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Dr Adam Schwartz

Associate Director, Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology
Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Language and Literature

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Dr Adam Schwartz

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Dr Adam Craig Schwartz specializes in early Chinese paleography, inscriptions on shell and bone, and manuscript and text culture, particularly of divination and poetic traditions. He thus embodies the research ethos of the HKBU Faculty of Arts in its dedication to understanding and preserving vital elements of Chinese cultural heritage and its relationship to the ancient world more broadly.

 

Dr Schwartz (PhD, University of Chicago, 2013) has held a joint appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature and the Jao Tsung-i Academy of Sinology since 2017, and has served as Associate Director of the Jao Tsung-i Academy of Sinology since 2018. 

 

His first book, The Oracle Bone Inscriptions from Huayuanzhuang East, Translated with an Introduction and Commentary, was published in late 2019 by De Gruyter Mouton (Berlin) in the series Library of Sinology. The Huayuanzhuang East oracle bone inscriptions (殷墟花園莊東地甲骨) form a corpus of more than 2,500 individual divination accounts, which were engraved on hundreds of still intact turtle shells and bovine scapulae in the late Shang dynasty (c. 1200 B.C.). The book offers the first complete English annotation of these epigraphic texts and introduces the reader to key aspects of personal and family life in early Chinese civilization.

 

Dr Schwartz has demonstrated both depth and versatility in communicating the purpose, meaning and impact of his research in the areas of oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, bamboo and silk manuscripts, and classics like the Yìjīng 易經and Shījīng詩經to the academic community and wider public alike. He has also managed to show the societal context of achievements and the field of research by proactively collaborating with highly acclaimed institutions such as The Queen’s College, Oxford and the Center for Research on Excavated Texts and Paleography, Fudan University (Shanghai). He has established long-term cooperation with leading institutions in the discipline and also enhanced the University's visibility in the international academic community.

 

Dr Schwartz’s forthcoming research projects, which are currently in progress on two major GRF-ECS/GRF research grants (2019-2022; 2020-2023), will further foster scholarly exchange among all people interested in the traditional culture of China and knowledge of the ancient world more widely. Output for the GRF projects is beginning to be published domestically and abroad in top-tier journals and books, and most recently in the Bulletin of the Jao Tsung-i Academy of Sinology 饒宗頤國學院院刊7 (2020), Jiǎgǔwén yǔ Yīn-Shāng shǐ 甲骨文與殷商史10 (2020), and Chūtǔ wénxiàn yǔ gǔwénzǐ yánjiū出土文獻與古文字研究 9 (2020). He is at work on three book projects. Book one is a study and annotated translation of a Warring States period study guide for hexagram divination, sponsored and funded by the Center for Research on Excavated Texts and Preservation, Qinghua University (Beijing); books two and three – which are being jointly written with Dirk Meyer from The Queen’s College, Oxford– is on Warring States use of the Shī《詩》(Songs). The first of these books, titled Southern Music: The Songs of “Zhōu Nán” and “Shào Nán” of the Ānhuī Warring States-manuscripts, is under preparation with an expected publication date in Winter 2021.

 

 

Achievement

  • HKBU Faculty/School/Academy of Visual Arts Performance Award for Young Researcher (2019-20)

 

Research Outputs

 

  • 史亞當，〈殷墟花園莊東地甲骨卜辭中“侃”的占卜用途及其所表達的主觀感受〉，《甲骨文與殷商史》（新10輯），上海：上海古籍出版社，2020年11月, 頁388-402。
  • 史亞當，〈用數術說閱讀數術書:《周易•頤》“舍爾靈龜，觀我朵頤，凶”含義新考（附：《頤》卦爻辭研究雜記）〉，上海：上海古籍出版社，2020年11月。
  • Schwartz, Adam C. “How to Read an Oracle Bone Inscription from Huayuanzhuang East Pit H3”, Bulletin of the Jao Tsung-i Academy of Sinology 7 (Summer 2020), 39-90.
  • Schwartz, Adam C. The Oracle Bone Inscriptions from Huayuanzhuang East: Translated with an introduction and commentary. Library of Sinology, volume 3. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2019.

         https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/482226?rskey=FLq4pK&result=2

 

  • Schwartz, Adam C. “Deictic Pictographs and a Reappraisal of the Primary Meanings of Di帝and Kong孔.” Dialogue of Four Pristine Writing Systems. Eds. Kuang Yu Chen, Dietrich Tschanz and Tu Ching-i. New Jersey: Confucius Institute of Rutgers University, 2019, 125-154. 
  • Schwartz, Adam C. “Shang Sacrificial Animals—Material Documents and Images.” Animals through Chinese History: Earliest Times to 1911. Eds. Dagmar Schäfer, Roel Sterckx and Martina Siebert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, 20-45.                            

         https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108551571.003  

 

  • 史亞當，〈甲骨文”勘巫九靈”和”勘巫九骼”涵義新考〉，《甲骨文與殷商史：紀念殷墟甲骨文發現120 周年專輯》（新9輯），上海：上海古籍出版社，2019年1月，頁429‐438 。 
  • Schwartz, Adam C. “Between Numbers and Images: The Many Meanings of Trigram Gen 艮 in the Early Yijing.” Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques 72.4 (Winter 2018), 1133-1193.                                          

         https://doi.org/10.1515/asia-2017-0067

 

  • 史亞當，〈從象數角度解釋《筮法》“死生”篇的一些內容〉，清華大學出土文獻研究 與保護中 心編，《出土文獻》（第十二輯），2018年6月，頁123-128。

        ​ http://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-CUWX201801017.htm