Past Events

The HKBU Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology, together with the Department of History, University of Notre Dame, proudly curates a new online lecture series called Great Divergence: Law, Justice, and Empire in Comparative Perspective Series with the generous support of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, University of Notre Dame and Notre Dame International.

The lecture series in comparative history aims at bridging historical research with the fields of legal studies, political science, sociology, and philosophy to name a few and coalescing the expertise of the invited scholars to reach a broader understanding of early imperial China and its contemporaneous civilizations while reflecting on the theoretical frameworks deployed in comparative studies.

The second roundtable will be conducted online on March 3, 2022, with the topic “Legal Philosophy and Legal Practice in Early China and the Roman Empire”.

Prof. Paul R. Goldin and Prof. Clifford Ando, Professors of History at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago respectively, will set the discussion in motion with a talk on “How Realistic Was Early Chinese Legal Philosophy?”. While the legalist texts in early imperial China was traditionally perceived as characteristic of how the law was enforced back in the day, the excavation of related manuscripts has laid the foundation for researchers to explore the relationship between legal thought and practice in Qin and early Han dynasties. Prof. Goldin will reveal the inherent contradictions between the philosophies of Shangjun shu 商君書and Han Feizi 韓非子 and the realities of early Chinese law, offering a glimpse into how much influence the legalists had over the legal system at the time.

Another compelling case of resemblance lies in the Roman Empire, with a deep-rooted division between ideologies and actual practice. Prof. Ando will respond to Prof. Goldin’s statements by juxtaposing excavated collections of legal academic writing and other manuscripts that shed light on the courtroom practice in the Roman Empire. That will, in return, address the probing questions about law and empire that the discovery of early Chinese legal documents has presented.

Prof. Jan Kiely, Professor of History at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, will then delve into the subject as the discussant of the event.

Date: March, 3 2022, Thursday
Time: 10:30pm-12:30am (Hong Kong Time); 9:30am-11:30am (Eastern Standard Time)
Speakers: Paul R. Goldin (Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania); Clifford Ando (Professor of History, University of Chicago)
Discussant: Jan Kiely (Professor of History, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Chair: Liang Cai (Associate Professor of History, University of Notre Dame)
Language: English

All are welcome to register for the webinar via this link: https://notredame.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0sfuChrz4oG90kmL7MWlmce3MSZUZsxEBl
Reading List: https://asia.nd.edu/assets/459305/reading_list.pdf