Reading Sessions are announced internally. If you would like to participate, please notify
Dr. Rolf Scheuermann
.

2021

February 2, 2020
The Tomb Stone Inscription of Jiao Rong
Qiao Yang

January 27, 2021
Reconstructing the Divination Procedure in Early China
Lai Guolong

2020

November 25, 2020
Misleading Dreams and Wrong Interpretations in Late Imperial ‘Minor Talks’
Aude Lucas-Lesain

November 11, 2020
The Entombed Epitaph Inscription of Madame Zheng (Qiong) of Yingyang
Jessey Choo

February 12, 2020
Comets, Earthquakes, and other Omens
Daniel Hausmann

January 29, 2020
The Process of Zhouyi Divination
Dou Keyang

January 16, 2020
Sar Panim
Michael Miller

2019

December 18, 2019
The third chapter of the Uruanna-series
Vérène Chalendar

November 27, 2019
What does the Cloud say?
Qiong Zhang

May 29, 2019
A case study in the appropriation and application of astral omens by the Three Kingdoms during 217 – 237 CE
David Pankenier

May 8, 2019
Integration of prophecies and supernatural elements into Chan narratives
Mario Poceski

January 23, 2019
The Emperor and the Spirits: The Basic Annals of Han Xiao Wu di 漢孝武帝 (Filial and Martial Emperor, reg. 140-87 BC)
Maria Khayutina

January 9, 2019
Apocalyptic and Historic or Political Comments - A Few Prophecies in Context
Per Kjeld Sørensen

2018

December 12, 2018
The Problem of Genre in the Study of Apocalypses and Visions
Nicole Volmering

November 28, 2018
Revelation, the Promulgation of Christ, and Prophecy: The Past as Memory of the Future in Rupert of Deutz
Miriam Czock

November 14, 2018
Carl Jung and Synchronicity: Theory and Practice
Alexandra Fialkovskaya

October 31, 2018
Best bishops ever? Phantasms, prediction, and end time in the Liber pontificalis of Agnellus of Ravenna (830-846 CE)
Carola Föller

July 11, 2018
Cross-dressing, a lying saint, and a dream. Visions and predictions in the History of the Langobards of Paul the Deacon (720/730-799 CE).
Carola Föller

June 27, 2018
First chapter "On Dao, the Source" of Lu Xie's The Literary Mind and Carving of the Dragon.
Kwok-kan Tam

June 13, 2018
Siting Dreams: Incubation Practice in Ming China
Brigid Vance

May 30, 2018
Religion, Politics, and Ideology on Bronze: Mandate of Heaven in Western Zhou Inscriptions
Mercedes Valmisa

May 16, 2018
The Four Temperaments in Management
Christof Niederwieser

May 2, 2018
Does an overlooked piece of divination alter a grand narrative on the history of afterlife in Medieval China?
Hao Chen

April 11, 2018
Free Will and Determinism in Astrology
Jeffrey Kotyk

January 17, 2018
Yijing cosmology applied
Elena Valussi

2017

December 6, 2017
Wilhelm Dilthey: The Understanding of Other Persons and Their Expressions of Life
An Yanming

November 15, 2017
A few amusing ovine narratives and the mythic origins of divination
Alexander Smith

October 18, 2017
Hans-Georg Gadamer: Truth and Method
Carsten Storm

July 20, 2017
Extended Session: Violence in Tibetan Divination
Jan-Ulrich Sobisch: Introduction
Jan-Ulrich Sobisch: Buddhism and Violence
Petra Maurer: Aspects of Violence in Ritual Activities
Brandon Dotson: Enemies and Animals: Violence in Early Tibetan Dice Divination
Rolf Scheuermann: Enemies and Thieves: Varying Perspectives Found in Tibetan Divination Manuals

July 5, 2017
Power and Fate in 19th- to 20th-Century China
Pablo Blitstein

June 14, 2017
Encoders and Decoders of the Cosmos: Technicians and Artisans in the Chinese Standard Histories of the Northern Sui Dynasties
Stephan N. Kory

June 7, 2017
The Plum Blossom Numerology
Yingna Tao

May 24, 2017
Marcel Granet: "Chinese thinking"
Robert LaFleur

May 17, 2017
Spirit-Writing in Early Republican China
Matthias Schumann

January 18, 2017
Towards a new Philosophy of History? The Morphology of Cultures and the Limits of Individual Freedom
David Engels

2016

November 2, 2016
Updating Antique Chinese Knowledge
Gabriel Felley

October 19, 2016
The "Secret of Secrets" ("Secretum secretorum") - A magical mystery tour between Orient and Occident
Bee Yun, Hans Christian Lehner, Matthias Heiduk

October 11, 2016
A 2016-2017 Chinese Lunar Calendar and its Worksheet
Robert LaFleur

May 25, 2016
The Social Origin of Wu in Shang and Zhou Dynasties
Wang Jinfeng

May 4, 2016
Agency, Divination and Religious Syncretism in Mongolian History. Examples from the Yuan and Qing Periods.
Francesca Fiaschetti

April 20, 2016
Tommaso Campanella, Astrological Elections, and How to Evade Sidereal Fate.
Peter Forshaw

April 13, 2016
Divination Poem Sets.
Adam Yuet Chau

April 6, 2016
Lessons on forecasting and fate from Greco-Roman astronomical mechanisms.
Alexander Jones

March 30, 2016
A brief introduction to what makes a Song Dynasty diviner: reading from Hong Mai's (1123-1202) Chronicles of Yijian, yijian zhi 夷堅志.
Radu Bikir

February 3, 2016
Auspicious and evil signs in the Shanhai jing 山海經 (Itineraries of Mountains and Seas, compiled about the 1st century BC)
Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtman

January 20, 2016
The Principle of Everydayness and Historical Time
Fabian Schäfer

2015

December 16, 2015
The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China
Monika Gänßbauer

November 25, 2015
The Horoscopes of Antigonus of Nicaea
Stephan Heilen

November 11, 2015
The Grass-Grazing Man, the Horse, and the Yak: Questions of Translation, Questions of Interpretation.
Brandon Dotson

October 21, 2015
Diagrammarians' dispute: Some unresolved problems in selected passages from Li Gou's 李覯 – 删定易圖論
Holger Schneider

July 22, 2015
Reading Mt. Tai
Prof. Dr. Robert La Fleur

June 3, 2015
近代读书人的命理世界
Yuezhi Xiong

May 20, 2015
New version for new dynasty
Lingfeng Lü

April 22, 2015
From divination to philology
Dr. Jan Vihan

March 11, 2015
Reading The Stalk Method 筮法, a 300 BCE Chinese Bamboo Divination Manuscript
Prof. Dr. Constance Cook

2014

December 11, 2014
Current Issues of Historical Research in China - with a focus on Late Imperial China
Prof. Lei Yi 雷颐

November 19, 2014
Geomantia
Dr. Ulrike Ludwig

November 05, 2014
Liaofan's Four Lessons
Prof. Dr. Chang Chia-feng

October 01, 2014
Travel Documents for the Fate in the Afterlife
Dr. Frederick Chen

June 25, 2014
A Divination Manual on Hand Mnemonics - The Yizhangjing 一掌經, attributed to the monk Yixing 一行 of the Tang Dynasty
Dr. Stéphanie Homola and Prof. Dr. Marta Hanson

May 28, 2014
The origin of Hong Xiuquan's dream
Prof. Dr. Zhou Weichi

May 14, 2014
Before and After Completion: Wang Bi's Commentary on Hexagrams 63 and 64 of the Yijing
Prof. Dr. Hon Tze-ki and Dr. Nicolae Statu (Sinology Erlangen)

April 30, 2014
Thomas Aquinas on Astrology and Divination
Dr. Darrel Rutkin

March 12, 2014
The Hongkong Almanacs
Prof. Robert LaFleur

January 29, 2014
Two Readings of Hexagrams - qian and kun
Prof. Dr. Hon Tze-ki

January 15, 2014
Albertus Magnus's Astrologizing Aristotelian Analysis of Fate
Dr. Darrel Rutkin


2013

December 13, 2013
Qinghua Bamboo Slip Text 'Fu Yue Zhi Ming'
Dr. Michael Lüdke

December 11, 2013
How to Read a Scripture: Codes in a Six Dynasties Daoist Text, Siji mingke
Dr. Zhao Lu

November 27, 2013
The Two Translations of Xiu yao jing (Sutra of Lunar Mansions and Planets)
Dr. Chang Che-chia

October 23, 2013
Destiny and Human Nature in the Work of the Daoist Master Liu Yiming (1734-1821)
Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Pregadio

July 10, 2013
Poems on the Yijing in the Song Dynasty
Prof. Dr. Stéphane Feuillas

June 18, 2013
Records of Searching for Spirits - reading of the sixth chapter (卷) of the Shou Shen Ji 搜神記
Dr. David Sehnal

June 4, 2013
Little Primer of Chinese Oracle-Bone Inscriptions with Some Exercises
Dr. David Sehnal, Dr. Marco Caboara

May 15, 2013
Divination and the Supernatural in the Liaozhai zhiyi 聊齋志異 and the Shanhaijing 山海經
Dr. Sophia Katz, Dr. Marco Caboara

February 20, 2013
Monsters as Prodigies in Europe - and China?
Prof. Dr. Elena del Río Parra

February 6, 2013
Reading the Taiping jing 太平經: Methods of Prognostics
Dr. Barbara Hendrischke

January 23, 2013
Divining Monks? Readings in the Shenseng Zhuan 神僧傳
Dr. Li Wei / Dr. Esther-Maria Guggenmos

January 9, 2013
Between Heaven and Earth: A Divinatory Reading of the Chunqiu 春秋
Prof. Dr. Joachim Gentz


2012

December 12, 2012
Intertextuality and Number in the Classical Text Matrix.
Prof. Dr. Scott Davis


November 21, 2012
Sima Guang 司馬光 (1019-1086)’s Hidden Vacuity 潛虛
Prof. Dr. Stéphane Feuillas

November, 7, 2012
Demonology and Prognostics on Childbirth and Marriage in the Bamboo Almanacs (rishu 日書) of Early China.
Prof. Dr. Marc Kalinowski, Prof. Dr. Liu Lexian, and Prof. Dr. Yan Changgui

July, 19, 2012
Hydraulics and the Super-Natural: River-gods in Late Imperial China
Prof. Iwo Amelung

July, 12, 2012
Daktylomancy
Prof. Marta Hanson

July, 5, 2012
'As if There Were the North and the South, but not the East and the West': A Short Introduction to the Han-Dynasty Apocrypha (weishu 緯書)
Prof. Fabrizio Pregadio

June 28, 2012
Narrative Functions in the Mode of Divination: Examining Historical Narrative and Textual Composition in Ancient Chinese Classics
Prof. Scott Davis

June 21, 2012
Combinatorics and Divination in China (part 2)
Prof. Dr. Andrea Bréard

June 14, 2012
Mantic Arts in Translations of the Brahmajāla Sūtra – The Buddhist Organisation of Mantic Knowledge in China
Dr. Esther-Maria Guggenmos

May 9, 2012
Towards a theory of philology from inside – Friedrich Schlegel's notebooks
Prof. Dr. Christoph König

February 27, 2012
Combinatorics and Divination in China (part 1)
Prof. Dr. Andrea Bréard


2011

December 14, 2011
Prof. Ken-ichi Takashima: "The Nature of the Language of Shang Divination".
Prof. Ken-ichi Takashima

December 7, 2011
Introduction into the divination method "Four Pillars of Destiny" (Bazi Suanming)
Prof. Han Qingming

November 16, 2011
"A doubtful criminal case from the Yuelu shuyuan collection of Qin legal manuscripts"
PD Dr. Ulrich Lau (Universität Hamburg, DFG-Resarch Project "Legal Manuscripts of the Qin"

November 9, 2011
Western Zhou bronze inscriptions - The Li gui 利簋.
Prof. Michael Puett / Prof. Christoph Harbsmeier

October 19, 2011
Shang oracle bone inscriptions - Jiaguwen heji 甲骨文合集 14002正.
Prof. Michael Puett

September 21, 2011
Yin Zhi and Yin Gao
Dr. Michael Lüdke

July 20, 2011
The relation between "music, cosmic harmony, and divination"
Prof. Dr. Martin Kern

May 25, June 15, 2011
Fate, Physiognomy, and Almanac in Seventeen-century China: The Christian Criticism
Prof. Dr. Chu Pingyi and PD Dr. Claudia von Collani

May 11, 2011
Rewriting Fate, or how a 17th-century editor rationalized falling in love
Prof. Dr. Kathryn Lowry

February 9, 2011
Buddhist prognostic texts - The Zhancha Shan'e Yebao Jing 占察善惡業報經‭ (Sutra on the Divination of the Effect of Good and Evil Actions‭), Taishō 839, and Ouyi Zhixu's 藕益智旭 (1599-1655) attitude toward Buddhist Divination and Destiny.
Dr. Esther-Maria Guggenmos

January 19, 2011
The phrase shendao shejiao 神道設教 – From the Yijing to modern discourses on religion and superstition
Christian Meyer

Up

2010

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010, 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Investigation into Concepts of Science Starting from Readings in the Chouren Zhuan 疇人傳 of Ruan Yuan 阮元
Michael Lackner

Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010, 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Gao Panlong 高攀龍(1562-1626) on "ming" 命 (fate/destiny)
Sophia Katz

Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010, 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Wildcard Session – Organization of Knowledge in Early Chinese Sources: Spontaneous exchange about how mantic arts have been categorized throughout history

Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010, 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Aspects of _ming_. Individual and Collective Fate in the _Baoxun_ 保訓 Bamboo Manuscript
Michael Lüdke

Wednesday, Sep. 22, 2010, 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Prognostication in Chinese Buddhism - Philosophical Presuppositions: Reading Excerpts of Hongming Ji 弘明集 and Guang Hongming Ji 廣弘明集, Part II
Zhou Qi

Wednesday, Sep. 8, 2010, 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Prognostication in Chinese Buddhism - Philosophical Presuppositions: Reading Excerpts of Hongming Ji 弘明集 and Guang Hongming Ji 廣弘明集, Part I
Zhou Qi

Wednesday, Jun. 16, 2010, 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
The case for oneiromancy in the prefaces of two dream prognostics texts from Dunhuang (MSS P3908 and Fragment 58), and a late Ming dreambook, Zhang Fengyi's 張鳳翼 Mengzhan leikao 夢占類考 (1585)
Dimitri Drettas

Wednesday, Jun. 2, 2010, 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
The Notion of "ming" 命 in the Writings of Shao Yong 邵雍 (Kangjie 康节, 1012-1077)
Sophia Katz

Wednesday, May 12, 2010, 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Readings in Zhu Xi and his Concept of Fate (贈徐師表序 in《晦庵集》 of 朱熹,卷75,《四庫全書》 and 羅大經,《鶴林玉露》,卷13,《四庫全書》)
Hsien-Huei Liao

Up