中产生音义共变现象。“合（佮）”、“共”、“安* ”等功能词之间在一些语义和用法上实际上是音义共变关系，既有不同类型的来源，又有语素同一化现象。其中缘由，其一，闽南方言多地分歧的情况及大量的合音现象，导致一些用法出现交叉对举的形式；其二，特殊音变产生语义互用状况，进一步驱动句法糅合。

许彬彬，福建漳州人，博士，厦门大学中文系助理教授，硕士生导师，在国内外一流刊物及学科重要学术会议发表论文几十篇。专著1部，参与教材编写3部，文献题解1部。主持国家社科基金青年项目1项，中央高校基本科研项目2项，横向课题2项，福建省社科规划一般项目1项；参与国家社科基金重大课题4项，国家社科基金冷门绝学团队项目1项，国家社科基金冷门绝学个人项目1项，国家社科基金青年项目3项，福建省中青年教师教育科研项目A类社科重点课题1项，横向课题2项。多次指导学生获得校级大创立项，部分项目进行过程中表现优秀，升级为国家级项目。与人工智能系团队合作研发全球首个闽南方言智能语音对话系统。

International conference: What We Talk About When We Talk About Haruki Murakami’s Translators: Their Roles and Significance (村上春樹の翻訳者について語るときに我々の語ること)

29th May 2024, 09:45 am -18:00pm (Tokyo)
The Haruki Murakami Library, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan (in Japanese/English)

30th May 2024, 09:45 am -18:30pm (Dublin)
Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation (TCLCT), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland (in English)

Format: Hybrid
Registration: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/tclct/1154028
Information: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y3pyTKJ-7gnfA6kgaSD9IpXrQa5gp5_b/view

Translators take multiple roles. They do not just produce translations. They are also reliable advocates for the books, official representatives of source authors, and active commercial forces that promote the work on social media platforms, in literary journals and at book events. Haruki Murakami’s translators are no exception. Lai Mingzhu is considered the closest access point to Murakami by his fans in Taiwan, and regularly receives queries about the author and his work. Mette Holm reveals the process of translating Murakami’s work into Danish in the short documentary film, Dreaming Murakami (Anjaan 2017), adding another dimension to his novels for readers who do not know Japanese. Thus, Murakami’s translators have the power to shape and influence the way his works are received and read by the readers world-wide. This conference sheds light on Murakami’s translators and the significance of their roles in the publication and circulation of his novels.

Muhammad Ilyas (Trinity College Dublin) - Light Verb Constructions in Balti, Tibetan

Tuesday 12 March, 4-5pm

TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor

This presentation explores the light verb constructions of Balti, a Tibetan language spoken in northern Pakistan. Light verbs form a distinct syntactic category, differing from main verbs in their predicational contribution and semantic content. They also differ from auxiliaries in various aspects such as case marking, combinatory restrictions, inflectional paradigms, and negation. In Balti, the light verbs include biɑ, t̪ɑŋ, pʰɑŋ, wɑ, and oŋ, always preceded by a noun, an adjective or another main verb. The preceding element provides complete semantic content, while the subsequent light verb conveys notions of activity, transfer, completion, coming to pass, and alternation. In the light verb construction, tense and aspect are expre
ssed through inflection on the light verb.

Muhammad Ilyas is a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin, researching the Grammar of Balti, Tibetan, which he speaks natively. He earned his M.Phil in Linguistics from University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan in 2018.

Webinar: Jonathan Smith (Christopher Newport University) - New digital resources for the study of historical and comparative Mǐn

Friday 8 March, 3:30-5pm (Dublin), 10:30am-12pm (Virginia)

Venue: Zoom
Register here: https://tcd-ie.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0pceqsqjwuG9bUQQWJCpYU4fwAx7UJUT6R

Data on modern Mǐn languages is increasingly plentiful, and Romanized materials dating to the 19th century bear important early witness to the languages of Amoy, Teochew, Hokchiu, and others. However, many of these resources are difficult to access and leverage. In this talk, I aim to describe (1) key sources and their nature; (2) some of my recent efforts at organization and digitization; and also (3) a few notable language features thus rendered more amenable to study. For early works like Carstairs Douglas’s Church Romanization dictionary of Amoy (1873), the main issue is ease of search: a digitized database version of this text will finally allow easy application of computational tools. In the case of newer resources including the R.O.C. Ministry of Education’s online dictionary of Taiwanese Hokkien (2008–), the problem is accessibility to non-readers of Chinese: digital trilingual (Mǐn language / Mandarin / English) extensions of such texts will enable a broader range of scholars to work with Mǐn data. Wielded together, these new tools should allow closer and much more convenient study of important problems in historical and comparative Mǐn.

Jonathan Smith is Associate Professor of Chinese and director of the Chinese Studies program at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, U.S.A. His academic focus is early Chinese language and writing, with one research strand exploring the relationship between formative elements of the script and prehistorical calendrical astronomy. Newer publications turn to the historical phonology of the southeastern Mǐn languages: improved comparative reconstructions of proto-Mǐn should lead us towards a more grounded and granular understanding of early Chinese. He is currently engaged in the collection and digitization of Mǐn language materials, especially of Romanized texts reflecting 19th century Hokkien varieties of Amoy (Xiàmén, Fújiàn province) and Taiwan.

Japan and Ireland: A Conversation with Ambassador Maruyama Norio

Thursday 7 March 2024, 6.15pm

Neill Lecture Theatre, Trinity Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin

The Trinity Centre for Asian Studies and the Trinity Long Room Hub are pleased to host a special discussion with His Excellency, Maruyama Norio, Ambassador of Japan to Ireland. The Ambassador will be welcomed by Professor Emma Stokes, Vice President for Global Engagement, and the discussion hosted by Professor Lorna Carson, Head of the School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Science, Trinity College Dublin.

RSVP Discussion with the Japanese Ambassador H.E. Maruyama Norio

Webinar: Yang Wanglong (Xiamen University) - 沿海闽语强化类方位词重叠的共性特征 / Some universals of localizer reduplication with intensified meaning in inshore-Min dialects

Note: This event is in Chinese

Friday 1 March, 10:30am-12:00pm (Dublin), 6:30-8pm (Beijing)

Venue: Zoom
Register here: https://tcd-ie.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArdOqgrD4rHtxQyB_dGj4Iqh24Xq-ZxXrx#/registration

本文归纳并解释了沿海闽语强化类方位词重叠的共性特征。一是从重叠的内部看，基式的词项类别存在两条蕴含共性：Ⅰ“双音节方位词重叠⊃单音节方位词重叠”与Ⅱ“绝对方位词的重叠⊃非绝对方位词的重叠”，这两条共性可以通过标记理论与可能性等级进行解释。二是从重叠的外部看，叠式入句使用，要求与之直接组合的体词性成分具备定指性，这种定指性限制源自方位词重叠的语法意义上的对比性，即方位词叠式表达的方位增量与方位词基式表达的方位常量之间的对比关系。

杨望龙，男，1990年生，海南琼海人，浙江大学博士、博士后；现为厦门大学中国语言文学系助理教授、硕士生导师；主要研究领域：历史语言学、接触语言学与语言类型学，近年重点关注海南岛的闽语与少数民族语言接触性语法演变；已在《方言》《语言科学》《语言学论丛》Studies in Language 等刊物发表论文十余数；主持国家社科基金1项，省部级项目2项。

 

Sichuan: Diversity, Heritage, and Transformation

Thursday 1 February 2024, 12:30-4:30pm

Trinity Long Room Hub, Neill Lecture Theatre

This half-day research symposium explores the diverse cultures of Sichuan, China. The event includes three talks from scholars based at Trinity and two international guests, with talks on a range of topics, including mountain deity worship, indigenous language documentation, the cultural conceptualisation of space, and reflections of research at the province level. Supported by the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Events Fund and in collaboration with Dublin Lunar New Year 2024 (Year of the Dragon), the event promises to be an engaging exploration of Sichuan's rich tapestry of languages and cultures.

More information can be found here

Alexander James O’Neill (SOAS University of London) – Breaking the Textual Fourth Wall: On Paratextuality and Self-Referentiality in Mahāyāna Sūtra Literature

Thursday 18 January 2024, 5:30-7pm

Arts Building, Room 4050A

A prominent feature of many Mahāyāna sūtras is the presence of self-referential passages, where texts refer to themselves by title, praising and recommending themselves for worship. Unlike paratexts, which influence how readers approach a text through external commentaries or notes, these self-referential passages are integrated into the body of the text itself. This talk will outline various types of self-referential passages, such as those encouraging the practice, preservation, and propagation of the text, suggesting a tentative taxonomy of motifs in Mahāyāna sūtra literature.

The presentation also explores to what extent such passages are unique to Mahāyāna literature, suggesting their particular significance in promoting new texts and doctrines within early Mahāyāna communities while also touching upon possible parallels in the non-Buddhist purāṇa literature. Regarding applications and use cases for the identification and tracking of self-referentiality in sūtra literature, the talk presents the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā as one such use case, where self-referentiality appears to provide insights into the structure and development of the sūtra.

Alexander James O'Neill is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at SOAS University of London. He completed his PhD in Religion from the University of Toronto in 2022, receiving the Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship and the Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai Canada Graduate Scholarship. Specialising in Sanskrit Buddhist texts from South Asia and contemporary Buddhist practices in the Kathmandu Valley, he is preparing a monograph on the topic of Buddhist book worship. At SOAS, his research focuses on egophoricity in Newar and developing natural language processing (NLP) solutions to Newar language research, such as handwritten text recognition (HTR) and automatic speech recognition (ASR).

Mario De Grandis (University College Dublin) - Mapping the Central-Peripheral Dynamic: Literary Platforms in the Field of Huizu wenxue

Thursday 9 November, 5-6pm

TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor.

In recent decades, Sinophone literary studies has emphasized cultural and language-based modes of identification, with the stated goal of moving away from the traditional conceptualization of China as constituted by a central cultural core and its peripheries. This shift, however, artificially obscures the state-established platforms for the creation, promotion, and evaluation of ethnic minority literatures (shaoshu minzu wenxue). Drawing on textual analysis and fieldwork interviews, this talk explores how Hui literature (Huizu wenxue) relies primarily on two state-funded publishers: Ningxia People's Press and the journal Hui Literature. Following state’s policies and relying on state-funding, these two publishers have created a Hui literary canon and facilitated literary exchanges with the Arab-speaking world, thus playing a central role in channeling Hui literature, both nationally and internationally. Although geographically and symbolically displaced from China’s economic and political centers, the literary initiatives carried on by Ningxia People’s Press (Yinchuan, Ningxia) and Hui Literature (Changji, Xinjiang) are central for the existence of Hui literature in China and for its crisscross exchanges with the Middle East. For this reason, I argue that they are best characterized as “central peripheries.”

Mario De Grandis is Assistant Professor/Lecturer at the Irish Institute for Chinese Studies at University College Dublin. He earned his Ph.D. in modern Chinese literature from the Ohio State University in 2021. Dr. De Grandis's research primarily focuses on ethnic minority literature (shaoshu minzu wenxue 少数民族文学) and its cinematic adaptations. "Ethnicity in Print," one of his upcoming article in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, was initially presented at the workshop "A glimpse at the world of the Rgyalrongs" held here at TCD in August 2022. In addition to his academic pursuits, Mario is an active translator. He has contributed subtitles to documentaries and translated works of fiction from Chinese into his native language, Italian. His translations include documentaries by prominent artist Ai Weiwei and literary works by the Uighur author Alat Asem.

Jingqi Ying (TCD) - The Old Chinese Sound Change *-ps > *-ts > -jH: Insights from Zhou Excavated Documents

Tuesday 7 November, 4- 5:30pm

TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor.

Linguists generally believe that the Old Chinese sound change *-ps > *-ts is took place early enough to affect rhyming in the Book of Odes, i.e., during the Zhou Dynasty (Pullyblank 1961-2, Bodman 1980, Starostin 1989, Baxter 1992, etc.). However, some scholars in Chinese paleography hold the more cautious view that the rhyme patterns in the Odes are not enough to prove that this sound change occurred in the Western Zhou Dynasty. They argue that these patterns may be due to the scarcity of characters with the *-ps coda, and that the sound change took place later. Such scholars point to the evidence of graphic structure (xiéshēng) and spelling variation (tōngjiǎ) in Warring States excavated documents as more reliable evidence that the sound change occurred no later than this period (Fuhai Zhang 2019). This talk examines the Western Zhou excavated documents and use of xiéshēng and tōngjiǎ evidence to argue that the sound change *-ps > *-ts did indeed occur in this period. I believe that this provides additional evidence to support the view that this sound change took place early in the history of Chinese.

Jinqi Ying is a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin, researching the reconstruction of Old Chinese consonant clusters. She earned her BA at Xiamen University in 2020 and her Masters in Chinese Paleography from Fudan University in 2023.

Wenqing Kang (Cleveland State University) - Reemergence of Public Discussion on Homosexuality in 1980s and 1990s China

Thursday 19 October, 5-6pm

TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor.

In the first half of the 20th century, Chinese intellectuals introduced the new Western concept of Homosexuality to China and at the same time appropriated it with age – old indigenous understandings of same-sex relations. In the historical context of Western and Japanese imperialist threat, the process produced a variety of new meanings of homosexuality in modern China. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, however, open discussion about same-sex relations became very rare and the term homosexuality disappeared from the public. But the reform era (from the late 1970s onward) saw a reemergence of media representation, medical discourse, sociological studies on the issue of homosexuality. This talk will discuss the content of those texts and provide a historical context of this phenomenon.  

Wenqing Kang is a historian of gender and sexuality in China who is visiting Trinity for the 2023/24 academic year from the History Department of Cleveland State University, USA. He earned his PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research focuses on male same-sex relations in modern China. His book Obsession: Male Same-Sex Relations in China, 1900-1950 (Hong Kong University Press) reveals how nationalism and colonial modernity reconfigured Chinese discourses on sex between men in the first half of the 20th century. He is now writing a book on male same-sex relations in the PRC from 1949 to the present, drawing on interviews and library and archival resources.

William Marotti (UCLA) - The Performance of Police and the Theater of Protest, from Japan 1968 to BLM

Thursday 28 September, 5-6pm

TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor

Backlash to the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 often characterized the protests as merely “performative” and “theatrical.” My presentation draws upon my historical work on 1968 protest and performance to offer a counterargument from the standpoint of both protest analytics and theories of performance.

Examining events surrounding 1968 in Japan, I have analyzed police riots, strategic uses of violence by protesters, radical theater and happenings, ostentatious countercultural lifestyles, and form-defying experimental dance and art. My presentation considers this history in arguing for the need to reconceptualize police-protest confrontations first and foremost as confrontations against normalized understandings and practices, on the side of activist politics, and on the other, as a police defense of norms and of state legitimacy, including that of the use of force. Confrontations on the street thus involve an irreducible performance.

William Marotti is an Associate Professor of History and Chair of the East Asian Studies MA IDP Program at UCLA. He teaches modern Japanese history with an emphasis on everyday life and cultural-historical issues. Marotti's Money, Trains and Guillotines: Art and Revolution in 1960s Japan (Duke University Press, 2013) addresses politics in Japan in the 1960s through a focus upon avant-garde artistic production and performance. His current book project, “The Art of Revolution: Politics and Aesthetic Dissent in Japan’s 1968,” analyzes cultural politics and oppositional practices in Japan with particular emphasis on 1968 as a global event.

Photo credit: Ishiguro Kenji

Muhammad Zakaria (Independent researcher) - The Historical Development of Causative/Applicative and Middle Constructions in Southeastern and Southwestern Kuki-Chin

Tuesday 26 September, 4-5:30pm

TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, sixth floor

This talk argues for the shared origin of two valence-affecting constructions in South Central Tibeto-Burman, specifically Southeastern and Southwestern Kuki-Chin. They propose that these constructions, despite seeming unrelated, may indicate a closer relationship between Southeastern and Southwestern languages within this subgroup. Notably, both regions have similar morphological elements indicating causative and applicative functions. Southeastern Kuki-Chin, exemplified in Hyow, shows similar middle marker morphology. The authors suggest a common origin involving initial causative or comitative applicative elements, evolving into middle markers in Southeastern languages while retaining some applicative semantics. This parallels a situation in West Africa where causative, applicative, and middle semantics have evolved from an original 'co-participation' marker in Wolof. The paper aims to comprehensively explore these linguistic phenomena and their semantic evolution.

Muhammad Zakaria completed his PhD in 2018 at Nanyang Technological University. He specializes in the Kuki-Chin languages of Bangladesh and Myanmar, including morphosyntax, historical linguistics, and oral literature. Following his doctoral studies, he conducted postdoctoral research as a ELDP research fellow at SOAS University of London and a JSPS fellow at Osaka University, Japan, where he focused on the project "Reconstruction of Middle-Marking Morphology and Its Functions in Southern Chin." He has a grammar of Hyow forthcoming with De Gruyter.

Tristan Brown (MIT) - The Unlikely Audiences of a Muslim King’s Shrine in China

Tuesday 16 May, 4-5pm

Trinity Long Room Hub, Neill Lecture Theatre

In 1417, a Muslim King of Sulu (today part of the Philippines) died unexpectedly during a diplomatic visit to Ming China (1368-1644). In keeping with Islamic requirements, the Chinese emperor arranged a quick burial and ordered a mausoleum constructed to mark the king’s resting place. The king’s descendants who stayed to maintain the site acculturated into the local Hui (“Chinese Muslim”) community, which survives to the present. The shrine itself was “rediscovered” in the 1970s by the Chinese and Philippine states as the pre-eminent symbol of their “600 years of diplomatic relations.” This paper investigates the shrine’s backstory, which involves a surprising history of community resilience. Pushing against contemporary nationalist narratives, the talk shows that the shrine never was representative of a continuous Sino-Philippine tributary relationship. More significant were the communities within China who found protection in the transnational shrine’s existence.

Tristan Brown (MIT) - Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China

Thursday 11 May, 4-5pm

Arts Building sixth floor, TRiSS Seminar Room

Fengshui, literally "Wind and Water," was deeply intertwined with public life and law during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). Facing a growing population, dwindling natural resources, and an overburdened rural government, judicial administrators across China grappled with disputes and petitions about fengshui in their efforts to sustain forestry, farming, mining, and city planning. This talk discusses fengshui's fascinating roles in the law and politics of the last dynasty through archival cases, official handbooks, and divination manuals.

Tristan G. Brown is Assistant Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is a social and cultural historian of late imperial and modern China. His research focuses on the ways in which law, science, environment, and religion interacted in China from the seventeenth to early twentieth centuries. His first book draws on Qing judicial archives and cartographic materials to investigate the uses of cosmology in imperial Chinese law. He is also preparing a second project that employs Chinese, Arabic, and Manchu sources to reveal how Islam was practiced as a local religion in late imperial China.

Sojin Lim (University of Central Lancashire) - International Aid and Sustainable Development in North Korea

Thursday 13 April, 6:30-7:30pm

Trinity College Dublin, Arts Building, Room 4047

The continuing tensions between North and South Korea prompt one to question whether the decades of efforts toward peace and the eventual reunification of the Korean Peninsula have been futile. However, there is still a need to identify ways in which progress can be made towards a resolution. To this end, Dr Sojin Lim will share her observations on recent changes in North Korea and her perspective on the potential for openness and change through international aid and inter-Korean cooperation. Specifically, the discussion will examine the implications of these factors on the prospects of reunification.

Sojin Lim is Reader in Asia Pacific Studies at University of Central Lancaster, where she is also co-director of the International Institute of Korean Studies (IKSU). She has published extensively on North Korea, in particular from the perspective of international relations.

Lingzi Zhuang (University of Toronto Mississauga) - A preliminary “mix-ology” of messy Tibetan verb paradigms

Wednesday 12 April, 4-5pm

Trinity Long Room Hub, Galbraith Room

This talk treats the origins of “mixed and slightly messy” verb paradigms in Tibetan. A non-trivial subset of Tibetan verb paradigms display various forms of irregularity and as-yet poorly explained root alternation, including ablaut (Hill 2010, 2019; Jacques 2012; Bialek 2020), immutable g-prefixation (Zhuang 2022), and initial voicing alternation which supposedly, but not always, correlates with transitivity (Uray 1953; Hill 2014; Bialek 2020). This landscape is further complicated by inconsistencies across lexicographical and dialectal data sources. The talk presents ongoing research which seeks to argue that this apparent messiness can be explained in a principled way, namely, as the result of suppletion operating on previously underrecognized morphological/semantic processes and plausibly much older root alternations.

Lingzi Zhuang is an Assistant Professor at University of Toronto Mississauga. His main areas are semantics, pragmatics, and Sino-Tibetan linguistics. He is interested in formal approaches to types of meaning, their variation across languages and across semantic phenomena, and their mechanisms of diachronic change. While the theoretical arm of his work focuses on speech act-level phenomena (evidentiality, mirativity, attitudinal expressions) and nominal reference, he maintains an areal-historical specialty in Sino-Tibetan languages of the Himalayas and China, and works on issues in Bodish reconstruction.

Hannes A. Fellner (University of Vienna) - 名不正，則言不順– Language contact in the borderlands of the Western Regions

Friday 31 March, 4-5pm

Galbraith Room, Trinity Long Room Hub

The study of language contact between ancient Indo-European languages and older varieties of Chinese is still in its infancy. Work dedicated to this issue – with very few exceptions – tends to be methodologically flawed: it suffers from a lack of understanding of the Indo-European languages in the vicinity of the area where Chinese was spoken and/or a lack of understanding of the older varieties of Chinese; it ignores the philological background on both ends of the loan relation and/or neglects historical and cultural constraints on contact situations. The recent advances in Indo-European linguistics and philology, especially regarding Tocharian – the old Indo-European language closest to ancient China – and the progress made in the study of older varieties of Chinese are the basis for a new look on language contact.

In this presentation, plausible loan words will be (re)examined based on new research in Indo-European and Chinese philology and linguistics. This will shed new light on cultural contacts on ancient China’s western frontiers and on the linguistic reconstruction of the involved languages.

Hannes A. Fellner is Associate Professor of historical linguistics and digital philology at the University of Vienna. His research focusses on Indo-European morphology and morpho-syntax, historical and comparative linguistics and philology of the Indo-European languages of the ancient Silk Road, and theoretical approaches to language change. He is the director of the Austrian Institute for Research on China and Southeast Asia and a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Nathaniel Sims (CRLAO-CNRS) - A roadmap to reconstructing proto-Rma

Wednesday 22 March, 4-5pm

Arts Building, Room 4073

Rma is a language spoken along the upper reaches of the Min River in Northwestern Sichuan, China. Rma is a member of the Trans-Himalayan language family. Thus, it is related to Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. However, unlike these languages, Rma does not have a long tradition of writing, and the history of the language subgroup is not well understood.

The purpose of this talk is to discuss issues related to historical reconstruction of proto-Rma in light of recent advancements in the documentation of the language, and to discuss what this can tell us about the relationship between Rma and other languages of the family. To date, the most comprehensive treatment of Rma historical linguistics is Evans (2001). Evans etymologized over one thousand Rma forms and proposed reconstructions for certain southern varieties. Since Evans’ study, there have been many publications on previously undocumented varieties which broaden the empirical basis for studies of the history of the language: Ronghong (LaPolla & Huang 2003), Qugu (LaPolla & Poa 2003, Huang & Zhou 2006), Hongyan (Evans 2006), Puxi (Huang 2007), Yonghe (Sims 2014), Xiaoxing (Huang et al. 2019). Thus, the time is ripe for work on historical reconstruction of which incorporates these publications.

This talk will discuss the reconstruction of the segmental phonology, including consonants and vowels, syllable structure, as well as suprasegmental phonology such as tonal distinctions. It will also discuss the development of the verb-complex, and other larger constructions in Rma. This talk will present a ‘recipe’ for reconstructing a form in proto-Rma and discuss cover some of the insights that can be gained by internal reconstruction, loanwords from other languages, as well as loanwords from Rma into other languages, and some of the methodological issues in historical reconstruction of a language without a long written tradition.

Nathaniel Sims is a linguist whose work is focusses on languages of the eastern Himalayan region, including Rma (also called Qiang), Tibetan, and Rgyalrongic languages. He grew up in Sichuan and first became interested in the region’s minority languages, because he was friends with classmates who spoke these languages. Since 2006 he has been involved with collaborative, community-based documentation of Rma since 2006. He graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2021 and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS-INALCO-CRLAO) in Paris.

Mel Cousins (Trinity College Dublin) - Getting old before getting rich? Challenges to the sustainability of the Chinese pension system

Friday 2 December 2022, 12-1pm

Trinity Centre for Asian Studies, Arts Building Annex, Room 2012

This presentation examines the sustainability of the Chinese urban pensions system – the main component in China’s overall old age support system. It looks at the sustainability of the system overall and, in particular, at the extent of regional variations and the common challenges facing Chinese policy makers. Given the experience to date, of slow progress on various aspects of pension policy reform, I argue that it seems unlikely that paradigmatic change will be significant. Nonetheless, there are a range of parametric policy measures which can either help or hinder China’s attempts to address the challenge. The challenge for China’s policy-makers will be to ensure that China gets old and rich at the same time.

Mel Cousins is visiting research fellow at the School of Social Work and Social Policy, TCD. He works as social protection consultant for a range of international agencies including the EU, ILO and UNICEF and has worked in a wide range of European and Asian countries including China. He has written extensively on Chinese social protection and pension policy.

Raymond J. Davidson Jr. (Trinity College Dublin & Rowan University) - Zhuangzi and Rorty: Contingency, Irony, and Cruelty

Friday 4 November 2022, 12-1pm
Trinity Centre for Asian Studies, Arts Building Annex, Room 2012