The nine essays in Interpretation and Literature and the eleven in Philosophy and Religion reveal the rich texture and intricate tapestry of different yet interconnected aspects of the early medieval Chinese world in a most informative and inspiring way. All rigorously argued and many elegantly composed, these articles represent some of the latest contributions by twenty scholars. Collectively, their findings and approaches, along with the editorial vision of interdisciplinarity, will impact scholarship on the period.

The project that led to the two volumes sought “to bring together in a single book fresh studies on early medieval Chinese philosophy, religion, literature and interpretation” (Interpretation and Literature, p. 1). Due to “constraints that publishers face” (ibid., p. 2), the final products are the two volumes, arranged by “thematic interest” (ibid., p. 1) and, as their titles suggest, disciplines. As the editor Alan K. L. Chan has taken pains to point out, some essays in one volume “may fit just as nicely” (ibid., p. 2) in the other volume. Practical issues in academic publishing aside (not that these are inconsequential!), the editorial dilemma hinted at invites us to probe into the nature and value of a publication that brings together multiple disciplines. This is certainly not the first such attempt in early medieval China studies to do so. In Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200–600 (co-edited by Scott Pearce et al.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), for example, eight essays chart the cultural changes of the period from vantage points as diverse as economic history, literary thought, the civil service examination, Buddhist art, the Daoist canon, and so forth. So the questions are: Why these two volumes? How, as multidisciplinary collections of essays, do they inform future research?

The editorial response to the questions just raised is direct and modest. Alan K. L. Chan writes: “What is not in dispute is that the period of Chinese history in question is important and perhaps has not been given sufficient attention in Western scholarship” (Philosophy and Religion, p. 17, n. 1) and “Scholarship does not grow well in insularity” (Interpretation and Literature, p. 1). After listing and briefly commenting on selected recent studies on the period, he concludes that “there remains much room for further, especially interdisciplinary research in English on early medieval China” (Philosophy and Religion, p. 17 n. 1). These are all valid claims. In spite of leaning toward philosophical and religious issues, the topics presented in the two volumes are diverse. In Interpretation and Literature, they include court culture, literary patronage, the Shuijing zhu, narratives of transcendence-seekers, religious Daoist poetry, temple-visit lyrics, and foxes and ghosts in zhiguai; in Philosophy and Religion, they include xuanxue, Heavenly Master Daoism, Lingbao scriptures, the meaning of geyi 格義, the Buddhist image of Emperor Wu of Liang, reclusion, and destiny and retribution. The essays collected here also “explore from a variety of methodological perspectives” (Interpretation and Literature, p. 1). Nevertheless, a distinctive practice of scholarship—one that binds together these different topics and purposes—drives the interdisciplinary thrust of these essays, and it can hardly be captured by disciplinary labels such as philosophy, religion, or literature.

Stephen R. Bokenkamp most clearly spells it out. In his essay on the Lingbao scriptures in Philosophy and Religion, he discusses how he views texts: “[W]riters do not respond to their social environment in vague and unmediated ways, but particularly and precisely to the actual questions, challenges, and concerns posed to them by their intended audience. This was especially true in early China, where texts were not written in ivory towers, but in collusion with those who would practice them” (Philosophy and Religion, p. 205). In other words, “texts are produced in specific contexts” (ibid.). These reflections are not completely new, nor do they represent a methodological breakthrough, but their significance for current textual studies remains paramount. And in these two volumes, we witness the practice that evolves from such reflections, that is, the historically specific reading and situating of texts. There are more than a few examples. In treating the new ideas presented in the Lingbao texts, Stephen R. Bokenkamp asks: “[W]hat work [are] these ideas. . . made to do; what problems do they address? And who might have suggested these problems as worthy of attention?” (ibid., p. 206). Victor H. Mair's revisionist explanation of the term geyi is driven by fundamental questions of what the term meant and how it was employed during the Eastern Jin, “the very period in which geyi abruptly arose and rapidly disappeared” (Philosophy and Religion, p. 231). Jude Soo-Meng Chua's examination of Wang Bi's claim that “the sage infers the Dao as the source of all things” (ibid., p. 53) is intent on situating Bi's concept of Dao within “the traditional political reading of the Laozi” rather than employing “the new interpretive veil that reads metaphysical research into the Laozi text” (ibid., p. 60). To accurately describe the nature of the little-known Hongdu Gate School in the late Eastern Han court and its significance for later history, David R. Knechtges skillfully culls through the who, what, when, and where of the texts surrounding it. Authors in the two volumes who deal with the issues of change and formation are equally meticulous in describing particular historical moments against those which preceded them: Zong-qi Cai's decoding of Liu Xie's “Zhiyi” chapter in the Wenxin diaolong is achieved by focusing on “the echoes of ideas developed in the earlier guanshi and guanren traditions” (Interpretation and Literature, p. 128); Daniel Hsieh's argument that the fox in Six Dynasties zhiguai “began to fuse into a single ambiguous creature” (ibid., p. 242) is foregrounded by his observation of pre-Han and Han fox as “a creature of various, but distinct personae” (ibid.).

The concern for the historicity of texts appears to lead quite naturally to an interdisciplinary approach for the authors in the two volumes. Here are two more examples to highlight this point: Timothy Wai-Kueng Chan traverses “the demarcation between literary texts and religious texts” (Interpretation and Literature, p. 165) to unveil the various connotations of the term “Jade Flower” and the motif of “spiritual flight” in early Chinese literature; likewise, Cynthia L. Chennault forays into contemporaneous Buddhist ideas, writings, and establishments to make sense of the temple-visit lyrics from the Liang to the Sui, not merely as aesthetic expressions but as acts that “testified to the power of the Buddhist faith” (ibid., p. 204) and “honored the throne's devotion” (ibid., p. 205). To put it simply, these authors are guided more closely by the historical center(s) of their texts than by any disciplinary dictates or, frankly, much concern for interdisciplinary approaches. As such, the third century Renwu zhi by Liu Shao is equally relevant to Alan K. L. Chan's reconstruction of He Yan's concept of Dao as to Zong-qi Cai's tracing of the origins of Liu Xie's theory of literary interpretation. And, in his account of the phenomena of xian (transcendent) in the early medieval period, Robert Ford Campany lists and cites hagiographies, essays, annals and biographies in standard histories, youxian poetry, and zhiguai as equally relevant.

The collective results presented in the twenty essays represent no small feat. The essays’ revisionist conclusions often remind us that things are not what they seem on the surface: Brook Ziporyn states that “it is truer to say that it is Wang Bi who develops a theory of distinctive individual principles of things, while Guo [Xiang] puts forth one sole li” (Philosophy and Religion, p. 127) and not vice versa; David R. Knechtges affirms that “contrary to received opinion…the major participants in the Hongdu Gate School were not eunuchs, but scholar-officials” (Interpretation and Literature, p. 28); and Stephen R. Bokenkamp concludes that the authors of the Lingbao scriptures “explicitly manipulate them in ways that served to reassert traditional Chinese values, to answer certain questions, or solve certain problems” (Philosophy and Religion, p. 204) rather than “surrendering” to Buddhist ideas. The essays also offer refinement and precision: Michael Nylan questions the soundness of lumping the Huayang guozhi, Shuijing zhu, and Luoyang qielan ji “under the conventional rubric of ‘histories of the Wei-Jin Nanbeichao period’” (ibid., p. 76), arguing instead for “authorial idiosyncrasies” based on the different political climates at the times of their compilation (ibid.); Jude Soo-Meng Chua allows that “the inference in the discovery of the Dao as the source of names and forms is really a political analysis, rather than a metaphysical analysis” (Philosophy and Religion, p. 64). And they expand our horizons: treating reclusion from a variety of vantage points, Alan Berkowitz concludes that it was “particularly pervasive in the social, political, intellectual, religious, and literary panorama of the early medieval period” (ibid., p. 309). Free of jargon and grounded in deep textual study, the twenty essays in the two volumes present the world of early medieval China as complex and diverse, and yet also closely intertwined in its multifarious aspects. For all the fanfare that at times surrounds the call for interdisciplinary research, it is good to see that it can simply mean careful, sensitive and broad treatment of texts.