Preface

Summary

The essays in this volume derive from an International Research Workshop entitled “Eurasian Influences on Yuan China: Cross-Cultural Transmissions in the 13th and 14th Centuries” convened at Binghamton University on 20 and 21 November 2009. Professors John Chaffee (of Binghamton University), Ralph Kauz (now at Bonn University), Angela Schottenhammer (now of Ghent University), Tansen Sen (of Baruch College of the City University of New York), and Mathieu Torck (of Ghent University) had conceived of the need for such a workshop, and Professor Chaffee, with assistance from the Institute for Asia and Asian Diasporas, the Departments of Asian and American Studies and History, and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Binghamton University and the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, organised the Workshop. The Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation provided financial support, for which the participants are grateful.

In addition to the essays in this book, Professors Bettine Birge (of the University of Southern California), Mau Chuan-hui (of the National Tsing-hua University), and Mathieu Torck and Dr. Linda Komaroff (of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) presented papers that they plan to publish elsewhere. Thanks are due to them for their contributions to the discussions, as well as to a number of observers who attended the meetings.

The workshop discussions about individual papers were lively and constructive. This pleasant atmosphere of give-and-take did not, of course, lead to unanimity. Disagreements about themes and conclusions persisted, although the participants concurred that all the papers were well-researched. Not all participants would necessarily agree with the conclusions in the revised and edited versions of these essays presented in this volume. This lack of lockstep agreement is, in fact, valuable in a book that is designed to stimulate additional research on an understudied Chinese dynasty. I myself do not entirely agree with some of the views expressed, but I have used my editorial pen to help make the strongest case possible for each paper.