"Elite Uighurs as Cultural Middlemen of Buddhist Books and Woodcuts in the Mongol Empire"

Presenter: Shih-shan Susan Huang, Associate Professor, Rice University, Department of Transnational Asian Studies.

Elite Uighurs active in China under Mongol rule in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries played major roles as cultural middlemen in Buddhist book culture. This talk examines selected individuals as sponsors, users, and transmitters of Buddhist books over long distances. It draws on Buddhist woodcuts excavated in Turfan, and epigraphic sources found in southeast and northwest China. Taken together with the Mongol postal system, the elite Uighurs’ vast network extending from China to the Uighur homeland in Central Asia, and to Buddhist countries in South and Southeast Asia can all shed light on how Buddhist books and woodcuts were circulated.

Zoom link:

https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/95799198279?pwd=VGNtdFBVeW5OSHIyZC92aGFmV3U2UT09

Passcode: 891030