Jue Guo (郭珏)

Assistant Professor of Pre-Modern Chinese Civilization and Humanities; Co-Chair, Columbia Early China Seminar

Department

Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures

Office

Zoom Personal ID 212 854 9538

Office Hours

MW 1-2pm and by appointment

Contact

212-854-9538

jguo@barnard.edu

I am a social and cultural historian of Early China and my scholarly work lies at the intersection of history and archaeology. I use both historical sources and archaeological materials (settlement data and material culture, entombed objects, and excavated manuscripts) to understand past complex societies (terminus ante quemca. 3rd century CE), with a geographical focus on southern China. My research interests include regional history, social and identity formation, social and cultural memory, divination and sacrifice, conceptions of the dead, mortuary rituals, and everyday life in early societies, as well as how social and historical processes are theorized.

M.A. 2003 and Ph.D 2008, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Early China
B.A. 2001, Beijing University, Philosophy

At Barnard and Columbia, I teach undergraduate courses on Chinese civilization, major texts from East Asian traditions, and graduate courses on early Chinese history and excavated manuscripts.

BC1339 FYS Buried Past: Object and History
ASCE UN1359 Introduction to East Asian Civilizations: China
AHUM UN1400 Colloquium on Major Texts: East Asia
EAAS UG4202 The Dead in Ancient China: Conceptions and Practices
HSEA GR5013 Readings in Early Chinese Texts and Manuscripts
HSEA GR 6832 Theorizing Pre-modern China: Topics and Approaches
HSEA GR9844 Archaeology of Everyday Lifeworld in Early China

Publications

Becoming Chu: A Deep History of Identity Formation in Early China (forthcoming)

“The Life and Afterlife of a Western Han “Covered Mirror” from the Tomb of Marquis of Haihun (59 B.C.E.).” Special Issue on History of Material Culture, guest edited by Dorothy Ko, Journal of Chinese History中國歷史學刊3.2 (2019), 203-232.

“Western Han Funerary Relocation Documents and the Making of the Dead in Early Imperial China.” Bamboo and Silk2.1(2019): 141-273.

“The Spirit World.” Routledge Handbook of Early Chinese History, edited by Paul R. Goldin. New York: Routledge, 2018, 229-261.

“A Hybrid Talismanic Manuscript: the 340 CE ‘Pine Man’ Wooden Tablet.” “Manuscript of the Month” for the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at Universität Hamburg, Germany, January, 2015.

http://www.manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/mom/2015_01_mom_e.html

“Qin Han chutu wenxian zhong de ‘zhisi’ yu ‘shisi’: yige jiyu “xingcheng kuangjia’ de shi fenxi ji fangfalun shang de sikao” 秦漢出土文獻中的“知死”與“事死”—一個基於“形成框架”的試分析及方法論上的思. Jianbo簡帛, vol.8 (2013): 49-67.

“Divination.” The Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions, ed., Randall L. Nadeau. Blackwell, 2012: 419-440.

“Concepts of Death and the Afterlife Reflected in Newly Discovered Tomb Objects and Texts from Han China.” In Amy L. Olberding and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds., Mortality in Traditional Chinese Thought. Albany: SUNY, 2011, 85-115.

Review of Catherine Churchman, The People between The Rivers: The Rise and Fall of a Bronze Drum Culture, 200-750 CE, Choice, Vol. 54 No. 10 (June 2017).

Review of Wiebke Denecke, The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi, Philosophy East and West 64:1 (January 2014), 240-249.

Review of Michael Nylan and Thomas Wilson, Lives of Confucius, Philosophy East and West, 62:3 (July, 2012): 429-433.

Review of Yuri Pines, Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period, 722-453 B.C.E., Pacific Affairs (Summer 2003): 292-4.

EALAC, Columbia (http://ealac.columbia.edu/jue-guo/)

The Early China Seminar at Tang Center for Early China at Columbia (http://tangcenter-
columbia.org/early-china-seminar-series/)

Publications in PDFS available at https://barnard.academia.edu/JueGuo