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Luke Habberstad

Associate Professor, Early Chinese Literature and Religion
Program Head & Director of Asian Studies Program
Asian Studies, East Asian Languages, Religious Studies, School of Global Studies and Languages
Phone: 541-346-4006
Office: 401 Friendly Hall
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 2-4 pm

Statement

Research Interests
Literature, religion, and material culture of early China (5th century BCE-3rd century CE); early Chinese historical writing; excavated texts; politics and cultures of dynastic and monarchical courts; ancient empires; religious ritual.

Education

B.A., Yale University

M.A. (Asian Studies), University of California, Berkeley

Ph.D. (History), University of California, Berkeley

Publications

Books:

Forming the Early Chinese Court: Rituals, Spaces, Roles. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018.

Articles (earliest to latest):

"The Sage and His Associates: Confucius and His Disciples Across Early Texts." In The Norton Critical Edition of The Analects. Edited by Michael Nylan. Translated by Simon Leys. New York: Norton, 2014. 178-91.

"Text, Performance, and Spectacle: The Funeral Procession of Marquis Yi of Zeng, 433 BC." Early China 37 (2014): 181-219.

"Recasting the Court in Late Western Han: Rank, Duty, and Alliances in the Process of Institutional Change." In Chang'an 26 BCE: An Augustan Age in China, edited by Michael Nylan and Griet Vankeerberghen. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015. 239-62.

"How and Why Do We Praise the Emperor? Debating and Depicting a Late Western Han Court Audience." Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 60.5 (2017): 683-714.

"A Government in Verse: Bureaucratic Aesthetics and Voice in Han and post-Han Admonitions (zhen 箴)." Oriens Extremus 58 (2018-2019) [in print, 2020], 231-66. 

"Water Control and Policy-Making in the Shiji and Hanshu." In Technical Arts in the Han Histories: Tables and Treatises in the Shiji and Hanshu. Edited by Michael Nylan and Mark Csikszentmihlayi. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2021. 101-34. 

“Forms and Narratives of Sovereignty in Early Imperial China: Beyond Heaven's Mandate, All-Under-Heaven, and So Forth." In Sovereignty: A Global Perspective (Proceedings of the British Academy, 253). Edited by Christopher Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. 99-119. 

"Notes on the Note (Ji 記) in Early Administrative Texts." Early China 45 (2022): 135-65. 

"Leaking Rulers and Confidential Officials: Secrecy and Status in Early Chinese Political Culture." Journal of Chinese History 8.1 (2024): 1-22. 

"Local Administration, History, and Geography in the Han and Roman Empires: Ban Gu's 'Dili zhi' and Strabo's Geographika." In Place and Performance in Ancient Greece, Rome, and ChinaEdited by Hans Beck and Griet Vankeerberghen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. 59-86. 

Book reviews (earliest to latest):

Savage Exchange: Han Imperialism, Chinese Literary Style, and the Economic Imagination, by Tamara Chin. Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.2 (2015). 

The Collapse of China's Later Han Dynasty, 25-220 CE: The Northwest Borderlands and the Edge of Empire, by Wicky W. K. Tse. Journal of Chinese Military History 10 (2021): 73-6. 

The Politics of the Past in Early China, by Vincent S. Leung. Journal of Chinese History 6 (2022): 377-80. 

Honor and Shame in Early China, by Mark Edward Lewis. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 83.2 (2023, in print 2024): 175-80.