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Professor Jeffrey Riegel

MA and PhD in Chinese, Stanford University
Professor and Head of School

Office : Room 510, Brennan MacCallum Building A18 (map)
Phone : +61 2 9351-3356
Email:

Most of Jeffrey Riegel’s 30-year academic career was spent at the University of California, Berkeley. He retired from the position of Agassiz Professor of Chinese in 2007. He travels frequently to China and has long been committed to helping bring about a greater understanding of China. As Head of the School of Languages and Cultures he has broadened this commitment by stressing the need for Australians to recognize the importance of learning languages other than English and of gaining deeper familiarity with cultures outside the Anglo-American sphere.

Research Areas

  • The literature, thought, and material culture of early China, in particular the period from the 7th-2nd centuries BCE.

Current Projects

  • A study of “self-cultivation and social order” in the thought of Confucius
  • A translation and study of the ancient Chinese philosophical text, the Mozi
  • A study of the 18th century literary figure, Yuan Mei, and his collection of tales of the fantastic and supernatural
  • A study and translation of recently excavated Chinese manuscripts, in particular parts of the Han dynasty medical corpus unearthed at Zhangjiashan.

Selected Publications

Books

  • Chinese Archaeological Abstracts. Edited with Albert Dien and Nancy T. Price. University of California, Los Angeles, Institute of Archaeology, 1985. 3 volumes, 2000 pages.
  • The Annals of Lü Buwei. With John Knoblock. Stanford University Press, 2001. 847 pages.
  • Mozi: A Study and Translation of the Ethical and Political Writings. Completed manuscript accepted for publication, University of California, Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies.

Articles

  • “Some Notes on the Ch'ing Reconstruction of Lost Pre-Han Philosophical Texts, “Selected Papers in Asian Studies (Tempe, 1976), 172-185.
  • “Ju-tzu Hsi and the Genealogy of the House of Wei,” Early China 3 (1978), 46-51.
  • “Reflections on an Unmoved Mind: an analysis of Mencius 2A.2,” Journal of the American Academy of Religions 47.3S (1979, actual publication 1980), 433-458.
  • “Early Chinese Target Magic,” Journal of Chinese Religions 10 (1982), 1-18.
  • “Poetry and the Legend of Confucius's Exile,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 106.1 (January, 1986), pp. 13-22.
  • “Kou Mang and Ju Shou,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 5 (1989-90), 55-83.
  • “Do not Serve the Dead as You Serve the Living: the Lüshi chunqiu Treatises on Moderation in Burial,” Early China 20 (1995), 301-330.
  • “Eros, Introversion, and the Beginnings of Shijing Commentary,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 57.1 (June, 1997), 143-177.
  • “情愛、內向性與早期《詩經》詮釋” [A Revision and Translation into Chinese of “Eros, Introversion, and the Beginnings of Shijing Commentary”], Zhonghua guoxue yanjiu 中華國學研究,Inaugural Issue (November, 2008), 42-53.
  • “A Passion for the Worthy,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 128.4 (October –
    December, 2008) [Actual Publication Date November 2009], 709-722.
  • “Yuan Mei (1716-1798) and a Different ‘Elegant Gathering,’” Chinese Literature Essays Articles Reviews 32 (2010), 75-92. [A preliminary version of this article appeared in ARTS: The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association 30 (2009), 54-73.]

Notes and brief communications

  • “A Summary of Some Recent Wenwu and Kaogu Articles on Mawangdui Tombs Two and Three,” Early China 1 (1976), 10-15.
  • “Mawangdui Tomb Three Documents: the Maps,” Early China 2 (1977), 69-72.
  • “A Textual Note on the I Ching,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.3 (July, 1983), 601-605.
  • “A Checklist for Self-Study for Departments of Foreign Languages,” ADFL Bulletin 25.3 (Spring 1994), pp. 57-64.
  • “New Evidence for the Zisi School of Early Confucianism?” Guodian Chujian guoji xieshu yantaohui lunwen huibian (Wuhan, 2001), 110-120. (In Chinese)

Contributions (book chapters, encyclopedia entries, conference proceedings, etc.)

  • “The History of Chinese Civilization: an Interpretive Summary,” Introduction to The Year of the Snake, the Year of the Horse (Tucson, 1978).
  • “Epigraphy and Ancient Texts,” The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China (Cambridge, 1982), 357-358.
  • “Liu Hsiang,” an entry in W. Nienhauser, ed., Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (Bloomington, 1986), pp. 583-584.
  • “Li chi,” in Michael Loewe, editor, Early Chinese Texts: a Bibliographic Guide (Berkeley, 1993), pp. 293-297.
  • “Ta Tai Li chi,” in Michael Loewe, editor, Early Chinese Texts: a Bibliographic Guide (Berkeley, 1993), pp. 456-459.
  • “Ancient China,” a chapter contributed to the Harcourt Brace textbook, Ancient World Civilizations (1998).
  • “Digital Approaches to Recently Excavated Ancient Chinese Texts,” 1999 EBTI, ECAI, SEER & PNC Joint Meeting: Proceedings (Taibei, 1999), pp. 571-574.
  • “Shih ching Poetry and Didacticism in Ancient Chinese Literature,” The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, edited by Victor Mair (New York: Columbia, 2002), pp. 97-109.
  • “The Lüshi chunqiu: A Philosophy for Empire,” an entry in Encyclopedia of the History of Science (Enciclopedia Italiana, in collaboration with the Academie Internationale d’Histoire des Sciences, 2002).
  • “Confucius,” an entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006.
  • “The Archaeology of the First Emperor’s Tomb” (A Keynote Address Delivered to the Fiftieth Anniversary Conference of the Oriental Society of Australia), Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 38 (2006) [Actual publication 2007], pp. 91-103.
  • “Emperor Qin Shi Huang,” Introduction to Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor, edited by Albert Dien (Bowers Museum, 2008), pp. 19-39.
  • “Kongzi versus Mozi: Two Views of Cosmopolitanism and Multiculturalism in the Early Chinese Philosophical Tradition,” in Duncan Ivison, editor, Ashgate Research Companion to Multiculturalism, (Surrey, England, 2010), pp. 277-293.
  • “Qin Before the First Emperor,” in Yang Liu, editor, The First Emperor: China’s Entombed Warriors (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2010).
  • “’Defining the Demonic’ in Ancient China,” in Liam Semler, editor, What is the Human? (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011), forthcoming.
  • “Shandong Before (and After) Buddhism,” in John Clark, Liu Yang, and Jeffrey Riegel, editors, Early Buddhist Sculpture in China (book manuscript under consideration).
  • “Five Decisive Events in the Rise of the State of Qin,” in Liu Yang, editor, The First Emperor: Return of the Warriors (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2012), forthcoming.

Translations

  • “A Summary of the Excavation of Han Tombs Two and Three at Mawangdui, Changsha (translated from Wenwu 1974.7),” Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 10.2 (1977-78), 51-103.
  • “Selections from the Shi jing,” in Victor Mair, editor, The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Literature (New York, 1994), pp. 149-170.

Reviews

  • “Review of B. Scharfstein, The Mind of China,” Journal of Asian Studies 37.1 (1977), 108-110.
  • “Review of B. Watson, Courtier and Commoner in Ancient China,” Literature East and West 17 (1976, actual publication 1978), 432-436.
  • “Review of H. Maspero, China in Antiquity,” Journal of Asian Studies 39.4 (1980), 789-792.
  • “Review of D. Roy and T. H. Tsien, eds., Ancient China: Studies in Early Civilization,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42.2 (December, 1982), 684-691.
  • “Review of Mizukami Shizuo, Chugoku kodai no shokubutsugaku no kenkyu,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46.1 (June, 1986), 317-323.
  • “Review of Li Xueqin, Eastern Zhou and Qin Civilizations,” American Anthropologist 89.1 (1987), pp. 193-194.
  • “Review of Edward Machle, Nature and Heaven in the Xunzi,” China Review International 1.2 (Spring 1994), 129-130.
  • “Review of Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin, The Way and the Word,” Isis 96.1 (March 2005), pp. 101-102.
  • “Review of Ian Johnston, The Mozi,” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 12.2 (December 2010), pp. 124-126.
  • “Review of Wu Hung, The Art of the Yellow Springs,” Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 4.1 (March, 2011), pp. 129-134.
  • “Review of Lillian Tseng, Picturing Heaven in Early China,” Journal of Chinese Studies 54 (January 2012), pp. 340-348.

Areas of Teaching and Research Supervision

Teaching

  • Chinese literature, thought, and language; Asian cultural and intellectual history.

Supervision

  • Chinese texts, Chinese art, Chinese philosophy

Invited lectures and papers

2012

  • Royal Asiatic Society, Shanghai, March, 2012
  • Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, September, 2012

2011

  • Royal Asiatic Society (Shanghai), March 2011
  • Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley, April 2011
  • Renmin University, Beijing, November, 2011
  • Tsinghua University, Beijing, November, 2011

2010

  • Royal Asiatic Society (Shanghai), March 2010
  • College of International Studies, Renmin University (Suzhou), March 2010
  • Lakeside Forum, Dushu Lake Higher Education Park, Suzhou, June 2010
  • Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, June 2010
  • College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, July 2010
  • The Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, August 2010
  • Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, August 2010

2009

  • Philosophy Department, National University of Singapore, January 2009
  • Peranakan Museum of Singapore, January 2009
  • Keynote Address, AULLA Conference, Sydney, February 2009
  • “Sydney Ideas” Lecture Series, The University of Sydney, October 2009
  • East Asian Studies Department, Università Ca’Foscari, Venice, Italy, November 2009

2008

  • Wellcome Institute and British Museum, March 2008
  • Symposium on ‘Virtue East and West,’ Philosophy Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, May 2008
  • The Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, California, August 2008
  • Buddhist Sculpture Symposium, Art Gallery of New South Wales, August 2008
  • Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai, September 2008
  • Sydney University Arts Association, September 2008

2007

  • Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, October 2007
  • Chinese University of Hong Kong, November 2007
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