Stanford Humanities Center
Join us at CESTA for an engaging talk by Nicolas Tackett (Professor of History, UC Berkeley), a leading scholar of Chinese history. Tackett’s work focuses on the profound societal transformations between the Tang (618–907 CE) and Song (960–1279 CE) dynasties, including the demise of the medieval aristocracy and the emergence of a more "meritocratic" bureaucratic elite. In this talk, Tackett will propose new ways to characterize these changes in elite society, drawing on diverse data sources such as prosopographic, geographic, and text databases, as well as innovative digital methodologies. This event will provide a fascinating exploration of how digital tools and historical data can reveal new insights into the social, political, and cultural dynamics of premodern China. RSVP for the event and to receive the Zoom link here.
About the Speaker
Nicolas Tackett is a specialist of China during the Tang, Song, and Liao dynasties (7th c. to 13th c.). His published books and his current research deal with the demise of the medieval aristocracy and concomitant rise of the Chinese meritocracy (9th-10th c.), and the development of a Chinese nationalism during the 11th c. He makes use of both textual and excavated materials. He has compiled an extensive database of 30,000 people living during the 9th and 10th c.; and also a second database of Northeast Asian tombs dating roughly to the 11th c. Both databases are available for download on his webpage.
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