Anxieties of Interpretation: Reading, Hermeneutics, and Knowledge in Early China

Speaker: CHINA BROWN BAG SERIES, SPRING 2009 Michael Puett, Professor of Chinese History, Department of East Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University Over the course of the Han dynasty, a complex set of debates developed over the ways to read earlier texts and the types of hermeneutic strategies that should be employed in reading them. This paper will be an attempt to explore this debate, trace its development, and explicate the significance of the positions taken.