Associate Professor

B.A. History, Peking University, Ph.D. Chinese Studies, Oxford; now associate professor in the National Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Fudan University. Major research areas are visual culture of the Song and Yuan periods and sacred and mortuary art of the mid-imperial China. Specific topics of concern include representation, materiality and historiography. Publications are: “A Study of Half-opened Doors in the Song and Yuan Visual Culture”, “Reading Scenes of Filial Piety Stories in the Burial Context: A Study of Song Decorated Tomb in Henan”, etc.

The upsurge in archaeological activity in China since the 1950s has led to the discovery in north China of a large number of tombs with elaborate decoration and architectural elements, which date back to the Northern Song, Jin and Yuan periods. My current research examines mainly pictorial scenes in these tombs to gain insights into the lives of the tombs’ inhabitants, their beliefs, and changes in burial practice and death ritual in mid-imperial China. Different aspects of decorated tombs have been discussed: the social and historical context for the prevalence of these burials; the processes and techniques of making tombs’ images; the major decorative subjects and their organizational principles; the roles and connotations of these subjects; possible interpretations of the whole tomb environment.

On the basis of the research into the tombs and contemporary textual evidence, I am not only concerned with the meanings and functions of tomb decoration within mortuary contexts, but also explore the way in which images contributed significantly to revealing and forming people’s attitudes towards life and death. Furthermore, I shall suggest that the tombs incorporated various beliefs and forms that were traditionally related to death; the amalgamation of ideas from different sources was expected to assist tomb occupants in achieving an ideal afterlife. In doing so I hope that this work will contribute to a deeper understanding of image and belief of the Song and Yuan periods.