Capturing the unusual cultural character of a formative period and its intellectual ferment across multiple disciplines.

Wendy Swartz is an associate professor of Chinese literature at Rutgers University. She is the author of Reading Tao Yuanming: Shifting Paradigms of Historical Reception (427–1900) and articles on early medieval Chinese poetry and classical literary thought and criticism.



Robert Ford Campany is a professor of Asian studies and religion at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China and three other books and numerous articles on the history of Chinese religions and the comparative study of religion.



Yang Lu has taught at Princeton University and the University of Kansas and is a professor of Chinese history at Peking University. He specializes in the history of medieval China and of Buddhism. His publications include works on the cultural and political history of the Tang dynasty, Buddhist scholasticism in China, and Chinese historiography.



Jessey J. C. Choo is an assistant professor at Rutgers University and specializes in the cultural history of medieval China. She is currently finishing a book-length study on memory, identity, and the transformation of mortuary and commemorative rituals in medieval China.

[A] pioneering handbook.

[An] excellent resource... Highly recommended.

Pauline Yu, President, American Council of Learned Societies:
A rich and pathbreaking collection of materials that span the humanistic discipliines, this volume includes key texts that should not be omitted in a sourcebook of this kind as well as many that are available for the first time in English. Its thematic organization encourages new ways of thinking about the period that transcend traditional boundaries. The expert translations and extensive critical matter will make this an indispensable resource on early medieval China.