Edward L. Shaughnessy

Shaughnessy is a renowned scholar of ancient China who studies China's archaeologically recovered texts as well as the literary traditions in which they were born. In his own work Shaughnessy combines these areas of expertise, though when he teaches, he separates them, offering seminars on oracle-bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions and bamboo-strip inscriptions, as well as classes on the Yi jing, Shi jing and Shang shu. His own personal interests lie heavily in bronze inscriptions and the Zhou Yi, both of which reached their full maturity toward the end of the Western Zhou period (1045 to 771 B.C.E.).The author of eight books, Shaughnessy has published three titles recently: Ancient China: Life, Myth and Art, a popular overview of China to the mid-Tang; Gu Shi Yi Guan, a collection of his Chinese essays; and Rewriting Early Chinese Texts, an exploration of how editors have fashioned texts, especially those originally written on bamboo strips.Shaughnessy came to the University in 1984. He earned his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in theology; studied Chinese classics at Tiande Academy, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.; studied language at the Kyoto Japanese Language Center; and earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University in Asian languages.