The third International symposium organized by the International Centre for the Study of Ancient Texts and Culture (ICSAT) opened at Renmin University China (RUC). At this symposium, scholars from home and abroad explored the theme of The King’s Voice: Royal Speech and Inscription in the Ancient World, discussing the topic of royal speeches from the perspectives of cross-discipline and internationality.

Specialists are from Universities from the UK, US, Israel, Germany, China and Japan, numbering more than twenty national and international scholars in total presenting papers at the symposium. Academic activities organized by ICSAT have a strong focus on the possibilities that open up when we take part in inter-disciplinary dialogues. The specialisms of the scholars taking part include areas such as Egyptology, East Asia Studies, with methodologies as varied as sinology, history, ancient history, theology, classical civilisations and ancient literature.

Dean of the East Asia Department at Princeton, Martin Kern, who is also the director of ICSAT, hosted the opening of the symposium. During his speech, he emphasized the unique nature of the ICSAT at RUC, whose work is closely related to China but not limited to this area alone. More importantly, ICSAT works as an academic platform bringing together textual studies from many ancient civilisations, resulting in instances of genuine and effective inter-disciplinary dialogues.

The ICSAT center at RUC was established in April 2017, and holds an international symposium in April each year, as well as biannual workshops in January and June each year. In addition, the center invites 1-3 experts in Sinology or other ancient civilisations to give 2-4 weeks of pioneering classes each year.