What can Chinese Archaeology Contribute to the World?

A Conversation between Haun Saussy and Lothar von Falkenhausen, moderated by Li Min

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Lothar von Falkenhausen is Professor of Chinese Archaeology and Art History at UCLA, where he has taught since 1993. He is also on the faculty of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, of which he served as Associate Director from 2004 to 2014. He also has a part-time appointment as Changjiang Chair Professor at Xibei University in Xi’an (China). Falkenhausen was educated at Bonn University, Peking University, Kyoto University, and Harvard University, receiving his PhD in anthropology from Harvard in 1988. His research mainly concerns the archaeology of Bronze Age China, focusing on large interdisciplinary and historical issues on which archaeological materials can provide significant new information. His two major books are Suspended Music: Chime Bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China (1993) and the award-winning Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000-250 BC): The Archaeological Evidence (2006; also published in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese translations). Falkenhausen was co-Principal Investigator of an international archaeological project on ancient salt production in the Yangzi River basin (1999-2004) and has been serving as Instructor of Record of the International Archaeological Field School at Yangguanzhai (2010-). He has served on the Scientific Council of the French School of Far Eastern Studies (2005-2011) and on the US President’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee (2012-2020). He is a Full Member of the German Archaeological Institute, a Honorary Research Fellow of the Shaanxi Archaeological Academy, a Honorary Professor of Zhejiang University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society.

Haun Saussy is University Professor at the University of Chicago, teaching in the departments of Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages & Civilizations as well as in the Committee on Social Thought. His work attempts to bring the lessons of classical and modern rhetoric to bear on several periods, languages, disciplines and cultures. Among his books are Translation as Citation: Zhuangzi Inside Out (2017), Are We Comparing Yet? (2019) and the edited collections Sinographies (2007), Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization (2008), and Partner to the Poor: A Paul Farmer Reader (2010). As translator, he has produced versions of works by Li Zhi (A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep Hidden, co-edited, 2016), Jean Métellus (When the Pipirite Sings, 2019) and Tino Caspanello (Three Plays: Sea, Pictures from a Revolution, and Bounds, 2020), among others. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A collective blog he animates with several others is accessible at printculture.com.

Li, Min (Ph.D, University of Michigan, 2008) is an associate professor of East Asian archaeology with a joint appointment at Department of Anthropology and Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. His archaeological research spans from state formation in early China to early modern global trade network. He is also co-director of the landscape archaeology project in the Bronze Age city of Qufu, China. His first book Social Memory and State Formation in Early China with the Cambridge University Press is published in May, 2018.

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Duration: 1:56:39

Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies