Good evening everyone. I'd like to begin by thanking my hosts for affording me such a pleasant stay here at the Center.

Special thanks to Professor Lackner and Petra for all of her work behind the scenes.

But a really sincere thanks to everyone here at the Center. It's been a very, very enjoyable stay.

My I Kage-ef project features translations of the following five collections of biographical accounts of late fourth to early seventh century doctors,

diviners, and artisans from five standard histories, five Chinese standard histories completed between the mid-six and the mid-seventh century.

Please note that the table you see on the slide is table number one in the handout.

The first text that I'll be talking about this evening is the Shui Liezhuang, or arrayed traditions of adepts of techniques and arts of the Weishu, or Book of Wei,

which was completed in 554 during the Northern Qi dynasty and covers the period between 386 and 534.

The second text is the Fangji Liezhuang, or arrayed traditions of adepts of formulas and skills in the Beiqi Shu, or Book of Northern Qi.

The third text is the Yishu Liezhuang, or arrayed traditions of adepts of arts and techniques in the Book of Zhou.

The fourth is the arrayed traditions of adepts of arts and techniques in the Weishu.

And the final collection is the arrayed traditions of adepts of arts and techniques in the history of the Northern dynasties.

All five collections contain valuable information about mantic and medical lineages and communities,

the geographic distribution, transmission, and transformation of mantic and medical practices,

and the manner and context in which divination and healing were likely performed in late 4th to early 7th century North China,

particularly in the mid to lower Yellow River region.

A strong tension between state ritual concerns and the intractable popularity of divination and healing is clearly apparent in these works.

This tension not only forces the compilers to be explicit about the insider orthodox perspectives they promote,

but it also forces them to introduce much about the outsider heterodox perspectives they mean to combat.

As such, I treat each of these collections as imperfectly biased filtration devices for mid-medieval Chinese mantic and medical culture.

I contend that there is no better collection of texts for illustrating the significant contributions of doctors,

diviners, and artisans to 5th and 6th century Chinese politics, science, and religion.

No better collection of texts for highlighting the liminal spaces occupied by contemporary doctors and diviners between common and elite,

official and non-official, and religion and science, and few better sources for examining the places of fate, freedom, and prognostication

in mid-medieval Chinese mantic and medical culture.

There are, however, a number of forces working against easy defenses of these claims.

First, the standard histories of China were predominantly compiled for the imperial state.

They're colored sources, or sources that promote a specific view of what makes a doctor, diviner, or artisan,

or a mantic technique, medical technique, or craft worthy of being commemorated, worthy of being let in.

In other words, these collections immediately and explicitly reveal much more about representation than reality.

Second, because the court-sponsored histories preserving these collections were compiled relatively close to the times,

the chaotic times they describe, earlier source material is relatively limited.

And third, much depends on how one approaches terms like diviner, doctor, and artisan,

not to mention terms like technique, formula, skill, craft, fate, freedom, and prognostication.

I'll address problems of nomenclature a bit later in my talk, but let me begin by,

let me begin with a few tempered but still heuristic definitions of some of the terms in my title.

A diviner is a person skilled in culturally constructed means of encoding and decoding inherently ambiguous signs

associated with culturally constructed notions of divine power.

Diviners are especially skilled in the encoding of signs.

In other words, the active production or perception of signs or omens,

while prognosticators are especially skilled in their decoding.

In other words, the interpretation of signs, the pronouncement of oracles.

Diviners routinely divine and prognosticate, prognosticators a bit less so.

A doctor or physician is a person skilled in culturally constructed means of diagnosing,

prognosing, treating, and preventing culturally constructed notions of bodily spiritual disorder.

And an artisan or craftsperson is a person skilled in applied art.

A person with a specialized skill, typically one acquired through practice,

which tends to utilize traditional methods.

The five collections I'm comparing all belong to the genre of biography.

Specifically, they belong to the Chinese literary genre of zhuan,