【Academic Forum】Wuhan University Hosts the 2025 International Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts Forum

(Correspondent: Li Xuan) The International Forum on Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts 2025 was recently held at the University of Chicago Francis and Rose Yuen Campus in Hong Kong. The event was jointly organized by the University of Chicago’s Creel Center for Chinese Paleography, the Wuhan University Research Center for Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts, and Hong Kong Baptist University’s Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology. Nearly 40 scholars from China, the U.S., the Netherlands, Japan, and South Korea attended the forum and presented their latest research.

This year’s theme was “Research on Newly Unearthed Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts from the Warring States, Qin, and Han Periods.” The forum featured eight academic sessions, with 33 scholars presenting new findings. Topics included paleographic interpretation, textual collation, historical institutions, legal systems, material culture, numerology, manuscript format, and sources of manuscript acquisition—focusing particularly on newly published materials such as the Tsinghua, Anhui, Wangjiazui, and Hujia Caochang manuscripts, as well as the Liye Qin slips, Zoumalou Han documents, and Zhangjiashan legal texts. Scholars from the WHU Research Center for Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts, including Chen Wei, Li Tianhong, Liu Guosheng, He Youzu, Lu Jialiang, Huang Haobo, Lei Hailong, and Li Meijuan, presented papers. Professor Jiang Wen of Fudan University sparked lively discussion by proposing a new reading of “Yi Huang” in the Anhui Manuscripts of Ai Song No. 16, supported by new evidence from the Jingzhou Museum.

It is reported that the International Forum on Chinese Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts was jointly initiated in 2006 by Professor Chen Wei from the Research Center for Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts at Wuhan University and Professor Edward L. Shaughnessy from the Creel Center for Chinese Paleography at the University of Chicago. It has since become a recurring international academic conference. To date, 15 sessions have been held in cities such as Wuhan, Hong Kong, Taipei, Chicago, and Jeju Island, establishing the forum as a vital platform for international scholars engaged in the study of Chinese excavated bamboo and silk manuscripts.

(Images provided by the School of History; Edited by Zhao Jifan)