This will be a presentation and discussion of how (and how not) to use Wei shu (“Documents of Wei”) – a Chinese text, composed by Chinese scribes – for examination of the political and social history of Northern Wei (386-534 CE), a regime created through invasion of the Yellow River plains by an Inner Asian people called the *Taghbach (Chinese: Tuoba). Under discussion will be the key historiographical issues of what we can rely on in the book and what we cannot; of the aspects of the Northern Wei realm that it does speak of and the aspects that it does not. Key to these issues is better understanding of the roles of the literate Chinese who composed Wei shu, and their relationship with the alien lords they served. For the first century at least of Northern Wei, these men were largely strangers in a strange land.

Scott Pearce took his PhD at Princeton, under the direction of Denis Twitchett, and now teaches at Western Washington University, in the state of Washington. His research focuses on the political, military and social history of the Northern Dynasties, including Northern Wei and its sixth-century successor states. In addition to a Cambridge History of China chapter, he has published a book on "Northern Wei (386-534): A New Form of Empire in East Asia," which came out from Oxford in 2023. This was an effort to produce a full history of that dynasty, stretching back into its Inner Asian origins. He is now at work on a successor volume on the later Northern Dynasties, in part through time recently spent as a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and at NYU’s Institute for Study of the Ancient World, in New York City.

Attend in person or via Zoom. Zoom registration at https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iUbIVmmNQOSozfX4kOmelQ

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