Qiu Jun Oscar Zheng. “To Do as Said and Written: Excavated Manuals and the Performance of Medicine and Spirit Power in Early China.” PhD Diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2026.
This new dissertation examines excavated medical, incantatory, and divinatory manuals from early China as archaeological artifacts. Rather than studying received texts that have been rewritten over time, this work focuses on the actual manuscripts – their compilation, production, and use in real medical and spiritual practices.
The dissertation shows that early Chinese technical knowledge relied on both writing and oral performance. Rhymes and sound patterns in these manuals were essential to how meaning was constructed and transmitted, revealing that knowledge was embedded in how texts were spoken aloud as much as how they were written.
Divinatory Manuals and Memorization
Chapter 4 focuses on hemerological manuals – texts that organized complex astrological and calendrical information for divination. The dissertation explores how these manuals’ specific structure and language helped practitioners memorize and understand divinatory knowledge. This approach treats divination as practiced knowledge shaped by the physical and linguistic features of the manuscripts themselves.
By attending to manuscript materiality and performance, this study offers new perspectives on how divination functioned in early China and contributes fresh methods for studying technical and divinatory texts in the humanities.
For more details and access to the full dissertation, see https://repository.upenn.edu/entities/publication/22c6b200-6dfb-4e38-b361-21c2125d44a2
